The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 8: The Long War Pt 2 (Nuns, Medicine, Bed)

Episode Date: September 21, 2025

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel have emerged from Discworld and are now exploring the worlds of speculative fiction. This week, The Long War part 2! Clover! Shipping! Sapient Non-Humans! Find us on the internet:BlueSky: @makeyefretpod.bsky.socialInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretDiscord: https://discord.gg/29wMyuDHGP Want to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on BlueSky @2hatsjo and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:Paris Paloma - Good Boy (Official Music Video) - YouTube Fionn mac Cumhaill - Wikipedia The Island of Doctor Moreau - Wikipedia Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com 

I am incredibly sexy when I talk about knitting. Tell me how your barge jazz experience went. Oh, barge jazz was very fun. It was a lot closer quarters than it occurred to me. It might be lots of small, like almost school assemblies shaped seats. Okay. So a bit tight. But there was a lovely little bar.

I drank lots of prosaco. I smoked cigar on the barge. Yes, sent me the selfie. Thank you. Finding it up. And it was quite nice towards the end. end of, it was really beautiful, like, going along the Norfolk Broad's as the sun was setting and saw deer and lots of interesting waterfowl, but yeah, absolutely beautiful. And then towards

the end, and it was dark by that point, but there's lots of pretty lights on the boat. They played a few stuff that sort of got people singing along to, like, my old man said, follow the van was one of them. Oh, sweet. Yeah. The sort of slightly older group of people who were sat near us that we'd been chatting to. We were very impressed that I knew the words to that one. Well, that's what comes from hanging around in pubs the whole life. I thank my mate's dad for that one. One of the people. He used to randomly just text me the lyrics to that song every now and then.

Cool. Love your dad. And they played Show Me the Way to Go Home just as the boat was coming in and we were all singing it together and it was lovely. Aw. It was a very fun time. That's good. Oh, I'm glad he had a nice time on the jazz boat.

It sounds like an euphemism. I've heard she goes out on a jazz boat. boat, if you know what I mean. She had a nice time on the jazz boat, and we'll say no more about it. I bought some aspirin down at United Drug. Dreadful. Did you listen to the Paris Pellemus song? Oh, yes, it's really good.

Yeah, I love it. I've been fucking counting down the days for that one. I've been really looking forward to it, and then I completely missed that the date it had happened because I'm very bad at keeping track of what day it is. in what date it is. Oh, yeah, I know that TikTok for me was the, yeah, the FYP is luckily hooked on to that. Well, it was, I've been seeing like the old clips of, little clips of the video she's been releasing over the last few weeks. And I recognized the guy in it. And I was like, I kept

saying, oh, I should look up who she's casting that, because I know that guy from somewhere. And it was only when I watched the full video today. I was like, oh, it's President Snow, because it's Tom Blythe, who plays young President Snow in a ballad of songbird and snakes. The video also had one of my favorite things, which is vicious dogs featured. Truly having a lovely time. Yes, I just wagging and panting. Yay, sprinting around. There was, I think it was Game of Thrones when they were using, like, actual wolf dogs

when the dire wolves were younger and they had to keep C.Jing out the really waggy tales. Because there's someone just on camera with a treat. I'm having a lovely time. somebody i can't remember what it was uh some tictock or another probably was talking about the dog in the very beginning of the thing it was just like that dog is having a time of its fucking life look at it is having a proper sprint across the snow one of the funniest things i'm working on the season five chapter of the book i'm doing about the office and this has the i think best office soft open just one of the funnier

sequences of any sitcom ever which is the fire alarm sequence so Dwight starts a fire and everyone completely forgets all fire safety and loses it. Listening to the making of how they did the save bandit moment where she throws the cat up in the ceiling and then the cat comes falling out of the ceiling was amazing. They had

like two different cats plus a cuddly toy cat that the costume department had to like paint to look exactly like the stunt cats. There was a stunt woman dressed as Angela for doing the cat throwing because it needed to be a familiar person. It wasn't an actual cat being thrown up to the ceiling in court and another actual cat being

dropped down. And they were like, yeah, we can only do two attempts at this stunt in case we accidentally traumatise the cat and have to retire it from working as a stunt cat forever. The cat was fine. The cat was given a lot of treats and had a lovely day in the end, but just got yeated into a ceiling a couple of them. Goodness me. I didn't even consider that that was a real cat. Great stuff. That was, bits of that were definitely a real cat. Have you watched any of the new office? What is it? Paper. The paper. Not yet, because I think I'm going to, I'm going to save it for when I'm writing that chapter. But I really want to. I keep hearing really good things about it.

I wasn't that interested, but Tim Key's in it. Yeah, and I like Dominal Gleason. Is it Oscar from the office? Yeah, Oscar Lina, who played a character called Oscar. Because he was one of the hired as like a background part that eventually ended up being a main character. Oh, I want her. Yeah. I think it's quite a clever way.

done it as well. I've also been re-watching Parks and Rec because I knew I was going to write about that a bit in this chapter. It was made by the same people and then obviously I'm now just re-watching the whole show. I love parks. I was annoyed because it was on, it came off streaming and I couldn't find a cheapish DVD box set of it. They were all like 70 quid. It's now on streaming but on a free streaming service but no way to get rid of ads. So, yeah, I've had to suffer through a lot of advertising, but it's worth it. Yeah. Also, I still, I still, I still, it's not rational that I still cry every time I hear bye-bye little Sebastian. It's not rational that I still look around for a lighter when I gave up smoking 10

years ago. Bye. I thought he was just offering me a lighter because I mentioned I've been crying. That would be less, less rational still, try and light your cigarette through the screen. But yes, that makes, bye-bye little Sebastian makes me emotional. And I'm in the bit where Ben and Leslie have just like properly gotten together. other and they are possibly my favorite fictional couple sitcom couple ever oh okay that's a good competition to have that okay they're very high i've been thinking about these rankings a little bit

because i write about sitcoms they're very high in the rankings i think the actual top three like kind of rotates a bit but i think it's like them i really do love pam and jim from the office the next season of the office i'm doing is the one with their wedding which is another one that weirdly always makes me cry um it's so weird that you cry at emotional things Okay, but I'm not much of a cryer at fictional stuff. It takes a lot to make me cry normally. And these are not, I mean, bye-bye, Little Sebastian is sad, but the wedding is not sad. Even I cry books all the time.

Is it TV is different? Yeah, TV, film and games, it's very hard to make me cry. Games, it is hard to make me cry, actually. I wonder if I can think of, like, one game that has actually managed to make me proper cry. Which one? And that's Mass Effect 2-3. There's a romance you can play. and two and there is some stuff about how what happens in three I won't name names

because like genuinely I think it's worth experiencing but yeah no it makes me cry and what's the third couple sorry I immediately tendented uh okay we're doing top four in this case because it's got to be either Nick and Jess from Newgirl yeah or Patrick and David from shit's Greek okay yeah yeah oh oh they might be the top Simply the best. Yeah. The only reason they might not be tough for me is because I never really had a doubt that they, like,

well, obviously you don't with the will, they won't they? There wasn't a lot of will they won't, were they? No, it was pretty... And that's fine. I quite like the fact that Schitt's Creek skip a lot of the trope bits in, that you're expecting. But I love the buildup of a will, they won't they? I love it.

I do. I'm basic. Hence, I love Jim and Pam. I love Ben and Leslie. I love Nick and Jess. Yeah. And Nick and Jess, the kiss in the lift while Greenlight by Lord is playing. I fucking love that song entirely because of that scene.

One day I will realize my totally specific dream of making a black dress that when you pull on something, it turns into a green dress and performing that song and doing a dress reveal. You could do that. You could do a dress reveal dress. Oh, I could definitely do a dress reveal dress. I've seen people show them on TikTok. You can do it. I could definitely do it. It's not so much that. To be on TikTok means it must be easy.

But you know what I mean? I am competent enough. I think I could do that. It's the getting an opportunity to randomly perform that. I'd feel like doing a dress reveal at like pub karaoke is actually, no, it's fine. I'm going to do that. I've got to do geometry tomorrow. I'm going to start a new courting project.

Oh, okay. Because I want an autumnal set of table runners and placemats for my house. And then my seasonal set will be complete. So I've got fabric today. What colors? I've got like a lovely deep brown and orange. and then like a sort of dark pinky red and a brighter red and they're going to be like autumn leaf patterns.

I'm very excited about this. But I've got to cut out lots of squares and triangles and cut squares and turn them into triangles and all sorts of witchcraft. Speaking of someone who does sort of creative things like knitting and sewing and such and does understand a lot of what's happening behind it still feels like fucking witchcraft. That's just baking as well.

I know the science of why the bread is doing what it does and yet I baked her life this morning. I'm a witch. Burn me. It's a really good bread, though. Well, burn me at the steak. This loaf of bread's delicious. Don't worry about that.

It connects. Just eat it. Also, please, don't actually burn me at the steak. I'm thinking about throwing a Halloween party, speaking of. Probably not with actual burning at the steak. I just haven't gone to a Halloween party for ages, and I miss it. And I might throw one. All right.

