#FantasySeries Review of The Brightness Between Us | Book Chat - Shelf Addiction Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, book lovers, Welcome back to shelf Ediction, the podcast
where we dive deep into the pages of thriller and
fantasy reads. I am your host, Tamara, and today we
are discussing the second book of our recent sci fidology,
The Brightness between Us. But first a quick heads up.
If you crave the visual experience and want to ditch
the ads, head on over to Patreon. You'll unlock ad

(00:24):
free video episodes, including after shows and tons of bonus content.
If you prefer audio only, sprinker listeners, you're in luck.
After shows and exclusives are available there as well. If
you want even more bookage banter, join our community on
the book Clubs app and don't forget to subscribe and
leave us a review wherever you are listening. Speaking of community,

(00:46):
I am thrilled to welcome back my fantasy series Bessie
and co host Casey from Heart full of Ink.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Welcome back, Casey. Hello, Hello, I'm so excited to be here. Oooo.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
I'm excited that you're here. I think this would be
an interesting conversation. Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Absolutely, we always have the best conversations. I know I'm biased,
but like we have the best conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
So yeah, we do. We do have the best conversations.
There are links in the show notes for everything, how
to follow Casey, how to follow me, how to follow
the podcast in general, how to join us and like us,
and all these things. So please click all the links,
click around, subscribe, do all the things. We appreciate you
for doing that. No shelf updates today. We're going to

(01:29):
jump right in because you know, life's been lifing.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Books have not been read, books have not.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Been read, but this one did. Get ready.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
We spent our time on this book, not other books.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah, so I'm fine enough with that right now.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Me too, Me too.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Okay, So before we get started, I just want to
remind you, as always that with book chats we talk
full spoilers here, so spoiler alert you've been warned. Today
we are discussing the Brightness between Us, written by Elliot Schreefer.
The audiobook is narrated by James Fuji. First published October first,
twenty twenty four, by Clearing Out Books. The hardcover is

(02:09):
four hundred and sixty four pages and the unabridged audio
is eleven hours and two minutes. Casey, would you kindly
share the synapses?

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Seventeen years have gone by since the coordinated in Denver
crashed on a distant exoplanet. Ambrose Cusk and Kodiak Cilius
are now the devoted parents of two teenage children, Owl
and Yarrow, in a hard scrabble frontier home. Though life
on Minerva is full of danger, the family's bond is
enough to make it all worth it, until they learned

(02:40):
that the biggest threat to their survival might come from within.
More than thirty thousand years in the past, Ambrose wakes
on Earth to find his mission to save his sister
was a ruse. His mother betrayed him, and the cruelty
of her true plans set Ambrose spiraling when he discovers
that another when another space face or is suffering his

(03:01):
same fate, he will have to decide whether to risk
crossing a world at war to reach him. Separated by
time and space, a young family and two strangers learn
that their lives are intimately intertwined. They race to uncover
the unexpected connections that might save them all and perhaps
humanity as well. Okay, done Dune, dum so high level.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
When you finish the duology, I was sad.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
I know it had a happy ish ending, but I
don't have any hope for them.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Did it? I don't know if that was happy.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
I think ish, I said ish in the sense like
they are alive, the family is back together, they're underground,
they have hope, they have a plan.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
I don't think any of that is actually gonna come true.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, I don't think they're gonna make it.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
I don't. I don't think they're gonna make it, whether
they survive thesh or not.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Like.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
They're not, I don't know making even if they make
it back onto the surface, I don't think they're gonna
make it.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
I mean, how do you start over from scratch?

Speaker 2 (04:13):
You know, Well, they have the ship, but and they
found the sea.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
They did find a sea that probably won't be there,
but will somehow come back eventually, I don't know, you know.
And then the you know, operating system is always trying
to shield them from the worst case scenario because you know,
humans are so gentle they can't take real news. So
it was kind of being gentle about what could happen

(04:39):
to them. Yeah, but I felt okay, I felt unsatisfied
with the ending, Like I gotta be honest, So I
give the author a lot of credit for doing something
with this book that I did not expect at all.
I did not expect it to go as it did.
I did not foresee story progressing in this way. So yeah,

(05:04):
good on him for that, right. It was not predictable
in that way. But when I finished that book, I
was utterly unsatisfied and felt down about it, like really, hmmm,
and I don't like feeling like that at the end.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
There's only so much you can do with this story, Like,
you're absolutely right. He took several plot twists that I
did not expect him to have, like, for instance, the singer,
the famous singer who was just a joke and book
won like his voice was a joke in the first book,

(05:43):
he turned out to be a villain, and I was like, yeah,
that's an interesting plot twist.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Love it, Yeah, love this plot twist. But yeah, it
was just I don't know, because they didn't make enough baby.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
They stopped making babies. I understand why they stopped, Like,
after you keep losing all of these children, of course,
do you want to like pause, but also, how are
you going to create humanity if you don't keep making
babies and then you all die off?

