I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still

watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you,

soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making,

Stories Without End from WB EZ Chicago.

Join me as I share how the genre began, their social impact, and why these stories endure.

Listen wherever you get your podcast.

From WBEZ Chicago, this is Nerdad.

I'm Greta Johnson.

And today I am thrilled to introduce you to a series of books that I think is better than the Game of Thrones books. I'm going to tell you why,

but first I just want to say, no shade to George R. Martin. He is a lovely human. We had him on

Nournett. He was very kind. I liked him a lot. George, this is nothing personal. But here are my criteria.

One, this other series is feminist as f***. And two, it's actually finished. Yep, it's four books.

They're all out in the world. And the series is called the Nine Realm series, and it's by Sarah Kozlov. And here is

Sarah summing up 2,000 pages in one sentence. An epic fantasy about a young princess who must grow up

and fight her way back to the throne. That, my friend, is a sentence that gives me

goosebumps. And what's extra awesomely cool about Sarah is that her own story is super interesting,

too. She's somebody who completely changed career paths pretty much because of the Bechdel test.

She used to be a film professor at Vassar College, and now she is a full-time fantasy author. Sarah, welcome to Nurdat.

Thanks for having me, Greta. So what do you think? Was that like a fair characterization,

or did I exaggerate a little bit? Actually, it's absolutely true.

Yes.

Whenever I say this, I have to look around and be sure everybody understands what the

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