Amazing Worldbuilding!... Time Turners are Still Broken Though | NLR Ep. 79

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:05]What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the channel. This is Jake at Nerdy Lor Rising. I have an awesome week to tell you about. For the second week in a row, I read an entire book within the same week. I also started a new one, continued one that I've been kind of working on here uh throughout, and it's some really, really exciting stuff. So, let me start with something that is very exciting, but in kind of a backhanded way, >> [laughter] >> I suppose. I did read another Conan short story. This one's called Red Nails. And uh this is it's an interesting one. The reason I say this is sort of a backhanded awesome thing to start with is I I generally had a good time with the story.

[00:00:41]I was I'm feeling a little Conan burnout again. So, it's like I kind of forced myself to get through it. But, the awesome part is I completed this collection, and I actually have completed all of the short stories. The only thing that remains is the novella length Hour of the Dragon. And so, my my plan is to take probably 2-3 weeks uh away to recharge and be really Like, I am excited to read it, but I want to be really excited for it. You know what I mean? Because I I I have been told by one of my Conan guides, uh being uh Sam from my Samwise, that a lot of the stuff in Hour of the Dragon is like a sort of feature-length, quote unquote, version of a lot of the stuff that we've come to know and love about these stories. So, I just want to be fresh, right? So, I'll take a little bit of time away before I come back to that one. But, I did have a good time, like I said, with Red Nails. It is again a lot of familiar territory, but something new. As As what I've sort of come to to think about a lot of these stories. Not all Some of them are like completely different, but a lot of them have a similar structure, similar beats that we're going through, but they have like this one or two little kinds of novelty in there. In this one, we have like a female character who is uh sort of Conan-esque, which is cool.

[00:01:53]You know, we've seen female characters be prominent in these stories before, but in this one, she is uh she strong. She's a warrior, right? She has, you know, these It It feels like he's sort of playing with this idea of like, what if Conan was had like a counterpart who can rival him in some way. She's still not quite, you know, like Conan's still the hero and whatever, but it's certainly more powerful of a character than we've seen a lot of these other women in these stories. So, um yeah, I I I definitely still had a good time with it. But, I think uh my recommendation to anybody watching this who wants to check out these Conan stories, space them out a little bit more than I did. I did one per week for a really long time, and then I skipped a week.

[00:02:37]I think I skipped one week two separate times, I think is what I did.

[00:02:43]I would probably space them out a little bit more than that just to not deal with any of the kind of burnout that I've had with them a little bit, right? They're all been great, they've all been fun, but like you probably want a little bit more space. So, I'll just say that. But, it does feel good and accomplishment to complete this second collection. Technically, this is the third collection. The second collection is the one with the Hour of the Dragon in it. So, I'll go back and do that one.

[00:03:05]My goal would be to do that one next month, in June. That'll be That'll be nice. So, there we have Conan, the thing that I read in its entirety, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. This is the continuation of the reread buddy read that I'm doing that myself and Preacher are doing together, that we then kind of roped in some people on our Discord that we have a whole channel in there talking through actually a bunch of people going back and re-experiencing these stories, whether it's reading them physically, like I'm doing with these illustrated editions. I've never read out of the illustrated editions before, so that's been super fun. They're so good, you guys. There's so many really awesome illustrations in here that the art style by Jim Kay just perfectly matches the vibe of the story. It's It's just been amazing. Some people are reading out of different editions. Some people are doing the new full cast audiobooks.

[00:03:51]Like, there's all kinds of stuff going on. And it's been so fun to just relive these again. I mean, I've read I've read these books a dozen times, but it's probably been a dozen years since I read them. And so, it's just really fun to go back and experience them.

[00:04:02]Now that I've read so much more of stuff, um like this one in particular, I'm really really strongly noticing.

[00:04:08]I've always noticed that it's much more mature than books one and two, like obviously. That's one of my favorite things about the series is that it grows up with the readers.

[00:04:14]But, I'm really appreciating now how much foreshadowing was in this book, not just for events later in this book, but for the rest of the series. There are things that happen in book seven that are very very clearly signposted here in this book, which has just been uh really cool to see with a more discerning adult eye, right? Um still massive plot holes, like the there's still just huge stuff that really is glaring that like you should have thought this through a little bit more. Uh but nonetheless, it doesn't take away from the fun I've had. Just I would say this is the most fun I have had reading all year. Um is it the best book I've read all year? No. But, it's certainly has been the most fun. And I just I love this book, man. I love this book.

[00:04:58]So, uh Goblet of Fire coming up next, which is uh one of my favorites. And it's the one that has uh given me nightmares every time I read it. Uh I've probably told this story before at least in some capacity.