Speaker 1 (06:19):
You won't And that's the thing, they won't create humanity.
So let's say best case scenario, you know, they do
they make it through, all four of them somehow managed
to live, you know, although you know, the poor son,
whatever his name is, Yarrow, he's probably got so much

(06:42):
radiation he's probably gonna die anyway. Yeah, so let's just
say maybe that Yarrow doesn't make it, but what's her
face does? And Owl, which is also a silly name
to me, But okay, so all makes it. Y'all doesn't.
And they managed to figure out how to stop the

(07:05):
stuff that was done to all of these little eggy
babies embryos, embryos, and they fix it and they just
start making new babies. So by the time they have
one that's old enough, and the way they're raising them,
so she's going to be eighteen years older than any
child that they have, so she can also be a parent. Yeah,

(07:29):
she can be a parent. I don't know. I just
don't think they have enough. They don't have enough resources.
They don't have enough of anything, even in the best
case scenario to repopulate to the extent that you would
need to make this worth it. They just don't have it.
They don't have it. It's not there. So ultimately it's like,

(07:49):
what was all of this for.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Exactly? And I really liked the.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
Past seems with Ambrose and Kodiak when they were having
that conversation where they're like, our clones are out there
and what is it for?

Speaker 2 (08:12):
And then they died really suddenly do and I was like,
what is it all for?

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yeah? So the way they die is also I guess
the tragic, right, Yeah, it is tragic, And I guess
that's where the title comes in two different times, the
brightness between us, I guess, you know, the Earth version
of them deals with that, and then the clone versions later,
you know, from one from a a nuke and the

(08:42):
other from you know, a comet hitting the planet. So
the brightness is set explosion, I guess, you know.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, yeah, explosions.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yeah, that is so depressing, so depressing. So yeah, but
was there enough other things to make this not so sad? Maybe?
I mean everything was horrible though, so Kodiak and Ambrose
from the beginning, So at the beginning of the story

(09:15):
it seemed kind of interesting to learn about how they
found out about what was really going on with the
shuttle and the whole job or whatever. How it was
a lie, and it was fun, you know, seeing Ambrose
lose his shit a little bit and you know, go
partying and have one nice stance, and.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
You know, that was all interesting.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
But when it came down to it, he felt betrayed
and he goes off to seek this other person who
was in the same boat as him. They pretty much
meet and die quickly.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
I'm like, that is awful, Like what I know.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
I thought they had at.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
Least a few months, if not a couple of years,
years before humanity went into nuclear war. I think they
gave us the date in the first book, and I
just forgot it because I remember, like they had those
radio calls and those radio signals, but I cannot remember
the year. And I thought they had more time together.

(10:18):
Now they barely had a week together exactly. And to
be honest, so like, I think the most interesting thing
revelation to me about their meeting is Kodiak is really
like gushy. He's soft on the inside. He is a
very lovey, soft emotional type of guy.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yes he is. And I thought that was so sweet to.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
See him fall in love from his point of view,
and when he was like, oh, I hope those future
Ambroses out there.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
No, they just need to shut up, they just need
to be quiet.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yes, it's so cute like that was the best part
of that, I think is to kind of get a
different point of view on him, on that character.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
But it was sad.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
I was like, oh damn, you know.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
I know, it was really sad. I loved it.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
I loved And then they had references to yarrow flowers
and they made a reference to an owl. At some
point it was like, so, these memories are not in
the clones, but somehow the clones still picked these names.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
For their children. Yeah, so I did somehow. I guess
the clones are still connected to their old selves thirty
thousand years in the past.

Speaker 1 (11:39):
You know, I guess, Yeah, I guess the personality is there, right,
your personality is still there, and maybe you might do
the same thing or like the same thing even though
you're there one place and theirs. Was another which I
thought was really interesting with Ambrose when he was you know,

(12:02):
when we were first in his head, he was talking
about how he had to act a certain way and
how I had to behave like this and that to
you know, get attention from his mother. Or he had
to pretend to be the playboy with his on again,
off again partner.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
He never really showed that on the ship.

Speaker 3 (12:24):
As the clones, he was very much I'm me, this
is what I want to do, And so I thought
it was really interesting to see the difference between the
clones and the real thing.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
I said, Wow, Ambrose is a hoe. Damn Okay, dude,
yeah yeah, he is. Like he like, I can't I can't.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
Be with anybody. I need to go have fun to
be free.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
I'm like, okay, I feel bad for you know, the
partner seemed like really liked him mm hmm, and they
felt bad about what was going on, but.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
They were also kind of using him mm hmmm.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
So I did feel bad, but not too bad because
they got what they wanted.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
M hm.

Speaker 3 (13:18):
They got him to turn on his mother and try
and start shit that actually started the nuclear war.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
It's like that one thing, Like was he the domino
that knocked it over? Like you know that was it?

