We were saddened to learn today of the passing today of Christopher Tolkien, someone who has done more for the fantasy genre than most people realize. Craig talks a bit about the younger Tolkien's legacy and his contribution to fantasy. The bulk of the episode is reserved for reviewing Netflix's The Witcher, starring Henry Cavill. There's a lot to love and a lot to ... love somewhat less, and we'll get to a few of those things on today's episode. Craig and Kyle are joined on this episode by Matt Hatch from The Dusty Wheel, a Wheel of Time-centric, live call-in show on YouTube. Go check it out.

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Music: "The Seven Seas" courtesy of https://www.philter.no/

Craig, Ryan, and Stephanie knock out their entire Blood Mirror discussion in a single episode instead of two. Is Brent pulling too many rugs out from under our feet? Has he improved since Night Angel in his use of sex and violence? Speaking of which, let's talk about that Author's Note...

Here's one of the massive solar arrays Ryan mentioned.

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Music: "Adventure Time" and "The Seven Seas" courtesy of https://www.philter.no/

I really hope Craig puts info here.... (Narrator: But Craig did NOT put any info here. He decided to let Ryan sleep in the bed which he'd made. His decision was validated when he looked ahead and realized Ryan had called Sanderson's latest book "nonsense," which would surely become a delightful regret.) Todd, Kenn and Ryan blather on about Starsight or some such nonsense. They were clearly tired and made questionable decisions. Support us on Patreon.

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Music: "Adventure Time" and "The Seven Seas" courtesy of https://www.philter.no/

Blue Team is back for a quick dip back into Dresden before taking a more extended break from it for a while. But what an interesting time the Blue Team has had with it! From a "yeah I guess we'll read this because the listeners seem to want us to" series to a "oh my word this is really really good" series, it's been a pretty wild ride through Dresden so far. Thanks for hanging in there with us. And yes, we will finish the whole series!

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Music: "Adventure Time" and "The Seven Seas" courtesy of https://www.philter.no/

Craig, Ryan, and Stephanie finally get back on the horse and continue their discussions of Brent Weeks's Lightbringer series. This time they cap off book 3, The Broken Eye. Where do Andross's loyalties lie? What will Teia do with/for the Order of the Broken Eye? Will Kip and Teia ever get together? Does Stephanie hate hot girls in books? Only one way to find out!

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Music: "Adventure Time" and "The Seven Seas" courtesy of https://www.philter.no/

Craig, Stephanie, and Kyle are back for the final installment of our podcast series on The Hobbit. In this episode, we talk about chapters 15 through 19, including Bilbo's theft of the Arkenstone, the Battle of the Five Armies, and the return journey home.

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Music: "Adventure Time" and "The Seven Seas" courtesy of https://www.philter.no/

Craig, Ryan, Megan, Kenn, and Todd crowd around the mics to give you what you all need: another podcast of people chatting about the new Star Wars movie. It is our inevitable destiny that we'll do a minimum of one Star Wars episode every year until the end of time, so here we are again. We're finally (maybe?) putting the Skywalker saga to bed, and we give it quite the send-off, with nearly 90 minutes of argument, conjecture, and horrible, forced Star Wars puns. (ha.)

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Music: "Adventure Time" and "The Seven Seas" courtesy of https://www.philter.no/

Pretty much what the title says! During our latest YouTube livestream Craig, Kenn, and Megan sat down and spun the Wheel of Tangents. Megan updates the group on her progress in The Wheel of Time; Craig gives his first impressions of both N.K. Jemisin and Joe Abercrombie; and Kenn holds forth on The Mandalorian. They talked about a wide variety of subjects, obviously, but the real takeaway here, as you'll see, is that Kenn and Megan don't see nearly enough movies.

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Music: "The Seven Seas" courtesy of https://www.philter.no/

Craig dons his elbow patches so that he and Kyle can continue their Hobbit adventure, this time talking about the Smaug chapters: that is, chapters 12 through 14. They talk about Smaug, of course, but also about the Arkenstone, the relationship of these scenes to others in The Hobbit and in The Lord of the Rings, and Tolkien's meditations on greed. Ever wondered why Smaug was so ticked off that the villagers of Lake Town had destroyed their bridges? Listen and find out!

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Music: "The Seven Seas" courtesy of https://www.philter.no/

Of all the authors we've covered on the show, whose works would we remove from existence? What takes you out of a book the quickest? How important are maps to fantasy stories? Kyle and Craig tackle these and many other burning questions on today's Wheel of Tangents.

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Music: "The Seven Seas" courtesy of https://www.philter.no/