A Meal of Thorns 50- SISYPHEAN with Gareth Watkins episode artwork

EPISODE · May 18, 2026 · 1H 11M

A Meal of Thorns 50- SISYPHEAN with Gareth Watkins

from A Meal of Thorns · host mealofthorns

A rain of corpses is falling from the sky, insectoid femme fatales are setting their compound eyes on our tender thoraxes, and our cattle drive across an expanse of nanotech goo is starting to go off the rails. So we ask ourselves: do we still have to go to work tomorrow? Critic, author, & podcaster Gareth Watkins joins to discuss Dempow Torishima’s delightfully strange Sisyphean. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Gareth Watkins Title: Sisyphean by Dempow Torishima, translated by Daniel Huddleston Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Death // Sentence Muskism by Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff  Peter Thiel One Piece by Eiichiro Oda Slavoj Žižek René Girard Carl Schmitt Thiel/Douthat NYT interview Jeff VanderMeer Haikosoru Viz Comics Battle Royale by Koushun Takami Finnegans Wake by James Joyce The Doloriad by Missouri Williams M. John Harrison’s essay on worldbuilding Marmite/Vegemite Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel "Professor Jiang" Isaac Asimov's Foundation New Chronology Tartarianism Franz Kafka & Philip K. Dick A Scanner Darkly H.R. Giger Phil Tippet’s Mad God Kameron Hurley's The Stars are Legion Antoine Volodine's Radiant Terminus Manuela Draeger's Kree Mike Judge’s Office Space David Cronenberg Raymond Chandler Antonio Gramsci Nick Land Friedrich Nietzsche's eternal recurrence Yoss's Planet for Rent Deleuze & Guitarri The Sex Pistols & Avril Lavigne H.P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu" Ayn Rand Jeff VanderMeer's Dead Astronauts Torishima's Kanadete no Nufuretsun Gareth's bluesky Just Plain Evil: Cruelty, Extinction, and the Authoritarian Mind  Gareth's appearances on Blood Work

A rain of corpses is falling from the sky, insectoid femme fatales are setting their compound eyes on our tender thoraxes, and our cattle drive across an expanse of nanotech goo is starting to go off the rails. So we ask ourselves: do we still have to go to work tomorrow? Critic, author, & podcaster Gareth Watkins joins to discuss Dempow Torishima’s delightfully strange Sisyphean. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Gareth Watkins Title: Sisyphean by Dempow Torishima, translated by Daniel Huddleston Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Death // Sentence Muskism by Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff  Peter Thiel One Piece by Eiichiro Oda Slavoj Žižek René Girard Carl Schmitt Thiel/Douthat NYT interview Jeff VanderMeer Haikosoru Viz Comics Battle Royale by Koushun Takami Finnegans Wake by James Joyce The Doloriad by Missouri Williams M. John Harrison’s essay on worldbuilding Marmite/Vegemite Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel "Professor Jiang" Isaac Asimov's Foundation New Chronology Tartarianism Franz Kafka & Philip K. Dick A Scanner Darkly H.R. Giger Phil Tippet’s Mad God Kameron Hurley's The Stars are Legion Antoine Volodine's Radiant Terminus Manuela Draeger's Kree Mike Judge’s Office Space David Cronenberg Raymond Chandler Antonio Gramsci Nick Land Friedrich Nietzsche's eternal recurrence Yoss's Planet for Rent Deleuze & Guitarri The Sex Pistols & Avril Lavigne H.P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu" Ayn Rand Jeff VanderMeer's Dead Astronauts Torishima's Kanadete no Nufuretsun Gareth's bluesky Just Plain Evil: Cruelty, Extinction, and the Authoritarian Mind  Gareth's appearances on Blood Work

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A Meal of Thorns 50- SISYPHEAN with Gareth Watkins

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This episode was published on May 18, 2026.

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A rain of corpses is falling from the sky, insectoid femme fatales are setting their compound eyes on our tender thoraxes, and our cattle drive across an expanse of nanotech goo is starting to go off the rails. So we ask ourselves: do we still have...

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