Yeah. No, same. That sounds fun. Not that I'll throw one. Just I haven't been drawn. miss it. Yes. Obviously, you're invited to mine. Thank you. Yes, but very rude to mention it otherwise. I was talking about this to my partner. Do you need to go acquire some kind of costume then? I'll say, I'll just pull something out of my wardrobe and it will be a Halloween

costume. What I say? I don't have to go to a lot of effort for these things anymore. Right. Speaking of going to a lot of effort for things, do you want to make a podcast? Yeah, let's make a podcast. Hello and welcome to the Truchampanky Fress, a podcast in which we were reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, and now we're doing all sorts of fun stuff. I'm Joanna Hagan. We've finished it. I'm Francine Carroll. Because we finished it. And this is part two of our discussion of the long war.

The long war, which wasn't too long, actually. It's fine. We started chapter 36. We're going all the way to the end. It's really a war at all, let's be honest. Spoilers. We're a spoiler-like podcast, heavy spoilers for the book The Long War, but we will try and avoid spoiling future long-earth cycle books. We'll try and avoid any major disc world spoilers. So you, dear listener, can come on this journey with us. Tracking across a joker world as bald as a cubal.

Absolutely. Don't step north. Don't step north. That was a weird moment. That was a weird moment. Oh, quick bit of follow-up. There was an interesting conversation in our Discord, which if you're not in, link down below. It's a lovely group. Why didn't Jack Green, reboot, invoke the Third Amendment when the soldiers were demanding to stay with him? The Third Amendment being that people can't be compelled to quarter troops outside of wartime. I invoke that one all the time. Well, I mean, I would assume the reason

Jack Green didn't evoke him is because maybe the two British, although he's, the character's American, the two British authors writing this didn't think of it. But it, but it to an interesting conversation about how many people would know that third amendment and that it's their constitutional right if they're American. Yeah, I wanted to open the question up to our wider audience of if you're American, like, do you know

the Third Amendment and that you have the right to not be compelled to quarter troops outside of war time? I do now. You've told them all, thank goodness. They'll be kicking out Marines, left right and centre. But would you have known before we brought it up? And not Americans as well, did that occur to you? Did you know that one? Yeah, I guess

not only did you know it, but would that be forefront of your mind should similar, and I realize it's a big if, but if a similar occurrence. If someone tried to compel you to quarter troops outside of wartime. While you were a resident in a parallel universe.

Specifically under the US ages. I think it's an interesting conversation. It is an interesting conversation, yeah. Anyway, speaking of Jack Green in reboot, Francine, do you want to tell us what happened previously on the long war? Previously on the long war, Joshua has settled down and started raising a family in hell knows where. But inevitably, his peace is punctured by Sally Lindsay, the eternal bearer of bad news.

Trolls are disappearing from the low earths after being mistreated, and Joshua and Sally are the best-equipped diplomats humanity has to offer. After a brief stop in Valhalla and an unsuccessful attempt at lobbying on Earth 1, Joshua waits for the next bit of fate to befall him and Sally takes matters into her own hands, borrowing Janssen's for a bit of extra punch. Meanwhile, a nun is forced to reckon with reincarnation, a reverend rides off into the sunset armed with cryptic clues, a team of scientists journeys east,

and the US Navy seeks to remind its ever more scattered populace of the datum's presence. Excellent. Should I tell us what happened this time? Yeah, where are we starting? Starting Chapter 36, going all the way to the end of the book. All right. Sally and Monica's actions have raised more questions about troll rights, So Joshua meets up with Lobzang and agrees to set out to find that disappearing trolls, Sally, and a measure of peace among sapient species. Joshua and Bill set out, combing jokers.

They meet up with Finn McCool the Cobold and trade him some kinks, and Joshua commits a social foepar by saving Finn's flesh. Sally and Monica make it to the rectangles and meet the beagles. They travel to the den, meet Petra the granddaughter, and Sally makes a weapons offer. She's just going to need a specific ring. Also, meanwhile, the East 20 million mission marches on, and Roberta observes the transient of sapient life. Also, meanwhile, the Franklin gets some troll calls and a stowaway, and Maggie takes she-mey's advice on ship repairs, back to datum for a few interfering upgrades. Also, meanwhile, Nelson makes it to transa via some G.K. Chesterton quotes, meets Lobzang, and heads out on an adventure

to meet second-person singular and some shipwrecked descendants. Why did I put so many sibilant words in this summary? Self-hatred. Clearly. Joshua chases his stolen sapphire, the beagles pin him down, literally. Still, with help from a holographic lobzang, he gets to make promises to the trolls. Sally goes for guns while the beagles start the hunt. Mercy wins in the end with just an appendage sacrifice for Joshua's troubles. Meanwhile, Maggie promotes a new trollish ensign, meets George Abrams again, learns of long-term interest in her career and sets out with the rest of Operation Prodigal for Valhalla. It's time to take a stand, but passive resistance and sitting wins the day, and it seems everything will be okay.

Roberta, on the other hand, might never be okay again after the eye-opening East 20 million expedition. Lobzang and Agnes throw a garden party with the full cast in attendance, but a tragic eruption interruption cuts festivity short, and Monica lives her last days watching the world's forever change. Yeah, we're having a theme on the end of these books, aren't we? Very much so. It's escalating, too, so I can only, I can't remember the end of the long Mars,

but I imagine the entire earth blows up or something. Quite possibly. It's going to be really funny if it turns out that it's actually what happens. I'll double check and edit this out if necessary. Helicopter and loincloth watch. For helicopter, we have the spinning flying ring. Lovely, yeah, okay, yeah, that's good. That was propelled in some way as well.

It was definitely being propelled, possibly by magic, but sadly doesn't think so. And in Chapter 43, there is an elf who, Where's a sort of leather loincloth? Got an actual loincloth. There we go. Well, in the book, we have an actual helicopter and an actual loincloth. Yeah. Truly, something for everybody.

That's all we really wanted. I feel like it's less fun. Five years. Six years? Six years. Oh, God, it's coming up for six years. Maybe we'll remember the anniversary this year. Not a chance.

Ors tover? November. November. I don't know when in November but definitely possibly November Quotes Yours is first I believe It is quite a short one

On one world an owl hooted For reasons best known to itself Perfect Delighted me I've got a similarly bit of pratety prose Then he turned in Looking out through the gondola's windows As the dying rays of midsummer sunsets glowed on the gas bag

Beautiful Glowed on the guest bag. Glowed on the guest bag. Excellent. Right, let's talk characters. Let's start with Joshua. Yes. I have a lot of Joshua thoughts, actually.

Please tell me. Really sad for Joshua in this half of the book. And I felt sad for Joshua before the whole thing where he gets across by sewn to himself and then gets his hand bitten off. That's more horror, yeah. Yeah. That was horrific, though.

I did not like any of that at all. No. not even a little bit but he so he makes this decision that he is he has the conversation with Lobzang and of course he's going to chase Sally and try and find out what's happening with the trolls

and do all of the things and you know he sort of thinks over he was in his late 30s he had a young wife a kid a role in society he wasn't a mountain man but now Sally's charging off and Lobzang snapping his fingers was Joshua just going to jump as commanded of course he was

and it's these characters who don't get to stop and rest and have their nice little bit of life and there's like a weird undertone of fear as this as well because Lobzang demonstrated a very specific kind of power by bringing Agnes back the way he has like is Joshua, who else could he make keep going is Joshua ever going to get a chance to rest? Oh God.

Yeah, horrifying thoughts occurred to me And he's having to deal with his own reputation. You know, Bill kind of needles him. Like, you were the original wanderer, explorer, mountain man, and then you settled down and had a normal life. And Joshua was like, was I supposed to pander to my fan base rather than settling down and having a nice life? Yeah.

And yeah. The whole bit about him being chased by those beagles and like the, you know, the jumping in the river and the, this that and the other. obviously tones of Vimes except it's like if Vimes didn't have the rage Yeah He's like, you can't just kill myself now I couldn't know though

That's probably fine We'll see how it plays out But like I've got the option to just die If I want to die Yeah I mean obviously I thought It was the fifth elephant of it And I'm glad it was quite short actually

The long chase works in the fifth elephant Because you get to be in Vimes's brain for a long time And that's a highly entertaining place to be But yeah without the rage And the stapling, the staple thing, this crossbow device sewn to him to stop him stepping, is horrific just as a concept, as an idea, but incredibly horrific for Joshua, who is a natural stepper. Yeah, that's his thing. Yeah. But it's his instinct. It's not like a, I think I'm going to step, I shall step, although he does that. It is, I get out of trouble by stepping. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, all right, whatever happens, you can't duck. If someone throws a projectile at your head, you can't duck or you'll die. Like, yeah. Yeah.

it's that tying in so yeah it's a weird hard thing to read that whole thing I mean they brought it up in the first half of the book obviously but like that

that entire concept of stapling someone so they can't step is just obviously something people would do but it's dreadful just dreadful like God

it is completely horrific but yeah Joshua's obviously still resourceful enough to just about get along without his stepping power but it does hobble him

more than you might immediately think because, like, you know, he's grown up since he was a teenager with this power. All of his learning to survive on the long earth has been with the understanding that he can do that. Yeah. Losing that is, like you said, is there's the equivalent of being told you can't duck, you can't dodge. Yeah. And you get this constant reminder. Like you think, oh, he's done something really clever.

