April Wrap Up - Project Hail Mary, Gene Wolfe and The Terminal List

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Well, hello everyone. Glad to have you here. We are outside again. Um because it is a beautiful day out here and I'd like to talk a little bit about what I read in the month of April. Um April on the whole was a really really solid reading month. Um I read a couple of books that uh I really enjoyed and one book in particular that I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up on my year-end top 10 list. The first book that I read this month um was The Hallowed Hunt by Lois McMaster Build. This is me catching up on my reading schedule that I announced at the beginning of the year.

[00:00:34]I was supposed to read The Hallowed Hunt in March, so I started it late March, finished it up early April. This is the third book in her World of the Five Gods, the third novel in her World of the Five Gods series. There's a bunch of uh Penrich and Desdona uh novelas that she wrote uh and has been writing since these books. Um but originally, my understanding is that this series was supposed to be five books long. Um each book focusing on uh highlighting a different supernatural or theological aspect of one of these five gods. Um and The Hallowed Hunt is the last one that that she wrote. And at this point, it it doesn't really sound like she's all that interested in in finishing them up, but all of these books essentially work as standalones. Um they're not really I mean books one and two are sort of connected with each other. This one I would say I liked slightly less than um Curse of Chalion, but slightly more than Paladin of Souls. All of these books uh run the gambit between like four and 4.5 stars for me. So, Hallowed Hunt is about there is a a lowerass noble essentially and is sent out to this castle that's on the far reaches of the the kingdom that he's living in because there's a woman there who has murdered the prince uh the son of the king and he discovers that it's because the prince was trying and you learn this very early on but the prince was trying to essentially have this woman be a sacrifice and some sort of evil ritual. And what the book then proceeds to be is essentially uh both sort of a a murder mystery trying to figure out well there was more going on here than just this prince. There were other people involved who were trying to get this woman killed. So who all was involved? But also what is going on supernaturally? Um we have sort of the traditional almost like orthodox view of the five gods uh the father, the mother, the son, the daughter, and the bastard.

[00:02:35]um that's been presented several times throughout the series and we've interacted with uh different aspects of the gods. Um but in this book specifically, we look at an older view of how people used to view the supernatural landscape of this world. Um one could describe it as even being a little bit more of a pagan view and how do these things integrate together? This one, like I said, I I enjoyed more than Paladin of Souls. Paladin of Souls is a solid book, but the consistent problem uh that I've personally had with these World of the Five Gods books is that they tend to be more interesting than emotionally engaging. So, Curse of Chalion is the one that is the most emotionally engaging to me because of just how strong that protagonist is in the character of Caserel. Um, book two does have an enjoyable uh protagonist to follow, but I didn't find myself quite as emotionally connected to her. And book three is essentially the same way.

[00:03:31]Having said that, uh, book three is still, uh, very entertaining. There's a lot of interesting things, uh, that Bold is playing with here. The next book that I read this month, um, was, believe it or not, Harry Potter, uh, and the God of Fire. I'm not going to talk about this one too much. Most of you here have either already read it or don't plan on reading it. Um, all I will say is that I really missed the boat on Harry Potter.

[00:03:54]I didn't grow up with it. I am much more interested by the overarching plot stuff with Voldemort and the Dark Lords and the Death Eaters and all this stuff and what happened with, you know, Harry's parents and, you know, the generation beforehand. I'm much more interested in that than I am about the school drama stuff. Uh, the joke that I consistently say is I do not care about if we will pass potion class or not. I don't care.

[00:04:18]So, um, some of the things and especially some of the the earlier books, I'm just like, can we get on with it, please? Uh, Goblet of Fire, though, has some really interesting things in it. It is probably my favorite of the four that I've read so far, while still not being, you know, a book that necessarily uh, blew me away. Uh, the one thing that I really have enjoyed is that like Rowling just does not like give a rip about her world building. her world building is so bizarre and nonsensical and like totally does not work together at times. Um things like if you think about this for two seconds, you're like what? That makes no sense.

[00:04:57]And I I kind of love that she writes it that way that she writes it with almost this like creative abandon of like it it doesn't need to make sense on a literal level. Uh it makes sense for the story.

[00:05:07]So sure, what the heck, write it that way. Uh the next book that I read this month was Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. um long before I was uh on book I read both of Andy Weir's other books. I read Artemis like right after it was released um and then had read The Martian um sometime before that. So yeah, I would describe myself largely as a fan of Andy Weir. You know, he's a hard sci-fi author. Um Project Hail Mary though I think is his best novel. Um I I was one of these normies, right, who like hadn't read it and then went and saw the movie and was like, "Oh, this is amazing. Let me go back and read it."

