The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - TTSMYF reviews The Everlasting by Alix E Harrow

Episode Date: October 30, 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, we reviewed The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow! Spoiler free review, feel free to listen to the whole episode! Also watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/NGC-clytRyE Buy the book here: The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow - Pan Macmillan 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 Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com 

Right. I think that's everything, admini. Sorry to word format at you, but... Oh, it's all right. That wasn't very much. I can probably remember most of that as well, she says. Terrible. Well, I'll write up the minutes, obviously, and email them round and make sure you'll see CD in and all of those things. Yeah, do we have apologies, A.O.B.

Are we hitting the KPIs, Your Honor? We're in the second half of the financial year now. I don't know what a KPI is, and at this point I'm too afraid to ask. It's a... Oh, fuck. Ah, what's a KPI? It's a key. All right, well, you get back to me on the KPIs.

Oh, my God, I talk about KPIs constantly, and I don't know what it is. Keep performance indicator. Oh, okay, good. What the fuck are our KPIs? I don't know. We probably should have made some up six years ago, but we never did, so. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Also, it's our anniversary. Also, it's my actual dating Jack anniversary in the next week or so, but I'm not entirely sure when neither of us ever remember. So that's fine. the joyous thing about my relationship is it started so fucking vaguely that we don't have any anniversaries I need to remember perfect, yeah

right, okay go get medicine, water something whatever's going to help you nothing can help me at this point for us I know I just, touch word

touch word I've still not got an ill you might be immortal love after all actually hello Welcome to The True Shall Make You Fresh, a podcast in which we were reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, and now we're wandering around the corridors of speculative fiction. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francing Carroll. And this week, we are reviewing a shiny new book, The Everlasting, by Alex E. Harrow. And if you're listening to us and your usual podcast catcher of choice, this is a video episode. You can go over to our YouTube channel. There's a link down below. And you can gaze upon our glorious faces.

Yes. And watchers talking as well as listening. Slightly startles and post work as they may be. Also that. Now on spoilers, before we crack on, this is a completely spoiler-free episode because we are reviewing a brand-new book. So we won't be spoiling Discworld. We won't be spoiling anything in The Everlasting by Alex E. Harris. You can safely listen to the whole episode and decide if you want to read this book.

One spoiler, you should. It's quite good. Yeah. I would. i did well i am excellent should i start with a blurb yeah go for it a legend a lie a love story a lady knight whose legend built a nation meets a retiring historian in awe of her fame he's sent back through time to make sure she plays her part even if it breaks his heart sir una everlasting was dominion's greatest hero the orphan girl who became a knight who died for queen and country Her legend lives on in songs and stories, in children's books and recruiting posters, but her life as it truly happened has been forgotten. Centuries later, Owen Mallory,

failed soldier, struggling scholar, falls in love with the tale of Una everlasting. Her story takes him to war, to the archives, and then into the past itself. Una and Owen are tangled together in time, bound to retell the same story over and over again no matter what it costs, but that story always ends the same way. If they want to rewrite Una's legend and finally tell a different story, they'll have to rewrite history itself and change their lives in the process. It's a good. We've got stories, we've got time travel, what more do you want? Yeah, come on guys. Yeah. I don't know what else you expect of Alexe Harrow. Speaking of, little background on the author, Hugo Award-winning, author, lots of award-winning and nominated

Sunday Times bestseller, starting with Hugo Award for her short story, A Witch's Guide to Escape, practical compendium of portal fantasies, which I really want to read. Yeah. I've had her on my To Read pile for a while, once in future witches, which won the British Fantasy Award in 2021. I've just had recommended to me a lot. Yeah. And then the Witch's Guide to Escape the short story came up in a podcast I was listening to,

and that went on to my To Read pile. So I hadn't got to any of them yet. And it's quite cool that now the first Alex E. Harry book I get to read is a new one that's not out yet. Yeah, very exciting. we should have a look at the short story for a for a fun bonus at some point yeah yeah um also so her debut novel also came out in 2019 that was the 10,000 doors of january which was also hugo nominated oh yeah i think i heard that one yeah and her last novel was starlinghouse in