[00:05:12]I was deathly afraid of Harry Potter, specifically Voldemort, um as a kid.

[00:05:18]And uh even now to this day, I'll still every once in a while have a nightmare about it. And so, every time I've read the book or watched the movie, I always just get a little skittish for a while.

[00:05:28]And I don't want to go outside at night time by myself, or I don't want to you know, it's just little stuff. And I'll always have like a couple bad dreams or whatever. But, hey, it's part of the process. And uh I'll see it through. So, looking forward to that. That'll be fun.

[00:05:41]And uh continuing this just amazing reread. I just Oh, man, these books are just they just mean so much to me, man.

[00:05:46]I'm just having the best time. So, uh this takes up a lot of space. Let's move it over here, maybe.

[00:05:51]Okay. Um throughout that journey, I started this the previous week that I talked about a little bit. I didn't have much to say cuz I was just right at the beginning.

[00:06:00]Now I have some stuff to say, and that is Sorrdanian by L. L. Stephens.

[00:06:04]Um this is quite possibly some of the coolest world building that I have encountered in a long time.

[00:06:12]This is we we have and presented in a really interesting way. Uh we're kind of just thrown into the middle of it, but it's how do I describe this? It It It's it's in the vein of a Malazan or a Book of the New Sun or uh or Shadow and Shadow or uh Mercy Tears of the Fallen, right? Where we're just thrown into this world, and we're not having things explained to us.

[00:06:40]And there's so much going on, and there's a such depth of world building going on.

[00:06:45]And we are slowly figuring things out. And what I will say, I'm about a third of the way through this now. At this point, it's pretty clear what's going on with the world building. And so, I really appreciate that. I think there there are stories where I've struggled a little bit with not you know, I don't need to understand everything, but I need to be able to at least sort of follow what's going on and what the main what's the what's the point? What's the main arc of the plot? What do our characters actually want? Like, what's the motivation going on here, right? Like, I need to follow some I need something to grab onto. And this very much does that.

[00:07:19]You have to just kind of let it wash over you at first. There's a lot of names, and I will say if you are dyslexic, you're going to struggle with this with sight reading it. Um there's a lot of long names of cities or people that are uh cool and and and unique, but uh wow, are they difficult to sound out.

[00:07:40]So, [laughter] So, have to kind of like you know, sit there and go through it a few times uh before you can kind of get the hang of it. And And even then, a third of the way through I still stumble over some of them every once in a while cuz they're just kind of long uh odd fantasy names. So, uh there's one thing that I'll throw out there. But, the way this has come together has been really satisfying. You know, you start out and it's just this flood of everything happening and you don't you know, you're trying to get your bearings.

[00:08:05]But, once you do, you're you we we we realize that we're in this world where the royal bloodlines, there's like some magic going on. I don't know everything about how the magic works, but there there's some magic going on with these different royal bloodlines.

[00:08:19]There's a lot of political maneuvering going on. There's people uh alliances and betrayals and assassination attempts and and uh some successes and some There's just all kinds of stuff going on politically.

[00:08:31]People Our our main character uh Durillian is his name.

[00:08:35]Where he is uh traumatic childhood event that kicks off this book. Extremely dark opening to this book, okay? Just throwing that out there, too.

[00:08:44]Traumatic childhood event that shapes him into this very angry teenager that we see how he's interacting with the world and and it's uh we know as the reader, we're just like, "Bro, like you got it. Come on, man." Right? But, like he's a really angry teenager. So, it makes a lot of sense what he's doing, you know, when you think about it that way.

[00:09:00]But, uh we're we're seeing him sort of learning more and more about who he is, his place in the world, what he can get away with and what he can't, and uh consequences of his actions and his words and and like that's been really cool to see.

[00:09:13]And I can only imagine how much more we're going to get. We're I'm only a third of the way through.

[00:09:17]The The world building we're starting to see that this is the exact kind of world building that I like, where it's complicated and it's cool and it's interesting, but it's not just cool and interesting. It's integral to the story.

[00:09:31]It's integral to the characters and what they want and what they're doing. It's tied in like in this story, it's it reminds me of Dune in the sense that it's tied into the the economics of the world. It's tied into trade and what these different nations can do with each other, what they want to do with each other. Like uh this this magical we have this thing that's It's some weird I can't figure it out, but it's introduced right away in the story, right? It's It's this weird It's called the Rill. It's this weird combination of of magic and machine and god.

[00:10:02]Uh however that works, I don't know. I'm really excited to learn more about that.

