A Meal of Thorns

Stop explaining and start exploring: critic & reviewer Molly Templeton walks us through this gem of 1980s mass market fantasy, with many asides and theories on shifting patterns of publishing and reading patterns. Plus, we spill the beans on the most fun book club, also known as the most fun cult. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Molly Templeton Title: Moongather by Jo Clayton Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: ARB’s Fundraiser! Donations & shares greatly appreciated! Kurt Vonnegut's asterisk John Darnielle's This Year "Cold Milk Bottle" "First Few Desperate Hours" Claire North's Slow Gods Hebe Stanton’s review at ARB Molly’s discussion of Slow Gods and being stuck on a book Gary Wolfe & Jonathan Strahan's Coode Street Podcast Arkady Martine & Ann Leckie The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Violet Allen's Prism, Plastic, Void Little Puss Press Casey Plett Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone’s This Is How You Lose The Time War Vajra Chandrasekera’s Rakesfall A.V. Marraccini’s We The Parasites Clayton’s Diadem from the Stars Brandon Sanderson Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea Forgotten Realms J.R.R. Tolkien's “On Fairy Stories” & Lord of the Rings Ged & the otak from Earthsea "Fridging" & "Bury Your Gays" The Arrowverse TV shows Ron Howard’s Solo: A Star Wars Film "Explaining vs Exploring" Bora Chung's Midnight Timetable The Toyota Tercel The soot-sprites from Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner Bethany Jacobs’ This Brutal Moon, conclusion to The Kindom Trilogy Jacobs’ website Philip Pullman's The Rose Field The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey David Eddings’ The Belgariad Parallel Worlds Bookshop Cherryh's Rusalka & The Paladin The Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation & Prize Molly's writing at Reactor & Bluesky & Website

The pleasures and perils of nostalgia & reference, the importance of identifying real play versus gamified labor, and whether the internet used to be fun: Matthew Leggat of the Utopian & Dystopian Fictions podcast joins to discuss Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Matthew Leggatt Title: Ready Player One by Ernie Cline Host:Jake Casella Brookins Music byGiselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork byRob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: ARB’s Fundraiser!!! Matthew’s Cultural and Political Nostalgia in the Age of Terror, Play in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction, and Wastelands and Wonderlands The Utopian & Dystopian Fictions podcast I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman Chicano Frankenstein by Daniel A. Olivas U&DF episode with Olivas Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash & Reamde William Gibson’s Neuromancer K.A. Teryna’s Black Hole Heart translated by Alex Shvartsman Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenya’s Chain Gang All-Stars Was It Yesterday: Nostalgia in Contemporary Film and Television edited by Matthew Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code Gamergate “Playing the Game of Literature: Ready Player One, the Ludic Novel, and the Geeky ‘Canon’ of White Masculinity” by Megan Amber Condis Captain Crunch: phreaker John Draper Kyle Chayka’s "Why the internet isn't fun anymore" William Gibson’s “The Gernsback Continuum” Ling Ma's Severance Helen MacDonald & Syn Blaché’s Prophet MacDonald’s H is for Hawk Stanislaw Lem's Solaris Alice Landsberg's Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture The television series Stranger Things Mark Fisher's Ghosts of My Life Richard Fleischer’s Soylent Green (based on Harrison’s Make Room! Make Room!) & Paul R. Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb Samuel Butler’s Erewhon B.F. Skinner’s Walden Two Voight-Kampf Test from Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner / Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The "lusory attitude" from Bernard Suits' The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia Ernst Callenbach's Ecotopia Philip Nel’s “I Love the ‘80s: Dystopia, Nostalgia, and Ready Player One” Michael Jackson 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back (That's Mike Nelson of MST3K Fame) High Fidelity by Nick Hornby Jordan Carroll's Speculative Whiteness Paul Hardisty'sForcing trilogy

A nested novel that very pointedly bridges the litfic/specfic divide, David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas takes some big swings at tricky topics. Abigail Nussbaum returns to the podcast with some thoughts on how the novel has aged, and how it’s still relevant to genre thinking today. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Abigail Nussbaum Title: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell Host:Jake Casella Brookins Music byGiselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork byRob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: ARB’s Fundraiser!!! Track Changes Aliya Whiteley’s The Misheard World & Abigail’s review Nina Allen Alexis Hall's Hell's Heart Olivia Waite Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick Lincoln Michel's Metallic Realms Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire Hanya Yanagihara's The People in the Trees Readerville forum & Salon Magazine's “The Well” The Cloud Atlas by Liam Callanan Jonathan Lethem's Girl in Landscape & Motherless Brooklyn Kate Atkinson's Case Histories Our episode on The Historian Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union New Wave, Cyberpunk, Mundane SF, The New Weird China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station The “New Adult” category of books Taylor Jenkins Reed Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin The Marvel Cinematic Universe Aragorn’s Tax Policy Jeremy Rosen’s Genre Bending Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, Russel Hoban’s Riddley Walker, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World Sofia Samatar’s The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain Jean Baudrillard William Gibson The Stanford marshmallow experiment The Chatham Islands, Moriori & Māori peoples Charlie Jane Anders’ piece on Cloud Atlas The Velvet Underground joke (not many people listened, but everybody who did started a band) Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go Niall Harrison’s “In Search of Green Overshoots” The Coral Bones by E.J. Swift In Ascension by Martin MacInnes Gnomon by Nick Harkaway Abigail's Blog & Bluesky Tolkien Series: Roseanna Pendlebury & Ed Morland’s, Ranged Touch’s Shelved by Genre, Nick Hubble, Jared Pechaček, Weird Studies