He's jumped in the river. He's jumped up with a weapon. And it's like snowy just so easily overpowers him. Yeah. I mean, he only gets to survive at the end of the book because of, a different character of providing mercy if his own smarts

could not save him in that situation which is not to be a criticism and say well that means he's not smart it's just that was a horrible situation yeah poor Joshua

correct I do like the detail that he gives the finger yeah it's explained at the end that he does that before his hand goes bit off

just a little bit of autonomy left yep And I quite like the description of the prosthetic he's got and how it kind of clanks and whirrs and looks a bit unhuman. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm not getting a fucking back call for each him on the way. Yeah, I don't want lob sang in my arm. Yeah.

But I feel like there would be a little undertone of, also it's kind of cool, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, it's vintage. Yeah. Yeah, that's very true. I also had a couple of little Helen thoughts. Only briefly, because she's not in the book much. Obviously, we had a conversation about Helen and Sally last week.

And I was trying to think. about, I think, why Helen's treatment in the book irks me so. And then a couple of other little bits I notice when Josh sets off, once again, leaving at Lobzang's behest, once again being pulled sideways by Sally, Helen's enigmatic rival in a scene that, yeah, was just a bit odd. And then she gets described in the garden party scene as his wife, sturdy, pretty, cheerful. Yeah. sturdy is like a sort of and it's

that's Monica Jansson it's sort of from her perspective where you get that description description but I think what it's frustrating is that she just doesn't get anything to do that we see apart from the one bit where she punches some guy out and that show she has a lot of potential to do a lot of cool stuff but it's just Joshua is surrounded by these like strong go-getting women like Sally and Janssen and other women in the story

like Maggie Kaufman although she's not surrounding Joshua yeah and there's a thing line in the book somewhere where I think Janssen says to him you surround yourself with a particular sort of woman and like Agnes is another one and then you have and Helen doesn't get to be one of those it's sort of he's surrounded by strong women and Helen yeah I think she is actually has the potential to be a very interesting strong character but we don't get to see any of it she's very much a background I think Yanson is you know saying sturdy in respectful way isn't she because it's like yeah I don't think like she said Josh feels more whole when he's with her yeah

If that had been from Sally's perspective, the word sturdy would have had a much bitchier undertone. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, you're right. Hopefully she'll get a bit more in the next book. Fingers crossed. Or she gets nothing to do and Joshua gets nothing to do and just has a nice day. Yeah, that sounds likely. Yeah.

We could hope. How many times have we talked about wanting Vimes to have a nice day? Well, sometimes he has a bit of a nice day before it goes wrong. Not often. No. And then, yeah, Lobzang, still very much dealing with his potential godliness. Yeah, we get a bit more thief of time in this. Yes, very much so, lots of sweeping.

Love the moss garden. I love a moss lawn, I would. Unfortunately, they're quite fragile. You're not going to be running a lurcher around on it and having it survive. I'm going to maybe make my lawn a bit more clovery, though, to make it a bit more highly. I think I need to, I've still got a couple of areas that I'm trying to fill in. this is not relevant. No, sorry, great, yeah, yeah.

Lob sang, doing lots of sweeping. I like that him and Joshua get to have a confrontation about why he didn't prevent the medicine bombing. Yeah, it's not very satisfactory for Joshua, probably, but... No, it's a bit anticlimactic in the end, but I think it's something Joshua did need to hear. I also like in this book, we have so many lobsangs because you have holograph, holographic lobsang coming out of the troll device

that Joshua brings to the trolls in Beagle area. And you have George Abrams wandering around and occasionally having little enigmatic conversations with Maggie and the Lobzang that's running around with Nelson and the Lobzang that is at his compound sweeping. And it's a nice reminder because Lobzang was one entity that we were dealing with in the first book. Yeah. It's a nice reminder of it. Yeah. How widespread Lobzang is and how much he can be doing at once. Lovely to think of him still hanging around with first person singular.

Yes. I like that that version of Love Sang is out there. I like also this idea that he is using Agnes to confront his own omnipotence and she's immediately gone, you need to not be all powerful somewhere. So here you are just you in your ambulance unit and not listening to everything actually. That's for the best. And you've got arthritis and wait a lot. And I get the loudspeakers.

Yeah. Which is the important thing. Yeah. We don't get any more really from Harper's. which is interesting, considering we got a lot of direct stuff from her in the first half, and she is very active. Yeah, I kind of, I like the little scenes of Agnes and George Abrams and her calling him out for kind of playing up a bit too much. Yeah. I also like having the character that gets very no-nonsense in response to high philosophical ideas,

so where Lob Sang was wondering about the humanity of trolls and Agnes' idea was, they like ice cream and their laugh. Of course, they're bloody human. Now go get your broom, you mean. of it. Which I like, just, they like ice cream and they laugh. I also really like when you see her stuff with Monica in the penultimate chapter, how she has this automatic caring thing in a very no, I like a no-nonsense caring character. Yeah. It's a, yeah, you're going here because this will be nice and comfortable for you and as

close to home as you can. And these two are at your back and call. I am giving you a pair of nuns to keep an eye on you, one of which is, medicine. bed right crack on and let us know when you want to bugger off and one of the nuns was Sarah Ancoats who was like one of the kids from the home at the beginning of the long earth and it's now sister john yeah they're all very human still yeah considering agnes isn't or is but that's a whole conversation i mean she likes ice cream and she laughs yeah it's again a very practical thing to add um some some details which flesh out a character if you only see for a

minute so sister john and her are there popping backwards and forward from date to earth at the end and yes the emotions and the caring and the yeah it's really nicely written yeah uh and then nelson nelson i like um practice has certain ways to demonstrate this is a good character and i feel like Nelson knowing G.K. Chesterton quotes is one of those things. Yes. Obviously this guy's all right. He gets the G.K. Chesterton references. A bit pessimistic to think that only scholars will be reading Chesterton at this time. I mean, is he widely read outside of fantasy nerds and scholars now?

Fantasy nerds is a big group. It is a big group. But if the fantasy nerds... But yeah, no, it is depressing. the stuff with Nelson meeting second person singular and the human colony on it was do you have any thoughts I think what seems distasteful about it first of all is covered quite quickly by the philosophising about this is what happened if humanity doesn't strive I thought that was really interesting and I liked that Nelson had the discomfort and then

I thought at first I was reading just a weirdly old-fashioned depiction of like an indigenous population. Yeah. And then I realized what they were trying to do was say this is what happens if you get literally everything. Yeah. This is, with no problems. If this is like in the purest form of utopia, what humanity becomes. Yeah. Which is a nice thing to look at when you look at the concept of long earth at all of its potential to be in utopia. Yeah. And how that might not be the best thing for humanity. I didn't like the sex stuff. No, it was weird, right? Yeah.

It felt weird. Very brief, at least. It was very brief. It didn't feel weird in like, oh, I think this is being written by two dirty old men. No. I just felt uncomfortable at how uncomfortable Nelson was. I think that's it. It's the bit where, you know, things happen.

And then afterwards, he stayed away from the jungle and was never alone with Cassie ever again. Like, he is obviously uncomfortable enough to make sure that does not happen again while he's there. Yeah. And that made me uncomfortable. Yeah. It does sound like that's kind of the Puritan streak in him warring with the human streak in him almost. Yeah. Yeah. I think I would rather, it was either interrogated more or not there at all. Instead, it almost felt like it was meant to be kind of funny, but then wasn't very funny to me. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's more of like another flag of how weird lobsang is about manipulating people into what he wants. Yeah, I just would like that to have been a bit more in the text. Yeah, no, for sure.

Yeah. I did really like the bit where just the thought experiment it kicks off in your own head where Nelson is characterized by lobsangers. You, my friend, are a Puritan, privately gassed at the situation. You're thinking mankind shouldn't live like this. There is lack of striving, which you find distasteful. This is the root of your unease about the long earth. itself, I suspect it's too easy. Mankind, you believe, should always be looking towards the stars of a striving, learning, growing, bettering itself, challenging the infinite, which is a very, I'm sure there's a whole school of philosophy about it. But it's very interesting. Would we stop bothering to problem solve and strive for better and unvertecummers if we didn't have any shortages?

We talked about, like, in the first half of this book, how technological advancement has slowed down, because there is less need for it now. And also, if you think about Lopsang-Nelson's, like, whole motivation as a character, go back to the first book where when the Long Earth opened up, he was going out on these archaeological expeditions. And he got quite depressed about the fact that humanity couldn't push any further archaeologically anywhere,

but on this one earth. Yeah. And he was upset by the lack of striving, he saw. Yeah. Evolution stopped at a certain point and never went further. So this is so ingrained in him. Yeah, yeah. be sort of like well if he stops driving here

I've seen what happens when striving stops evolution stops and maybe even like now he's seeing evolution stops and maybe even regresses slightly yeah and that must be weird with all he's been through on his archaeological research but again is that ethelution regressing the point is is there any

any inherent good in striving yeah is there anything wrong at all with having a life with no goals? I mean, like right now, honestly, I would pay a lot of good money to just go live on a person singular. I do love the whole concept of the traverses, by the way, which is more hidden to that than explained,

but the idea that they have some central place and they're all doing these huge rounds. Yeah, I like the idea as well because first person singular was so singular. And such a unique idea that Lobzang went off of them and then found out there's another one potentially a whole race of these. And it's not even like really a big climactic point in the book.