2023 which is a gothic fantasy horror which sounds right up my alley they all of the books sound right up my alley so i hadn't read anything by her before you hadn't either had you no no also i want to point out debut novel in 2019, then a book in 2021 and then a book in 2023 and now a book in 2025. This is an author I want to become a fan of. There's a consistent release schedule and I like that's in an author. I know not all authors don't owe me a book, but I have also spent a lot of time waiting for certain books and if an author's coming out with something every two years, I'm going to be happy about it. God. So six years ago almost we started this podcast and

there are a couple of them who we started renting about right from the start. Yep. not naming any names, but... I am, Patrick Rothfuss. And George O'R. Martin. I feel like George O'clock on that. Yeah. Yeah, he can do what he was. I read the last of those books.

Fuck me, I wouldn't be able to write my way out of that. Yeah, no, to be fair, that guy... I mean, obviously I wouldn't, but I can't imagine anyway. Anyway, opening snapshot, we've kind of done this already. Did you like the book? Yeah, I did. I did. I am enjoying it. I'll be honest right now, listeners.

I'm about 100 pages from the end because I've had a mad month. But I trusted Joanna's judgment on this and have read a lot of it very quickly. And I read all of it and really liked it. I felt like a swap now. I've finished the book. Yeah, it didn't help that. You said that a really smug tone of boys. You caught yourself halfway.

I've read the book. No, I really enjoyed it. It was one of those immediate urge to reread the book. book kind of thing as soon as I finished it. Like, you put it down and then you're like, oh, I miss the characters. I want to go hang out with them again. And also now I know what, again, not spoilers, but now I know what happens again. I want to read everything with the new context of what happens at the end.

Yeah, yeah. And you know, like, it's a skillful author when you immediately like, oh, like, all right. Yeah, there's some clicking into place there. Excellent. There's something about, I think, especially because of how the book is structured, it feels a bit like it could have started as a short story. and then miniserated over and grown outwards. And I quite like that feeling as you read it.

Not that it feels like it's, you know, there's something kind of basic in the Nugget that needed reworking. It just feels like that could have been the structure of it. Yeah. And that's really fun to read. Yeah. And that definitely makes sense because it's like, you know, it's legend, it's fairy tale.

It goes off all of those. And generally they are little Nugget stories, aren't they, that can be extrapolated upon or, yeah. And that's the sort of thing I very much like because this book delves into the nature of story and what story means. Oh, no. Not the nature of story, not at this time of night, Joanna.

Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to offend you with the nature of story. Oh, no, I just meant, you know, you're ill already. Yeah, that's true. Stories just make it worse. I've never known you for be able to talk about the nature of story for less than two hours, that's all. Oh, yeah, that's good, right?

will rain me in. We should also say, having said how much we like this book for transparency, we were given review copies from the publisher. We're not obligated to say nice things about it though. And honestly, if we hadn't liked it, they just probably wouldn't be an episode because that would be very boring for everyone. Yeah, no, literally that is kind of our rule. Yeah. If we're going to hate read something, or at least it's going to find something really funny to hate read. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And with like a dead author. Yeah. Or it's so popular that one hate read can't hurt it. I would imagine if it did. See, I can't do it.

I can't imagine being like a proper book reviewer. I said this to you, didn't I? Like, someone who has to review every book they're given for a newspaper or something like that. Like, oh, it's horrible. I feel like I'm a bit more capable of meanness than you. Yeah, maybe. I love being able to be picky, though. And yeah, because of that, we were able to be picky and we are reviewing a book we liked.