[00:05:43]And uh specifically I I read this novel when I did because uh there was um or I went through the novel when I did because on the Bookstreet Boys Discord they were having what was essentially a reading contest and whoever won got to pick a book uh that I got to read. The fellow who won said, "Hey, how about how about we read Project Hail Mary?" Um so I did. And one thing I'll say is I I went through it uh using the audiobook and re Ray Porter Ray Porter reads the audio book and he is easily one of my favorite audiobook narrators. He does the terminalist books. Um he did the power of the dog by Don Winslow. I think he does the Rune Lords books by uh uh David Farland. Um so I I love Ray Porter and him reading this book just elevated the experience for me as well. So what to say about Project Hail Mary? um that hasn't been said already by, you know, tons of other people. Um I I guess what I would point you to first would be the fantasy author DJ Butler, who I'm a big fan of, um started a YouTube channel recently called High Low Brow, and he did a video on Project Hail Mary, specifically on the book. Um although he does talk about the movie in it as well and his analysis and insight into the book and some of the things that he pulls out of there is really interesting. It is easy to look at books that aren't dark at books that lean more optimistic and dismiss them as being cheap, dismiss them as being not as deep. Um well if you're not looking into the abyss man it doesn't really count, right? And I think this book kind of flies in the face of that because Andy Weir uh in his writing is unabashedly an optimist. And in Project Hail Mary, it's funny that it's coming out now because it seems like the news cycle is filled with nothing uh but bad news. It feels like people have never been more divided than they are right now. And Project Hail Mary is ultimately a story about uh not just people coming together, but also putting our faith in one lucky shot, in one person. and hoping that they come through for us. Mild spoiler warning for for Project Hail Mary if you want to know absolutely nothing. I'm not going to spell out any plot details, but I'll speak generally about a theme in it uh that some people might not want to know. The impression that you get after you walk out of the movie or finish reading the book is that there is uh it's sort of standing in opposition to Lovecraft. You know, Lovecraft says there are other things out there in the in the universe and they are scary evil space demons that want to like kill you and eat you, you know. Um, and Christopher Rockio obviously is dealing with that in a in a pretty intense way in his work is in conversation with that, as is Gene Wolf, as is Tim Powers.

[00:08:29]And to a certain extent, um, Andy Weir is is not really in conversation with Lovecraft, but is kind of saying the opposite, that there is something else out there in the universe. There is something more powerful and greater than just us. Um, but that it's benevolent, that maybe there's something greater out there that's looking out for us. Maybe there's been a guiding hand that's been helping us all the way along, um, that has our best interests at heart. And maybe the way that the universe like people compare project hail Mary to interstellar and there's some superficial reasons as to why that is you know oh the earth is is dying so we have to send one you know uh mission out there and hope that it works but ultimately the way that it's similar the way that it is the most similar to interstellar is the primary fundamental theme that the world is saved by love and I found that to be truly impactful.

[00:09:22]I love the movie. Uh, and the book is a lot more techy, is a lot more about the hard science and breaking everything down. And some people don't quite jive with it. And to be perfectly frank, like you know, um, like that's not what I go to the book for, but I I feel like it is, uh, doing a good job of telling that type of story. The book would be weaker if it was presented in a more straightforward way like the movie is.

[00:09:45]Um, moving on to the next thing here. I just did a video on this recently, so I I will uh not repeat too many of my thoughts, but I read The Night by Gene Wolf. This is the first part in his Wizard Knight duogy, and I really enjoyed this. This is one of the easier starting places for uh Wolf that I've read so far. Uh while at the same time, um not being my favorite thing from him.

[00:10:08]Um it's not bad uh by any means. It's probably a four out of five stars. Uh, and that may change once I finish the duogy, once I ruminate on it more, once I think about it more and figure out more of what he's doing here. Uh, but The Night tells the story of a young boy named Abel who gets transported to a fantasy land and appears to be a grown man once he's been transported there and has some magical encounters. And, uh, Abel decides after he has this body of a man that he is going to become a knight.

