Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too.

I'm Lily,

And I am Sarah.

And today we will be talking about Run With the Hunted two Control Alt Delete by Jen Donahue.

but first we have our quick five minute introduction.

Sarah, I think I already know what your good thing is for the week.

I suspect you do.

Yes.

I just got back from a trip to Alaska.

and I saw the Northern Lights.

I got to pet reindeer and go dog sledding.

It was fantastic.

I am very, very tired because I, just got home and did not sleep last night because I was looking at the Northern Lights.

So I went from Northern Lights to airplane to home to recording.

So we'll see how this recording goes.

We're recording as fast as we can so Sarah can go to bed.

Yes, please.

My good thing is.

You had an accidental layover.

I got to see you for like 30 minutes at 1:00 AM.

that was lovely.

I mean, the, the transport fuckery was less lovely.

Alaska Airlines had an outage.

It was terrible.

They strung me along, so I sat at the airport for a long, long time and ended up, missing the first activity that we had planned because I couldn't get there in time, but I did get to see you and that makes it almost all okay.

Probably not worth it for you, but for me yeah, it was great.

What are you drinking tonight?

If I had coffee in the house, I would be drinking coffee all a bits, but I have no coffee, so I am drinking.

Cider.

Very nice.

I'm drinking orange soda.

The flavor is classic orange.

I've been trying all of the random, I'm not like other soda.

I'm a healthy soda brands that are popping up all over the place, and I tried one of their other flavors and I didn't like it, but this one I like so far, so that's nice.

I'm glad that it is drinkable.

Yes.

And have you read anything good lately?

Still talking letters.

Wonderful.

I have not.

So let's, well, not, that wasn't for

Yes, you have read good things.

They are just things that we're going to be talking about.

It's feels silly to specify every time, but also saying, I haven't read anything good lately.

Let's talk about this book feels really shitty.

It does.

No, I, I a hundred percent agree.

I think the, the clarification is good, actually.

Alright, so Ctrl Alt Delete.

This is a sequel to the first run with the Hunted book, which I think is just called Run With the Hunted.

I believe that book one is just run with the hunted.

We read that at least a year ago, if not two.

Something like that.

I don't actually remember when we read that for the podcast.

I have read all of the books that are out.

So this was a reread for me, I should say novellas.

They're novellas.

Yeah.

And you haven't read the one that came out today or a week ago or whatever it is.

As of this recording, I haven't read the one that has just come out, but by the time this recording is this episode is released, I will have, because Halloween is not Halloween, it is run with the hunt day.

So I do remember a little bit from book one.

It's about three women who go on a diamond heist and.

There's a twist and I really couldn't stand the narrator.

That's about all I remember.

Oh, I love Bristol.

I know we're, we're not gonna re-litigate this.

But Bristol Yes, is the narrator and the narrator for this book changes because the narrator changes, like it cycles through each novella, so you get one for each of the main characters, and then it starts over again.

I assume it's Bristol, the fem fatal bits, the hacker and Dolly, the badass muscle.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah,

the characters that we cycle through.

yeah.

I liked bits much better.

As a narrator.

I also liked Bristol better in this book.

She's not really in this book.

I was okay with that.

She's not really in this book.

It makes me very sad.

She's kind of the damsel in distress, and I thought she played that role very well.

It is, it is a good role for her.

it was interesting you actually suggested that we skip right to the novella that has just come out and I pushed back and said, no, I wanna read them in order, which I stand by, but I don't think I needed to have read book one to read this book.

Yeah, I do think that reading all of the novellas in order helps, like it gives context for the characters.

There is character growth throughout the series.

They're not just static characters.

But I don't necessarily think that you need to have read all of the previous books to understand what goes on in, you know, whichever one you pick up.

Well, and that might be a special case for this particular one as well, because One of the overarching plot lines is that Bits is having memory issues.