Good news, everyone. Very much so. Let's talk about grabability then. I need to I hate that use that word yeah sorry I couldn't think

the better one either in the few minutes I tried so compellingness compellingness um like

I don't know yeah all of the like all of the words for stickiness and that tend to be a little bit quagmireish

don't they and then then you go down the wrong tone there's definitely how much of a quagmire is this book yeah

yeah did the blurb grab you No. Oh, really? Yeah, it was interesting. It was an interesting blab, but I don't know. I've, generally, if something's described as a romance or something like that, I struggle a little bit with the idea of getting into it. I quite often really enjoy romances. Like the last book we reviewed was romantic and I really liked that and I really liked this and I like the romance in it. But I know for some reason my brain just goes, ah, fancy romance. Yeah, it's really difficult because you read that and you're almost tempted to put it into the romanticcy bucket. And there's a lot of crap in the romanticcy bucket. But because you described it to me first, I was like, oh, yeah, no, that sounds quite good. And then, yeah, after I started reading it, I read the blurb and I was like, oh, I don't know if I'd have gone for this without your recommendation. But, you know, I'm not, I'm probably not within the traditional intended audience for this, you know, the cover, the blur of the everything.

Yeah. There was definitely hints of, like, I don't think it's pitched. It's not a romanticcy, but I think there's enough in the marketing to kind of go, ah, a romanticity audience might decide to pick this up. We've tricked them into a reading a book. I'm being so mean about romanticcy. By romanticity, I basically just mean a court of thorns and roses. That can't be defended. I did read it to make sure. I read the whole series. Okay, so you know how like if I open a thing of twiglets, the whole thing. The whole thing, thing of twiglets is then gone. Yeah, yeah.

And then I feel kind of grace and dirty afterwards. Yeah, they're like that. They're twiglet books. I don't mean, like, in a marmite, I might love it or hate it way. I mean, I could not stop, but also I felt terrible the entire time. They're not good. I used to be like that with Harry Bow before I stopped eating meat. I thought you were going to say a book there.

Was I wondering what book series that could be? Oh, oh, yeah, there probably is a book set. Like, back when I used to read so, so much. Yeah, that's true. There definitely would have been book series like that. But anyway, for me, I was very compelled immediately by the blur because she had me at Lady Knight and historian. I like academic stories. And this is a weird thing.

I am really fascinated by fiction set in academia. Yeah. And I have zero academic background. I'm technically a high school dropout. We both are. Go us. We're unqualified. Wildly unqualified.

But I do wonder if that's the same for people who have academic backgrounds, whether you enjoy reading stories that are said in academia or whether it's to busmen's holiday. Yeah, it's a good question. I will, well, mum didn't work in a university. Dad did a doctorate. I can ask my parents. But mum was a teacher.

Dad was a professor. And academic listeners, because I know we've got a few of them. Yeah. Do you like? Yeah, we have like very qualified listeners. We have wildly. We spoke to some of them at the Discard Convention. Like, Jesus Christ, some of you was so smart.

Terrifyingly qualified. I don't know if I'm not. I said that, yeah, I know when we were talking about the convention, but oh, my God. Thank you all for giving us major imposter, uh, imposter syndrome. But then also this did feel very nature of story, myth, legend, which is very much my damn. And I, I really like women in armour. Hmm. Like, it doesn't take much to sell me.

There's a, there's a lady who's going to be wearing armour and probably be swinging a big sword, and I'm very down for that. And yeah, it's not as well as I say, lady in armour does not disappoint. Oh yeah. The lady in armour is. I actually, House of Rour, which is another podcast I listened to with Joanna Robinson, Mallory Rubin, they did their full hype meter. And this was on there. And it was after I'd read it. So it was very like sort of Leo pointing, hey, they're talking about a thing and I got to read it. And they're really excited about it. And I really respect their opinion. And the conversation was very much, if you like Big Lady and Armour. I like Big Lady and Armour. I kind of lie. Might need to workshop that to get it discount. Nope. That was perfect.