Speaker 3 (13:38):
I don't think so, just because like they were already
talking about the assassination and his mother wanted him in
space to be safe, So I think it was like
already on the table.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
But the whole time that she knew he wasn't going
mm higher time from the minute they got that like
little message notice whatever from his sister, which she faked.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah, she made it up. She faked it.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
So yeah, no, she knew long before, years years she
had kept that secret. And what's crazy. So what's interesting,
you guys, is when he thinks he's about to leave,
he thinks he's gonna go, and you know, he's having
his little farewell sex and he's all, r, I'm gonna

(14:34):
go talk to the press. It's gonna be great. His
mother like, she's like, you're late, so you don't have
enough time to process this, but this is what's going on.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Take a seat.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
That was really funny how she was like, yeah, you're late.
You don't have the time to process this. Yeah, get
it out of your system in the next two minutes.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
And then she's like you could cry, scream whatever, there's
no cameras in here. You're good and they come out
here and do this. He's like, what, Oh, I don't know.
So that happens. Everything I think he thought about himself
changed instantly.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. But then he went on this crazy
bender and he was just like I'm gonna look pretty,
I'm gonna sleep with people, I'm gonna be the hot playboy.
I'm gonna do all these things. And I was like,
none of the Ambroses on the ship when they found

(15:30):
out they were.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
Clones reacted this way.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
No, none of them like went crazy immediately. A couple
of them did go crazy eventually, but they were Ambrose
was usually the same one right away, Like he was
the one who was calm, collected like, and so to
see him.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Just kind of flip was really interesting.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yeah, the Earth Ambrose really reacted in a teenage like manner.
M hm m hmm, absolutely, which is fair. He as
a teenager. But like you said, in contrast to how
the clones were acting, it's very different.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
It was very different. It was very weird.

Speaker 3 (16:09):
But also, like I guess, he was closer to his
sister and so he had more of that I need
to save my sister because I love her. But the
clones also thought like, we're on our way to go
save our sister. So I don't know, it was it
was interesting.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah, I don't know. So he goes and he goes
to this concert and he's like eyeballing the singer and
he's I can't even Oh my god. So the irony,
like you said, is that was the singers whose voice
he was fawning over in the first book.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yes, and again it is great job to the author
for taking a joke from book one and turning it
into such a.

Speaker 3 (16:59):
Massive place point in book two. Like, I never would
have guessed that this pop singer was going to be.
This would be like if Harry Styles turned into a
villain and tried to like destroy the world.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
He was like a superstagent. Sence, Yeah, he was a
super agent.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, because he was a part of Kodiac's training. He
knew him there. And now he says pop singer singing
like a K pop band.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
I'm like, basically.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
Is like the way that the author described him. I'm like,
is this kind of like K pop shit and the like?
So some of the people were actually women and some
of the guys in the group were actually women, And
I'm like, what is going on here? That was very interesting?
So I'm like, oh, this guy and then he goes
off and he sleeps with him and then he's like, oh,
but I got stuff to tell you.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:59):
I I also thought it was like crazy that ambuse
trusted him after like two seconds of making out. Yeah,
I was like, okay, but why do you trust him
so much? Is it just because he's hot? Is it
just because you're drunk? Is it because you're horny? Like
you should not trust anybody this quickly, especially not a

(18:20):
pop star who you physically just met for the first
time two seconds ago.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
And he was drinking so many like rum and cokes.
Basically I think it was rum and something else, but
I think it was pepsi, rum, pepsi or something, I
don't know, some drink with pepsi. And I'm like, okay,
you should have been so messed up. I don't know
how you could have absorbed what that guy was telling
you in that moment because he was drunk.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
He was so drunk, it's like.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Interesting, very interesting. But then you know he decided, you know, okay,
we're gonna.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
We're gonna do it like this shit, Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah? Would you have done it?

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Would you have.

Speaker 3 (19:05):
Tried to expose your mother's betrayals like that?

Speaker 1 (19:11):
See? I don't, honestly, And maybe because I'm thinking from
a full on adult point of view instead of a
teen's point of view, I don't think doing that would
have saved anything. It was so far gone. It's like
the propaganda is there, like we live this today, Okay,
doing being a truth teller is not going to get

(19:32):
you anywhere. One person streaming about something in a way
that seems a little unhinged will get you zero places.
So no, I probably wouldn't have. I think maybe if
there was a way for me to sabotage it, I
might have done that, But I don't think I would
have done it in the way that what's that guy's name,

(19:55):
the singer guy Military.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
Said his name so many times, And I wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Have done that. Like I'm like, you're punishing people that
you don't even it's like you're crippling them. Yes, on purpose,
I don't. That's not how I would have tried to
sabotage it. I would have tried to sabotage it where
they couldn't actually take off because something is broken or missing,
they couldn't leave. I do that before I go and
try to infect a bunch of you know, embryos with things.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
So that's crazy.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
That's probably Devin. That's probably what Devin muJava or something is. Yes,
I probably would have done that. Instead of trying to
make some grand speech and.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
What I would have tried to destroy the ship from
the inside, like plant some faulty wiring, do something, just
because like I wouldn't want to fuck with the embryos.
I would just want the ship to not take off
at all or explode in space somewhere like that. That's

(21:03):
what I would do. Yeah, because I agree with everything
you just said. Yeah, him saying stuff into the camera.

Speaker 3 (21:11):
I don't know if it actually did anything or if
people were It just made people angrier. So that's why
they started the nukes. It It did not obviously stop
the ship from reaching Minerva. It didn't stop the clones
from dealing with all of this shit. It didn't stop

(21:31):
the embryos from being born and them trying to recreate
humanity on a different planet. And if you really wanted
to stop that, I stop the ship, Like, don't let
the ship leave, Yeah, put some C four on it,
just like exactly, let's blow.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
Up throw a bomb in there. You know they won't
have something to try to rebuild or you know, fix
the things that you've damaged. Yeah, but in you in jail.
But that's fine.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
Well, obviously he was able to run away and get
to Scotland. So yeah, it was just yeah, it was
one of those things where I was like, you're being
very dramatic teenagery. But also it left space for Devin
to go in and mess with the embryos.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
Yeah, which is wild, Like what the hell? Like how
did he even know that that's what they were? Like,
I want to know how he knew? And unless I
missed that, did he actually say how he knew?