So there are maybe things that I didn't remember, but there were a lot of things that she didn't remember either.

So it worked out very well.

But I think that, I think that most of the things that she doesn't remember are not actually related to the events of Book

no, it seems like it's from in between Book one and book two is where her memory

Yeah.

Like they, they have had life happen in between

But it contributed to me going, what is that?

Am I supposed to know that?

Oh, well, whatever.

It's fine.

Which to be fair didn't come up very much, but when it did, it didn't phase me.

I will say that I struggled with bit's narration because of the memory issues.

Partly that was because I was very sleep deprived when I reread this, but I struggled with it a little bit in the first in my first reread too.

So it maybe contributes to why she's not my favorite of the narrators.

I actually loved it, but this is the kind of thing that I think first person narration really shines is when you have a, I guess technically an unreliable narrator, but.

Having a narrator whose perception of reality is affected by by something she's going through, you can do so much more with that in first person.

And so A, I quite liked that.

And B, it made all of her memory issues and that kind of very disjointed in some parts.

Narration work really well for me.

It's very intentional and it's done very well.

And it does, you do really feel disjointed because bits feels disjointed.

I like that, but at the same time it's just harder to read.

My brain has to work harder.

There was one moment where, because of the way the page break fell across screens in the ebook, I thought I had scrolled too far and missed a page, and I did spend, a couple of moments going back and forth going, wait, hold on.

Wait, where was I?

Okay.

Nope.

No, this is just, this is just a thing.

Okay.

We're good.

We're good.

Yeah, like it's done very well and I, I like it in that sense.

But, I just find it a little harder to read, which is the point

So, as I mentioned, bits is the hacker of our little troop.

Girl group.

I actually think they would love that.

So yeah,

I, I, yeah, I think they would love that.

We did see her kicking some computer ass in the first book.

I remember that.

And I remembered that there were some like cybernetic enhancements.

It's, it's a little bit like future shifted.

It's not totally a sci-fi setting.

It's just kind of today, plus a little bit of fun, if you will.

Yeah, it's, it's like future.

With some cyberpunk aspects.

Still very recognizably our like society.

It's not a dystopian future.

yeah.

It, there's, there's been some climate change.

There's different technology, but it is, like you say, recognizably our society.

And because that this book is told through Bit's perspective, we see a lot more of, of the hacking, if you will.

This is where my complete lack of computer knowledge is gonna be.

She did a hack and then.

But the way that it is visualized, not just in the book, but in this world, I thought was really fun.

So Bits has VR goggles and also crazy contact lenses.

And the computer world is exactly the same as our world, except, you know.

Technology.

And so the way that she, for example, steals some files is she.

Well, not physically, but virtual reality.

Lee goes to a room full of filing cabinets and takes a file and then somehow sends it to herself.

So it's very physical and visual, which for some reason reminded me of the matrix, even though that's not what's happening in the Matrix.

But just that like computer version of our world.

I felt maybe, maybe what I'm thinking is like nineties sci-fi is how it felt.

Yeah, I could see that I, I actually could see that a lot.

And I do really like the way it's visualized.

I think it makes for a more.

Interesting reading experience, particularly because it is first person.

Like hearing about how she inputs some commands and spent a couple of hours trying to do that is not as.

Fun as hearing about her walking into this room and trying to not set off any alarms and rifling through files.

And there's security, and sometimes those security are real people and sometimes they're just AI people.

Which also felt like very, a, a very fun, realistic thing done in a very fantastical way.

Yeah.

And they like walk up and confront her and she's like, no, it's chill.

I'm supposed to be here.

And anyway, it, it was very much like.

Hacking was computer heists heists in computer world tron, a little bit tron like, like I said, very vintage sci-fi.

It was so much fun.

Very much person in computer world.

Yes.

Yes.

Also this book opens with her being pulled out of virtual reality for the first time in.

We're never actually told how long she's under, but it is very clear that she has circumvented safety settings in order to be in the rea virtual reality world as long as she was.

