.jpg)
But Are There Dragons Podcast
Two fantasy lovers quite ready for another adventure…and by adventure, we mean podcast! Join us as we–a LOTR vet and LOTR first-timer–take on the works of Tolkien! Welcome to But Are There Dragons, a podcast where two friends pick a book at least one of them has not read and work their way through it a few chapters at a time.
But Are There Dragons Podcast
Episode 1: Our Big Announcement!
Coming off of a hiatus with a new baby, a new house, and a new state, the BATD gals are changing things up with a new release schedule, a new reading format, and even a new author! Yes, we are deviating from Tolkien (for now, and you'll find out to whom and why in THIS bonus episode!
Don’t forget to follow us at But Are There Dragons on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, and But Dragons Pod, just one t, on X, formerly known as Twitter.
You can find Kritter at Kritter XD on YouTube, TikTok, and X, and at Kritter _XD on Instagram.
You can find Jessica by searching Shelf Indulgence on TikTok, Instagram, and X.
Music credit to: Frog's Theme by Nobuo Uematsu, Noriko Matsueda, Yasunori Mitsuda
ReMix: Chrono Trigger "Theme of Frog's" - OC ReMix
Hi and welcome to, but Are there Dragons, a podcast where two friends pick a book at least one of them hasn't read and talk about it? I'm your host, Jess.
Speaker 2:And I'm your host, Critter.
Speaker 1:Hi everybody, hi Crit.
Speaker 2:And we're back, we're back, we are back. It has been many, many months, more than half a year. I know a lot has changed. Uh, a lot has changed. I'm a parent now, whoa, which is crazy live baby dragon. Long live baby dragon. And uh, and I think it's high time that we start reading and talking about what we read again, and I think you agree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm into it, I'm into it.
Speaker 2:Okay. So if you are new here, I'll say initially that you could totally catch up. We read the Hobbit and the trilogy of the Lord of the Rings in 2023 and 2024, sort of. And so if you want a companion podcast for that, we're your girls. But are there dragons? But if you want to start reading with us, we're here to announce our next book. But before we do, we're going to tell you a little bit of a format change, because with lord of the rings we were, we were getting into the nitty-gritty, we wanted granular.
Speaker 2:We were granular, it was intense. Plus, I had read them and jessica had not read them, so we had kind of like, uh, the the newbies perspective versus somebody who's a little bit more, you know, like into the universe's perspective.
Speaker 1:And that's not going to be the case here, because neither of us have read we're throwing away the rule book, we're doing it all differently, we don't even care Right.
Speaker 2:So instead of doing a couple of chapters at a time, we're going to take the book in halves. So we're going to take an entire month to read one book, sort of book club style. But halfway through the month we're going to check in, you know, so we can add our predictions, we can talk about how we're feeling about certain characters or whatever, before the grand finale and whatever ends up happening in the end.
Speaker 1:And the other major change is that when we were talking about what project we wanted to focus on next, we decided to go with something that neither of us have read. So this time, instead of going with the newbie and the vet dynamic, we picked a project that neither of us has read yet, so we're coming to it fresh Again. That's where those predictions are going to come in, and we need to talk about what that looks like, right? Do we want to go back to just a couple of chapters at a time or do we want to shift? So we did ultimately decide to change how much we're reading in a sitting, whatever that sitting looks like, um, and how often we come together because of all the life changes.
Speaker 1:So, uh, baby dragon is a huge new thing, yeah um mr jessica and I have a new world going on as well, so we've had some changes, and so that has led us to this place where we're shaking up the format a little bit. So we wanted to explain that, we wanted to share that we are back and that we are excited and announce our new project, with some dates to go with it, but hopefully we gave you enough of the why. So, critter, you want to tell them what's next on our horizon.
Speaker 2:Sure, the next book that but Are there Dragons will be reading along with the but Are there Dragons, friends is Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yaros. So you may be wondering. Don't leave if you're like oh okay, what? Like what? What is this? This is a new book. This isn't Tolkien. What are we talking about? We're going to tell you why we picked it. Okay, so, just like, give us a minute, give us a minute. Thing number one for me. I've always intended to read this because it is huge. It's everywhere. Not only is it on BookTok, but it is on. There were midnight release parties for the most recent book. By the way, there are currently four books in the series. There are supposedly going to be five and we're going to take it one book at a time. Make sure we like it. We're not going to commit to reading the entire series right now, but if we like the first book, then we might. So that's something to consider.