What the hypometer, hypometer, hypometer, height meter, how does that work? Oh, so they each pick 10 things they're very hyped about that's coming within a time period from 10 to 1. And they do a countdown, so they each say they're 10, they each say they're 9. But if one of them, if they both have it and one of them has it higher, they wait and talk about it in the higher spot. Oh, cute. But Joanna Robinson always makes sure like one of those slots is a book one. I was imagining something with a hammer and a ding, ding. you know sadly no and I feel like podcasts are missing yeah I think podcasts in general are just

missing hammers and big ding ding ding things although as we're a podcast and not normally visual I reckon we could get away with just a sound effect okay yeah if I remember ding ding thank you please work on that um so the blurb didn't grab you how quickly when you started reading did you hit the like need to keep turning the page feel or did you get that feeling oh yeah no I definitely did um I was a bit annoyed earlier because I had to go outside and I can longer walk and read. Because, you know, roads, a slightly better developed sense of my immortality than I had when I was a school kid and I used to read on the way to school.

Also, you have a dog. Yeah, no, I did have the dog, yeah. But, yeah, no, pretty much immediately. Hang on, let me remind myself exactly. Yeah, no, by the end of the prolog, really. Yeah, it was similar. for me. There's like a moment where it switches from the kind of romantic story legend

into the academic setting. Yeah. And it's nice, it's like... Toneys worked. Yeah. And it's really reassuring to see from the off-like, the writer can do both of these tones extremely well. Yes. Yes. Also, there was a yew tree

right in the beginning, and I love the folklore and legends around a yew trees. Oh, there's so much and it's so cool. Have we done that in one of the rabbit holes, by the way? I know we've talked about like a lot of plant mythology and things. I don't think we've did-dive done... I think we need to do a U-Tree special at some. Oh, God.

Oh, yeah, no. Heard it, as I said it. International listeners, the Operation U-Tree was a criminal investigation into the sex fenders at the BBC, I think. Was it just the BBC? Whatever it was. Anyway, for me. What a terrible thing to do to the U-tree. Yeah.

But U-Trees in folklore. Maybe he cursed the country by doing that. This country has been cursed for a lot longer than that. sorry. Don't forget the imperialism. I think that brought some a few things down upon us. I never forget the empire. Remember the empire. Anyway, um, also the, that little tonal switch moment where it goes into academia introduces my favorite character, Professor Gilda Sorbridge, and, um, testament to the author that my favorite character isn't the big lady wearing armor, um, and exists almost entirely in redacted memos. Yeah. Also a weird fondness of

mine, I like storytelling in memos, that sort of thing, you know, you get stories that there's a proper word for it where a story is made up of like memos and diary entries and letters and that sort of thing. And I can't remember the word. There is, yeah, because it's used in video games as well, right? Yep. And that word is, that's going to bug us for the rest of the podcast, but we'll come back to you at the end. Sorry. But yeah, no, same. Definitely. I mean, that's why we love the Magnus Archives right away, isn't it? Yes. It's very much. More academia, academia and archivist archives oh we love an archivist yeah ridiculous really this is very on brand for most all the things i like and i might have skipped over it if you hadn't recommended it so

there's no there's no lesson to be learned from this because the marketing is absolutely fine yeah i'm just a twat francine has very specific tastes that you sometimes have to work around to get to read something yeah yeah luckily my recommendations are trusted wait wait is it the kind of post-apocalypse where nature has reclaimed the earth or is it the kind of post-apocalypse where there's zombies because we're both in the nature reclaim the earth camp on that one there's a reason horizon zero dawn wins oh god yeah there's a whole subreddit called like reclaimed by nature it's great anyway we're staying on topic today aren't we um did you at any point feel like you were going to have to throw the book out of the window if you didn't get the ending you wanted no because i don't know what

ending I want. Excellent. Yeah. You? And I had a point of, like, I want this to end a specific way for certain characters and by about halfway through the book, this was a, if I don't get a happy ending, I will riot. I see. Yes.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I'd love a happy ending. But I, yeah, I'd just, yeah. I like this with you, haven't finished it and you can't picture what kind of ending you want. Yeah, yeah. I think that's a good thing about the book. yeah for sure yeah i i've i've no idea what's going on generally incredible also in the book