[00:10:39]Um, and he has a a a plethora of adventures after that. Um, like I said, this this is relatively approachable for Wolf. Wolf is famous whether it's Book of the New Sun or Fifth Head of Cberus or any number of his other books. People say it's hard to understand what's going on or to really wrap your head around this world that he's describing. And you don't really have that problem uh with The Knight. The Knight, the setup is relatively straightforward. There are some things that can feel a little bit like esoteric in terms of uh where the story goes or uh there's different like layers to this fantasy universe and how he goes from one layer to the next can be uh a little confusing at times. But if you kind of just roll with it, if you kind of uh try to avoid overintellectualizing it, um I think most people uh will have an easy time making sense of it. The next book that I read, and this was actually a reread for me, is I read The Maltese Falcon by Dashio Hammet. Uh I read this with uh Britain over at some Okie Dude. Um and I think we'll be having a discussion about that uh coming up here sometime soon. Um and this was a reread for me. I first read Malty's Falcon probably a couple of years ago and was just kind of okay. Uh didn't really love it. Was just kind of like eh, whatever. But Britain asked if I'd be interested in reading it and I said, you know, maybe a reread wouldn't be all that bad and it's relatively short and I really enjoyed it this time.

[00:12:04]Maybe it's because I just read a couple of Raymond Chandler books earlier in the year, so my my mind was sort of more in that headsp space. Um, but I thought that this novel was excellent. It is about a detective named Sam Spade and he is approached by a woman who is in trouble and it originally is presented as sort of like there being a crisis there being like this crime thing that's going on and she's trying to escape from uh somebody who's dangerous or abusive in her past and it kind of becomes a heist novel uh after that it becomes there's this stolen item this very valuable uh relic almost the Maltese falcon and uh he ends up getting this detective ends up getting embroiled in the plot to try to recover it and see if they can sell it off to the highest bidder. Dash Hammet's writing is like razor sharp, similar to Raymond Chandlers. You know, they're they're birds of a feather. It has that pulp quality to it. Uh the characters are not the deepest, but they serve the plot well for what they're doing. Um and on a reread, I was able to appreciate this book uh to a much greater degree. I found it to be really effective um and very entertaining. The one thing I will say is that Sam Spade is like a bit of a bastard uh in terms of his character as opposed to uh a guy like Philip Marlo from you know the big sweep from Raymond Chandler's book. Uh Sam Spade like does not really have a moral compass in the same way. And so a lot of the things that people would look at as the trappings of noir of him being crass, him being cold-hearted, him being you know not very kind to to many of the women that he's around. Um, it's not to say that those things are excused, but it's like, yeah, that totally fits with uh with the character that has been presented uh so far in the book. So, if you haven't read the Maltese Falcon, I would say uh I probably prefer The Big Sweep. So, if you're wanting like what's a great introduction to classic noir, I'd probably say The Big Sweep over Maltese Falcon. Um, but if you're interested in it, like definitely pick it up. It's it's a short read and it's I would say it's worth one's time. The next book that I read was I finished my reread of The Two Towers um by JRR Tolken. This is our uh family copy of it here. Um and The Two Towers is amazing.

[00:14:17]It is brilliant. It is one of my favorite fantasy novels ever written. Or maybe I should say it is one-third of my favorite fantasy novel. And yet, this one may be my least favorite uh of the three parts. Uh it is not bad by any means. Look at that. Look at that.

[00:14:36]just gorgeous and it has some of my favorite parts uh in Lord of the Rings, but I would say in its totality, I think Fellowship of the Ring is probably the strongest section and Return of the King has like the most awesome moments in the whole thing. So, one of them has to be ranked third. What really stuck out to me um in this reading of it, I think it is possible to read these books and separate them from the movies, but the movies are such classics. They're so iconic. Most people have probably rewatched the movies more than they've reread the books. And so our view of the books is often filtered through that lens of the movies. And yeah, we kind of know that like, you know, Phamir's different in the books than he is in the movies, but you don't really get a clear idea why. And you're like, oh yeah, wasn't Helm's Deep like kind of underwhelming in the book? Yeah, I think I remember that. Whereas it's this big thing. And I think the thing that people forget is just how much Jackson restructures things for the movies. So, for example, um, Helm's Deep feels like underwhelming for people in when they read the books because they're expecting it to be this big epic climax to the whole novel. And Helm's Deep happens maybe a quarter of the way into the book. Now, that's because, you know, you've got part one that's with the uh, Aragorn, WGist, and Gimwy, and then you've got part two that's with Froto and Sam. But even with that, Helm's Deep is not meant to be the climax of that section. The climax of that section is Gandalf and Theodin confronting Saurroman. Like that is the climactic moment. So I I think that the character of Theodin um honestly and I'm I'm reading Return of the King now. Um both the character of Theodin and Denithor are pretty simplified for the movies.

[00:16:17]This is not to say that they're badly done um or that I think that the movies are doing a poor job with them. It's just it's different. But I think they feel like much more fleshed out human beings in the book uh than they do in the movies. And and that's just me personally, which is funny because people will often say like, "Oh, the movies make like Aragorn and some of these characters feel more like characters and less like archetypes."

