[00:00:21] James: Hey guys, and welcome back to Books, Cats, and Chaos. As you can see, if you’re watching, if you’re listening, you won’t see. I am here by myself today because I am doing a another, I won’t really even call them special because they’re not special anymore, I’m doing an in between episode in between our regular episodes.
[00:00:47] So, Just to let you guys know, this week, there is, no Throne of Glass, or Crown of Midnight, I mean, and there is no Fourth Wing. we are a little backlogged from the weekend and a couple events that we went to, and we just have not had time to script anything out and record and then do the subtitles and all the good stuff that comes with making videos that are easy to watch and understand.
[00:01:17] So that stuff will all return next week. However, today I do want to take just a little bit of time to do a special In-Between. See, I said special again. It’s not even special. I just want to do an In-Between. I took a break from reading, Onyx Storm, because you guys know that’s what I’m reading right now.
[00:01:41] I decided to take a break from Onyx Storm and read something off on the side. So on Friday we went to the Romantasy Book Con that was down at the Biltmore in Los Angeles. And that was a lot of fun. A lot of great panels, lots of great authors, Definitely geared [00:02:00] more for people who love, you know, romance, Romantasy kind of stuff.
[00:02:04] Typically not my vibe. You guys know that I generally stick more to, thriller and, vampire, horror, cosmic horror, zombies, all that kind of stuff. However, I was looking through, just going through the books, The Ripped Bodice was there. in one of the, upstairs areas. And they had a bunch of the books there.
[00:02:29] And as we were going through, I happened upon a little book that looked interesting. And of course they always say, don’t judge a book by its cover. But, you know, that’s the first thing you do is you judge a book by its cover. Because if it’s done well, it will sort of reflect what’s inside, right? Anyway, I saw this little book.
[00:02:47] And I thought, that looks interesting. So I picked it up and I read the back. And I thought, oh, that sounds interesting. you know, again, not expecting too much. But, so I picked up, I picked this up on Friday. It’s Thrum by Meg Smitherman. And it’s not that big of a book. It’s 130 pages.
[00:03:18] It’s 129 pages. And, it’s a short read. I did this, I read it yesterday. I, I went in the morning, I read the first half of the morning, and then I read the second half last night before going to bed. So, before I kind of get into the book, and, you know, my thoughts on it. Let me just read the back for you, so it says that Ami awakes from years in stasis to find she’s at the edges of deep space and the only surviving member of her crew.
[00:03:50] Utterly alone and unable to contact Earth, she sends out a distress beacon, not expecting a response. When she gets one from a being who calls himself [00:04:00] Dorian, she’s welcomed onto his ship as he offers his assistance in any way he can. But nothing on Dorian’s ship is as it seems. And as Ami tries to navigate the maze of hallways and first contact with this alien being, a deep hum begins to resonate, haunting her as if the ship itself is whispering to her.
[00:04:27] So I read that, while I was perusing, you know, some of the other books, and I thought, you know, this sounds Very much, like something I would just pick up and read. So I was very surprised to find something that sounded like this at a Romantasy, um, Romantasy book convention, right? But, you know, if you look at the artwork, I’ll put this up here so you guys can see it.
[00:04:51] And I’ll, I’ll put the cover in the show notes too so you guys can see it. it’s a very interesting artwork. And you got these, these red like tendril viscous looking things and on the back these red like cavernous like I don’t know blood vessel type of you know very much space horror kind of stuff if you’re into that sort of thing if you’re if you’re like me and you are a casual gamer or you like horror if you’ve ever if you have ever played Things like Dead Space or, um, oh, what’s the other one?
[00:05:37] The Callisto Project and there’s a couple other ones. it’s very much that vibe. so I was drawn to it. And I said, you know what? I don’t know anything about this book. I don’t know anything about this author. I didn’t take any time to look her up or anything like that. I would just, I went into this blind, so I bought it.
[00:05:56] Took it home. I read it yesterday, and let [00:06:00] me tell you, I started reading it and I did not want to put it down. it is a short story, and it is packed with just visuals of the characters and her surroundings and just everything, kind of that goes into the setup of This environment and in this story, and one of the things that I really enjoyed about this story was the central focus on the main character, Ami, and basically the unraveling of the human mind when confronted with
[00:06:45] an entity that it cannot understand. And not just an entity, but also her situation. now this is going to be, you know, I’m, I’m doing this in as much of a spoiler free way as possible because I would really encourage you guys to, to buy this book and to read this book. And the audiobook is also coming out in the beginning of March.
[00:07:11] So if that’s more your vibe, definitely get the audiobook. Cause I am, I am going to get the audiobook too, just cause I want to listen to it. from a different sort of perspec not perspective, but different, you know, way. And, and the book starts off, I mean, right from the get go. This girl wakes up, and her crew is dead.
[00:07:31] And she can’t believe that her crew is dead. What happened? They died in stasis. Something that they, you know, back on Earth, they told them could happen. But the chances of it happening were so small. And yet, three out of four of the people on this ship have died in stasis. Somehow she survived. And as she begins to explore her ship, she finds reasons to believe [00:08:00] that this may not have been an accident, but it may have been sabotage.