We’re leaving speculative genres for just a moment! Author Max Gladstone joins to discuss style & structure in Raymond Chandler’s hardboiled classic The Big Sleep, a work that’s been massively influential across SFF literature, games, & film. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Max Gladstone Title: The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler Host:Jake Casella Brookins Music byGiselle Gabrielle Garcia Additional music from David Hilowitz’s “Future Cities”, CC BY-NC 4.0 And a couple of seconds from the end of The Mountain Goats’ “Cadaver Sniffing Dog” Artwork byRob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Nominate for the Hugos! Nominate for the Le Guin Prize! Support Locus Magazine’s Fundraiser! ARB Kickstarter coming soon! Stranger Things Metro City by Kurt Busiec et al. Sex Criminals by Matt Fraction & Chip Zdarsky Kieron Gillan Balsam Karam's Event Horizon John Darnielle's This Year Song Exploder episode on the Mountain Goats song “Cadaver Sniffing Dog” 'Pataphysics Waigong & neigong Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” Dorothy Parker William Gibson L.A. Confidential, dir. Curtis Hanson Tracer Bullet in Bill Waterson’s Calvin & Hobbes Snoopy in Charles Schulz’s Peanuts Dashiel Hammett Haruki Murakami'sHard-Boiled Wonderland & The End of the World Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light & The Dead Man's Brother The Raymond Chandler Papers, edited by Tom Hiney & Frank McShane James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity Chandler’s essay “The Simple Art of Murder” Max Payne, directed by Petri Järvilehto & written by Sam Lake Albert Camus & Jean-Paul Sartre Robert A. Heinlein Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun Hammet's The Maltese Falcon Chandler’s The Long Goodbye Fix-ups & “cannibal novels” William Faulkner & Leigh Bracket To Have and To Have Not, directed by Howard Hawks Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall Chandler’s The High Window Rex Stour's Nero Wolfe stories, such as Black Orchids “The CSI effect” Jeffrey Rowland's “Science Cop” bit in Wigu David Lynch Paul Aster Peter Brooks' Reading for the Plot Dead Hand Rule, the latest Craft novel (one more to come!) Max's website & newsletter

In this science fiction novel, translated from the French, dreamers “dive” into their own subconscious and return with mysterious & valuable objects. Translator, author, & scholar Alexander Dickow joins to discuss Francophone SF, weird fiction, and artistic allegories & analogies. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Alexander Dickow Title: The Deep-Sea Diver’s Syndrome by Serge Brussolo, translated by Edward Gauvin Host:Jake Casella Brookins Music byGiselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork byRob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Nominate for the Hugos (if you’re eligible to) Nominate for the Le Guin prize (open to all!) The Translated Hugo Initiative Alexander’s Strange Horizons article on Francophone SF China Miéville Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation Poets Skip Fox & Ian Seeds Emil Petaja’s The Nets of Space Philippe Curval Kilgore Trout Alfred Jarry & ‘Pataphysics Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov Edgar Rice Burrough’s Tarzan Philip K. Dick Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?/Bladerunner PKD’s The Galactic Pot Healer, Confessions of a Crap Artist, Ubik Nathalie Sarraute’s work on Proust (possibly in The Age of Suspicion) Tolkien's “Leaf By Niggle” Harrison's Clomping Foot of Nerdism C.J. Cherryh's Wave Without A Shore Samuel Richardson Walter Scott Keats’ letter to Woodhouse: “A Poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence.” PKD’s A Scanner Darkly “Smellevision replaces television” Zachary Gillan’s work on the "Weird Art Story" Richard Gavin Alexander’s “The Weird and the Fantastic: Genre in Theory and Genre as History” Laurent Genefort Nnedi Okorafor's Death of the Author Honoré de Balzac Samatar's Olondriannovels Ray Bradbury's "The Jar" Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun "Anti-fantasy" Christopher Nolan's Inception JJ Abram's “Mystery Box” (blech boo hiss) Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart Alexander's Linktree Alain Damasio’s The Horde of the Counterwind