[00:16:41]And I think with some of the side characters, it's actually the opposite.

[00:16:44]Um I think the books probably do a better job with them. The one change that I think is it really shows just how brilliant uh even the structure of the book is is that the last we see of Frodo in The Two Towers, I guess spoilers if you've made it this far, spoilers for the Two Towers, but the last you see of him is him being unconscious uh being dragged away by these orcs uh off into this tower to get tortured and Sam gets knocked out in the tunnels leading up to the tower. And then the next thing that we hear about Frodo from somebody who uh claims to have encountered him is in Return of the King when the mouth of Sauron comes out saying, "Look at this.

[00:17:19]I got Frodo's weapons and his clothes.

[00:17:21]And by the way, we tortured him to death, so your mission is lost anyway.

[00:17:25]Might as well just surrender now cuz like your ring bear is dead, so what you going to do?" Um, when that happens in the movie, it's like, "Well, get out of here. We just saw Froto walking like 10 minutes ago in terms of movie time."

[00:17:38]Whereas in the book, the last we've seen of him, that could very well be true.

[00:17:42]Now, obviously, an astute reader is going to see, oh, I've still got, you know, 300 pages left. Um, but the last we know of him, there's no reason to doubt other than the pages remaining to doubt what the mouth of Sauron has said there. And the moment is much more powerful because of that, because of how it's done in the books. So, anyway, I'm a big defender of how Tolken structures those books. I know it's offputting to some people. treat it like how Tolken wrote it, which is they're literally labeled book one, book two, book three, book four, book five, book six. Um, it's like reading different entries in a series that are following different subsets of characters until they all cohhere at the end. So, reading Return of the King now and thoroughly loving it. All right, the next novel, this is second to last book that I read this month, was Last Call by Tim Powers. This is part of my great Tim Powers readathon. Um, I think I have six, maybe seven books uh left by him that I need to read. And this is probably his most famous novel that I had not yet read.

[00:18:41]Uh, it says on the cover, Last Call, The Game, Poker, The Stakes, One Man's Soul.

[00:18:46]And that's about right. Uh, Last Call posits, this one is much more of an urban fantasy novel than like historical um like secret history. This one uh posits that Las Vegas and uh the surrounding area in Nevada, it's not quite clear how large this dominion goes, but that it's ruled over by this spiritual figure called the Fisher King, who is obviously a famous figure out of uh uh English myth and ties into the Arththeran mythos in some ways. Uh but the Fisher King is like this spiritual title that one person holds and holds a certain amount of spiritual authority while they hold on to this title. Um and that there's this uh our main character, his name is Scott Crane, has sort of been groomed by his biological father who is the Fisher King to basically be the one who next takes on the mantle by having his soul removed from his body. And then Scott's father will inhabit the body of his son and continue to rule as the Fisher King.

[00:19:45]things go ary when Scott is very young.

[00:19:48]Um Scott ends up getting uh separated from his father and is raised by a foster father who's much more kind and loving. Um and this is all told you to you within the first you know chapter and a half. But um when Scott and Scott has no awareness that this is what is going on. Um so we read a little bit from his father's perspective. So we know you know what's going to be happening here. Um, but Scott is raised around the Las Vegas scene by his foster father and, uh, learns to be an expert card player. And when he comes of age, uh, he eventually gets married and things start to go badly in his life.

[00:20:24]Some things start to come together like a row of dominoes of just negative things happening to him. Um, and he realizes that the Fisher King is on the hunt for him and is going to try to essentially exercise his soul from his body, kill his soul, and inhabit him instead. And this book is wild. There are like because of this like soul exorcism thing, there are like essentially walking zombies. Uh, the bad guys use tarot cards. Uh, it kind of plays into poker to try to predict the future and predict where people will be.

[00:20:55]Um, so there's a certain like divination element with what the bad guys are doing there. Um, there's stuff about um like seeing patterns through things that should be seemingly random that start to prop up when s certain supernatural and spiritual forces come close to poker games. Certain card combinations uh will come up and that becomes a tell. Um, so there's some wild things in this novel and I can confirm this is one of his better novels. Um, I would say it's probably in my top five in terms of of books. And that just shows you how strong it is because I'm predisposed to like his vampire novel. I am predisposed to like his werewolf novel. I'm I'm like especially predisposed to like the stuff about the romantic poets, right? Um, I'm not somebody who's a part of the Vegas or poker scene. Like I've played poker, but I'm not very good at it. Um, and so the fact that he's able to overcome my predisposition towards some of his other novels and just shows how strong this one is. If I had to make a criticism, I would say it is probably a little bit long. It is similar in length to a novel like Declare. I will say this probably has some of P's strongest characters.