[00:10:06]But it's it's tied into like transporting goods from one city to the next or communicating quickly from one city to the next. And so we're seeing like there's some cities or nations that don't have access to this. Why is that? I don't know, right?

[00:10:19]Like And And how does that impact how they can communicate with people?

[00:10:23]Information moves a lot slower. How does that impact their trade and their economics? Well, they have a really hard time trading with these different countries. Maybe they're more poor.

[00:10:30]Maybe they struggle. Maybe they're trying to make an alliance with this person who does have access to it. Why are they not sharing it with us? What's going on? Like there's just so much stuff going on and I I I think at this point, a third of the way through, I'm at the point where I wouldn't call it the inciting incident cuz I think the opening of the book is probably the inciting incident. But it it's a lot of the first third is getting your feet underneath you with the world building and with the political maneuvering and the characters learning who they are.

[00:10:58]Great characterization, by the way.

[00:11:00]Now, I think we just got to a point where like there are two massive events that just happened.

[00:11:06]And uh as a as a fantasy fan, love how they were presented. Super super cool. And it's like epic fantasy fans are going to really love the stuff that's going on in here.

[00:11:17]And uh I think now I'm at the point where this is going to really take off and we're going to see what's going to how the dominoes are going to fall. But uh I I I really I have nothing but good things to say about this book so far.

[00:11:26]It's still early on, but uh all signs are are pointing towards uh a couple of big thumbs up here as we continue our way through the Traitor's Blade Revelations by L.L.

[00:11:37]Stevens.

[00:11:40]Really good stuff, man. Really, really good stuff. Definitely worth checking out if you're a big epic fantasy fan.

[00:11:45]Uh okay.

[00:11:47]Then, I did start, after I finished Harry Potter, uh and I'm going to continue working my way through this, obviously. That uh the thing I jumped into that I will then do more of this coming week is A Betrayal in Winter, book two of The Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham. I read book one back in like December, I think. Loved it. Loved it. So impressed as a debut. Come on, man. I mean, just incredible world building. It's very concise, 250-page book with so much world building, such interesting magic with the poets and the Andats, and and the characters are so great. And wow, it got dark at times, but wow, also like really uplifting at some other times, also. And the characters were just ah, so deep and real. I couldn't wait to get back to it, but I had so many buddy reads lined up, and I had so many slowdowns happen with just life stuff, that it kept getting pushed down the road, but we're finally there. Book two.

[00:12:38]This picks up, I think it's Is it 9 years after book one?

[00:12:44]Some It's some passage It's not a crazy amount of time, but certainly amount of time their characters have have evolved, and they're a little bit different. Uh and they're older.

[00:12:51]What I hear is that the series you track It's like a 50-year gap, I think, across all four books.

[00:12:56]But, um we're picking up where we left off, sort of. We have Uh I'm just at the beginning, like three chapters in, right? So, I'm just at the beginning, but we're really seeing okay, we're going to go to a different city, and we need to um there's consequences that will come from what happened at the end of book one, and we're just kind of starting the gears returning on what we're going to do about that. The different powers that be. What are we going to do about that?

[00:13:21]And there's some really interesting political stuff already happening in here. And uh uh I will just say, I don't consider this as a spoiler, but everybody who who reads book one or everybody has been like, man, the Andat are so cool. I really hope we get more and more of these Andat.

[00:13:36]You get an you get another Andat. Okay, I'm just going to say that.

[00:13:39]>> [laughter] >> So, great stuff. So excited for this. I will finish this here this week. It won't take me that long. I mean, these books are super short. I think this one's even shorter than book one. So, I just can't wait, man. Everybody raves about the series in the the most positive way. I can't wait to be caught up. Eventually, a lot of people in my in my book club cuz we read book one for the book club.

[00:13:56]A lot of people have finished it and they said it's just an incredible series, incredible finale. So, it's got to happen. So, we'll get through that. That won't take me the entire week. So, we got to pick something up else after that. And what is that going to be? Well, this is going to be what has been quite a a long time coming here. Uh, sort of.

[00:14:15]That this was like a a high priority for me at the end of October of last year. New release, wanted to do it on release day.

[00:14:22]Had so many slowdowns again just because of life stuff. Uh, PhD stuff, job search stuff. There was all those new releases all packed into end of October through November there, right? And something had to give and it ended up being this. And similar to Betrayal in Winter, I kept trying to squeeze it in and I just kept not being able to because of all the slowdowns and all the buddy reads and all whatever.

[00:14:44]But it's finally going to happen. This is No Life Forsaken by Steven Erikson, the newest Malazan book. And wow, I'm excited for this. Short and sweet, relatively speaking for a Malazan book.

