Ryan Cahill's The Fall and Of Blood and Fire (Bound and Broken): with Mike, John, and Christopher 

SPOILERS start at about 11:30!

This was so much fun to start this series with this amazing group. Thanks for hosting Dr Chase!

Thank you for hosting, Philip. Glad to have the opportunity to discuss the start of this series with such fine company. Hopefully, Angela can join us in July when we continue. - Cheers!

I'm so nervous to even contemplate watching this video! You are such a lovely human being, Philip, that if you don't like the series I'm not quite sure what I'll do 🤣So I need to grab myself a whiskey first! And just in general, thank you for taking the time to put together this Council of Tubers! Though, that does sound more like a council of potatoes now that I type it out.

Had a great time with this and I look forward to your incorrect theories and speculation going forward. Thanks a ton for inviting me, Philip!

Great to see all of you having so much fun with the first two instalments of The Bound and The Broken! Found myself nodding my head and starting to talk back to you while watching. Which of course is so futile.😂😂 But thank you, Philip, for including me in absentia! Definitely next time in the land of talking story! And I hope it's ok to come in riding a unicorn and not a dragon.😁

Love the series, love this group of fantastic people. No one on booktube manages a group book conversation better than Philip. (Josh is right up there, I suppose.) I am enjoying re-living this series through you all and I can't wait until you are all current.

Love these full-spoiler discussions you guys are having so much! I read Tolkien and Robert Jordan growing up, and when Mike suggested The Bound and the Broken as a series that WoT fans would like, I read everything released so far last fall (2023) and ended up thinking it was great! Yes, Of Blood and Fire is a bit derivative of The Eye of the World and of TLotR, but, as you all said, that's a good thing. It certainly puts its own spin on those well-trodden paths, and let me just say, going forward Ryan Cahill is totally telling a unique story! And each book is better than the last one!!! Anyway, I'm really glad I found your channel and these videos and will eagerly look forward to each one. P.S. I'm starting The Way of Edan next month, having heard that it too is a unique take on the classical fantasy genre! I've read through the Cosmere this year and while I liked much of it, I am kind of longing for something a bit more nostalgic.

Bound and the Broken is my favorite series right now and am very impatiently waiting for book 4. Just gets better and better

Mike is completely right about Farda. Also, the short story is before Of Blood and Fire and after The Fall. It was the first thing I read in the series. Awesome discussion, loved hearing all the predictions and I can’t wait to hear what you guys have to say on the rest of the series because Of War and Ruin genuinely is phenomenal. Also, remember the prologue, I will say no more.

I’ve listened to all of the books in the series except for the Exile novella. The story continues to evolve and get better with each book. I look forward to watching more of these discussions about this series. And Mike got me reading this series also.

Philip I always love when you are part of a book spoiler discussion! You bring the gravitas!! My favorite videos are when you and Allen are together in the Faithful & the Fallen and Guards! Guards! I look forward to the rest of this series & the upcoming Quillumanti.

This is the discussion I’ve been hoping and waiting for! I loved LOVED this story so much. I will usually binge through a series and hardly any of them ( good as they may be) have pulled me in and held me like this one. I loved all the POV’s and story lines. Can’t wait to watch the group push on.

Read The Fall at the end of last year. My initial reaction was like I'd walked into a pub in the middle of a fight going on. Exciting stuff. Just finished Book 1 yesterday. Burned thru it in a week, which (these days) is unusual for me

Solid convo. I’m happy I read the fall first as well, a total gain in perspective. It’s wild how such a small book showed the scale of what Ryan was going to do and had in mind for his series

This was great! You are making me want to go back and reread this series again. 😁

I'm starting The Fall this week. Yall got me pumped 😅

The Council of Readers is now in Session!

Just watched the beginning and you gents are getting me excited to dive into this one soon!

I caught the first five to ten minutes and am looking forward to watching the rest. Good stuff. This is a series I've been wanting to dive into.

Great discussion! Honestly surprised the consensus seems to be to read The Fall first. I reckon if I read it first I never would have continued the series I loved Of Blood and Fire, but The Fall was an absolute slog, and plagued with so much repetition and poor writing mistakes. My recommendation is always read Of Blood and Fire first, because I think *not* knowing of what happens in The Fall first also makes it feel more mysterious and magical. Knowing what happens in The Fall kinda reduces that.