Reviewer and historian Liz Bourke joins to discuss religion, historical overlaps, and examinations of gender in Paladin of Souls and fantasy more generally. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Liz Bourke Title: Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold Host:Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Blood Tide by Sophie Burnham Jen Lyons' Green and Deadly Things Hiron Ennes’ The Works of Vermin China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station Bret Devereaux’s series on military-historical realism in Tolkien; see for instance “The Siege of Gondor Part IV” McMaster’s Curse of Chalion, Penric & Desdemona series, Vorkosigan series Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love Bioware's Dragon Age games Cult of Asclepius Tolkien's idea of the “eucatastrophe” M. Night Shyamalan Mythopoeia Sofia Samatar’s A Stranger in Olondria and The Winged Histories Liz's bluesky & website

Greg Egan’s work exemplifies a certain kind of “hard” science fiction: not that it’s obsessed with big manly space battles, but rather that it’s using science to really dig into some complicated subjects. Eden Kupermintz, of Death // Sentence and many other cool projects, joins to discuss the scope and the scale, philosophy and physics in Diaspora.   Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.   Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Eden Kupermintz Title: Diaspora by Greg Egan Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Additional music: "Equatorial Complex" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License "Fluidscape" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: The Translated Hugo Initiative Brian Catling's Earwig Jeffrey Ford's The Physiognomy Jeff VanderMeer's The Strange Bird Jeremy P. Bushnell's Relentless Melt Severian (from Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun) Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves "Every text is ergodic if you want it to be." Pink Floyd's Stairway to Heaven Heavy Blog is Heavy Centroeuropa by Vicente Luis Mora, translated by Rahul Bery Dengue Boy by Michel Nieve, translated by Rahul Bery You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue, translated by Natasha Wimmer Enrigue in discussion with Maia Gil’Adí (friend of the pod) on Novel Dialogue Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation & Authority (and the Meal of Thorns episode) Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Ursula Le Guin's Ekumen (in the Hainish books) Ben Berman Ghan’s The Years Shall Run Like Rabbits & Eden's review Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men and Starmaker Greg Egan's Scale Backlisted episode on Last and First Men David Hume leptons & femtoseconds Gilles Deleuze & Jacques Derrida Immanuel Kant & correlationism Egan's Perihelion Summer Socrates & Plato & the polis solipsism Edwin A. Abbot's Flatland Zelazny, Le Guin, Dick, Asimov Peter Watts' Blindsight Becky Chambers' To Be Taught If Fortunate Egan's Morphotropic Larry Niven (e.g., Ringworld) "I know kung fu" scene in The Matrix Pragmatism, coherence, William James The Best of Greg Egan Permutation City Greg Daniel’s Upload series The Orthogonal Rocket trilogy Zendegi Karen Burnham's Modern Masters of SF book on Egan MMSF on Ballard, Bester Frederick Pohl's Gateway Poul Anderson’s Tau Zero Wells, Camille Flammarion, Flash Gordon, Star Trek & Star Wars M. John Harrison’s The Centauri Device Gareth Watkin's essay on AI & fascism John M. Ford's Web of Angels on Death // Sentence GregEgan.net

Charles Saunders’ sword and soul narratives, pulp-fantasy-inspired tales of Black and African heroes, helped blaze a trail for the genre—but, like Saunders himself, they have a complicated and still-developing story. Jon Tattrie, author of the newly-released Saunders biography, To Leave A Warrior Behind, joins us to talk about the foundational novel Imaro: its themes, its history, and its legacy. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Jon Tattrie Title: Imaro by Charles R. Saunders Host:Jake Casella Brookins Music byGiselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork byRob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: To Leave A Warrior Behind Tricon Halifax Charles R. Saunders Prize Trident Bookstore Amal El-Mohtar Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn Jude Mire’s Patchworld Nova Hal-Con Shag Harbour UFO Sword & Soul Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan Robert E. Howard's Conan Dark Fantasy magazine Gene Day Boris Vallejo & Franz Frazetta Neuland Inline font Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park The Halifax Daily News Africville Saunder's Sweat and Soul: The Saga of Black Boxers from the Halifax Forum to Ceasar's Palace The Quest for Cush Dossuye Turkana wrist knives “thews” Octavia Butler, Samuel Delany N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season & our episode on it "The City of Madness" Octavia Butler, Toni Adeyemi Dossoye Novels Dhambala Abangonee Charles de Lint Amazons (1986) & Stormquest (1987), both directed by Alejandro Sessa Mathieu Da Costa Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia The Spirit of Africville Audiobook of To Leave A Warrior Behind