it's a good not not knowing what's going on it's not a uh the author has forgot to put enough information this is a i cannot imagine what's going to happen and yet to be fair over in these questions with uh having finished the whole book i think that's given me a very different perspective on it yeah but no so far i'm i'm happy with the pace at which the book is they're eking out the information, the world building, the background, the revelations. Yes. And there are some good revelations. There was definitely a, I need to put this down and walk away from it a minute. Goodness. Goodness me. And yeah, we've already kind of talked about this, but you, if based on the cover, because I like talking about cover art a bit,

it's a very pretty cover. I don't know anything against this kind of cover art. I like the art very much. But again, for me, because it just got, it's a, it's a, it's a modern fantasy cover. Yeah, and it's very beautiful. But you would walk past it in a bookup. I think I'm the opposite. I think I probably would grab it because it's got that medievaly look, and it's like a modern version of the kind of medieval revivalism thing that was a big trend in the 70s, and I'm very into that right now.

Oh, okay, cool, yeah. Also, I am a bit of a sucker for like a matte black cover with pretty colors on it. Yeah. Yeah. No, it is nice. You know, me, I like botanical art. So once I've looked at it closely, I am very impressed with it. I don't know who the cover artist is, actually.

No, I should have probably written that down. Going on to recommendations then. Who would you, I mean, would you recommend this book in general? By the way, watchers, just in case I haven't, no, you can't really, it's not focusing properly. I'll put it up on the screen. Yeah. Um, if you would, would you recommend this book to anyone? Yes. Um, I'm going to give hypothetical people rather than real world examples because nobody

knows my real world examples, but I think I would recommend it to people who are interested in history and legend, but the kind of meta-ness of them. Yes, excellent. I would recommend it to our listeners. Like it's not practically, it's not, I mean, there are funny moments, but it's not funny yeah but it's very clever there are some things you'll you'll recognize yeah um and then yeah anyone who's sort of into the Arthurian stuff that kind of chivalry uh and anyone who's had to do any kind of formal research yeah because i think it's very fun to end up to think about ending up in this situation as a formal researcher like it's not a spoiler to say there's time travel and the guy meets the subject of his research because that's all in the blurb yeah yeah uh

that's very interesting to me. Oh God, dreadful thought really, is it? And then I was going for some comp titles as well. Yeah. Comparison, if like me, listeners, you don't listen too much. Modern Media Review, she says, after six years of doing a media review podcast. Excellent. Well done. We are not qualified.

Have we mentioned that? If I was going to base a recommendation on a specific Pratchit book, it would be for fans of monstrous regiment, obviously, Lady and Armour. The Last Hero. The Last Hero as well. Yeah, I didn't think about that so much actually, but that's a really good comp. I think I was thinking about there's a lot of themes of propaganda and stuff in this that made me think Mistress Richmond, as well as the obvious Lady in Armour.

Yeah. I do think also, although it's not similar, and it might be a recency bias thing because she wrote the last book we reviewed, but V. Schwab fans, there's a similar kind of, it's got the yearning. Yeah, it does have some yearning. loving, love a yearn. Love a yearn. Talked about this last time we talked.

Love a yearn. And this has definitely got the good yearning vibes. What the fuck we think about yearning for in the context of my mouthbook? We're probably just off topic, weren't we? Yeah, I think that's quite likely considering the nature of our podcast. And yet, also, if you're a fan of Brienne on Game of Thrones, like this is... Zeruner is not not Bremen of Tarthco did. I can very much picture Gwendolyn Christie playing her.

in a movie adaptation. Yeah. I support this. Would you watch a movie adaptation of this book? I would. I think there were movie adaptation. Actually, a TV adaptation of this book could be very interesting because it's got that kind of cyclical nature

that I think would suit, like, episodic adaptation really well. That's a limited series or something. I would definitely watch an adaptation of this, though. I think it's got a really strong, like, it's got two very strong visual palettes because you have the historical and then you have the academia and that modern side to it. Yeah.