Speaker 1:And there are fan clubs. So I will say that in my real life I was out doing a birthday party with a friend and there was a fourth wing book club party happening at the um, at the craft place that we were at. So we were doing a crafting outing for her birthday and they these were all people who were in a book club together have read Fourth Wing together. They had Fourth Wing shirts. It was very cool, it was very niche, it was right up my nerd alley. So as much as to Critter's point that this series is everywhere on BookTalk and kind of pervasive throughout every space. It even is spilling into my quote-unquote normal life. So I thought, hey, that's fun, I could get into that and let's see what it's about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we've got. I kind of looked at the reviews, right, and I've looked at the book covers. And another thing for me is I listen on Audible, I listen on audiobooks, but I love a good book, like collecting books. And I don't know if you've seen the fourth wing books at, like Barnes and Noble.
Speaker 1:They're pretty.
Speaker 2:So pretty and for the sake of this podcast, they have dragons on them.
Speaker 1:Spoilers there are definitely dragons.
Speaker 2:There are dragons, which is very exciting, and on the cover of one of the books is a review that I thought was promising the most brutally addictive fantasy I've read in a decade from number one New York Times bestselling author, tracy Wolfe. So I don't hate that Sounds amazing. So, jessica, you looked up kind of the Goodreads blurb on like what the vibe?
Speaker 2:is we're going to keep. I think this blurb is minimum spoilers, but it'll give you a taste of what to expect, just in case you're on the fence about whether you want to join us on this journey.
Speaker 1:And I will say that this blurb is the extent. So I am going to continue on like I did with our Lord of the Rings days, where I have put a moratorium on all things fourth wing outside of the podcast for me, so I will not be Googling things. I retrieved this blurb from Goodreads because I am a Goodreads fan, but that's it, so I won't know anything else going into it to keep myself pristine, because that is how I like to do new books.
Speaker 2:So this will be all I know going in.
Speaker 1:So from Goodreads it tells us that 20-year-old Violet Sorengale was supposed to enter the scribe quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. She sounds like our kind of girl. Now the commanding general, also known as her tough-as-talons mother, has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre dragon riders. There are dragons A little tingle.
Speaker 2:There are dragons. Yeah, a little goose bump.
Speaker 1:So eight-year-old Jessica always wanted to ride dragons, but when you're smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away. Because dragons don't bond to fragile humans, they incinerate them. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother's daughter. Like Zayden Morrison, I'm sure I'm murdering that the most powerful and ruthless wing leader in the rider's quadrant. She'll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise. Yet with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly. The kingdom's protective wards are failing and the death toll continues to rise even worse. Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret. Friends, enemies, lovers everyone at basgia war college has an agenda, because once you enter, there are only two ways out graduate or die okay, so this is like a magical school vibe.
Speaker 1:I don't hate magical schools, I'm kind of in a magical school magical schools but we definitely have some stakes right and we've got stakes on a couple of different levels so war ongoing trying not to die in school, okay and she's got wits I do love. I do love a smart female protagonist. Same same.
Speaker 2:Frankly, I didn't know any of this before we just now talked. All I knew was that there was this book series it was pretty and there were dragons pretty and there were dragons so which, as we've established in our podcast, that that is enough.
Speaker 2:I mean for me to buy the book absolutely. Yeah, I might not read it right away, but I will buy it if it's pretty and there are dragons um heck yeah but yeah. So I hope hearing that got you a little hyped too, because it got me definitely intrigued. I just read the will of the many which had magical school vibes too. Um, yeah, yeah, okay, this is. This is exciting. This has me interested I can't wait me either.
Speaker 2:Well, I hope we convinced you to join us, because I think this should be really, really fun and and we do have a plan for you know what we're reading first, when we're going to drop our first episode and when we'll drop our second episode, final episode for the book and so we can also share that with you, so you can prepare yourself and maybe get the book or use your Audible credit or go to the library and put in a reservation or whatever in advance.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so out of consideration for the but Other Dragon peeps who have been with us already, we definitely wanted to get this out there so that they could do exactly that Get the book if they don't have it. Use that Audible credit whatever it takes. Hit up your library.
Speaker 2:Definitely.