And she is dealing with what, what would you say, backlash, just side effects.

Yeah.

Side effects with withdrawals.

It's not healthy for her and.

There's a lot of issues that it causes physically.

She's also dealing with some other stuff that kind of compounds it all.

But the end result is that even though she is this super talented hacker it, she doesn't feel overpowered.

Like, it doesn't feel like she is being intentionally, intentionally stopped from doing stuff for the sake of the story.

Yeah, it, it walks a very fine line, or I should say Donahue walks a very fine line with bits is supposed to be this, we find out world renowned hacker.

So how do you have her struggle with things that the reader doesn't go?

If she's actually that good, this should be easy, you know?

Or just have her blow through everything.

And then there's no conflict or tension because she just uses her super powerful hacker skills.

So by giving her this sort of just health issue that she has to be dealing with on top of everything else, I thought was a very elegant way of doing that.

And especially because those issues are.

Part of the plot eventually.

Right.

So it doesn't feel arbitrary, like, oh, so she just happened to have a cold on the day that she had to do this heist.

Sure.

Okay.

Yeah, it, it's all tied in very nicely.

We also see a lot of Dolly in this, we did in, in the first book as well, but.

I'd say a lot of this book is Bits and Dolly since they're trying to save Bristol.

And I do really love Dolly.

I remember thinking that in the first book as well, although I do not remember why, although probably for the same reason

Probably for the same reason.

I would say that while Bristol is my favorite narrator, Dolly is probably my favorite character.

She's just, she's so badass.

I will reserve judgment until I've read at least one of each of the narrators.

Yeah.

Fair.

Yeah.

But it also, I think, how much I love Dolly in this book that really throws you into the deep end.

You know, bits wakes up and Dolly is there saying, Bristol's kidnapped, we gotta go.

I mean, she doesn't.

Say that right off the bat, but that's essentially what has happened and not kidnapped, arrested, sorry.

That's important I guess.

Is imprisoned.

We have to go.

yes, but Donahoo does a great job of showing us who these characters are with very little page space.

This is a novella.

It reads very quickly.

Yet I still know exactly who these women are, exactly how they relate to each other.

And then there are of course other characters as well.

They collect some help along the way.

As great as Dolly and Bits are, they can't take on the Department of Homeland Security all on their own.

I, they're willing to give it a go if they have to.

They are, and that's part of why I love them.

But I think probably good ultimately that they did find help.

Well, I think it's, I think it's very reasonable for them to recognize that, we'll do this if we have to by ourselves, but we would prefer not to because we don't think it would be successful.

Yes.

They also avoid killing.

Not that they are unwilling to, but that they.

They try to avoid it.

They don't want to kill people for no reason, which is very refreshing in as much of a an action heist sequence as we get in this book.

And the first one as well,

I am pretty sure that some people accidentally get or not accidentally get killed, but I do think that some people probably get killed in the course of this novel.

There are a couple of scenes where they do shoot at people.

Yeah.

And we, we see some damage that gets done.

But I, I just appreciated it.

It felt very sincere.

Like they're not trying to, like, they're not assassins.

They're, they're not monsters.

I mean, they are probably bad guys in the sense that they, you know.

Steal and do heists and double cross people, but they're good people.

they're not going around just willy-nilly killing people for money.

But then the flip side of that is they're not, no, I'm a Robin Hood figure.

I could never kill someone.

No guns, you know, that whole thing.

And then of course, that would always turn into, well, then they have the chance to get away, but they can't take it'cause it would kill someone so that it escalate, you know, that whole

They're, they're very practical

Yeah, they, if they need to, they will do what it takes to save themselves.

It's, it feels like you said, very practical.

I don't wanna say realistic, but

and I, I do think that that's a lot of Dolly coming out because she is the.

Practical muscle.