I think you could do really interesting stuff. Like that. Yep. Definitely not talking absolute bollocks. And the big theme of this book is the idea of meeting a hero, meeting a legend. Would you want to meet a legend? I have one more comparison. Oh, sorry.

My apologies. It isn't a book, so I don't know if you know Nathan before. He does various songs, including like, spoof ones and, like, academic ones. And one of his songs is called Epics and Empires, and it's all about, like, the repetitive over the millennia nature of epic tales and things like that, and, like, how our sense of history is based upon the kings and queens who wanted it written, and things like that. And, yeah, so just like, one of the verses from it kept coming into my head reading, like, some of it, like, for woven in the lines of the poets that speak are the intricate designs

of the powers that be, as they rise and decline and redefine their defeats you've got to I read between the lines for your mind to be free. And also, later on, it's got one of my favorite puns in a song. Yeah. You have to hold the glass to how the truth is performed in the form, forging of myth. You've been myth-informed. Excellent. That makes me very happy.

Anyway, I think you'd like this song that's got Wolf, Wolf and Gilgamesh and everything in it. Oh, yeah, that's my copy. I'll send it a link, actually. Sorry, themes. themes big themes meeting a legend i mean honestly bayowulf yeah just i'm just curious yeah like i feel like bayowulf would be a very interesting legend to have a beer with you know well i suppose it'd be like a horn of mead or something yeah beer beer oh yeah there would be you could yeah there'd probably be some quaffing involved yeah and then obviously everyone dies horribly so i'd like

to get out before that bit yeah I've got Pythagoras. It's got to be, isn't it? It's got to be Pythagoras. Yeah, actually. It was, like, definitely a guy, but also every fucking bit of history

about him is the most ridiculous legend you've ever heard. Oh, that's... Oh, he once persuaded a bull not to eat father beans because his reincarnated friend's souls were in them. Oh, he... Like... I was also thinking about, like, the curators of legends and myths.

And I want a... word with Herodotus. I just want to, I just want to know what he was up to. Yeah. Yeah. Like, who made him that way? Choices were made with Herodotus, and I'm still not sure I'm saying that right. Well, I think he's great.

No, I'm not criticizing Herodotus. Well, I know I am a little bit. It got weird, and I want to know what he was thinking. And I'm just very happy. I think he was thinking. I am a historian. that means I need to make it entertaining because I'm not bound by the rigorous standards of a millennium far in the future. That's very true. But I still want to know.

Oh yeah. You're absolutely right. He's definitely, he's like the other side of this coin. If so, well, we need to meet for sure. Yes. Like Pythagoras had the legends about him and then Herodotus probably wrote some of those. I got a new kind of, um, perspective on Herodotus from listening to Dan Carlin's hardcore histories, especially the one. about the, like ancient Greece and Sparta and all of that stuff, because he's just talking about how, you know, and we've got a lot of stuff from Herodotus here and it kind of really colours in the history and everything like that. And then he dies and then everything is fucking black and white for the next 1,000 years when everyone just writes down how many people

died here and what happened here. And yeah. There was an interesting conversation when, what's it called? You're Dead to Me did the Budica episode where they talked about how history was kind of more of an art form and entertainment form than purely informative. And so the story of Budica is that we know as sort of legend, and that would be another great legend to me,

is kind of the story of the rape of Lucretia and it is the same story being echoed with different historical characters. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Actually, yeah, Budica is a really good one to meet. Yes, also Robin Hood, but that has absolutely nothing to do with a cartoon fox honest you'll just be disappointed

Joanna don't meet that particular hero not just be really upset that he's not an animated weirdly attractive animated fox and even if he is foxes smell bad also yeah fine and we get the kind of this nice juxtaposition of the legend of seruna in this and then the actual kind of uncomfortable real side of her story. Is there a legend that maybe not improved, but you'd be interested in seeing the weird reality and gritty underside of specifically? Yeah, maybe Icarus and Daedalus.