Speaker 1:Because we do love a good library. So, generally speaking, this is going to be our kickoff project for June. So what we are looking to do is we are looking to read and record and release for the first half of the book, which should be chapters 1 through 19, for June 17th release. So we will drop that June 17th and it should hit all of our platforms in the same manner that it did for but Other Dragons, for Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 1:If you're not familiar. We have a YouTube channel and we have socials and we will share them broadly. And also, if you want to discuss it, there is a Discord thread in Critter XD's discord where lots of.
Speaker 2:But other dragons, folks hang out, you're welcome to join us I also have a book club on fable and this, uh, I'm going to choose fourth wing as my book for my book club after the current book that we're reading, so, um. So if you're on there, we have their spoiler protected chapter rooms and, granted, like people are very respectful with spoiler markers in the discord too. But if you're on there, we have their spoiler protected chapter rooms and, granted, like people are very respectful with spoiler markers in the discord too.
Speaker 1:But if you're on fable, you can hop into the book club, so you're like among like-minded individuals there as well and if you're not on fable, it might be a fun excuse to check it out, because it is a fun book place to be yeah, it definitely, definitely is so, yeah, so it'll be the 17th.
Speaker 2:17th should be the drop 17th for the first episode, for the first half and then the second half. The finale is going to be towards the end of June.
Speaker 1:It should drop July 1st. That is our current intention, that's right July 1st. We will keep everybody posted as we go along, but this is going to be Critter and I figuring out our new rhythm. And so we will definitely keep everybody posted, but that's our current plan.
Speaker 2:It is, and I'm really excited to get back into it. I know me too. It's been a while. We also you can look, but are there dragons up basically wherever you get your podcast? We not only have a YouTube, but we're on Spotify, we're on Apple podcasts, we're essentially yeah, we're wherever there are podcasts. So, whatever your preferences, you can find us. And if you would rather see our faces than just listen to us, there's always YouTube. So many options there. And, as Jessica mentioned mentioned, we do have socials, so we try and post, you know, like clips on tiktok and instagram reels, and we are also on blue sky and x, so we're all over the place. Wherever you want to reach out, we'll be around, basically absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, critter, I'm so excited, I'm so excited. I hope we're back, baby. I know, I know, we're so back, we're so back.
Speaker 2:And I hope you all are excited to rejoin. And if you don't want to wait a whole month and a week or however long, I don't know when we're going to drop this, but if you don't want to wait probably about a month to talk about this, check out our old episodes. I'm honestly really proud of the work that we've already done and I'm really excited to get back into this new stuff, even though it's going to be a little bit of a different format.
Speaker 1:I think it's going to be great. And for our existing lord, lord of the rings, fam know that we have not forgotten silmarillion. It is still on our radar. We just weren't ready for that format quite yet. We wanted a little bit of break. We kind of wanted to ease back into it with all of the changes. So, just to give that context, if you or someone who's already been along for the ride or is going through and enjoying our Lord of the Rings stuff, first off appreciate you hey what's up, but just know that Silmarillion is still on the horizon at some point.
Speaker 1:We just wanted to ease in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and especially because I've read the Silmarillion also, I want to give it the time that it deserves a lot, like we did the Lord of the Rings, where it's going to be the Silmarillion is, without spoiling anything, it's like a series of short stories rather than one big, gigantic story, and so we're definitely going to take it a few chapters at a time, if not like a chapter at a time, and so it's going to be a lot more, probably a lot more frequent episodes and it's just going to be more time intensive. So we're going to wait maybe until the baby dragons a little older before we do that. So it but, but we haven't forgotten it, so don't worry about that.
Speaker 1:We're still going to go back to it and and we're going to give it. It's just desserts, Definitely, but it's just desserts.
Speaker 2:Definitely Okay. All right, I think that's all we have to say for announcements.
Speaker 1:We hope to see you there and if you have any suggestions, we are always open to hear from folks about things that you might be interested in seeing or hearing from us. We just were a couple of nerd girls who like talking books, so Thanks.
Speaker 2:Could not be more true, all right. Well, thank you for tuning in and we hope you'll tune in soon, on June 17th, for episode one of Season Wing. Oh sorry, oh my gosh, yeah, is it?
Speaker 1:season, four Season five, five of.
Speaker 2:But Are there Dragons? But Are there Dragons? Covering the first half through chapter 19 of Rebecca Yaros' fourth wing.
Speaker 1:Can't wait to see you there. Bye, bye.
