u/TheWeirdTalesPodcast

I just finished The Murder at World’s End, by Ross Montgomery (not to be confused with The Last Murder at the End of the World, by Stuart Turton; or A Murder at the End of the World, the Amazon mystery series, both of which are excellent and highly recommended), and I was really happy with it.

A closed circle whodunnit in an isolated and sometimes cut off manor house. Takes place during the Haley’s Comet panic of 1910, which plays a role both literally and thematically.

I really enjoyed the book. Once I started it, I couldn’t put it down. The mystery is engaging, the foreshadowing is fantastic, Decima Stockingham is my favorite type of investigator- an old foul mouthed woman who has no patience for stupidity. Girl, same.

The resolution, while I partially figured it out about halfway through, still had plenty of surprises, and the conclusion of the story was deeply satisfying.

All in all, highly recommended. If you haven’t read it, go now.

I’m very excited for his next book, which I plan to acquire as soon as possible.

Flairing this as all spoilers in case it’s made clear by events in future books. Spoiler tag replies. Or not. I’m a Redditor, not a cop.

I’ve read the series four times, but I’m not sure of the answer to this.

At the end of chapter ten, Ronde Macura sends a messenger pigeon to Tar Valon, and another one to the west.

Then Avi Shendar looks at what she wrote and sends another pigeon out in another direction.

Do we know where and who the second and third pigeon were sent to? I thought the second might be to the Salidar Aes Sedai, but Salidar is to the east of Mardicen, where Ronde is located.

Avi… no idea.

Do we know, or is it just left up in the air and it doesn’t really matter? It’s just there to demonstrate the interconnectedness of the espionage, or whatever.

Thanks in advance.

I kicked into the Year of Sanderson gift boxes, got all my books and bookmarks, loved them all. 

Tress of the Emerald Sea was my favorite, and was my favorite book of 2023. When my daughter was born, we gave her the middle name of Tress. I loved the Tress bookmark, used it in every book I read.

I say all that to say this: yesterday, I was packing up my kid for daycare, and while juggling her, her water, my keys, and the book, left my book on my car, drove off, now it’s gone. Clearly my fault, cause I can be a dummy sometimes, but my Tress bookmark was in it.

I don’t care that much about the book- I can buy another copy- but I do care about the bookmark for the aforementioned and sentimental reasons.

I contacted Dragonsteel, but they said they didn’t have any left in the warehouse. I’ve looked on eBay, but the only one I’ve found is with the rest of the box and is going for 90 dollars. I have an email out asking if the seller would be willing to sell only the bookmark, but I honestly don’t expect a reply.

So, hi fellow kids. I am hoping that someone might be willing to part with theirs. I’m perfectly happy to pay a reasonable price and cover the shipping costs.

I know it’s kind of a crazy ask, and I feel self-conscious asking, but the Sanderson Community is one of the best fandoms I’ve ever been a part of, and that book mark really did mean a lot to me.

Thanks in advance, and I hope everyone is having a good day.

I read through Strange Houses/Pictures/Buildings in that order in the space of about a week, and while I had never heard of them before about a month or two ago, I’m a fan for life.

I first picked up and read Strange Houses (in my opinion, the weakest of the three, but that’s like saying one of the LotR books is the weakest), and immediately got kinda creeped out by the weird things going on with the first house examined.

I very much got a House of Leaves vibe, but that’s, unfortunately, very quickly evaporated.

The author talks to his architect friend who mentions some of the weird stuff, and then IMMEDIATELY jumps to a reason for why it exists, with almost no evidence to back up the hypothesis or any reason to believe it.

That was a little bit of a disappointment for me, but given that this character appears in Strange Buildings with an almost Sherlock Holmes/Hercule Poirot deductive ability, I can let it go.

Strange Pictures and Strange Buildings follow the same format as Houses (a seemingly disconnected series of odd occurrences are actually all connected), but for my money do it much better.

Pictures is the best. The way things come together, the cliffhangers it drops you on, they way they are resolved, all beautifully done with a satisfying ending and a twist reveal like any good murder mystery.