Yeah. I don't know, I can't even remember what it's from now, but in my head I've always got that Icarus, like, died laughing thing in my head. and yeah, I don't know, I love the idea of like what it's actually like to have to build a fucking labyrinth and like make wax wings for you and your son and like it's mental. That whole story is so mental and it's told in like that part of the incredibly mental ancient Greek legend stuff. But it's like that one in particular, I just love, I love Icarus. I think I could probably pick anything out from like ancient Greek myth and legend and go, you know, go along on the Odyssey. for a bit, for a small amount of time.

I thought about the odyssey. Yeah, I did think about the odyssey. I'm like, I think Odysseus would piss me off. Yeah. And I think... Get it done, boy. You have to experience the gritty realism of a legend. It needs to be someone you could tolerate being around.

If you've ever tried to manage a project with a man like that involved, fuck me. No. It did not need to take 10 years. I'm sorry. God's this, gossip. But no. Get on. I know you do have a tendency to procrastinate, though.

Do you not have any sympathy for him, like, as a fellow? I know you're not as bad as Odysseus. No, not if I'm trying to get something done. If I'm doing a mission. I suppose you can kind of hyper-focus. Yeah, yeah. And I don't know. Also, maybe I am projecting some of my failings onto Odysseus,

because that's also quite possible. Hymn's among us. Also, I've always felt bad for the Cyclops. Yeah, no, I can see that. Yeah. I feel bad for a lot of people in the Odyssey, actually. A lot of them are just kind of living by their nature. Yeah.

Humpst Among Us has not tried to drown a ship full of handsome sailors on a rainy Thursday afternoon. Sometimes you're just, you're in the sea, you're on a rock. The sailors are really annoying. Odysseus is just bugging you. Yeah. Sometimes you have to turn some people into pigs. Yep. I'm now realizing that a lot of what I remember from The Odyssey is in fact from the Simpsons version of The Odyssey.

A lot of it's from the musical that my year five music teacher wrote for us to perform for me. Incredible. Oh yeah, she was so talented. I've still got some of those songs in my head. Like, yeah, Mrs. Johnson, if you're by some weird remote chance ever listening to this. Just know. You had an impact. I'm forgotten.

Oh, Odysseus O, you have still a long way to go. Bear in mind as home, would you plod? It serves you right for offending the gods. Amazing. And it was such a sad song about his old dog dying when he got home. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I've never had the dog dying.

Ancient dog with roomy ice. Okay, right. Anyway. Anyway, yeah. Also, like, this is a very weird local one, but because it's such a story talked about locally, but St. Eb and the Martyr. Oh, yeah.

And his wolf. And his wolf. Well, no, the wolf wasn't his. The wolf. Sorry, yeah. So the story of Eben the Martyr, which obviously we live in, like, area where he's named, everything's named after him, including a lot of pubs, was, oh, God. And as everyone will tell you, he was once the patron saint of England. Yeah, except not really because the patron saints wasn't really a thing.

But yeah, he was a king in this area. This was before there was one king for the whole country, obviously. and some Vikings turned up and they tried to make him renounce God and he wouldn't so they tied him into a tree and shot him full of arrows and then decapitated him and then a wolf found his head and brought it back so that he could be buried properly and then put his head they put his head by his body and it re-sowed itself on or something right that's the miracle bit yeah that was the miracle bit and the master bit was like the dying that lot of good it did and he didn't come back or anything but yeah just mastered and died

resurrection not that god knows what that wolf was not about like And, like, there's a lot of historical evidence. Like, there definitely was a King Edmund in the, like, 10th century and what have you. And I just, I want to go see all of that. Yeah. Yeah, no, that'd be cool. It's quite grisly, isn't it? Like, there's a, the iconography of it everywhere as well.