One thing I thought was beautiful was the contrasting use of language between the elves and the humans when referring to Rakina. Rakina in the old tongue means "broken one" but in the elven tongue it's "one who survived". They are both the same thing seen in a different light. This small detail exemplifies how different the two races are in their world view and I just loved it.

Loved this discussion. I love the concepts of the soulblades and the spark. I stand with John on hard magic. I'm excited to see how Calen and Rist develop as characters. Can't wait to dig into book 2!

Yeah - Mikes constant excitement for this series got me to buy it, and it's proper awesome. The novellas are the best novellas in history. Theres not a plot line that I rush through, i'm invested in all of them which is honestly a pretty good sign that ur having a good time, and is a rare thing. The Dragon scenes, as Mike points out, are first rate stuff, proper balls-to-the-wall octane reading experience, absolutely love it.

Please keep this video series Philip as you read through them. Maybe with Ryan on the final video?

Following this series with yall! Love to see it!! So far such a great series! Just finished of darkness and light!!

Oooh this was so fun, immediately made me want to start my own reread hahah. And it's a good thing that Mike left a bit early, because I am sure he wouldn't have kept a poker face at hearing some of your theories 👀 Very glad to hear that this was such a hit for you all, and this is only the start! Happy reading ☺

So many theories and predictions! 🤔...😎 📖🥰📚

Admittedly, I'm not a fan of The Fall or Of Blood & Fire but I really enjoyed this discussion, gentlemen.

The man in the top right, he looks like the actor who played as a demon in Supernatural! He played a great character!

Glad to hear you all had a great experience with the series so far! I’m curious: is this series mostly focused on a male cast? Are there any assassin elves? I had to ask! 😄

I really love the series

This was amazing guys, loved it. I was desperate for more discussion videos like this for The Bound and the Broken series. Please definitely do, Book 2 and Book 3 also. And the Novellas too please that's important aswell. Definitely recomnend The Fall to start with. Book 1 was definitely the weakest, but still fun but book 2&3 are far far better and The Novellas are also equally great

When will you be discussing Of Darkness and Light?

My TBR is getting so long I need to be immortal or something brahh

I do not get the love for this series at all. I finished book 3 last night and I'm on the last novella, The Ice, right now. If I had to use one word to describe the series it would be MEDIOCRE. And I don't feel like it's just a matter of tastes either. I love classic fantasy tropes. Really enjoyed Faithful & the Fallen, WoT is my all time favorite. Love Shannara, LotR, Dragonlance, ASOIAF and so many more. Just about everything in the epic fantasy realm that I've read I have either enjoyed or at least understand why others would; all except for Sword of Truth anyway. I couldn't make it past book 2 of Farseer trilogy because I don't like the main character; but I completely agree that it was very well written and 100% understand why people love it. Didn't much like Gentleman Bastards but again it was well written and I understand why people love it. Several other books and series I didn't quite love but others do and I can understand almost all of them. Except for this series and SoT. This series isn't as bad as SoT in my opinion. There were some redeeming qualities about it; I liked how he uses the dragons and the books do get better as they go along; the last main book I actually gave a 4 star rating (closer to a 3.5 really); it still had issues but it was a vast improvement over book 1. But book 1 and most of book 2 were just downright poorly written. So many mistakes, cringe worthy dialog, poor narrative decisions that just didn't make sense. I don't think I've ever had to stop and take as many breaks from reading because I encountered something idiotic that just took me out of it. If I hadn't of already bought most of the books I think book 1 would have been my first DNF in over 20 years. But I did and another BookTuber, Matt from Matt's Fantasy Book Reviews, told me it would get better. And he was right it did get better with each main book. But not enough to justify all these stellar reviews I see in the BookTube community in my opinion. I just don't get it, lol. I'll probably read the next book though; as I said the improvements he has made from book 1 to book 3 are enough to have hope that he will continue to get better as a writer. If he ends it well enough that will go a long way of erasing the bad taste left from the first couple.

Doe's Dragons get there azz beaten in thise book or not by humans 😂 just tell me

Some of my favorite booktubers in one discussion, about my most anticipated read this year? SIGN. ME. UP ❤