If you read Dracula and thought: “I like the ancient shapeshifting nemesis and the homoerotic subtext, but I don’t like how subtle the sexual and national anxieties are,” you’re in luck! Editor, reviewer, and scholar Marisa Mercurio is here to talk about not-so-subtle horrors in Richard Marsh’s 1897 novel The Beetle. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Marisa Mercurio Title: The Beetle by Richard Marsh Host:Jake Casella Brookins Music byGiselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork byRob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough Chopin's "Minute Waltz" performed by Alfred Cortot Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique" performed by the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted by Artur Rodzinski References: Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca & Don't Look Now Alex Woodroe's The Night Ship Tenebrous Press Bram Stoker's Dracula Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, Ann Radcliffe, Charles Dickens, George Eliot E.R. Eddison's Zimianvian trilogy Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes Kate Beaton’s “The Horror Of The New Woman” H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis The Fly films (Kurt Neumann 1958; David Cronenberg 1986) Phase IV directed by Saul Bass Robert Repino's Mort(e) The Nest by Gregory A. Douglas, and the “Valancourt Paperbacks from Hell” Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey The Female Detective by Andrew Forrester Wilkie Collins The However Improbable podcast Marisa’s bluesky

We’re closing out this strange year with a “big-picture” episode: editor & critic Dan Hartland is on to talk about trends and directions—or lack thereof—in recent speculative fiction. We talk about the interesting spread of books & awards this year, do some armchair speculating about genre shifts & their accompanying arguments, and have some very insider-baseball discussion of what gets reviewed (or not) and why. And, of course, Dan and Casella talk about their favorite reads from 2025. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Dan Hartland Host:Jake Casella Brookins Music byGiselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork byRob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough Transcribers: Kate Dollarhyde and John WM Thompson References: Critical Friends podcast Gautam Bhatia's The Sentence Vajra Chandrasekera's Rakesfall Award spread this year- see for instance SFADB Article on UK romantasy sales numbers Romantasy, LitRPG, Progression Fantasy, Baen Books Locus SFT= Speculative Fiction in Translation Strange Horizons issue on the NEA cuts and SFT Richard K. Morgan Orbus by Neal Asher Jenny Hamilton’s work at Reactor AO3= Archive Of Our Own When There Are Wolves Again by E.J. Swift Metal from Heaven by August Clarke Niall Harrison’s review of Swift William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy Hugboxing vs Scab-Picking H.G. Wells Sylvia Park's Luminous Eva Meijer’s Sea Now, tr. Anne Thompson Melo The Booker Prize “Prestige TV in the Time of Climate Change” by Sarah Miller The Sopranos & Breaking Bad The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien Hannah Arendt & Baruch Spinoza John Wyndham & J.G. Ballard The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica, tr. Sarah Moses Becky Chambers Colourfields by Paul Kincaid Margaret Killjoy's A Country of Ghosts The Expansion Project by Ben Pester The Goldsmiths Prize Olga Ravn's The Employees Jeff VanderMeer's Area X Ned Beauman BSFA short SF in translation award Translated Hugo Initiative Dengue Boy by Michel Nieva, tr. Rahul Berry Isaac Fellman's Notes from a Regicide Vajra Chandrasekera’s The Saint of Bright Doors Christopher Priest Debbie Urbanski's Portalmania Thomas Ha's Uncertain Sons Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others Leyna Krow's Sinkhole and Other Inexplicable Voids Ed Park's An Oral History of Atlantis Kelly Link, George Saunders, T.C. Boyle, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Elwin Cotman Deep Dream: Science Fiction Exploring the Future of Art, edited by Indrapramit Das Countess by Suzan Palumbo Annie Bot by Sierra Grier Erika Swyler's We Lived On The Horizon Adrian Tchaikovsky, Premee Mohamed Lincoln Michel's Metallic Realms Ed Park’s Same Bed Different Dreams

We’re tracking down the wellspring of “dark academia” in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, and plucking on threads that stretch out to current fantasy and science fiction literature, with reviewer Roseanna Pendlebury as our guide. Casella manages to throw some shade at Arrival, somehow, and also references Dumb & Dumber.   Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.   Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Roseanna Pendlebury Title: The Secret History Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough Transcribers: Kate Dollarhyde and John WM Thompson References: Isaac Fellman’s Notes from a Regicide E.J. Swift’s When There Are Wolves Again Ned Beauman’s Venomous Lumpsucker  Rebecca Campbell's Arboreality Simon Roy's Griz Grobus & A Star Called The Sun Ursula Whitcher's North Continent Ribbon Tartt’s The Goldfinch Euripides’ The Bacchae Jane Alison's Meander Spiral Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative Roger Ebert's review of Roger Avary’s film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's The Rules of Attraction (which, we didn’t get into this in the episode, is sort of in the Expanded Secret History Universe) Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Grey J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Sofia Samatar's The Practice The Horizon and the Chain R.F. Kuang's Katabasis & Babel Fellman's The Two Doctors Górski Marina & Sergei Dyachenko's Vita Nostra, translated by Julia Meitov Hersey Ceaușescu's bathroom Peter Farrelly’s film Dumb and Dumber Sir Arthur Conan Doyles’ Sherlock Holmes story A Study in Scarlet Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life" vs. Denis Villeneuve's film Arrival Becky Chamber’s To Be Taught if Fortunate Emily Tesh’s The Incandescent Jill Murphy’s The Worst Witch "All art is perfectly useless" C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces Samatar's A Stranger In Olondria and The Winged Histories Fellman's The Breath of the Sun Katherin Addison's The Goblin Emperor & sequels Dungeons & Dragons Roseanna’s Small Press Dispatch series at ARB Roseanna's blog Tolkien's Beowulf & The Tolkien Reader Lina Palera’s Seikilos Epitaph with the Lyre of Apollo, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0*   *Note that ARB & AMOT are generally distributed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, but will match the CC of any incorporated material for particular posts/episodes.    