It's like a sea plot. Yeah, yeah. Compared to the huge discovery of first person singular at the end of the first book. I kind of like, I like that. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. They're like, I'll remember this one amazing, massive, unique thing. Yeah, there's another one to New Zealand.

This one's lost. I really want to go to New Zealand. It does seem like the last one was like a bit unique or a bit different to this one at least in that it would possibly a little over-curious and over-zealous and it's kind of absorbed everything and this weird jelly. But is it that one is very different to this one?

Are they all that different? And these are these huge personality differences. Just like humans are all very different. And so it's impossible to start. Not that different, they've got to say, yeah. Well, yeah, also all horrible. And wonderful. No, I just meant like

you're not wandering around with, like, floating creatures as part of your anatomy and I'm not walking around with like a hatch in my back to keep, you know. Yeah, all right, true. But yes, so I like the idea of there being more traverses and they all have different attitudes

to their traversing organism lifestyles. Yeah, agreed. And the nice little detail of having a fire on the back but lifting it up on stone so it doesn't burn the creature. So you don't get a body macaulet situation. The story that was referenced in there, and I've forgotten.

Yeah, yeah. There's a bunch of those, though. I went into them quite a lot when I was looking at disappearing islands, yeah. Yes. Don't light a fire on the back of a whale. Just throwing in quickly that we got an Ozzy Mandias reference at some point in the book.

And I went, eh, Ozzy Mandias. Hey. Owner level sounds. Stripped away. Oh, yeah, one other Nelson things, this kind of leads me into the next character. The creepiness of long-term investments and the very, this phrase you thought of as a long-term investment

and the, like, realistic reactions to it. Yeah, yeah. Nelson frustrated it potentially being manipulated. How far back did your influence extend? Did you establish the quiz masters? Was it, were you behind the entire trail of breadcrumbs that got me to you? Lob sang's extremely patchy and slightly defensive definition of manipulation, by the way. I can't even remember if Abraham shares it, but I can't remember as this quote is Lob sang. I think it is. Oh, not manipulated. It just moved into the right position. literally what manipulation yeah which is what he says to Maggie Kaufman who is another person who finds out she's a long-term investment she's like well am I meant to be grateful about that and we don't see them interact at the garden party but at some point I want them to sit down have a beer and form like a long-term investment support group yeah like for people who are finding out their whole lives have been kind of run by the black corporation yeah absolutely

oh yeah but then you'd be like oh they wanted us to do this yeah just levels and levels of paranoia which speaking of maggie and the pratchit sashbacker i guess a good person indicators um her coming to the town of new purity after there's been the elf attack and suggesting burying the trolls alongside your own people and how far that will go this idea of burial respect as a good person indicator yeah i like that that's come up again um oh and quickly well while we're talking about Maggie, I really struggled to choose between two quotes. I'm just quickly cramming another short one in here, which is when they go for the ship reef it, gleaming diagnostic platforms with robot arms like a waltz of preying mantises.

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, great line. Just cram that in. But Maggie's mission is done, and she's going off on a new one. Yeah, a more direct one, a more targeted one, I'd say, yeah. Yes, on the Neil Armstrong two, looking for the Neil Armstrong one. Yep, she's done a good job. I've enjoyed the integration of the troll.

I've not enjoyed so much that she didn't manage to get Cutler fired, but it is what it is. I feel like Cutler all get himself fired before she-on. I want to talk about Shimi very quickly because, yay. Why are talking cats the best talking animals? Because they always seem like they should, like they're about to talk, to be honest. Yeah. Like it just seems like, oh yeah, obviously the cat's talking. Yeah.

thank you I feel the same it's just because we've been very irritated by some talking animals but neither of us have ever been an like fucking parrot sword cring no cring was the sword yeah there doesn't seem to be much of a temptation to make it obvious that this is a cat talking oh I'm a cat yum yum mice also here's my point whereas I think for like a talking parrot talking sword talking in most books not just practically obviously there's always a you know you've got to have a tick or like a constant return to theme or whatever cats just seem like yeah they'd just carry on as normal but now they can bug you about specifics yeah although she and me does ask uh would you be offended if i brought

you an occasional mouse it is traditional yes she's polite uh sally yeah she's having a time yeah um i really like when monica straight up calls her out says you're jealous because you're not as important to the trolls as the trolls are to you. Yeah. And trolls did not say goodbye. They all fucked off. Sally's never going to lose that little bit of this is my private playground. And now everyone else was in it, vibe, I think.

Yeah. But she's trying her best to, you know, do important things around it. And I respect her. I do like Sally. She didn't get as much to do in this half once she'd sort of got Joshua into place. Yeah. Although that took a little while. We had quite a lot of her journeying with Monica.

We had the whole point of absconding with the two trolls. Very cool. Yeah. I do like her relationship with Monica, the kind of Thelma and Louise vibe underlying it all, but also how she is very caring of Monica in a way you don't really see her be with other characters that aren't trolls. Again, is that matter-of-fact caring?

It's the Agnes flavour of caring, where it's not, there's nothing patronising about it. It's just this is clearly a task that he's doing. Yeah, quite witchy. Yeah, you can imagine Sally, based on, like, the first half of this book and the long earth, it should be a bit irritated at having to care for someone. And she doesn't ever show that. No, no, absolutely.

It'd be very churlish if he had, considering she'd dragged her along. Well, exactly. And I like the way she takes that responsibility and treats it as a responsibility to make sure Monica is cared for. I do like the way she doesn't admit when she's wrong as well. She's very aware of the fact that it's hard to guess a non-human motivation. And it's like, yeah, no, sorry, guessed it wrong. Now you've got a weapon zone in you back, sorry. Yeah, I did not think that was going to happen.

Whoopsie. Because I talked about in the first book, she is sometimes an arrogant character, and I don't think that's a bad thing. And I think this is a bit of her having to confront her arrogance of it. Yeah, yeah. It was sort of assuming she knew best it turned out maybe in this situation. She did not entirely know best. Yeah, absolutely.

And then Monica? Yeah. Just cannot stop being competent despite actively dying. Yep. I love her. I actually did get quite witty at the end of the book. Because she's a really great character. I like during the early part of this half when they're running around and meeting the beagles and such,

she's like our audience insight for how weird the long earth is. because she's not really traveled it much herself. She was longing for concrete and glass and the reassuringly grubby crimes of low-life humanity. Yeah. This is very hard to comprehend. Why is there? There's a sentient race of dog people

and they've got ray guns and... Yeah. I think that, yeah, that whole story, like that whole location, which I will talk about, but is a very good example of that the non-appreciative. bits, let's be honest, of the long earth. I was like, oh, is that fan?

You know, it's almost a fantasy world. Everything's a bit different and fresh in you. And it's bad. I don't like this one. This is bad. Not a fan. Dogs shouldn't be allowed to society. And yeah, everything that happens with her at the end when Yellowstone erupts and the datum is fucked

and the fact that she's watching it from her hospital bed and she's seeing everyone stepping and helping and she was the one who almost like came up with the slogan, step and help during the Madison. Yeah. Yeah.

And she's kind of watching people. She's seeing, I don't think she's fully aware of it because she's quite a humble character, but she's not kind of seeing her own legacy in the stepping and helping. Yeah. Yeah.

There is some suffusion of good in what is pretty horrendous thing to be watching in your dying days. Yeah. It's a good, not a good thing, but an admirable thing that they didn't feel the need to give her. some kind of, oh, and, you know, she died before she had to see the whole, the real horror

of it, all this, that, and there was like, yeah, I know, unfortunately, this coincided with quite a bad thing to be watching on the telly. I also thought the stuff with her and Frank Wood from Gap Space coming, the Trump Party, I thought it was all very sweet and sort of like, I'm gay, like, I had my radar shit, let's be friends anyway, fine, fine, yeah. Oh, I know you're ill. No, I'm ill and gay, ill and gay. Oh, right, yeah.

as much as I actually would love the gay character to have a girlfriend by the end of the book I think this platonic romance is incredibly sweet yeah yeah especially and it's in its very early days and he still stays by her side and yeah he like goes without a change of clothes and shaves with something at this all-woman's home yeah um I think it's a very again it's a very sad ending for Monica but with this one, a nice thing as part of it, she has someone to hold her hand and care for her. Yeah. Yeah. And this person is, again, kind of almost chosen to have that responsibility and feel that. Yeah. And it's cared for by the nuns, at least one of whom was one of the children, she helped.