[00:08:04] And by the time she finds that out, this other ship comes, except it’s a ship that she can’t see. It’s just a big black mass. And the communications that she has with the other entity, he calls himself Dorian. So as is, protocol with these deep space missions, Earth has put together a welcome packet.
[00:08:30] And it’s full of literature from U. S. history, just different, books and music and the history of, you know, everything. And so this creature took that packet, analyzed it within a couple seconds, learned how to speak English, created itself a name, Dorian, and was able to reach out to her to help her.
[00:08:59] And so she goes on to his ship and so begins the journey of these characters. Now, if you look this book up on Instagram and you go to, or not the book, but if you look up Meg Smitherman on Instagram and you look up this book, and she has a couple other books too, she has this labeled as a Sci-Fi Horromance, which is a very unique category to put a book in.
[00:09:29] And as you get into the book, you will understand why. because there is definitely a romance that builds between these two characters, Ami and Dorian. And I liked that within this book, within the romance and the relationship that these characters are, building the attraction that they’re feeling towards each other.
[00:09:57] While this is happening, Ami [00:10:00] is, she feels slowly losing her mind. Dorian is very upfront with her and tells her that the way that she perceives him and the way that she perceives his ship are not what they actually look like at all. They are intercepting her brainwaves and showing her, something that is going to be less, jarring, I guess, to her, to her psyche.
[00:10:32] but as you get through the book, you discover that it’s really not working that great. the human mind is not meant to be deceived for that long. And she’s there, and, and we actually have no idea how long she’s there. initially, she doesn’t know if she’s been there for hours or days or months. She has no concept of time.
[00:10:54] She has no concept of direction. The ship, changes depending on where she is, and you see the character really basically descend into madness, or the verges of madness. Because she can’t understand the things that she’s looking at.
[00:11:24] And as we progress through the story, she starts, seeing, you know, shadowy figures. And she swears that she’s being haunted, and Dorian has to remind her that there’s nobody there. It’s just him, and it’s just her. And she believes him, and As they are, you know, close together, she feels safe, but when then she’s apart from him, the existential dread starts to pick up and kick back in, and she begins having nightmares, and she gets lost, and she starts having visions and hallucinations.
[00:11:58] and one of the things [00:12:00] that I really, really appreciated about this book was the very descriptive The very descriptive chapters that Meg put in, about these nightmares and hallucinations that Ami’s having, very, Detailed, uh, just, you know, visceral gore, you know, skin sloughing off of people’s faces and, blood patches open and they rip open, you know, their skin to show their insides, while chasing her down hallways.
[00:12:43] just very descriptive and, and very disturbing. So it’s very much a, it’s sci fi and romance mixed in with psychological horror and, and you know, what would appear to be a, cosmic. You know, cosmic horror, I guess I would actually, I would venture to say that this would fall in the category of cosmic horror, because she is there with a creature that she doesn’t understand, that she can’t possibly understand, and so he has to appear to her as a human.
[00:13:24] And even as a human, he’s too perfect. And she can tell that he, everything’s in the right, everything is in the right place. Everything looks the way that you would expect it to look. but too much. It’s too close. It’s too perfect. There are no imperfections. and so she did a very, just a really good job of crafting.
[00:13:49] These, passages in this book that are just very, very descriptive and, and you look at it and, and you can really feel [00:14:00] the character’s descent into just, this overwhelming, pressure on her mind that is threatening to break her mind. And. Of course, during all of this, as she is slowly feeling like she’s going insane, and she’s doing testing, and she’s trying to figure out, you know, where she is, and, if she goes, you know, so many paces this way, and then this way, why does she keep ending up in other places, and While all this is happening, there is a romance building between her and Dorian.
[00:14:38] I don’t want to say that the romance felt like it was kind of secondary to the rest of the story because it’s really not. the romance and the, and the slight spice that are in this story are definitely not the, at the forefront of everything that’s going on. until you get later in the book and then you realize how well it’s all tied together because you can’t have the romance without the horror and as, and as secrets are started to, as the secrets start to unravel and you see her fighting with discoveries that she’s making and Dorian promising to keep her safe Um, you, you get more of an inside look on just how much this romance is so like intertwined within the horror aspect of the book.
[00:15:37] The two things cannot be separated in this story, which to me, I felt was really wonderfully done. Um. Because sometimes when you have stuff like this, you throw in a little romance and you’re like, Oh, that’s great. But it’s like watching scary movies where there’s a slasher. But then, you know, the main character has to take a 15 minute break to go bang their boyfriend or something.
[00:15:58] And you’re always like, you’re [00:16:00] running away from a serial killer. You don’t have time. I mean, yeah, if you might be dying, you might want to get one last, you know, good time out, but Most people are not sitting there going, you know, I got this thing chasing me. I’m good to go for a round or two, you know, let’s do it.
[00:16:18] No, that’s not the way it works. and that’s why in this story, you can’t have the horror without the romance, and you can’t have the romance without the horror, because the two things are intertwined, and they are, they are honestly, almost like the same thing. They’re two sides of the same coin, and it works so wonderfully.