[00:14:55]I think it's 500 pages or less, something like that. 400 pages.

[00:14:59]Awesome to see. And I really liked what Erikson did with The God is Not Willing, his first book in the Witness series, the sequel to the Malazan Book of the Fallen. Loved what he did with that.

[00:15:08]We're picking up some threads that got left hanging in the Book of the Fallen.

[00:15:12]Now we're going to see what are the consequences of those things, right?

[00:15:16]Love that.

[00:15:17]My opinion of why it's called the Witness series is we are witnessing the consequences of these things. I could be wrong, but that's my opinion. And we're going to jump around right to different continents just like we did in the Book of the Fallen. And so this book goes back to the Seven Cities, so totally different setting, totally different cast of characters from what we had in The God Is Not Willing, which is fine.

[00:15:34]I'm used to that by now and I I just love all these different places. So I'm excited to get back here and man, I have high hopes for this. So as with every Erikson book, I expect it to be bare minimum really, really good and potentially incredible. And spectacular and and fantastic. So we'll see where this lands within that spectrum, but I'm I'm stoked. I know some people who have read it and talked about it and really, really loved it. So I'm excited for this, even more excited to read it alongside my good buddy Shay and who has been buried with being super busy himself, but here over the summer should have a little bit more time and we've both been really wanting to get to this. So why not now? No life forsaken, can't wait for that. So that's my reading, man. It's been we're on a hot streak, dude. We got a lot of really, really great stuff going on that I'm so excited about. Speaking of stuff I'm excited about, let me scroll down here a little bit to not mess this up.

[00:16:26]Book club update. By the way, if you want to join the book club, the link is in the description of every single video for the Patreon. You can get in there, see all the information that you could possibly be interested in, decide if you'd like to join or not. We would love to have you in there. It's so much fun.

[00:16:38]We have this cool voting process every week. We get closer and closer to selecting our next pick for the book club. It's a bi-monthly, so we have two months where in that two months every week, eight weeks in a row, narrowing down, we find our selection and we have two months, of course, to read the book and then we can chat about it as we go and big discussion as a group at the end. It's so, so fun. And this one's stacking up to be just as great as all the previous ones, right? So now where we're at is we've cut it down to six, right? So six finalists. Where we're at here now is Blackstone Heart by Michael R. Fletcher, Ironbound by Andrew Giller, Legend by David Gemmell, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones, The Last Ranger by J.D. L. Rosell, and there is no anti-memetics division by Quantum. I always say that with a question mark because I'm not sure if that's the correct way to say the author name, but those are top six. Now, what we're going to do though is man, like there's some stuff that we all really we're excited for and it just didn't quite make it into the top six. So, now we have a revival round where we're going to be able to go through the dropouts, vote in two of them to come back into the game here. So, that's the process of the next week. So, go through those and get two of them back in. So, that'll be fun to see what comes back.

[00:17:48]It's always interesting. There's every every book club there is at least one of these dropouts early on that gets voted back in and makes it pretty much all the way to the end. It's really cool to see.

[00:17:58]So, excited for that. Before I leave you, the last thing to shout out is a live stream I got the chance to do over this past weekend, a discussion with the wonderful and amazing P.L. Stuart over on his channel. And man, I had the best time. I I love talking to P.L. He's just the best. And really fun discussion, talked about all kinds of stuff from some of my Ph.D. stuff to books and reading obviously and just a bunch of writing stuff that a lot of really really cool things. So, please go check that out. While you're there, watch all the other stuff that's on P.L.'s channel. He he is just so many amazing conversations, what an just super important member of the community, and he's just endless interviews and videos and reviews and all kinds of stuff over there that um frankly, are under appreciated just how how good he is. So, please go check out that video and the rest of the great work over on his channel.

[00:18:49]And with that, I think that about wraps me up here. So, let me know in the comments what your week has been like.

[00:18:55]What are you reading? What are you up to? And as always, I'd love to talk to you guys down there. If you want to have more conversations, you want to join the community even more strongly, you can find in the description not just the Patreon, but the free Discord for everybody, right? You can get in there, join, have a great time with everyone else who is there. If you like this video, please hit the thumbs up. It helps to spread this out through the YouTube's somehow. I don't know how it works, but it seems to be helpful. If you like the the channel and you have not subscribed yet, I would love to have you subscribe. I'd love to have you join the community here. It's fun to see it grow. It's fun to meet more people and just make more cool videos and have more fun conversations as always.

[00:19:30]Thank you so much. I'll see you next time.