And we, we don't see it so much with Bristol in this book in particular, but we do see bits talking about like, I don't know if I've ever shot at someone.

I don't, I don't know if I could kill someone.

So it's lucky that they have partners who compliment all of their weaknesses.

Yes, but it's also just that, I guess the, the approach of that morality, there's no reason to kill people indiscriminately like We even see them like apply a emergency bandage and call for medical services after they get far away.

there's that practicality for them.

And like you said, like with Dolly, she starts with a beanbag gun and then switches to a real gun when shit hits the fan.

I just appreciate that.

You already said practical.

There's another word.

they're not like idealist.

I really appreciate that pragmatism,

Yes.

and it's the exact same word as practical, but I knew there was another one, and I didn't wanna say practical again, except I cannot think of words these days, which is really not helpful for a podcast.

I mean, fair.

Who should read this book?

Is there a reason to skip straight to this one?

I mean, if this sounds fun, probably start with the first one.

They're short.

Yeah, I mean, if you really don't wanna read the first one, then you, you could skip to this one, I think.

But if this.

Sounds fun.

Like you said, Lily, read the first one.

They're short.

And the delightful thing about changing narrators is that even if you don't enjoy one of the women's perspectives, you get a different one in the next book,

Yeah.

So if you want fun near future setting action.

heists.

Companionship feels too schmoopy.

Teamwork, that's the word.

Letting ladies do villainous things,

Yeah, but not like cartoon villain,

no supporting women's wrongs,

Yeah.

Looking at someone and go, I can make her worse.

but in a fun way.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

And yeah.

And you never feel like,

You don't.

feel like I had to turn off my brain because it was so like over the top or, yeah, in the real world I would hate these people, you know?

and, and also you don't feel bad supporting them, which I think is very crucial.

Like these are feel good books.

These are, they're not necessarily doing good things, these women.

But it's fun.

they're stealing from the government.

It's like, who cares?

You, you like supporting

some like middle class family's retirement account.

Yeah.

They're not, they're not jerks.

If they're, it's just a fun series.

It really is.

I really enjoyed this.

I am excited to read more, but we have some spoilers to talk about, don't we?

We do have some spoilers to talk about.

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Something else that made this book work really well for me and not that I hated Book one.

I really enjoyed book one.

Well, we wouldn't have continued on to book two if you had hated book

Yeah.

But book two hit on some of my things in ways that Book one was like, eh, it's fun.

Action.

The, the heist in this, and just the whole story overall was much more personal.

They were very human stakes.

I mean, don't get me wrong, stealing diamonds is awesome, but like.

It starts with they have to save their friend.

Yeah, saving, saving a friend from the government is much more personal.

I do think, and maybe this is a little bit countered by the fact that you don't remember much of book one, but I do think that it would have been hard to.

Have the stakes.

This personal, in the first story, like I think that you needed that fun action introduction to the characters so that you do care a little bit more when one of them is in danger.

I agree completely.

Like I said, I have no complaints about Book one.

It's just we have now set up these teammates and their relationships and so we can start playing with that.

I also feel like in Book one, they were not as close with each other.

I remember that being something I commented on.

I think.

Yeah, I think he did.

I'm trying to dredge up my memories.

It has been a while.

and you had a very different reaction to their interactions, I think because you've read more books and they clearly get much closer.

Whereas in Book one, they knew each other but hadn't necessarily worked together.

Whereas from book one to book two, as they're basically trying to like throw.

The government off their trail after this diamond heist.

They clearly have spent a lot of time together watching each other's backs and trust each other and care for each other a lot more, or that's just bit's version.

And Bristol is a cold hearted bitch and bits is like, no, we're friends.

We'd never lie to each other.

I do think that it's a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B.

Really, I thought you were gonna push back on that because I, my first reaction was just, oh, time has passed.

They're closer now.

No, I like, I do think that that's part of it, right?