Academic, critic, and prolific podcaster Cameron Kunzelman joins for a far-ranging discussion about how climate fiction, science fiction, and personal and political connections to the environment intersect. Bonus hog sighting. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Cameron Kunzelman Title: Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman Host:Jake Casella Brookins Music byGiselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork byRob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough Transcribers: Kate Dollarhyde and John WM Thompson References: Ranged Touch podcasts The World is Born From Zero & Everything is Permitted Sean McTiernan’s SFUltra (Sean was the guest for our Dreams of Amputation episode) From Hell by Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell Steve Moore's Somnium Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism Christopher Brown's A Natural History of Empty Lots Bill Bryson Abigail Nussbaum Vajra Chandrasekera's Rakesfall Michael Crichton Donna J. Haraway’s Staying With The Trouble Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future & Aurora (episode on the latter with Hilary Strang) Neal Stephenson's Termination Shock, Seveneves, & Anathem Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven Nicholas Meyer’s film The Day After Nevil Shute's On the Beach Adam McKay’s film Don't Look Up Timothy Morton’s Hyperobjects Trinitite Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, Pat Cadigan “30-50 Feral Hogs” Clock of the Long Now Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass John Christopher’s The Death of Grass / No Blade of Grass Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa Describe World Flannery O'Connor Deep ecology Arne Næss Ted Kaczynski #NoDAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline) Bruce Sterling's Islands in the Net Patrick Wright’s The Village That Died For England Centralia coal-seam fire in Pennsylvania Keiichiro Toyama’s Silent Hill & Christophe Gans’ film adaptation Cameron's Bluesky The Assassin's Creed franchise Immanuel Velikovsky Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods

Vampire scholar, science fiction studies editor, and ARB co-founder Sean Guynes joins to discuss Kostova’s 2005 historical vampire thriller. We both have fairly negative opinions of the book, but it did lead us to talk about what historical thrillers are (or are not) theorizing, vampire novels we like more, and much else besides.Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Guest: Sean GuynesTitle: The Historian by Elizabeth KostovaHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughTranscribers: Kate Dollarhyde and John WM ThompsonReferences:David Linday’s Voyage to ArcturusSean's series on the Ballantine Adult Fantasy booksThomas Burnett SwannE.R. EddisonGibson's Bridge trilogyStephen Norrington’s film BladeBram Stoker's DraculaDan Brown’s The Da Vinci CodeR.F. Kuang’s KatabasisSarah Perry's Melmoth and our episode with Jon Greenaway about itIlana Masad’s “Holocaust Beach Reads”Machiavelli's The PrinceRadu Florescu & Raymond McNally's In Search of DraculaThe Turkey City LexiconAnne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, including Memnoch the DevilFred Saberhagen’s The Dracula TapeChelsea Quinn Yarbro’s St. Germaine cycleE. Elias Merhige’s film Shadow of the VampireClaire Kohda's Woman, EatingIndrapramit Das's The DevourersStephen Graham Jones' The Buffalo Hunter HunterPeter S. Beagle's A Fine and Private PlaceEddison's the The Mezentian GateAnd be sure to check out Sean’s essay on The Historian!

Writer, scholar, and academic organizer E.F. McAdam joins to talk about human evolution & extinction, AI, pseudo-science, and much more in Kawakami’s very strange and really quite funny far-future novel. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Eleanor McAdam Title: Under The Eye Of The Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Asa Yoneda Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough Transcribers: Kate Dollarhyde and John WM Thompson References: Current Research in Science Fiction Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori Annie Bot by Sierra Greer Emily Tesh’s The Incandescent and Some Desperate Glory Niall Harrison’s Locus review of Under The Eye Of The Big Bird Adrian Tchaikovsky's Service Model J.G. Ballard Stephen Baxter's Evolution William Hope Hogdson's The Night Land X-Men Isaac Asimov's Foundation Margaret Atwood MaddAddam Trilogy Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s Cat's Cradle Erika Swyler's We Lived On The Horizon Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun & Never Let Me Go Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time          Text  - HTML . com Convert your visual text documents to HTML code instantly. Edit and clean your markup with a couple of clicks. How to use the Text to HTML converter? Paste a visual document to the left to convert it to HTML Paste your HTML code it the right to preview the document Press the Clean button to execute the checked HTML cleaning options. Erase the page to get started.    