[00:16:37] Um, I really, I can’t say enough good stuff about this book. It was very enjoyable. Uh, like I said, you can read it in a day. the end, when you get up to the last, like, I don’t know, 20 pages or whatever, you’re gonna see a lot of the pieces really start to lock together, and You’re gonna sit there and you’re really gonna say, Oh man, that I figured.
[00:17:05] That’s a twist I didn’t see. And the twist is really good. And it really doesn’t get revealed until the very end of the book. so she really keeps you guessing all the way through. Some of it is, you know, very clear. You see, you know, obviously Dorian’s keeping a secret of the way he looks and how his ship actually looks.
[00:17:26] You know, how much of it is her losing her mind, and how much of it is her seeing things that might really be there, or is she actually nuts and she is losing air in her, you know, in her spaceship, and she never docked anywhere, you know, you kind of wonder if She Maybe this whole thing’s in her head and she is slowly suffocating because their ship is out of fuel and running out of air.
[00:17:54] So it keeps you guessing all the way up until the end and, and it was really good. [00:18:00] So I would say if you’re looking for just, you know, if you need a break from reading these really heavy plot driven, uh, Easter egg finding stories, you know, we got the, The Empyrean series, and we got the Throne of Glass series, and there’s three books in the one, and there’s eight books in the other one, and then you’ve got the, whatever the new ones are, um, that are coming out, you know, there’s, everyone’s like, yeah, I got my new book series, and there’s five books in it, and, you know, if you’re looking for something that you don’t have to pay a lot of attention to, well, no, I take that back.
[00:18:40] definitely pay attention to the stuff in here. If you’re looking for something that you can read in an afternoon and not have to worry about, um, you know, what’s coming next or what’s coming after, and you just want to kind of disconnect from the big old world building, uh, gigantic continent, lands, wars, everything kind of books, pick this up.
[00:19:08] Uh, you’ll love it. You’ll, you’ll get entranced in it. You’ll sit there and you will literally look and you’ll just be like, what the hell did I just read? This is psychological trauma right here. Um, and. And yeah, I, I really recommend it. I think it’s a good time. I’m definitely going to check out some of her other books.
[00:19:35] Um, I think the other one is called Swallow or Swallowed. And it’s also a horror, horror romance, or a horromance as she calls it. That involves Romance, horror, and horny plants, so I will be checking that one out, uh, pretty soon as well. But if you’re in the market for something [00:20:00] that’s easy to read, um, will leave you, at the end of the book, going, what the fuck, um, read Thrum, because It’s a good time.
[00:20:14] I, uh, yeah. I was reading it, and Ka-Ce was asking me how I liked it, and I said, This book, this book is a mindfuck. It, uh, it’ll getcha. It’ll getcha. So, that’s Thrum by Meg Smitherman, and I will include this for the people who are listening. I will include this in the show notes. I’ll put a link. For it, uh, probably in the, I don’t know, to Amazon or Rip, maybe like Ripped Bodice or something, I don’t know, I’ll put a link to it so you guys can find it, and I’ll put a link to, um, probably for the audio, uh, I think it’s Audible, or the audio version that’s coming out soon.
[00:21:02] Check it out. Highly recommended. Uh, this is instantly. One of my favorites. It just, it became a favorite over, literally overnight. It’s going on my shelf with my other books that I will keep forever because it’s a, it’s a gem. And the fact that I found it at, at Romantasy Book Con made it even better because I didn’t think there would be anything for me there.
[00:21:27] And that this gem appeared. So, there you have it. I hope you guys enjoyed this. Uh, episode of the in between. And this was the in between for Thrum by Meg Smitherman. And, next week, we will be back on schedule. So we will be back into Crown of Midnight, and we will be back on Fourth Wing. If you like all this good stuff, and you’d like us to keep [00:22:00] bringing you more good stuff, Please, uh, rate, like, subscribe, give us some comments.
[00:22:08] We are on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and YouTube and Threads and Instagram and Facebook. You can also email us at hello@bookscatsandchaos.com. We would love to hear from you. And, if any of you guys have any recommendations for things like this, you know, short little books like this are great for In-Betweens, because, um, you know, we aim to do these in a half an hour or less, so that these little episodes are easy to listen to and to digest in between the other shows that are, you know, typically about two hours.
[00:22:55] And I would love to get some more recommendations from you guys. If you have any other recommendations that are sci fi, romance, and horror, or some amalgamation of that stuff all smashed together, please, let me know. Give it to me. I love this stuff. And on that note,
[00:23:16] we will see you for our next episode, which will probably be a recap of going to the Romantasy Book Con. Uh, Ka-Ce was pretty excited to meet a bunch of authors, and Lots of good stuff. Lots of good panels. It was a very enjoyable time. So we will do a recap on that and then next week we will be getting back into Crown of Midnight and Fourth Wing and moving forward.
[00:23:45] So everybody have a great rest of your day or night or whatever time you’re listening to this, and we will see you next [00:24:00] time.