Yeah. And she gets careful. And she's a little full circle. Yeah. There's also earlier moments when she's at the Beagles and Lili kind of tries to help with the poultices and stuff. I thought that was a very sweet moment. if Monica was slightly younger and Sally was slightly older I would obviously be chipping those two yeah I don't know I don't think Sally's got any time no but I feel like you know situation ship yeah no for sure yeah yeah we can ship without needing it to be in the plot yeah we don't actually need to start applying thorough logistics

if I start applying thorough logistics to shipping I'm done mate we don't need to know drumnot schedule I should be clear I am talking about matching up people in relationships I do feel as far as organising where boats go one should probably try and apply some logistics otherwise we get the canal thing the canal thing

remember that time that massive shipping container got stuck in that canal oh god yeah right yeah yeah they have agreed yeah okay yeah thank you in that canal I can remember which canal it was the very, very famous one. The big one. The good one, yeah. The big famous is a good one, yes. No, you're right. That was a fun day. But not for them, obviously. And that's why there are some

sorts of shipping that one should apply logistics to. That's the end of our shipping PSA. On to Finn McCool. Helium and shipping. Is there anything we won't cover? Clover lawns. Right, we're not covering that. And eventually, if we can keep Francine away from the history of espionage, we're page, we'll finish talking about the long war. No, so it's okay. I've not got that open today.

We've still got one open on Hypercanes. Yes, but we're talking about that in the bits. That's okay. Finn McCool. Finn McCool. Very important, sorry to start. Did he get a replacement take recorder? Because I'm really sad. I hope he did by the end of, we don't see it.

But I think Bill would have probably sawed one out, actually. Yeah, yeah. The name is really great. gives him the name, but it is the sort of name someone who doesn't quite get it but really wants to be liked and be cool would sort of try and give themselves. It's like a, because I've been watching Parks and Rack. It's like a Bert Maclin, FBI kind of name. It is. It is obviously the Irish folklore name. Oh, is it? Yeah, Finn McCool is the hero in Irish and Scottish mythology. Oh, that completely went over my edge. We talked about it before in Banks as well, but do

remember the offshore island that... Well, here is a Wikipedia page that I must immediately close. Oh dear. That's long and interesting. I will send that to you. I've got the dictionary of English folklore in front of me, so I'll double check for references because I was looking in there for references to other stuff since this is editor by Jacqueline Simpson, who gets thanked at the end of the boat. It is for the best that you didn't discover this one, because Phil McCool is a rabbit hole you did not have time to fall down. I don't believe you would have been able to stop yourself.

Oh, yeah. No, I'm obviously going to go and read about that a lot tomorrow. Slash this afternoon slash the moment we finish recording. But yes, so Finn McKele. Yes, he's a sweet little character. He's a sweet little character. Also, I like this mix of sweet and also gross and unlikable. Yeah. It is like a less likable knobby knobs. Yeah. Yeah. He's a knobby knobs without human motivation. Exactly. Um, the one like, not criticism, something I wanted more of. With the Beagles, we have a lot of context for why they behave the way they do.

It takes a minute for everyone to work out their motivations, but then you think of it. And they even explain it, you know, Big Den, life is cheap, important thing is to die with honour. But you have the Cobold logic, the Finn McCall logic, of wanting revenge on Joshua because Joshua saved his life. Yeah.

And was resentful. I want just more context on why he thinks the way he does. Yeah, what's the mythology behind the, like, like we get with the knack-knack. Beagles. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Cobolds was another just general folklore topic. I started reading a bit, which is why I've got English folklore in front

of me. There's sort of a because Cobold is a very, very general term for household spirit, but there's also some overlap between Cobold mythology and mind spirits, things like the Tommy Knockers, which are sort of reference. They're conflated a bit more than they maybe are in folklore within the

book context. And I will be doing a time more reading about that at some point, but the D.L. Ashlamen book I really want is quite expensive. I meant to look up whether the way he says trolling instead of trolls, because that's an older English way of pluralising, obviously. I wanted to know whether that hung around in Cornwall longer than it did elsewhere. Yeah, possibly. I think... A little linguistic history. I think there's some links to old Germanic with N as a plural as well. I know trollen is mentioned in Germanic. because I started side reading

some bits of Germanic folklore text and then went away because it was well all in German and the only things I can say in German. I can only recognise that one word actually I also know how to say with cheese mid-kesa because of a weird conversation involving a sausage

at the German Deskweld Convention. My own think of my name is lack philic. I'm very sorry to hear that. muffin folklore. I don't know. Right, let's talk about the beagles. Yeah. The way I've listed this as well, I've got like Finn McCall and the Beagles, which does sound like a banging band.

It does, absolutely does, yes. The descriptions are amazing. And when Sunny first meets Snowy, before we learn his name is Snowy, it stepped back, one pace to raised itself up and stood on its hind legs, not balancing like a dog doing a circus trick, but standing naturally as if it were designed to stand like that. I just wanted to grab, from part one,

the scene where we see the prodigal sun being, mission being launched. Yeah. It was quite a show, even if you weren't too impressed by rows of Navy grunt standing on their hind legs. Just a nice. Yeah, very nice. I didn't notice that. Good thought.

Yeah, nice little comparison there. And yet all of the descriptions, he made Janssen feel shabby and incomplete. But there was also something unreal about him as if he were a movie, CGI's special effect. Yeah, yeah. Sidebar the having the datum raised, like Alsatian human dog and the line about sex toys,

so ick. They did very good. They did very well in making the whole thing seem very objectionable to us. Yeah, just fully unpleasant. Yeah. The Snowy is a fun name. Yes. And I like the way that everyone's like,

Snowy? Like Tintin? Like. Okay. I wonder whether he'd be really happy or really unhappy if someone brought him a comic with his namesake in it. I reckon he'd like it, actually. Yeah, he's probably good. He'd be pretty happy to please.

Yeah. He'd be furious if he could read. I like the idea of smells and sense as the main form of like decoration in this city. That's a very cool, well-building detail. It is, yeah. It's, you know, something you can't stop thinking about if you've been. got dogs as any kind of sentient character. Obviously, we had Gaspo Detal and the Wales and Discworld who had this entire

extra world opened up to them. And yeah, what if the world was built around that? They weren't just living in it. Yeah, it was a really interesting idea, but also gross. And the idea of because we've been talking about technological advancement and what if humanity stops driving and that stops existing, the opposite of this which is technological advancement is very limited by them because life is short and cheap and they are at war and there is the sort of idea of it being a curving,

there's a proper word for it where like, bell curve, yeah, war like increases technical, technological advancement until a certain extent until we have too much of a saturation of war and then it slows everything right down to the Stone Age. Yeah, oh yeah, that's interesting thought, yeah. Yeah. That was an interesting, which, you know, talking about the eye of the hunter, the city as well.

and it's sort of muddy and it sounds like very like dirty medieval town but not like real medieval like the kind of fictional bad fantasy medieval yeah and you know it kind of do they care

probably not is the thing no yeah they would they probably wouldn't like you know if you're in your real dirty medieval place if you gave them like a cleaner street they'd probably be thrilled and a way to maintain it without having to break their backs

here they'd be like okay well now it's boring and smells of nothing. So thanks. It's like when I wash the dog's bed and she's like, well, this smells boring. I've been collecting smells on this for weeks. Why do you keep doing this? I cannot believe you've confiscated her Pokemon card collection every time you do it. I know. It's terrible. What the fuck, Francine. Right. Little bits we liked. Yeah. First of all, well, I suppose I don't like it particularly. Hypercane. I shouldn't like it. It's a Hypercane. I think it's okay for us to be interested in massive weather patterns

if we don't actually endorse them morally. I do not endorse massive weather patterns, probably. I don't know enough about meteorology to say that. Truth shall make you fret, fascism, no, hypercane, no. But yeah, the concept of a hypecane was introduced to me by this bit, I think. And so I googled it. And, yeah, it's a hypothetical class, thank goodness, of extreme tropical cyclone

that could form if the sea surface temperatures were about 50 degrees centigrade which is much warmer than it's ever been recorded but it could be caused by like a big asteroid or a comet or a big volcano or something like that and yeah

there are like hypotheses that some of the stuff that wiped out a bunch of the dinosaurs and that was where the system's following the big feature right so hypercanes could have wind speeds over 800 kilometres per hour, 500 miles per hour, and would have like enormous

lifespans of like weeks and weeks. And yeah. Wow. It would really fuck everything up. Yeah. Hold on. Was there one more? Oh no. The rest of it was getting a bit, a bit sciencey for this small passion. Yeah. Let's not learn too many things. I do actually want to say, while we've been doing this book, I've been replaying the Horizon Zero Dawn, specifically, like, I was playing the Frozen Wilds DLC of Horizon Zero Dawn, and now I'm onto Horizon Forbidden West. And just thematically, with the crazy weather systems and sort of post-apocalyptic feel and Earth's going weird and odd creatures and everything, not to mention, like, the importance of the Yellowstone Caldera in Horizon, the Frozen Wilds, DLC specifically. It's just like very thematically.

cool to be replaying that while reading this book. Yeah. And I'm greatly enjoying it. Maybe the Long Earth, that's what they should try out, a rebuilt terraforming system. Yeah. All right. How about you? What do you like? I want to talk about Chekhov Sapphire.

The Ring. I do think it's quite cool that this thing that for Joshua symbolizes a very particular emotional relationship to exploring the long earth and how it becomes a completely different thing in this. and talk about the concept of the term mcuffin

which is an object device or event that is necessary to the plot and motivation of the characters but insignificant, unimportant or irrelevant in itself and this idea of the ring is kind of a mcuffin in this plot although it does actually end up serving a purpose

my favourite explanation of the term macuffin I've ever seen is if it's in the title of an Indiana Jones movie it's a mcuffin okay yeah yeah nice I was really frustratingly with this as well that's just from the Wikipedia page

but it cited Brewer's phrase and fable as a reference and then I couldn't find MacGuffin in my copy and it turned out it's because it's in Brewer's modern phrase and fable, a completely different book. Oh, I don't have that. No, I need a copy at that now. I can't remember the name of the best who originally coined the term but Hitchcock popularized it.