Speaker 3 (22:36):
I think the President told him because he was sleeping
with the President, or he was sleeping with the higher
he was sleeping with a bunch of people and somebody
like spilled the beans about the whole thing, like try
and get him.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
To sleep with them.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
So I think that person either spilled the beans or
the President told him, Like he was getting all kinds
of details by just being a pretty face, and.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
How do you just get the things to infect the
embryos like that? Like I feel like one chapter from
his point of view to kind of give us a
little bit of espionage explanations would have been nice. Yeah,
like just a little bit, just a little something.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
But he died. Unfortunately.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
He was like in court, just like do you want
to say something he's like, I'm not finished. He just
admits what he does. Finally, I'm like, oh my gosh,
she's making all this grand speech trying to not be.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Cut off by the judge.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
He's like, cannot even tell what I really did. Like okay, Like, yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:50):
He had a mission he believed in. He could have
done things differently, but mm.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Hmm, yeah, yeah, that's crazy. So yeah, I think ultimately
the story was interesting, and like I mentioned earlier, it's
not what I expected. Like I thought last time. You know,
at the end of the last book, I thought maybe
we'd get some jumps in time, maybe we get to

(24:20):
see the re establishment of this society. We didn't get
any of that, because there's no point. It's not going
to be a new society. I'm sorry, maybe that's pessimistic,
but I had.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
The same thought.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
And I think given the current political shit show that
we're dealing with, we can look at this and go, yeah, no,
this is not a good story. It's a great story.
It's just not a happy story. It's not a recreating
humanity story.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
They're not there's nothing for them on Minerva.

Speaker 1 (24:59):
No, they should have never sent them. They should have
just said, let's just try not to let the earth burn.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, how about that?

Speaker 1 (25:10):
How about we try to figure this out before we
all nuke each other and we all die.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
But no, they just went straight to nukes.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yeah, it is so wild. It's a wild story, it is. Yeah,
But I do have some other comments to say. This
is actually a great time to take a quick break.
You guys, by listening to these commercials, you are supporting
the podcast. We appreciate you for doing that. When we return,

(25:39):
we will finish our conversation, give our ratings, and well,
actually I think we're gonna share what we're gonna read next.
I think, yeah, okay, we'll be right back, stay with us, Okay,
welcome back. While some of these things were really interesting
and obviously fun to talk about, really unique story wise,

(26:00):
it took me seven days to get this done.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
Seven days, I think that's.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
The longest days. So I just maybe I wasn't in
the mood. Maybe I mean felt slow. It was you know,
I maybe I sww we were marching toward a bad
ending or something.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
I mean, I will say part one from Owl's point
of view. The whole time I was reading this, I
was like, oh, Tamma hates this she's a whiny teenage girl.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Tammas going to hate this.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
She was whiny like as she only had like part
one and then a little bit at the end, thank goodness,
like she wasn't the whole story.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
But yeah, I know, I knew you would hate her
so much.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
So this adventurer, she wants to be an explorer. She
goes out, She's like, I found something, bitch, you had
five shit okay, Like, okay, sit your ass down where
you know.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
She I mean it was a duck new to her, Yeah,
it is new to her. She's like, I found an
alien species.

Speaker 4 (27:10):
Luck.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
And they're like, well, actually.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Actually that's us. We just wanted to you again, I know,
I don't.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Okay, So I didn't hate Owl's character per se, but
I wish she were a little more palatable, just a
little bit, especially when things started going wrong with her brother.
I just wanted something like toward the end, when the
you know, comet or whatever was coming for the country

(27:47):
the planet, you know, she's like, I'm gonna go, I'm
gonna save the baby, you know, I'm gonna go grab
the thing, and the operating system is like, you've got
like ten minutes if that you know, hurry up. And
she goes out there and she sees her brother all
out there looking all toe down.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
She's like, I'm gonna carry him in.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
I'm like, what the fuck now you that you gonna
get his big ass up. He can't even get himself up.
He's so weak, he so.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
That whole thing.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
I'm like, you're gonna run out of time. I just
was so annoyed with it all because it didn't seem
like real. I'm like, you can't even do this, what
are we talking about?

Speaker 3 (28:25):
Okay, First of all, they have been building this bunker
for twenty two, twenty four days, like it's been weeks,
and you wait until the last ten minutes to go
save your future sibling.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
No, you should have done this yesterday. You should have
done this a week ago, like you and your father
should have carried this in together when you were prepping everything.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
It did not make sense for them to leave the
gestation machine or whatever the little last second. Yeah, it
should have been first or second thing already put in
that priority. Absolutely, But I understand that he did it
so she could have the choice between the future in

(29:13):
the past, and she's choosing her brother, and it's all
very symbiotic, and it was just really annoying because I.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
Was like, Okay, don't you want to get those baby
things in their hurry up?