Buildings is also great. I literally finished it about two minutes before writing this post. I saw a lot of the connections as they were revealed in the Files and thought I knew what was going on (even though I knew I didn’t have the whole picture), but when I got to the back half and all the deeper connections were made, I kicked myself for not catching it sooner.

All the clues were laid out and in plain sight. I just hadn’t seen some of them.

Anyway, all that to say: Strange Houses, 8/10. Strange Buildings, 9/10. Strange Pictures, 10/10.

All of them very good, very entertaining, and I’m really excited for the arrival of Strange Maps next year.

Special thanks to u/harleys_sequins for suggesting I read Strange Pictures. Really happy with these books, and I highly recommend them to everyone.

Probably, as an Obsessed Agent, you’ve seen this before, but if you haven’t please enjoy.

Also featured: ALTERNATE LYRICS!

In “Dear Bill” we have the line,

“Because talking to roses is mad, and you knew that when you whispered sweet nothings to flowers to make my dad cross, and me laugh, and you did.”

Hester Leggatt, as portrayed in the show, wouldn’t say “My dad.” She would say “Father.”

“…to make father cross, and me laugh, and you did.”

Am I wrong about this? Does it bother anyone else? Cause this really sticks in my craw.

Been getting in Japanese Murder Mysteries lately. Read Decagon House, and Mill House by Yukito Atatsuji, as well as Strange Pictures and Strange Houses by Uketsu.

Started Labyrinth House, got a copy of Clock House, and looking forward to Black Cat House next year. I also have a copy of Strange Buildings coming, and I’m looking forward to Strange Maps next year.

Poking around Amazon, I see Soji Shimada and Seishi Yokomizo in the “Customers Also Bought” section.

Before I pull the trigger on either of these authors, have you read them? Are they any good? Any and all opinions, and maybe recommendations for authors not mentioned here would be appreciated.

Thanks so much!

I’ve completed the series multiple times, so if there’s an answer later on, awesome, just put it in a spoiler tag so it doesn’t get spoiled for others.

When Elaida meets up with Padan Fain in the prologue, why doesn’t she sense the evil coming from him?

Moiraine has said that Aes Sedai and Warders can sense shadowspawn if they’re close, she has a VISCERAL reaction to Mat when he’s almost succumbed to the dagger, and Fain is a mix of Shadowspawn, Machin Shin, Mordeth and The Light knows what else.

So why doesn’t Elaida react to him?

By which I mean: I picked up the second book, Strange Houses, but is there anything in there that will spoil Strange Pictures, or does it make references to the first book (kinda like how Ayatsuji's House Murders series takes place in the same universe)?

Or are they all stand alone, and I can just read them in any order? Thanks in advance!

Bunny from Malice, Leanne from Valkyrie, and Marco from Minotaur are all slimmer than the last time we saw them.

They look great!

Speaking as someone who is trying to lose some weight himself, it’s a hard thing to do, so props to them!

Been listening to the show obsessively, and sometimes my two year old daughter has been listening along with me.

I don’t have a problem with that, per se, because I want to expose her to all sorts of music, including Broadway musicals.

Operation Mincemeat is mostly inoffensive fun, so I’m okay with her listening to it.

She was obsessed for a little while with “Sail On, Boys” which she referred to as “Down Together.” Could sing almost the entire song in her jumbled not quite complete grasp of the language.

Then she got obsessed with, in her words, “God Brillint.” Yes. Thank you. Best song in the show, we can listen to as much as you want.

And then tonight, we were getting ready for bed, and she asked for a song called “Ice Mice.” I had no idea what that was. All the children’s songs I knew she liked, all the songs I knew she liked, none of them featured mice or ice that I could think of.

My only clue was that we had been listening to Mincemeat, so maybe it was something from the show?

So I started at the beginning, asked if that was the song she wanted. No. Skipped to the next. No. Skip. No. Skip. No.

And then we got to the start of the second act, the sirens go off and “Reich on the mic… Third Reich on the mic.”

That was the song she wanted. The Nazi song. The one that spouts all the propaganda. So.

This is my life, I guess.