TEASER: Members Only Mailbag June 2024

Hi there, it's Judge John Hodgman, and I'm producer Jennifer Marmor.

You don't normally hear me in this area, but you might know that Judge Hodgman, Bailiff Jesse, and I are working on clearing the mailbag over in the Members-Only feed.

Every month, we're releasing members-only mailbag episodes, or as we like to call them, membo mailbags.

So, here's a clip from the newest episode.

Here, we are learning about a new literary sub-genre within fantasy, fantasy, and we also hear about a fantasy series that has caused a woman to, quote, go feral, unquote.

So if you want to hear what made her go feral, and if you also want to hear more from the J Squad, you can check your members-only bonus feed right now.

If you aren't a member and you want to get in on this, good news, it's just $5 a month to join.

Go to maximumfund.org slash join, and you can listen to all of our membo mailbags along with every other bonus episode we've ever done.

So it's a lot of stuff for you to listen to.

I'm really excited for you.

You're going to have so much fun.

Anyway, enjoy this little taste of this month's bonus episode.

And again, if you want to hear the rest, go over to that bonus feed or join us at maximumfund.org slash join.

Thanks so much, and you'll hear from me again next month.

Spoiler alert, we have another letter about spoilers.

This one from Amy in Alexandria, Virginia, home of the Birchmere Music Hall.

Please, quote, please allow me to spoil the ending of a fantasy novel.

I went feral reading the Fourth Wing books last December.

My husband Reed agreed to listen to the audiobooks and catch up with me, but he ran out of steam in the middle of book two: Iron Flame.

No spoilers, but the end of Iron Flame is so juicy.

I was unwell when I hit that last page, and I am dying to talk about it with Reed, but he won't listen for more than 15 minutes at a time.

He says he enjoys it that way.

Please order Reed to listen to the last five hours of Iron Flame within three days, or else I get to spoil the ending for him.

Okay, I now understand.

I want to be clear.

I now understand he won't listen to the audio book for more than 15 minutes at a time.

Not he won't listen to Amy for more than 15 minutes at a time talking about the part of this book that he hasn't read.

Sorry, that was, yes.

I now understand that.

Yes, that was,

that may have been more clear in the version of the letter before I edited it, but yes, for length, for length only.

Yes, he won't listen to the audiobook for more than 15 minutes at a time.

He says he enjoys it that way.

I got to give Amy some credit for these adjectives.

I've never gone feral reading a book, but I get it.

I went feral reading Middle March, and it's true.

I was unwell when I hit the

final sentence, which is one of the best sentences in English fiction, as far as I'm concerned.

I was unwell.

And it was juicy.

And I'd love to talk about it with you, but I don't want to spoil it.

But can we compel Reed to read the rest of the book in five hours within three days

so that they can talk about it?

What do you say, Foreign and Company?

I say Reed is meeting his obligation.

He didn't say he was going to listen to it all within three days.

He said he was going to listen to it all.

He's doing it 15 minutes at a time.

That's his way.

Yeah.

That's how I listen to various Bill Bryson books on my audiobook app.

Yeah, that's how you do your various triple B's.

Yeah.

There is an inconsistency in this letter, though, because at first Amy is saying he started listening to the audiobook of Iron Flame, but then lost steam during the middle.

But that's contradictory to him continuing to listen for 15 minutes at a time.

Like either he stopped reading or he's still reading just too slowly for his feral wife, who is clearly unwell.

Do you know what Fourth Wing is all about, you two?

No, she only made it through the third wing.

Fourth Wing is the first book in what is currently a two-book

series, although I'm sure there will be more because

the two have done extremely well.

And it is a

fantasy book series written by Rebecca Yaros

about

people in a fantasy world.

A young woman is drafted to become a dragon rider

and rides some dragons and gets into some scuffles and gets into a lot of, apparently

a lot of crushy romance too.

And that sounded very derogatory, but I don't mean it that way.

I think

it gets sexy among the humans, not necessarily the dragons, but maybe the dragons do.

People are feral for this series of books, and they fall apparently into this genre that I've begun hearing about, which is called dark academia.

You familiar with the dark academia aesthetic movement?

No, I've never heard of it.

Now that you say it, I can kind of like, I get it.

I'm like, I didn't realize there was a name for that, but of course.

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