Like, there's so many statues of dudes filled with arrows in this town that you never really think about. It's so fun when newcomers come to the town and they sort of ask us, why are there statues of guys full of arrows and statues of wolves everywhere? It's like, oh, yeah, there's just... Don't worry about it. Yeah, no worry about it. It's just the arrow guy. Do you not have one? Does your town not have statues with a guy full of arrows and a bunch of wolves? I also like that the time you used to be called Biotricksworth or something like that.

Edricksworth, yeah. Yeah, after just some guy. Just some guy. No, I think I actually did learn something about that once. I got to remember now. It's been a long time. Closing snapshot, any final thoughts? Hmm.

You don't have to have any, it's fine. no I don't have any final thoughts yet sorry wait yes I do I like it when you can mix lots of different types of speculative fiction together in one book like this and not have it seem like muddy or forced I think she's done it really skillfully yeah I completely agree

I'm not annoyed by any of the stuff I don't understand as I'm reading it like I think you can put enough trust in the author to know that you're going to find out and so it's not I'm not constantly turning back like, oh, did I miss something? Like, I think it's been done very well like that. Yeah, and that's really nice as well, because I feel like if it's an author you're familiar with, that you can give the author a lot more grace. Yeah.

But to read a book by a new author and not feel like you're being cheated by not getting information. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's really skillfully done. I just, I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a really good book. If you were to rate it out of 10.

I don't like doing that. Okay, well, let's not do that then. Sorry. no that's fine we won't do it i didn't get that bit in the notes we'll just do general yes we recommend yes we recommend the thing is about ratings out of ten joanna yeah is that we don't really we have to establish criteria if we're going to make things out of time we have to establish criteria and it feels like the the way that the society has gone about it now is anything below a nine is seen as like a little backhanded or odd that's fair to me that completely destroys the

point of a 10 point scale. So yeah, thumbs up is good for me. We'll go with thumbs up. I just didn't want to go thumbs up because it's so binary and I get scared when I see binaries and run away. But no, it's just straight up thumbs up, recommend. Can we think of a non-binary way to do thumbs ups? I feel like this maybe we'll be taking us. Oh, we go the old Roman emperor, don't we?

We go to angles, yeah. All right, this is full thumbs up for me. I recommend this without any compunction. Yeah, full thumbs up for me, but not in a binary way. If it's like Gorman Gast, my thumb is like a 70-something angle. Yeah, this is so much better than the 10-point scale, Francine. You're right.

Thank you. So, The Everlasting by Alex Ian Harrow. Oh, no, I reinvented it and made it worse. Fuck. The great thing is, if you've got hypermobility, you can go weird with it. I'm rating. this in a different dimension.

Bet your thumb can't do that. Before we break down entirely. The Everlasting by Alex E. Harrow, we recommend it, is out on the 30th of October 2025 through tour books, and we'll have a link down below to all the places you can buy it. In theory, it's out the day we're releasing this episode. Yeah, it should be, unless something's gone really wrong. Excellent.

And anything else we talked about in the podcast, slash video will also be in the links down below. Yes. Thank you very much for listening to this episode of The True Show Makey Frette. We will be back sometime next week with our possibly slightly late Halloween episode on Mary Shelley's

Frankenstein. Yay. So excited for that. In the meantime, of course, dear listeners, you can join our Discord link down below. You can follow us on Instagram at the True Show Makey Frette on Facebook at the Trusham Makey Frette. Join our subredat R slash TTSMYF. Email us to your thoughts queries, castles, and snacks the true shall make you fret pod at gmail.com and if you want to support us financially you can go to patreon.com forward to the

true shall make you fret and exchange your hard-earned pennies for all sorts of bonus nonsense and until next time dear listeners don't let us detain you I'm just going to ask in the discord now actually yeah thank you not ephemera that it's um effemera is like the name for that sort of stuff yeah yeah thank you right have love see you love bye bye bye