Speaker 2 (29:24):
I don't know, I just felt, and.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
Honestly, I maybe I didn't have a clear understanding of
how the ship broke when it fell. I'm like, how
did they get that ship buried? Who's doing that? I
thought the ship was above ground.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
Part of it was, and part of it was sinking
into like the mossy area, but also some of it
was saved.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
But also and they made it seem like it was
fully underground because when they were looking out of the things,
they just saw dart right.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Yeah, well, they wanted to bury it so they could
be safe from all radiation.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
So you know, it's human men and one human girl
and a little robot cannot bury that ship in twenty
four days science.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
I mean they had started digging back when Yarrow was
still around, and he did some digging too, So three man,
have you ever done?

Speaker 1 (30:25):
Okay, so just imagine what it takes to dig a pool.

Speaker 3 (30:30):
So in Supernatural they dig a six foot grave in
like two seconds. That's TV magic.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
Well, I guess the TV magic has been applied to
book magic, because there's no way that those humans could
have buried that thing. And I was having a hard
time with that. I'm like, you're doing what now?

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (30:53):
No, it was ridiculous, and they're printing things and doing things,
but I had a hard time figuring out what exactly
that was. They were going out and bringing like this
metal stuff back, and I'm like, what are they doing?
It just seemed a little bit woo woo, like just
believe it, I guess.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
Mm hmm, yeah, which I'm sure there's nothing science to it,
but I don't know either of those.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
But all of those little things, I think tied into
me feeling like it was a little slow. I'm like,
what is this? So I, you know, I'd do get
into it a little bit and I'm like, I need
a break, let me go fast, something else to do,
and then I go off and watch like ten hours
of TV.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
It was very slow, and it was more of a
like we had the philosophy of Ambrose and Kodiak from
the past when they're trying to grapple with like, oh
my god, our clones are out there, what can we
do to help them?

Speaker 3 (31:55):
And like that was very emotional and a very good
question to like kind of pose to yourself, like how
would I help my clones? How would I feel about
my clones being sent to their death?

Speaker 2 (32:05):
What would I do?

Speaker 3 (32:07):
So that was interesting, but again like yeah, they're here
to recreate humanity, but all the kids are dying. They're
just kind of growing plants. They're not exploring, they're not
really doing much of anything. They have evil yacts around.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
I don't know, it just felt very much like, Okay,
we came here to die, Yeah, and we're just slowly
prolonging our death. Yeah, definitely, And Okay, so I think
also part that part of the problem. I guess I
would say, what you know.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
In the first book, it really felt like a romance
between the two main characters, and one.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
Was definitely a romance. This was not at all.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
This wasn't at all. And I think, yeah, there was
a moment here or there, you know where you know,
from the child's point of view, you know, from ours
point of view, or even y'all's point of view. Oh,
father and Dad would off to have five minutes to themselves,
you know.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
I So.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
The whatever romance could have been between the Earth versions
of Yeah, Ambrose and Kodiak was not enough to get
auely not. I just felt like that was missing. And
if you're gonna do this treatment of the characters, I
wanted more of that, more of them eighteen years later

(33:40):
being in love with each other or something.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yeah. No, I definitely wish we had something from their
point of view as adults, because this was the longest
they ever lived. Even the one set that lived they
were mid thirties, and I think this is a little
closer to.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
I think, yeah, they're still in their thirties. So if
they landed and they were like, what eighteen year olds, right,
Oh oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
They landed when they were eighteen, so I guess they are.
This is about the same. They're about thirty six, thirty five,
six six.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
Yeah, thirty six, thirty seven maybe maybe that's maybe.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
I also would have left to see.

Speaker 3 (34:20):
Them in the past lived together for more than a week,
Like give them a couple of months, give them a
year together with their little lamb. Like they were cutem h,
they weren't cute, like oh one was so deeply emotional
and romantic and this this wasn't wasn't Yeah, I think

(34:46):
this was supposed to be more about a familial love
and it just didn't hit either.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
And I kept being a little bit. I was getting
the ick a little bit because I would say things
like I'm the only person that can have babies, and
then she's treating y'all like that's her sibling. And I'm like, well,
what are you saying? Yeah, you guys aren't related, but

(35:15):
you kept talking about being the only person who can
have babies. I'm like, what is the author trying to
say here? Is there something there that I'm reading into
or were they trying to say that they would eventually
hook up?

Speaker 2 (35:26):
What is it?

Speaker 3 (35:28):
I hope you were reading into that because also I
had the same thought. But then she'd be like, but
he's my brother and yeah, and I was like, thank
god because no. But also, how is anybody supposed to
repopulate this planet? If you're all getting the yick, right,
you should because you are siblings, even if you're not related,
like you're saying that.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
I instantly thought that they shouldn't have raised them as siblings.
And I understand the instinct to want to have like
a ready made family, right, this is family, but the
job you are supposed to be doing it impedes on
the familiness of it. Yep, you if you raise them differently,

(36:10):
we wouldn't have gotten a nick mm hmm because they
wouldn't have been raised like brother and sister. But you
chose to do that. And then so if you want
to brace them as brother and sister, that's fine. But
don't even bring up she's the only one who can
have babies more than once. It doesn't even matter because
there's no one else for her to have a baby with.