[00:22:04]Some of Tim P's critics will say that some of his characters can feel a little bit uh shallow or blank or like you're just following along with these people.

[00:22:12]they're just uh characters for the purposes of the story, but they don't feel super three-dimensional.

[00:22:18]And with a couple of his books, you know, I can see what people mean, but for most of his books, I don't think that's true. I will say, though, that Last Call has some of his strongest characters, and some of the twists and turns in that novel are a lot of fun, are really good. Um, I don't know that I'd recommend it as a starting place for powers, but we'll have to see. Maybe I should do a video on that uh sometime coming up here. The last novel that I read, and I just barely finished it. I finished it on uh the last day of April here, is Only the Dead by Jack Carr.

[00:22:49]This is the sixth novel in the Terminalist series. And uh man, I love this series. I love it so so much. Uh The Terminalist is like one of my favorite novels. Certainly one of my favorite thrillers. And all the other books in the series have been good. I haven't had one dethrone that first book for me yet just because that first one really speaks to me in some powerful ways. Uh but this one gets close. Uh I would say my favorites are probably Termininalist and then book three, Savage Son, and then probably this one, Only the Dead. In this novel, uh well, I'll say the last novel sort of ended with James Ree being arrested uh by the Secret Service um because he was set up.

[00:23:30]He was framed. And so this novel is about James Ree trying to get to the bottom of who tried to frame him and who was actually responsible. And some of the evil forces uh behind it we learn very quickly are uh elements of the rogue elements of like Russian mafia uh members and also some other foreign entities that are trying to start up a war in the Middle East.

[00:23:54]Yeah. Uh and this novel I think came out in 2023. So it's weirdly topical in that way. This isn't the first time that Jack Carr has done this. Jack Carr predicted a war between um between Russia and Ukraine in his novel True Believer. Um so this is not the first time that he has read the writing on the wall, seen what's you know what to him would seem inevitable and writes it into his story a few years before it actually happens.

[00:24:20]Um but yeah, this is like how much else can you talk about the plot without getting into spoilers? It's book six in the series. If you like military Navy Seal type of thrillers, I would say uh definitely check this out. This to me reads as like a less technical, more actionheavy like Tom Clansancy novel. Um but really like for as much action as as there is in these books and there's a lot for as much geopolitics as gets discussed and there's some of that uh the strength of these series uh of this series is the main character James Ree and his friends Rafe um Katie some of the other people that he surrounds himself with. And you care about the story. You care about if they're going to get out of this latest predicament that they're in because you care about the characters so much. Uh, and yeah, I've just I've I've thoroughly enjoyed this series. I will say Only the Dead is probably the most violent book in the series so far. But once again, these books are narrated by Ray Porter, and he's just amazing. He's brilliant in the same way that the book Project Hail Mary has a lot of like technical stuff about space and, you know, science and all of this. Only the Dead is kind of similar to that in that there's a lot of technical stuff about military things and weapons and, you know, Jack Carr, the author, is a former Navy Seal. So, I I wouldn't expect anything less from him at this point. But yeah, that's everything that I read in April. My goal was to get this video done in shorter time than I normally do, but uh that did not happen. I will say, what am I reading now? Um like I said, I am reading through The Return of the King.

[00:25:55]I'm trying to finish up my reread uh of Lord of the Rings that I started late last year. Um and obviously, Return of the King is a masterpiece. It's 10 out of 10. It's amazing. It's brilliant. I am also uh almost done with The Silence of the Lambs uh by Thomas Harris. I read Red Dragon a couple of months ago and enjoyed it and Silence of the Lambs is substantially better. So, I'm I'm really enjoying It's weird to say you're enjoying, you know, a Hannibal Lectctor novel. Um but Harris does a lot of really interesting things. There's a lot of interesting things that he says about uh the crime novel genre. uh a lot of interesting points that he's making in there and a lot of interesting points about the nature of right and wrong and modern moral judgments. Uh anyway, I'll elaborate more on that when I when I talk about it eventually here. Um and then the last book that I would say that I'm reading right now is Master Alvin by Orson Scott Card. Uh Card was gracious enough to send me a copy of this. Uh I'm just reading through it very slowly uh because my my real life is kind of hectic at the moment. So, my my time for physically reading is is is a little bit more limited than I would like. But anyway, guys, that is what I read in the month of April. Let me know what you read. Thank you so much for watching this. If you want to connect with me in the Bookstreet Boys Discord, I will link that down below. Anyway, I'm going to wrap it up there, guys. Take care. Have a great month of reading in uh in May, and I will talk to you next time.