Barthelme’s surreal, post-modern writing was massively influential for the short story market and for evolving conceptions of literary realism and irrealism, but he’s not often discussed in speculative circles. Author & teacher Timothy Moore is on to help rectify that: we dig into some of our favorites from this landmark connection, with lots of spitballing about the limits of interpretation. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Timothy Moore Title: 60 Stories by Donald Barthelme Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough Transcribers: Kate Dollarhyde and John WM Thompson References: Timothy Moore’s I Will Teach You Retribution Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock & Peter Weir’s film adaptation Molly Templeton’s Bluesky request for Australian Gothic “Intermittent Anhedonia” Ethan Rutherford's North Sun Evening House Books "The School" Close Reading for the 21st Century edited by Dan Sinykin & Johanna Winant Alduous Huxley’s Brave New World "The Lottery" "Me and Miss Mandible" "A Shower of Gold" "Eugénie Grandet" Sidney Lumet’s Network "The Balloon" "The Great Hug" We somehow completely failed to reference E.E. Cumming’s “In Just – spring” for balloon-man reasons Keita Takahashi's Katamari Damacy Ub Iwerk’s Balloon Land Will McMahon “A Manual for Sons” Barthelme’s The Dead Father Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic "The Policeman's Ball" Vercingetorix "The King of Jazz" Julio Cortázar Ishmael Reed Kelly Link Ed Park Elwin Cotman Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Aimee Bender's Girl in the Flammable Skirt George Saunders Garielle Lutz Dalkey Archives Small Beer Press Zachary Gillan &  our Authority episode “Reading Weird Fiction in a Time of Fascism” Mircea Cărtărescu's Solenoid, translated by Sean Cotter Liliana Costanzi’s You Glow in the Dark Thomas Ha's Uncertain Sons Ed Park's An Oral History of Atlantis Brian Evenson “Lonely Rolling Star” by Saki Kabata and Yoshihito Yano off the first Katamari game Billy Bletcher as the Pincushion Man in Ub Iwerks’ Balloon Land, music by Carl Staling “You’re the Cream in My Coffee” recorded by Miff Mole and His Little Molers “Perdido Street Blues” by Louis Armstrong and Sydney Bechet Charlie Parker’s “Billie’s Bounce”    

Combining cyberpunk, space opera, and a strong interest in artistic creation and gaming, Burning Bright is an unusual SF novel from a very specific era. Author Ursula Whitcher joins us to talk about the novel’s many strange facets, its fascination with endings, and its connections to developments elsewhere in gaming and science fiction. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Ursula Whitcher Title: Burning Bright by Melissa Scott Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough Transcribers: Kate Dollarhyde and John WM Thompson References: North Continent Ribbon Indra Das’s The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar Fonda Lee's Green Bone books & game thereof w/ James Mendez Hodes Bruce Coville's Aliens Ate My Homework & Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher Thomas Ha's Uncertain Sons Scott’s Trouble And Her Friends & Astreiant series, most recently Point of Hearts C.S. Lewis's Perelandra Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman’s Dragonlance novels Don Daglow’s Neverwinter Nights Commedia dell'arte The Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise LAN parties C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner books Arkardy Martine's Teixcalaan books Iain M. Banks' Player of Games Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash Cameron Reed's Fortunate Fall Iain Softley’s Hackers William Gibson's Blue Ant trilogy Charlie Jane Anders Bruce Sterling Michael Swanwick's Stations of the Tide Ursula's website & Bluesky

Fresh off the release of her book Diverse Futures: Science Fiction and Author of Color, Joy Sanchez-Taylor joins the podcast to discuss Jemisin’s The Fifth Season, a landmark book in SFF. Lots to talk about here: in terms of how the entire trilogy is tackling ideas about race and oppression, Jemisin’s approach to structure and genre categories, and The Fifth Season’s significance and ongoing legacy. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Joy Sanchez-Taylor Title: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough Transcribers: Kate Dollarhyde and John WM Thompson References: Diverse Futures: Science Fiction and Author of Color Routledge Handbook of Co-Futurisms Dispelling Fantasies: Author of Color Re-Imagine a Genre Ibi Zoboi's Skin Examples of YA novels in verse from the Boston Public Library Liliana Colanzi You Glow in the Dark, translated by Chris Andrews Center for Fiction Brooklyn Puppygate Jemisin’s 2018 Hugo Acceptance Speech Sylvia Moreno Garcia, Nnedi Okorafor, Nghi Vo Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy, The City We Became Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone Moses Ose Utomi’s The Lies of the Ajungo Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” Octavia E. Butler’s Parable series The Elder Scrolls games Morrowind & Skyrim Jemisin on race in Skyrim Marlon James’ Black Leopard, Red Wolf Latinx Visions Conference, Nov 3-7 Marianna Enriquez Ananda Lima's Craft Colson Whitehead, Amal El-Mohtar Nghi Vo's Singing Hills & The City In Glass Joy’s Bluesky Suzan Palumbo, Zig Zag Claybourne VICFA World Fantasy Convention  