Speaker 3 (36:30):
I honestly kept expecting her to like meet an alien
or somebody like some kind of yeah, like a sexy
alien like the Kimberly Loving book. I know I wasn't
gonna get that crazy, but like, because like you said,
she kept bringing up I'm the only one who can
have babies. I'm like, so you're gonna meet somebody new, right,

(36:53):
Are you gonna have like a human alien hybrid something?

Speaker 2 (36:59):
What? What's going on? But no, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
I could have done a little bit less with a
little bit less of that. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah,
this time around, while I was happy to finish the story,
I was not as impressed as I was with the
first book.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Same same The first book was so good and this
one I almost wish it had been a standalone the
first book.

Speaker 3 (37:31):
I wish it had, like I really love the way
it ended, and it was that like, Okay, we made it.
Who knows what's going to happen next, And it was
that very open ended, and he tried to recreate that
open endedness here, but it just doesn't feel the same.
It feels very doomed. It feels very That's exactly it.

(37:53):
The first ending was open and it gave you a
feeling of hopefulness because you're like, they made it, they
got these embryos, yay go yes, And now it's like
they probably won't make.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
It yeah again because last.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
Time, Kodiak died when he was like thirty six because
he had cancer and the s O couldn't fix him.
So they might get cancer just naturally or from all
this radiation that's around, and then they'll all die.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
They'll all die because one of the clones died horribly
because of radiation when they were in space. So it
won't take long and they have to stay down there
for three years, assuming they everything survives.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Yeah, they'll be down there for at least three years,
if not longer, just because and then and then what.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
And then what? I guess just keep trying to hatch
babies while you're on there for three years. I don't know.
That is like that would just drive me crazy. I'm
in this enclosed space of a ship, right, it's not
even a whole ship. We're underground, and we're following this

(39:18):
fake ass route of acting like you're in space to
survive and keep saying yeah, no, that way, give me
a sane I got You've got infants down here, and
you've got to make sure that everyone doesn't lose their
minds because of things that were infected. I don't know,

(39:44):
it's just too much. It sounds like hell on on,
not Earth, but.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yall in space.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
So even the best case scenario sounds dreadful, and that's bad.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
That's bad to I don't.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
Like that feeling. At the end, I'm like, this is same.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
Yeah it was good, but it just wasn't enough. It
wasn't something it was I don't.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Know, Yeah, I just wanted something else. And I think
I could hear from the author what they were trying
to accomplish. And I do think. You know, if you
like moody, kind of sad, hopeless kind of stories, I
think you might get the emotional devastation you're looking for maybe.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
Or if you're an optimist and like really happy and
you'll be like, yeah, they'll survive and do all this
good stuff, like.

Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah, no, yeah, And I know I feel like I
just I did a quick glance at the reviews, and
I think more people liked loved it than didn't. There's
definitely like in the almost ninety percent of the people
gave it a five or four.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
So I'm definitely in the minority here. But maybe it's
the time, maybe.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Being the social political situations that we're dealing with, because yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
Yeah, and I hate that I just reacted so opposite,
almost opposite than the first book.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
I mean, yeah, no, this is an opposite reaction to
the first book.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
We loved the first book. It was good, we were
so excited and so happy, and then this book is
just not happy.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
No. I mean even if you look at the cover
art for this book, it's literally the young, the kids
and then the parents on this planet with the suns
and knowing what the bright this is quote unquote, it's like,
look at this sad moment before they all die.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
That's just what I see. Yeah, that's how.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
The story has informed what I see on this cover.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
I mean, it is a little literal interpretation of the book.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yes, it's morbid, and I'm like, I hate to kind
of just slap that label on it, but that's like
my instinct. When I finished it, I was like.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
Oh m hm, oh, yeah, no, it was very very tragic.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
Mm hmm. Too tragic for me. I guess I need
some happy, go lucky, hopeful shit right now. That's just
I guess where my head's at. So I'm not going
to fully blame the book. Maybe it is partially you know,
the mood I'm in right now, but I do I
stand by the fact that I think the pacing was different.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
Oh it was incredibly different.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
I was worried that people were going to dying off
immediately the way they did in book one. You know
both Part one ended when Kodiak died and then they
wake up again in part two, and I was worried
that people were going to start dropping like flies, and
then they didn't, not right until the end.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
But yeah, can we also take a moment to say it.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
Was how weird it was that at exactly the moment
he turned sixteen, all of a sudden, his hormones kicked in,
like there was a countdown in his brain or something.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
Yeah, that was weird. That was weird because yes, you can.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
Get hormones at sixteen, but also like you get them
at fifteen and fourteen and seventeen. The exact second he
turned sixteen, just.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Felt it's like a switch flipped. Yeah, and Awl was saying,
is that going to happen to me? Or will it
not happen at that time or later? So I guess
they kind of did kind of say maybe it was
just a coincidence for him.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Still, she was looking at him and his eyes just
changed in that minute.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
I was like, that's weird.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
So what about So since we're talking about that quote
unquote virus, apparently those yaks were also affected and they're
the only ones that survived. M isn't that weird? Like
the yaks mad?

Speaker 2 (44:31):
It is weird, But there's a lot of vegetation kind
of growing around, like all the algae nearby, and yaks
eat that. So to me that made sense.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
Whereas the duck, I guess it got too hot for
the duck and it died from the water boiling off
or whatever that was.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
But wasn't the vegetation a result of them bringing that plant?

