Hello, and welcome to the NataCast, podcast, the podcast that usually goes through a song of ice and fire, one chapter a week, but not here.

I'm one of your hosts Emmett, also known as Poor Quentin.

My co-host, Jeff, also known as Brendan Beefish, is taking a couple of months off the podcast for work.

Soon as he's back, we'll jump right back into a Song of Ice and Fire with Sansa's third

chapter in a Storm of Swords.

In the meantime, I've been picking up where I left off last time with J.R.R. Tolkien's,

the Lord of the Rings.

Last week, I covered Book 5, Chapter 2, The Passing of the Grey Company, and this week

we're jumping into Book 5, Chapter 3,

The Muster of Rohan.

As this chapter begins, Tolkien is very concerned that his story is getting too complicated

to follow, so he provides a neat little summary. Now all roads were running together to the

east to meet the coming of war and the onset of the shadow.

And even as Pippen stood at the great gate of the city and saw the Prince of Dal Amroth ride in with

his banners, the King of Rohan came down out of the hills.

Tolkien will pull the same trick when he cuts back to Frodo and Sam in book six.

They see the shadow retreat from the West, Sam wonders what's going on, and Tolkien tells us,

The Witch King has just been cast down.

It gives us a sense of simultaneous action along different story threats, allowing us to keep it all

straight in our heads without making a big chart with string and pushpins like Charlie and that Always Sunny meme.

But it works emotionally as well as logistically.

These characters feel separate from each other.

...