Yeah. So thinking about, and arguably the ring is like not irrelevant because it ends up being needed to access the gun cache, but then how relevant are the guns really in the grand scheme of this story, considering getting the guns doesn't actually resolve all that much with the beagles? Yeah, yeah. And like Joshua gets out in his way, and Sally and Monica could just step away once the things are kind of resolved with the trolls.

So it is kind of... Jane's not a bad reference point, actually, when you think about the little tomb exploration. Yeah. Like Hanson gets to have. Yeah, the hints. I think there's a joke about... Oh, no, there was a joke in the first book about Indiana Jones.

There's a lobsang dressing up as... And getting the whip and everything. Yeah. That was nicely in there as well. So I just think it's an interesting thing to have... It's a fun, like, almost mystery to have running up in this book of realising, like, the beagles are wearing the ring, and there's the moment where Joshua was travelling, and he's sure he could smell Sally, and that she might have been here,

and it turned out she had, because she'd got and tried to find the ring, thought he'd left it at Monikas, ended up finding him on his ship and stealing it to get him to follow, which also like at that point she could have just woken him up and being like alright just come here but she's pretending the whole time she doesn't want Joshua to come here yeah

despite the fact obviously Joshua needs to end up there and Sally knows that and Sally eventually being really frustrated by this when the ring does open up this gun cash tomb situation and sort of saying it's just magic ring crap

obviously you know miniature accelerometers to detect the spinning that activates it and GPS to figure out where it's got to go. And it's a dumb trick to impress the credulous, easily distinguishable from magic. And it's not easy. And like the crown opens up in front of her.

Fucking whatever, just go get him. I just like this as a character thing. I like it as a story detail of following the ring through the book because it's mentioned so much, obviously. It's mentioned heavily in the first act, and it's going to be relevant in the third in that case. Got a bit of a scully thing going on, which is nice that she's hanging around with spooky molder.

Yes. and yeah just magic rings molder something Pratchett does and I don't know how much of it's in Baxter's work as well I am still going to go read some I promise of yeah I'm going to do a trope

and I'm instead of because I'm going to be a bit silly about it I'm going to be really really not subtle that I'm doing the thing it's not just Chekhov's ring it's the elephant wearing Chekhov's ring in the room yeah yeah I think I'm mixing up my

but yeah that's right yeah check off sapphire macuffin yes and at least you've brought an elephant in because I forgot to look up in a relevant elephant effect and there was an elephant

on second person singular oh there was yes exactly that's what I mean there was an elephant there and elephants have been mentioned several times actually I think we can just accept elephants definitely

very much part of the long earth yeah highly relevant on the probability tree delights me what else do you like I also like the concept of all these hubs of lost travellers So it's mentioned a couple of times

And it permeates throughout folklore on Roundworld Wait, on data math I'm trying to find my nerdy references So on the Chinese expedition Roberta hears about the utopian legend Of the land of peach blossom Descendants of soldiers lost from age of the Chin dynasty dynasty Again I can't remember which way you meant to say that

live in a land sheltered by mountains and peace with each other. So, yeah, in the tale of fishermen is one of those ones I absolutely love. So he's sailing along a river and he ends up in a forest that is all peach blossom and then follows the river to its source and goes through this grotto, which is very symbolic in a lot of Chinese mythology. And into this beautiful, peaceful village from descendants of people who or soldiers who'd either gone missing or gotten lost or deserted during

time of great political up and rest and then they said look don't bother trying to tell anyone else about this it's not really one of those places you find on purpose but even so he like notes his route down as he leaves and other people try and follow them at but they never can find it and it's very I love stories like that, love that shit

and then we also talk about second person singular in a similar context, like, oh, you know, they're probably descendants of the Marie Celeste. Yeah. And it's a pleasing thought that shipwrecked sailors and people who've, you know, Amelia Earhart's probably on the air. Yeah, yeah. And then it's hinted up, but not explicitly pointed out, that happy landings is very much one of these places that is a hub for the, for a certain type of lost person and a utopia in its own way. Yeah, and specifically the utopia aspect of it, I really like, because you have these specific legends, not just of hubs,

of lost travellers but of utopic places and natural utopias as opposed to like created utopias which that failed utopia podcast series we both listened to ages ago was so interesting but yeah the idea of these natural places somehow existing

and Thomas from the first half chasing these little paintings that are finding them across long earths and these hidden caves yeah yeah yeah no I love it and yeah as I say there are a bunch more like, um, folk-ball stories a little bit like this, but honestly, I think the Chinese haven't wrapped up for charmingness with the peach blossoms. So I think they picked well.

Yeah. Oh, do we think, uh, in this version of, um, fictional earth history with the long earth existing, somehow C.S. Lewis got an idea of stepping and that's how Narnia happened. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, I reckon. Right. That's accept that head. Can you think of that. Well, don't. Um, don't, don't think about it too much, though. No. That falls apart pretty quickly. Oh, actually, well, we're on the Chinese voyage. I forgot to say that the captain was briefly quite right about the dinosaurs and, you know, taranosaurs, obviously, whenever in that part of the world, that was very much North American thing.

Yes. And I reckon what they were looking at was some kind of sinocaleotorix. I'm going to take your word for it. Celiotorix. That's my guess. Excellent. Cool. They were the really cool ones that were found, like, those petrified ones that had like feathers, protefeathers. Oh, yeah.

It's a very exciting dinosaur discovery. So that's my, that's my decision. My decision. The dinosaur has got the, um, the bolo tool thing and is taking down the equestries. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. Um, anyway, following on from that, the other little bit I like is, um, the coma stories, so I understand a storytelling, really. I really love Bill's, um, exposition about what's going on with comers.

which are a very cool little bit that we get to explore. And Bill having just so stories for how each of the jokers happened. Yeah. So like pieced together from Traveller's Tales, Koma Legends, and occasionally some actual science fieldwork. Just say stories for any listeners not familiar with the ones we get. This is How the Leopard got its spots and things like that. Yeah, there's a famous Redyard Kipling collection of them,

how the tiger got his stripes, how the elephant got his trunk. And that best beloved is how the elephant got all wrinkly. No, the hippo got wrinkly. So anyway, Cube all earth, we briefly mentioned it earlier, but this very mixed up, it's a lovely mixture of kind of modern style of legend and the old fairy style of legend and altogether. But basically it's someone who was drunk, lost a bit, hungover, woke up, accidentally stepped the wrong way, and saw the Milky Way from the outside.

side. Yep. It's a lovely way of describing a hangover. Yeah. I was so hung over. I saw the Milky Way from the outside. I'm keeping that for my next bad hangover. It's like vibes of rinse wind eating an egg salad,

what egg sandwich watching the universe created. Yes. And then just the other one, there were a few mentions of these actually, but the other one I really loved was they were on a, on a planet with what looked like some kind of slime mold that had taken over instead of plant. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I said visiting comers. whispered of a huge god in a hypothetical alien monster that had crashed landed here hundreds of millennia ago, leaving layers of flesh, bones and fat from which these organisms had perhaps evolved. Yeah, that was a really cool one. I liked the just-so story for the locust planet, which we saw in the first one, and the idea that it was like birds didn't evolve in the same way, so you never got big birds eating bugs. So I said the bugs are massive and they're chasing tiny birds. Yeah, yeah. Made my skin crawl, but also really cool. Yeah, yuck. Yay.

And I just, I really love the concept of all these Joker worlds having little, um, little havens in them. And, you know, a Joker world obviously being a great place to meet because it's a landmark and you can't reliably meet up with people on anywhere on a habitable world, a million worlds away from Dayton. But if you know, you know, stop at the one where there's locusts or. Yeah. Unless it's like a specific township. even then you need to make sure you're stepping in the right place and you land on the township because otherwise you have the cock-up of the supplies being dropped off on the wrong-home. Yeah, using them as landmarks and kind of meet-up spots and developing a society

that somewhat revolves around the Jokers is very interesting. Yeah, and the idea of living on it without altering it. So we were talking about that a little bit about Valhalla last time when you were pointing out that, you know, this generation of people were still trying to live slightly in the footprint of what they've learned in data, and Valhalla and especially places like reboot where, whereas the comers obviously are. Yeah, and the idea of Valhalla as a coma supported city that works because it's surrounded by Earths that are being combed

and whether or not that works logistically. Yeah. Because I still have some doubts. Well, well, if nothing else, they can certainly flop around and do a people protest, and I appreciate that. Yeah, the Valhalla resolution was a bit anticlimactic, but I really enjoyed the peaceful protest, especially people bringing picnics. Yeah, yeah.

There's something so undignified about trying to stop someone having a picnic. Yeah. And it really did underline the difference now, like, vibe war. Why war? Yeah. Come on. Wait, we can just fuck off to the next world along. What are you going to come on?

