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New Travis Baldree book!
Nov. 15th, 2025 11:57 amYes, I know you’ve all read it already. But if you haven’t, and you care SPOILERS!!!!
Unlike the second delight from Baldree, which was a prequel, this book is chronologically after Legends and Lattes. Unlike the two previous books, it is predominantly about Fern, rather than focusing on Viv. Which is fine! It’s a ton of fun.
I did mention spoilers.
Fern has some excitement with a pescadine on the way to set up a new shop next to Viv, in which she is rescued from a pescadine by Astryx, a Very Ancient Legend of an Elf who has a magic talking sword named Nigel. Viv and company and Fern get the shop set up and it is a banging success immediately and Fern has a crisis, because she was willing to pick up stakes and move in part because her life was feeling empty and meaningless and having accomplished an absolute fucking miracle, her life feels even more desperately empty of something absolutely crucial to her continued to existence. If only she knew what it might be. After receiving excellent advice to go talk it out with Viv, Fern instead gets hammered, climbs into Asteryx’s wagon, and passes out under a tarp.
Obviously, antics ensue.
There are battles. There are books. There is quite a lot of ambiguity about who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. The reader is never made to feel like any of our core company are going to actually die (whew, relief because this one is definitely more up front and personal with the risk of violent death). Baldree manages to move everyone in the direction of kindness, even as he tells the story of taking a “captive” in to collect a “bounty” and people keep trying to kill them or at least steal the bounty. Along the way we learn that the tentacled god’s worshippers are acting as narcissistic supply _very consciously_ to spare the whole world (!!!) and we _also_ get to see people having complicated visceral reactions to people and then see them working through the details of whether those initial visceral reactions were supported by future interactions or not.
I particularly loved the moment where Zyll put herself in the cell. I loved loved loved the idea that Asteryx would never have taken an escort gig, but would take a bounty. I loved watching Asteryx and Fern slowly figure out who they were individually through their interactions with each other, and how they moved forward with their lives after Fern Said No. There is so much beautiful stuff in this book, and I am so happy with it.
I hope that if you read it, you, too, find a lot to think and feel about in it, and that you too find joy in it.
Unlike the second delight from Baldree, which was a prequel, this book is chronologically after Legends and Lattes. Unlike the two previous books, it is predominantly about Fern, rather than focusing on Viv. Which is fine! It’s a ton of fun.
I did mention spoilers.
Fern has some excitement with a pescadine on the way to set up a new shop next to Viv, in which she is rescued from a pescadine by Astryx, a Very Ancient Legend of an Elf who has a magic talking sword named Nigel. Viv and company and Fern get the shop set up and it is a banging success immediately and Fern has a crisis, because she was willing to pick up stakes and move in part because her life was feeling empty and meaningless and having accomplished an absolute fucking miracle, her life feels even more desperately empty of something absolutely crucial to her continued to existence. If only she knew what it might be. After receiving excellent advice to go talk it out with Viv, Fern instead gets hammered, climbs into Asteryx’s wagon, and passes out under a tarp.
Obviously, antics ensue.
There are battles. There are books. There is quite a lot of ambiguity about who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. The reader is never made to feel like any of our core company are going to actually die (whew, relief because this one is definitely more up front and personal with the risk of violent death). Baldree manages to move everyone in the direction of kindness, even as he tells the story of taking a “captive” in to collect a “bounty” and people keep trying to kill them or at least steal the bounty. Along the way we learn that the tentacled god’s worshippers are acting as narcissistic supply _very consciously_ to spare the whole world (!!!) and we _also_ get to see people having complicated visceral reactions to people and then see them working through the details of whether those initial visceral reactions were supported by future interactions or not.
I particularly loved the moment where Zyll put herself in the cell. I loved loved loved the idea that Asteryx would never have taken an escort gig, but would take a bounty. I loved watching Asteryx and Fern slowly figure out who they were individually through their interactions with each other, and how they moved forward with their lives after Fern Said No. There is so much beautiful stuff in this book, and I am so happy with it.
I hope that if you read it, you, too, find a lot to think and feel about in it, and that you too find joy in it.