I, I think that in the first book, you know, they'd worked together a little bit, but they hadn't worked together as much and they've clearly spent more time together by this book.

And they've gone on more jobs together.

They know each other better.

But I do also think that.

Bits is more open about her feelings than Bristol.

And while I wouldn't necessarily call Bristol a cold-hearted bitch I also don't necessarily disagree.

I just happen to really enjoy her, her POV books.

I mean, I liked her so much more.

I, I know the joke is I liked her more'cause she wasn't in this book, but she does show up.

They do save her and then there's a, a complication that they continue on and Bristol is, you know, very kind to bits and they've picked up Noel, who is this?

Maybe teenage hacker.

Who they originally think is in over her head, although she ends up being a double agent.

I mean, she probably still is over her head, but she, she turns out to be a double agent like you say.

And so seeing Bristol from the outside, I liked her quite a bit without her internal narration.

So I think Yeah.

Well, and it'll be interesting to see.

Because once we get back to her, it will be what?

Book four.

I believe so.

So I'm actually very excited for that.

Despite not jiving with her in book one to see if she has changed.

I have to assume she has, and even not if she's changed, but you know, the way she relates to Dolley and Bits.

yeah, like the thing about Bristol is that I think she is a.

Much more unreliable narrator to herself when it comes to her relationships with people.

Like she doesn't wanna open herself up and so she tells herself that she is this cold person.

And it can be a little difficult to, to read in that perspective, but when you see her from the outside and you see how she actually like interacts with, with the people around her, it's easier.

Yeah, and like I said I'm, I'm excited to read more.

I really like Donna who's work, so even if I dislike Bristol's narration, I'll survive.

Well, and a again, that's part of the joy of the series is that it cycles through the different narrators, so you're not stuck with one person and one voice that that doesn't work for you.

so First mission is to save Bristol from DHS some secret black site where they keep people off the books, where they've scooped'em up.

Where have we heard that before?

Okay, moving on.

That would never happen in real life.

In the United States of America.

But then the other thing happening is, of course, bit's memory issues.

I gleefully played along with bit's original assumption in the nons spoiler section because I didn't wanna spoil anything obviously.

But as you alluded to, it's not actually because she was under VR for too long.

It was because she, it was, it was a,

So she, she,

program or something she accidentally triggered.

yeah, basically they were doing this job, they were looking into Dolly's super soldier programming.

And she was not careful enough when she was not careful enough when she was trying to hack into this facility and she got infected by a virus.

Now.

How much of this is, I've put it together because I can remember from page to page, even if bits can't always.

How much of this is explicitly told to me by the end of the book and, and I should not feel clever at all for putting it together, but there's secondary heist.

They go to this second location, this abandoned facility that Dolly never really explains why.

She's just like, and we're doing this next.

And while they're there, bits is remembering bits and pieces and it.

The reason why they're there is to jog her memory.

Right.

No, I think that they are genuinely there for the documentation, like the paper that.

Dolly Gatz.

Okay.

So that's just a happy accident.

That also it, it kind of fixes bits as,

I wouldn't say it's a happy accident.

Like I, I think that they are hoping that it will, but I do believe that Dolly is genuinely looking for what she finds.

Yeah, you're right.

So it's not all Yeah,

So it's, it's not, it's not like the only purpose of this trip is to.

Jog bit's memory, but I, I am certain that they're hoping that it will help.

Yeah.

I mean, and they.

Some of the rooms that they go.

Okay.

No.

'cause the first room that they go to has the paperwork that Dolly is looking for, and then she just kind of leads them through for absolutely no reason.

That was to jog bit's memory.

Yes, yes.

Okay.

Okay.

I agree with you there.

I think that was to jog bit's memory.

Which is sweet.

Like they're taking care of each other.

I, I, this book just.

Worked really, really well for me.

I enjoyed the first book, but this was like for me,

Yeah, I do like seeing the relationship because even if I wouldn't call them like best friends or anything by any means but they do try to take care of each other.