I'm pretty sure ginger beer was mentioned as one of the picnic items as well. And you know how we feel about lashings of ginger beer on this podcast. Yeah. we approve of lashings of ginger beer. Thumbs up. Always serve it in lashings. Yes. A pint, half pint or lashings.

Lashings, thank you. Lashings, please. Very messy. I was speaking of storytelling, setting up Yellowstone as the climax of the book, I thought it was really interesting from a storytelling perspective

because it very much echoes the first book in that you have what feels like it's the ending and everything resolved and then a massive disaster on the datum. Yeah. And obviously, much bigger this time, first time it was the Madison Nuke.

Now it's a semi-world ending yellow stone eruption. Which, again, because of Horizon Fresh and Wilds, I ended up reading a bunch about the Yellowstone Cordera and what would happen if it exploded beyond just the context we get in this book and what's potentially to be done about hoping that doesn't wipe out humanity. It's really interesting. Oh, I haven't read anything about the last part of that. I've read a lot about what's going to happen.

even if it happens. I haven't read about what we can do about it. Well, some of what we can do about it. Obviously, I was looking at in a fictional sets as well because of the plot of the game I was playing. I'd really recommend this game, guys. It's one of the best games I've ever played. I don't think I've played the Frozen Wild one. That's the second one, isn't it? No, it's the first game, DLC. Oh, yeah. No, I have played that then. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to spoil it because even though it came out a while ago, like, I just don't want people to play it. It's really cool.

but I like that from a storytelling perspective it's gone right let's echo the shape of the first book and not even be a tiny bit subtle about it we are setting up from chapter one that something is going to happen at Yellowstone if the sapphire was

a bit of a MacGuffin if it was a Chekhov's ring this is Chekhov's giant fucking explosion not even a tiny bit subtle so I haven't written down all the references but chapter one has something about a family being disappointed about and visit to Yellowstone. You see news reports. It's mentioned as a background thing. Like, just the ones I noted and I wasn't trying to get everyone was chapter one, chapter 22,

23, 30, 36, 46 and 52. Yeah. And there's so many more beyond that. And I just think it's really great to go, well, we're going to have this massive climax to the book. And we're almost going to reassuringly tell you, like something really big is going to happen. Yeah, yeah. So if the Valhalla resolution and the Beagle resolution feel kind of anticlimactic, Don't worry. Yeah. Don't worry because something massive is going to go boom. Yeah.

It felt slightly unrealistic in places that people didn't seem that worried. Because I feel like anybody slightly aware of the world knows that, you know, lots of stuff going on at Yellowstone is bad. Yeah. But then I think there was like a point being made about the complacency brought about by the long earth. Yeah. That like actually, well, it's going to be. fine, because, I mean, we've got the rest of these Earths.

Yeah, but it's still enough of a catastrophe that you give it more than the glance on the news, I feel like, if Yellowstone was being weird. But also Yellowstone was being weird at like Earth's near-Datimuth. Yeah. Before it, yeah. It wasn't quite the same as if all of the stuff, if all of the yellow stone things that were happening were happening at DataMirth, I think it would have been looked at a bit differently.

No, I'm sorry, I still believe that it's a massive underreaction from everybody that's fair That's fair I'm like that opinion so yeah I just thought

that was a nice storytelling method detail whatever you want to call it foreshadowing yes

but like with a brick yes yes brick foreshadow yeah volcanic foreshadowing yeah what big stuff

do you want to talk about what did you like I enjoyed the the look at the slightly more detailed look at the

the rectangles world and the the aftermath and how we can never really know what happened there. But the idea of worlds and, you know, planets of non-human sentience and intelligence and society and everything. And we've looked at it before in the science of Discworld, I think the first one. Yeah. Where we had e.g. crabs as the master race, crabby overlords.

before humans settled in. Yeah. And I've always loved to do it like that. And obviously we've had the squids, the idea of the squid society. And here we have the dinosaurs that weren't quite dinosaurs, but we also get these glimpses at other ones and how far along they might be on the way to something like society

or whether they would ever get there or whether just using a bolo would be far enough along. and even if they weren't going to get wiped out by hypegaine. And yeah, so we get the dog place. Beagle. Which is, remember, like some of this is going to be horrible. And it's just not, it's just, you just can't give any human motivations to it. Yes, sapiens doesn't equal humanity.

Exactly. Yeah, just these little flickerings on the probability table and the fact that the tortoises, I love the tortoises, the miles and miles long. queue of tortoises and then just casually reverse saying like, yeah, you know, I mean, probably nearer the equator. They've probably got, you know, skyscrapers, I don't know. But yes. The idea of a non-human intelligence society, I think, is something that practically looks

at a lot, something that Stephen Baxter looks at a lot as well. The idea of passing like ships in the night, as Joshua puts it. Yeah. And getting this pang of regret. Was it him or Sally turning up one of them? I think it was Joshua, because he was thinking. about it in the context of their big journey is that we skipped over so many worlds so quickly

we completely missed an entire sapient society. Yeah, yeah. Only a few worlds away from where we saw the remains of an entire sapient society. Oh yeah, no, I mean, the feeling he gets where he's like you get this longing of it, you know,

there's a whole society here that we never made contact with since they were destroyed type of thing. Like I think that was specifically separate. But yeah. And there's, you know, a whole school of thinking in the real world that we may be alone in the universe, but only, but separated by time rather than space from other sentient, because the universe is very, very, very old. And it's possible that we're a bit late on the sentient scale. And all of that's already happened without us. And also, as we talked about with the science of disc world, the pleasing, a slightly less likely concept.

of an entire sentient civilization rising and falling and we'll never know anything about it because time is big. Yeah, and space is big. And wipes out all kinds of stuff. Yeah. On earth, I mean, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I just thought it was nice to consider. What do you think? I like, no, I love thinking about it. It ties it nicely to mind. But, yeah, I mean, we're just, we're busting out the existential crisis board and setting it to zero today, for sure. This is a book that does that. Oh, yeah.

I've got it over. I don't think I, yeah. I don't think I have added up a day, to be honest. But I love the idea of you have these, the non-human intelligence, the non-human sapiens and it being so incredibly alien to us. And the idea is that actually there could be something we would measure as intelligence and sapience now or in the past or in the future and a different part of space or whatever. But because it's so alien to us, you can't recognize it as intelligence and sapiens in the

same way because it's just structured so differently. And actually, the Beagle Society is completely different. human, completely different motivations, completely different ways of living and structure, but there's still something recognisable in it. Yeah. Yeah, and then you get the question of what's a person, which we talk about explicitly when we're looking at troll rights

and animal rights and things. Yeah. Where do you grow up? Yeah. Well, yeah, it doesn't, not easy to put in law, though, is it? No. So we explored it in depth in Discworld as well with the goblins. And I think, yeah, this idea of how the relevance

of the sapient species. Yeah, and then putting it in the concept of round world law where you can't just persuade veterinary. Yeah, you have to persuade a lot more people over a much broader space. Yeah, yeah. You really have to start defining sentience and yeah. Yeah, it's great. It's really interesting to me.

Speaking of, I just want to kind of jump on to what I was saying last week can continue that thought, um, which is the idea of how humans could treat living in the long earth. And the long earth is just so much bigger than humans. Yeah. And so much broader in the grand scheme of things. It's very, um, there are more things in heaven and earth that are dreamt of in your philosophy kind of vibe. Yeah. Um, and humans, if they are to spread out across the long earth and survive, they have to learn how to live in the long earth as it is and adapt to it, rather than bringing the datum experience to the long earth. So, you know, I was last week about the footprint of farming and eating exactly the way they had done on datum

or as much as they could do a facsimile of it with the beer and burgers and ice cream. But looking at this in a much broader sense, because I got really broad, because this book gets quite broad about these ideas at some points. It's a broad book. It is a very broad book. The Valhalla conflict ending up being such a minor part of things in the grand. grand scheme of it because actually how humans decide they are going to govern or not be governed or taxed is not important to the long earth itself. Yeah. And really in the grand

scheme of things, not that important to humanity itself. Not these tiny iterations, no, because how do they? No. Lobzang says it's irresponsible for the tax rebels of Valhalla to mix up their symbols with those of the troll issue, conflating two separate conflicts, each of which spans the whole of the long earth. Yeah. And Lobzang, you know, talks about how humans have been treating the long earth and treating trolls. It was dominate and slave. I have to tax you and control you, even if you live in a world a million steps away.

Yeah. And I like that you then have the comas who kind of a you were talking about coma stories and how they adapt to using the jokers and things. It's idea that they're almost the best at the long earth. Yeah. Like this is the way it should be treated. Bill says it's a new way of living. We haven't colonized.

it, we just live in it as it is. And talking about the sapient species, this idea that the first big journey, they completely missed the beagles. There's this almost arrogance of skimming through the long earth. Obviously, we're not going to see anything. It doesn't matter if we skip over worlds stupidly quickly.