Picking the second book as an entry point into Area X, weird scholar and normal ARB editor Zachary Gillan is on the pod to talk about Jeff VanderMeer’s work and how the New Weird is more than just ecological anxiety. (Though it might be that, too.) Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Zachary Gillan Title: Authority by Jeff VanderMeer Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough Transcribers: Kate Dollarhyde and John WM Thompson References: Zach’s Profane Illuminations column at ARB Robert Aickman Bothayna Al-Essa’s The Book-Censor's Library, translated by Ranya Abdelrahman & Sawad Hussain Bohumil Hrabal’s Too Loud A Solitude, translated by Michael Henry Heim Annihilation, Acceptance, and Absolution VanderMeer’s blog VanderMeer’s Ambergris: City of Saints and Madmen; Shriek: An Afterword; Finch Ann & Jeff VanderMeer’s The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories MKUltra Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris, translated by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox (from Jean-Michel Jasiensko’s French translation) and Bill Johnston (from the Polish) Boris & Arkady Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic, translated by Olena Bormashenko Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris and Stalker Alex Garland's Annihilation Cormac McCarthy's The Road Kay Chronister's Desert Creatures Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta’s The Leftovers Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski’s Batman: the Animated Series Timothy Morton’s Dark Ecology and other work VanderMeer’s Hummingbird Salamander Thomas Ha's Uncertain Sons Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain  

Casella heads to Seattle for the World Science Fiction Convention, reporting on his travels and the convention. Includes interviews with Worldcon guests & conrunners, thoughts on the Hugos and the event, and, of course, a quick coffee report. Credits: Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough Transcribers: Kate Dollarhyde and John WM Thompson References: World Science Fiction Convention in Seattle The Hugo Awards Norwescon Kevin Black - Publications Division Head Catherine Hardwicke's Twilight, based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer "Full Moon" by the Black Ghosts Article about John Anderson’s Beachcomber Museum, with link to the short documentary Dr. Kaitlyn Casimo The Allen Institute Brandon O'Brien - Poet Laureate for the Seattle Worldcon The Speculative Poetry Initiative Interstellar Flight Press The Translated Hugo Initiative “Summit Sound” by the Jack Straw Cultural Center “Mole” by Elizabeth McQueen “What You have become” by Kate Clark Olympia Coffee Roasting The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky 99% Invisible readalong of Robert Caro’s The Power Broker Hugos There Hugo Girl! Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right by Jordan S. Carroll Abigail Nussbaum SFPoetry.org Strange Horizons, Uncanny, Asimov’s, Analog Calypso by Oliver K. Langmead

Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is a literally giant work that’s an exemplar of the chain-bookstore and mass-market epic fantasy boom. Author, editor, and critic Karlo Yeager Rodríguez joins to talk about the trilogy’s second entry, Stone of Farewell: its position within and influence upon the genre, and how it holds up. Credits: Guest: Karlo Yeager Rodríguez Title: Stone of Farewell by Tad Williams Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough Transcribers: Kate Dollarhyde and John WM Thompson References: Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora, and our episode on it K.J. Parker's Making History Jared Diamonds’ Guns, Germs, and Steel David Eddings’ Belgeriad & Mallorian Michael Whelan & Darrell K. Sweet George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice & Fire Peter Beagle forward to The Lord of the Rings The Clone Wars meme "The what?" ElfQuest by Wendy & Richard Pini et al. Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni novels Hidetaka Miyazaki & Yui Tanimura’s Elden Ring T.H. White Brandon Sanderson Robert Jordan’s Wheel Of Time H.P. Lovecraft’s The Mountains of Madness & The Case of Charles Dexter Ward "A Line of Ink, Stretching Back Like A Shadow"  

Casella heads to Readercon, a Boston-based science fiction convention that’s unusually good at keeping the focus literary. This episode includes an interview with one of the conrunners, a discussion of translated SFF and the Translated Hugo Initiative, and a visit with a new romance bookstore in Cambridge. Some quick coffee reporting, as well. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Featuring interviews with: Rae Borman @ Readercon Riley @ Lovestruck Books Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough Transcribers: Kate Dollarhyde and John WM Thompson   References: Rae Borman New England Finger Dancers Naomi Novik’s Scholomance Brandon Mull’s Fablehaven Katherine Rundell’s Impossible Creatures James Blish Joanna Russ’s The Female Man Benjamin Rosenbaum & our episode on Fire Logic Sunny Moraine & our episode on Pattern Recognition Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons Will McMahon NEA grant cuts and translated SF: 3% Podcast, Adam Morgan’s LARB article, and Strange Horizon’s reviews & podcast on the subject. Eden Kupermintz & our episode on The Silmarillion The Translated Hugo Initiative: translatedhugo.org Renay's "That's a Nice Review You've Got There" Michael Cisco Jon Stone’s The Monster At The End of This Book George Howell & Broadsheet coffee Chip Pons's Winging it With You Sarah McLean Omegaverse (do be careful where you look that up) The Ripped Bodice Grump & Sunshine Read My Lips Boston Harvard Coop Bookstore, Trident, Purple Couch Candlewick Press Ingram distributors Cat Sebastian's We Could Be So Good & Star Shipped Rachel Reid's The Shots You Take Adam Silvera  Sarah J. Maas Rebecca Yarros’s Fourth Wing S.T. Gibson’s Evocation & Ascencion Rina Kent, Navessa Allen Heather Bartos’s Quickies Emily Henry, Tessa Bailey, Sarah McLean, Kim Swizz Everina Maxwell’s Winter Orbit