Speaker 2 (45:01):
I thought that was the other vegetation.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
Like, I thought the algae they were eating was what
was already growing on this planet, the red stuff that
she found on those trees and on the stuff in
the ocean or the sea or whatever it was.

Speaker 1 (45:14):
And didn't think the trees would be there without the
plants they brought.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was the plant
they brought. I thought the rest of the algae was
just already there.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
Okay, see that we wonder. I think it might have
been there, but it's like mutated or something because of
what they introduced to the environment.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
Oh definitely.

Speaker 4 (45:35):
M that's very sciencey, very sciencey. Then again, I'm okay
with it, but it just doesn't completely give me all
the answers.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
Yeah, exactly, So I don't know. And then the comet, So, yeah,
the comet was coming. And if they survive, the comment's
gonna come around again. Right, what do they say every
couple hundred years or something. Yeah, I don't know. So
then everyone survives, they make more humans, and then they

(46:11):
all die again. I don't know what the hell A
civilization cannot survive off of one operating system and print
no hew.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
And it's a fucking antique. Yeah, like it's more than
thirty thousand years old. How is it still operating?

Speaker 1 (46:32):
M Yeah, and honestly so like even like more little
things that just nitpicked at me.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
So when.

Speaker 1 (46:41):
Oh, what's the child? What's the little boy's name? Again?
Oh my god, Yarrow? You know he made the little
I guess real or video or whatever it is for
his parents. And he's like, the quality is so bad.
I'm like, weoll goud. Dude, you comparing it to one
TV show you watching off repeat inequality? What are you

(47:02):
talking about it? Have you gone to like film school?
And I don't know what you mean? Like, oh, I
don't know, just like little things like that. I'm like,
what are you talking about, dude? You're raised on another
planet and you have one old ass TV show that
you watch.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
Yeah. No, And there are a few times when they
like when she would say something weird and she'd be like, oh,
I guess I watched it on a TV show or
an episode once. It was like, just because you watched
it once doesn't mean you're gonna repeat it. But I
guess maybe, like it's just the easy explanation.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
See, it would have made more sense to me if
at that time on Earth there was a couple of
lines about how they uploaded all the things that they
can find that were relevant in art history, social media,
and they were watching tiktoks for twenty years. You know
what I'm saying, Like, yeah, it would make more sense
to me. I watched nine one oh. Can you remember

(48:02):
that show? Oh my god, that show was thousands of
years old and I watched it. That would make more
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (48:09):
I mean, if they're trying to recreate humanity, they should
have sent a shit ton of humanity.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
With them, exactly like you said, art history, all of
the TV shows, music, music, a million books like all of.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
That, like as much as they could have fit, at
least draw one or two lines from that. You know
that we just got reference to one TV show, TV show.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
Yes, And then when the OS was like, yes, I
have created the history video and it is forty seven
minutes long, It's like only forty seven minutes.

Speaker 3 (48:48):
You're gonna forgive it all of history in forty seven minutes,
Like that's impossible.

Speaker 1 (48:54):
So I guess maybe it depends on whose administration it is.
That's true, all the stuff we don't watch you to know,
it's gonna cut it out.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Like it never existed.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
Seven minutes. It's that forty seven minutes. M h.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
Forty seven forty seven minutes.

Speaker 3 (49:12):
Let me let me pull up the ebook and figure
out what page that was on so I can tell
you because it.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
Was that's funny. I'm like, get the hell out of here,
like it's so again, like just little things that did
not catch me or perturbed me on the first time around,
like you know these things. I just if there were
things like this in the first book, I was so
engaged with everything else going on that it just kind

(49:38):
of solid by me. But here I'm like, wait, wait, wait, yes.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
Which is unfortunate, Part three, Chapter one on my ebook,
it's page one hundred and seventy. The OS says, I
have already prepared a forty seven minute summary of earth
history for you.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
Who's our forty seventh president? Oh god, tyrony yes.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
And this was written before he came into office, so again,
but yeah, that's when I was forty seven minutes. But anyway,
moving on.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
Yeah, So I just I don't know. I think I'm done.
Do you have anything else?

Speaker 3 (50:25):
I think we've covered it all because, yeah it was.
It was well written, it was really really.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
Emotional, but it just didn't have the same captiveness as
the first one.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
Yeah, I agree. Okay, let's go ahead and rate this thing.
You want to go first or do you want me
to go first? I can go first. Okay, I'm going
to give this a three out of five. I was
happy to finish the duology. I was glad to read
something very different than the things we've been reading, so
that was a nice reprieve. The writing was good, you know,

(51:05):
but for all of the reasons I just complained about
over the last fifty minutes. I'm not going to rehash
of all of those, but that is what earned it
a three instead of I think I gave the first
book a four. So that's where I stand.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
How about you same.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
If I could give it a half star, I would
give it three point five, But because I can't, I'm
going to give it a three star. Like it was
really really good, it just did not capture my attention
like the last one. I am not as invested in
the characters.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
Owl. Yes, she's a teenage girl, but I wasn't. I
don't know everything we've said it was good, but it
just wasn't that like the first one. Yeah, so I
would recommend the first book to people all day every day.
I don't know if I would recommend the sequel.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
I will tell them that I'll be like, love book one.
But if you're satisfied with.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
That ending, walk away you want more, check out book two.