Yeah. And missing a huge, massive, sapient race with gods. But yeah, what else can you do? And this idea of these different probability trees which create entirely different societies and ways of thinking. So you have the way, the beagle thing or the turtle culture. And Robertus, when yes, she makes the point about maybe near the equator, they're skyscrapers, but the more valid point of, well, the young probably aren't formally guided through family backgrounds and

education. And so then competing for a right to live leads to toolmaking, but every generation has to reinvent the culture from scratch. It's a really interesting idea and a really interesting way to look at what's also just the cool concept of like turtles and tortoises and highway control. and how much of our society is shaped by just our physiology and probably vice versa, but more that way around just that so much of our society is based around, e.g., the fact our kids are pretty useless when they fail to come out. And, you know, our various weaknesses that we make up for and this, that have learned, have ended up with lots of great stuff like kids sticking around for ages and be, what's it called,

the ex-telligence eventually. Opposable thumbs Yes Just the magic of opposable thumbs This brings me to Roberta Who becomes our avatar for the bigger picture And we haven't talked about Roberta Much as we've gone through this book

Because in the first half there was only so much to say And there was a lot to talk about And then in this half again She's very very sea plot She only comes into contact with everyone else Right at the end at the garden party And we don't see much time with her That heartbreaking bit when Monica realizes

Like that's a kid who's seen too much And the reminder that Roberta is a kid that we don't get a lot. But she, you know, she has devoted herself to theology and to philosophy. She's kind of learning, she has shaped her brain to think about things in such a big picture. Yeah. And then she comes to the crestries and she talked about the hypercane's going to destroy everything and she mourns it and she kind of is almost annoyed with herself for mourning it because that's not a very rational way to behave and she's a very intelligent, rational person and she knows she's very intelligent and rational and she can't identify what hurts

her about it until she breaks down like towards the end of the book because this mission's come to an end and they've got to ease 20 million and now they're heading back and the captain is very like and now we can look at everything again on the way back to that actually I want to be alone and process and but she describes it as processing data and the captain is an asshole to her yeah and I wanted to shove that guy off a cliff um and when it jacks who understands what she's going through he knew how she felt it was the way he felt sometimes

if he woke in the small hours at 3am a time when the world seemed empty and stripped of comforting illusion a time when you knew you were remote transient and fragile and a vast universe a candle flame in an empty hall luckily the sun always came up

people stirred and he got on with the stuff that distracted you from the reality and Roberta never the sun doesn't come up for her she lives in that 3 a.m. space Canard canard

and so she's with the And the trolls are a source of comfort, at least, because she's from happy landings, and she has that relationship with them. And I think it's very sweet that Jack takes her to the trolls. Yeah. And there's literally the only thing who can help us. I think it's a nod. Obviously, I think Roberta's very autistic coded. Yes.

And a lot of people who are on the spectrum find it very hard to accept physical comfort from humans, but then might find it a lot easier from animals. and I think that's just a you're not going to love a hug so let's go hang out with the trolls but you need some kind of hug like I'm just going to put you in this sentient mass of hug but yeah the fact that she

spent you know weeks at this point yeah probably background processing her feelings about the crest roos and then the feeling is ready to come out almost and it's just like she comes across you know briefly quite unlikable when they're talking about it on the planet.

She's like, yeah, pity it'll be terminated. Yeah. And it's just, yeah, it's, it's she, because she grew up on happy landings where it's fine to be like that. She hasn't had to learn to mask yet, I suppose. Yeah. And then she's come to this place where eventually one person, admittedly, more than any others, gets very furious at her for basically not masking.

Yeah. I like her, the explanation of well as how she. she kind of deals with comedy and she doesn't laugh when she's told jokes because she's seen the punchline too soon. So she really like slapstick and Buster Keaton because it's unexpected. I just thought that was a really great detail. Yeah, that's cute. And also a reminder if you were thinking about her as like autistic coded, that doesn't mean

someone with autism doesn't have a sense of humour. It's just different. Yeah. But yeah, I just think this is an aspect of the book that's done really well. It's just reminding us how, remember how unlikely is your birth, reminding us how small we are. very galaxy song from Monty Python, which is one of my favorite things in the entire world. And I actually really like that. I like being reminded how small we are. I like that there's an underlying tone in the book of, you know, Sally realizing she's not that

important to the trolls. Humans in the grand scheme of things are not that important and the long earth can go on without them. That should be depressing, but it's not I actually find it very uplifting. Yeah, I think so. It's a perspective thing, isn't it, that's a perspective thing, isn't it? Yeah. I actually quite like having that I am just a transient moat perspective. Once I get past the existential crisis of this all, it's kind of nice to go, you know, whatever I'm worried about. Yeah. I'm a brief flame. Wee, moat. Yeah. You know who doesn't have responsibilities? It's a little moat of dust in a sunbeam. Yep. That's all I am. Just a little moat of dust and a sunbeam floating about. You're shouting at me. You're shouting at me and I'm

just a little moat of dust floating about in a sunbeam. We're going to get silly now. I think my point, basically, my point, as always, when I do, like, the second half or the last third of a book is just, this is quite good, isn't it? Yeah, no, I know it. Yeah, it's all right. Francine, have you got an obscure reference finial for me? Yes. The Roberts Rules of Order.

Oh, I'm really glad you did this. Which was called very American or something that I love sang when their Joshua says that's what they used to kind of organize their gathering still. It is a manual of parliamentary procedure, and it was brought out in the 1870s. That's when there were lots of new communities in the USA. And yeah, I love the idea of having just a little guidebook of this is how you government on a small scale. The full name of the book was Pocket Manual of Rules of Order for Deliberative Assemblies, which is lovely. So it was like slightly modelled after the House of Representatives in the US, but like scaled down. To work for local governments and parliaments.

Yeah, yeah. And yeah, it's just an interesting sort of thing. It is still coming out in new additions. And I want to know which edition hell knows where I has used, whether it was one of the modern ones or whether they've just gone 1876 with it. I feel like Joshua would go 1876 with it if you could get his hands on a copy. Actually, you know, they talk about like printing becomes more relevant in this age because you can't bring like a e-reader necessarily. And they talk about printed encyclopedias and stuff,

just being made a lot more available to newfound colonies. I bet that's included. Yeah. Like, here's a guide for how to have a government so that you maybe don't descend into stabbing each other immediately. Yeah. yeah that's cool i only picked it near the end so i didn't really read any of the actual book but pdfs are definitely available online if anybody wants to form their own government at home cool a weekend a fun weekend project former government

keep the kids entertained for at least five minutes yes um my uh no it's not even slightly relevant but my nephew wanted to do crafty stuff to and make things to then make stop motion with the other day, and now I've got loads of, like, coloured pipe cleaners and googly eyes and air dry clay and stuff in the cupboard. It's great. Oh, cute. How did you get on with stop motion? Uh, he had fun. I just made him funky little looking dudes for him to do stop motion with. Nice. It was, and he played around. He found an app on his phone that you can do something with. Oh, okay. I was about to say, you want a tripod is your first thing, but there's probably some stabilising, whatever now. Oh, yeah. I did let him use, I did give him a tripod to use,

because there's one floating around for filming my TikToks. But yeah, just, I forgot how to is to play with brightly coloured pipe cleaners and googly eyes. Which is a great way to spend an afternoon. Anyway, I've driven us off topic. Make government out of pipe cleaners and googly eyes, I think. And sticky back plastic and a used up to a toilet paper roll. Yes. Get a grown-up to help you with the scissors.

Right. I think that's everything we're going to say about the long war. We've probably got lots more to say about coloured pipe cleaners and coagley eyes. Tune in extra. crafting with the truth shall make you fret. No, right, we're going to be, we are coming back officially around Halloween for our first ever TTSMYF does the classics. We're talking about Frankenstein and I'm very excited.

Is it our first one technically? Or are we counting Gorman Gast? I think Gormancast is its own beast. All right, fine. We're definitely not structuring this the way we structured Gormancast. No, that was, as it should have been insane. So there's your deadline listeners. Read Frankenstein before Halloween,

because that episode will definitely have spoilers for all of Frankenstein. Yeah, if you haven't already been spoiled. Amazing, now's the time to read it. Yeah. We might be back before then with a cheeky bonus episode. That's not 100%, but hopefully. Possibly. And then we'll be back in November.

We'll be talking about the next book in the Long Earth series, The Long Mars. Yay! I'm not going to make any promise. about when in November. In the meantime, of course, dear listeners, you can join our Discord, link down below. Follow us on Instagram at The True Show Make You Frat

on Blue Sky at Make You Frette on Facebook of the True Show Make You Frette, pod on Facebook of the True Show Make You Frette, join us, join our subreddit, R slash TTSM-M-YFratfurt. Email us, email us, email us your thoughts, queries, castles, and pikeyfratpot at gmail.com. And if you want to support us financially, you can go to patreon.com forward slash the Trushabekyfrat for all kinds of bonus nonsense.

And until next time, dear listeners, don't let us detain you. A slight, cool shout out to Dr. Moreau, by the way, the plasticity of living forms, which I think is the kind of unsettling vibe I was getting from the Dog City. So definitely a good quote to bring out at that point. The Island of Dr. Moreau is an extremely unsettling book, very well written, obviously. It's an amazing book that I love.

but he's, yeah. Horrible. Well done, H.G. Wells. Horrible, as always. Good job. I feel like that was one that got like a Simpsons treehouse of horror parody as well. Oh, it's got to have, yeah. Treehouse of horror introduced me to a lot of great classic literature. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, The Simpsons.