Dolly is constantly reminding bits to, to eat or asking if she's hungry.

Trying to make her eat and feel better and it's just sweet.

they genuinely care about each other.

Yeah.

And so even if they aren't like weaving friendship bracelets, they show it in different ways.

I bet Bristol would weave friendship bracelets though.

I don't think she'd wear one.

No, and it would be, she'd do it for a purpose.

Like it wouldn't just be because she.

Wanted everyone to have friendship bracelets,

And then she'd do that mean girls thing where she compliments it and then behind your back says, so ugly.

What was she thinking?

well, no, because she made it so she wouldn't, she wouldn't say that, but.

Alright.

She would say, what an idiot for accepting, the one part where bits is sort of.

Memory issues slash perception issues did tangle me up a little bit, was around null.

Mostly the figuring out that she is a double agent or a plant or whatever you wanna call her because Vs.

Doesn't really know how she figures it out.

Well, I mean, I can get around that because bits notices something as weird with Noel's technology and then it kind of just percolates in the back of her brain and eventually she's like, oh yeah, that, you know, if I was working at full capacity, I would've caught on to how weird this is much sooner.

And so she starts investigating and it, it does turn out to be weird.

Yeah.

And I mean it.

It's not like it comes out of left field before they even pick her up.

They're like, we have no idea who this person is.

This could be a huge mistake.

So the reader at least already has it planted in our head that Noel might not be a friend, but I guess it was just.

Bits acted like the network surges were a smoking gun, and I just don't understand why finding the tracking software in her stuff.

I get that.

So I mean, I think that network searches is because why would there be network searches if she didn't have something else going on?

Okay, sure.

Yeah.

Like, that's, that's just really weird because Bits is.

Headgear is more advanced, but she's not seeing those same surges.

So it is weird that that null is, and it kind of implies that something else is maybe running in the background that hasn't been paying attention to that bits hasn't been paying attention to, to be clear.

Yeah, and then of course bits hacks into Noel's device and is like, ah, yes, here, here are all of the things,

Yes.

This is, this is why you're suspicious I was right to be suspicious.

which does make you go, shouldn't you have done that from the very beginning?

But then you circle back to, well, she is extremely ill and not fully conscious a lot of the time, so I guess it's okay.

Yeah.

I don't, I don't mind that she falls down in that regard.

Yeah.

And there's a reason for it.

I did.

I felt so clever.

Sarah.

One of the things that Bits has problems remembering is this like super high tech camouflage device that they pick up off of someone that they shoot in the face or the chest, I guess, but still.

And at one point she's like, wait, I don't have that anymore.

Oh shit.

And I was like, well, yeah, you gave that to Dolly and then yes, Dolly did have it and then use it at the end.

But I felt very smart for remembering the thing I had read 15 minutes earlier.

It is on the page.

Yeah.

And it's like, not like it was 500 pages earlier.

It did make me go like, wait, is that, is that bits confusion or my confusion?

Didn't I read that?

And then yeah, I was, I was right.

I know.

Not actually that impressive, but do we have anything to say about Nikola?

He was there.

he was there.

The banter was good.

Like I liked his banter, especially with Dolly.

I mean, obviously bits is not really up for bantering.

Yeah.

I do like him.

It does follow the what one of the patterns I remember from Book one, which is the comp, not completely inconsequential male characters, but the clearly sidelined male characters in the way that a female character would be in like a James Bond type of thing.

So I am delighted in that sense.

It, it is a delightful reversal.

And he's not, he's not a bad guy.

There's nothing wrong with him.

He's good at his job.

He's trust.

He doesn't double cross'em that we see in the book.

hedging my bets just in case.

No, but I, I do like Nikolai and he is not like a main character, but he does come back periodically, I believe.

Well, I can't wait to read.

The book from Dolly's perspective, which must be next'cause she's the only one left.

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