Speaker 3 (52:12):
But if you're happy with book one, then just walk away.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
Stop there and be totally satisfied. Well, absolutely it, yeah, absolutely, yeah,
it should have been just one. Yeah, I agree. Our
next series actually it's just a two parter, right, another duology?

Speaker 2 (52:33):
Do you think it's a duology?

Speaker 1 (52:35):
We are going to read six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Limb.
That is the one. Book two is The Dragon's Promise,
And yeah, I just think it's those two, so that
should be fine. I think there's also like a little
prequel out there. Oh yeah, I forgot about that, But
I don't know if we're gonna we may or may

(52:56):
not partake. I don't know. We usually don't do all
the little halves half steps of the books, So this
is gonna be something else, you know, kind of different.
It's why a still, but it's definitely more mythology based
no space, We're.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
Back on Earth and we have dragons again.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
Yeah, tell me share with us what caught your attention
about this series or duology.

Speaker 3 (53:25):
Excuse me, I mean it's been on our list for
years and I was rereading or reading the sample pages
of like three different books, and this one had the
most interesting like immediate hook where page one chapter like

(53:45):
sentence one, our heroin is drowning and you're just like what,
ok yeah, she's drowning and sees a dragon and then
you know, it kind of backs up and leads up
to that moment, and it was just it's like one
of those things. I was like, Okay, this is a
different introduction. I haven't really seen this before. The other

(54:07):
books are just boring.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Sorry, not sorry, but like this one was the only
one that really felt like, Okay, this is gonna be
a fantasy, this is gonna be interesting. There's gonna be
stuff going down. The author is not afraid to you know,
start with a bang basically.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
Yeah. So I think a lot of this is going
to feel like new to me because the description does
say that it weaves together elements of the Wild Swans, Cinderella,
the Legend of chang E and the Tale of the
Bamboo Cutter, of which three of those four things I
don't know what those are, so it's going to feel
like new material to me. Yes, but if you're familiar

(54:49):
with you know, at least half of those stories, you
might see some familiar things. But and also, this book
was a nominee for the Reader's Favorite Ya Fantasy in
Science Fiction in twenty twenty one, so that's kind of
cool on good Reads, so it was another did not
win for that year. But yeah, and the ratings as

(55:09):
of today right now, the average rating is four point
one nine out of five. So that's pretty good.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
That's really good.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
Yeah, so I'm excited. You know, I read already the
first four chapters, so did you go. Look, I'm like,
I'm gonna put it down because I have to finish
the brightness between us.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
So I had to put it down.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
So yeah, I'm like, Okay, I'm into it. I'm down
to try it. It looks good and it's another two piece,
two parter, so even if things get a little wonky.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
And then we can pick something new.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
Oh god, don't you guys leave my attitude. Don't I
have a great attitude?

Speaker 3 (55:56):
I mean, we had so many series that we lunched through,
we committed and we stuck with them, so like we
deserve this. Now we can be like, all right, we
can commit to two books and it'll be fine. We're
just like, oh god, we have five more books after this.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
What's crazy. I feel like I want to try a
long series, but I can't risk it.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
I can't risk it unless you know the series is good.
We can't risk it.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
But that would involve me reading at least half of
it to feel secure in it.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
I mean, like we could do the elphin Omega series
by Patricia Brooks because we both know that's good, and
like I would trust that.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
Oh you know, we haven't done that. We have.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
And the new one's coming out sometime soon this year
next year, I think this year. But that's.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
It.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
We'll think about it.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
We got stuff toy we still have to consider, because
you know, these months are flying by. It'd be honest,
in two seconds. We'll have to find it in a series,
so I know. Yeah, Well anyway, anyway, all right, So
that is it for today.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
Guys. If you read this duology, or if we.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
Made you want to read the duology, leave comments on
whatever platform you're listening to, let us know what you
thought about it, or if you plan on reading it,
do share. We appreciate you for doing that. Don't forget
to like, subscribe, follow us, do all the fun stuff
that would help us out a lot. We appreciate you. Okay,
we'll see you guys in the next one. Take care
of yourselves. Bye, guys.

Speaker 5 (57:35):
Hi, everybody, did you enjoy today's episode?

Speaker 1 (57:46):
If so, please head over to Apple podcast or Spotify
and leave a positive, five star review. It's a simple
action that makes a big difference.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
You can also like.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
This episode on your favorite podcast player or share it.

Speaker 5 (57:58):
With your fellow book friends on social media.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
Joining the shelf Addiction Patreon family is another way to
support us. For as little as two dollars a month,
you can help our team create even more amazing bookish content.
If Patreon isn't your thing, consider becoming a supporter on
this breaker app for just five dollars a month and
gain access to exclusive audio only content. You can find

(58:22):
me everywhere, including Instagram, x and TikTok under the handle
shelf Addiction. Join our book club of the same name
on the book club's website and app, where we discuss
all things bookish and more in a safe space. The
Shelf Addiction podcast is a part of the Nerdy Maven Network.
Thanks for tuning in.

All Episodes

#FantasySeries Review of The Brightness Between Us | Book Chat

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Crime Junkie

Cardiac Cowboys

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#FantasySeries Review of The Brightness Between Us | Book Chat