Banks’ Culture novels, about a utopian space-faring civilization, are hugely influential in both SF literature and the tech industry. Award-winning critic Abigail Nussbaum joins us to discuss Excession, a Culture novel about proxy conflicts and interventionist politics, existential threats, and…problematic exes? Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Abigail Nussbaum Title: Excession by Iain M. Banks Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough Transcribers: Kate Dollarhyde and John WM Thompson   References: Vector Los Angeles Review of Books The Guardian Strange Horizons Lawyers, Guns & Money Warren Zevon Asking the Wrong Questions Abigail’s Track Changes Colourfields by Paul Kincaid Nina Allan’s Granite Silence and The Art of Space Travel Ed Park’s An Oral History of Atlantis Banks’ Consider Phlebas, Use of Weapons, & The Player of Games Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism Star Trek John le Carré Andor Transmentation Transience by Darkly Lem Outside Context Problems & Aggressive Hegemonizing Swarms Stanislaw Lem Kubrick/Clarke's 2001 Paul Kincaid's biography of Banks Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are C.J. Cherryh Yudhanjaya Wijeratne's Salvager books Greg Egan Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire Banks’ Look to Windward Abigail's Bluesky Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future Ned Beauman's Venomous Lumpsucker Neal Stephenson's Termination Shock  

Cherryh’s influence on speculative fiction is vast but, some would say, under-acknowledged. Author Arkady Martine joins to help rectify that situation, with a discussion of 40,000 in Gehenna, an anthropological, generational science fiction story about realpolitik, language, cloning, giant intelligent lizards, and gender—and that’s kind of just the top notes. Casella also provides a mini-report on Minneapolis’s 4th Street Fantasy Convention. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Arkady Martine Title: 40,000 in Gehenna by C.J. Cherryh Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough Transcribers: Kate Dollarhyde and John WM Thompson   References: Vote in the Ignytes! Our episode with Archita Mittra A Memory Called Empire, A Desolation Called Peace, Rose/House, "Three Faces of a Beheading" Mick Herron’s Slow Horses Pip Adams' Audition André Alexis’s Other Worlds Thomas Ha’s Uncertain Sons Stephen Sondheim's Assassins Cherryh’s Cyteen, Downbelow Station, Foreigner Watsonian vs. Doylist readings The Faded Sun, Hunter of Worlds Leonard Cohen's "The Future" Theodore Sturgeon's "The Golden Helix" Internet Science Fiction Database (ISFDB) Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, Rocannon's World Joanna Russ's The Female Man Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern Serpent's Reach Amal El-Mohtar Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown Emmanuel Levinas & Martin Buber Octavia E. Butler "Third Person Intense Internal" Jane Alison's Meander, Spiral, Explode Elizabeth Bear Ann Leckie, Tamsyn Muir, Jeff VanderMeer Ancillary Justice Lois McMaster Bujold Seth Dickinson's The Traitor Baru Cormorant & our episode on it Max Gladstone's Craft Sequence A Pattern Language David Brin, Vernor Vinge Arkady's Bluesky Louis Kahn 4th Street Fantasy Viable Paradise Wiscon Wesley Andrews The Briar SK Coffee Bogart's Doughnut Northeast Tea House DreamHaven Uncle Hugo’s Delany's The Jewel-Hinged Jaw and The Motion of Light in Water Cherryh's Wave Without A Shore Greg Egan's Phoresis Kathy Mar's "Forty Thousand in Gehenna" from the album "Finity's End and other Songs of the Station Trade" Wizards vs. Lesbians episode with Ann Leckie on C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner

Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: andré m. carringtonTitle: Death of the Author by Nnedi OkoraforHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughTranscribers: Kate Dollarhyde and John WM ThompsonReferences:andré’s Speculative Blackness, The Black Fantastic, and Audiofuturism (forthcoming)The Eaton ConferenceMalik Gaines & Alexandro Segade's cosmic opera Star Choir, based on the work of Octavia E. ButlerHanna Yanagahira's To ParadiseTochi Onyebuchi’s Harmattan SeasonGeorge R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and FireN.K. JemisinMichael Zapata’s The Lost Book of Adana MoreauTom Hanks’ That Thing You DoAndew Stanton’s Wall-EBecky Chambers' Monk & RobotOlaf StapledonKim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Futureandré's BlueskyAudio.futurism Instagram

Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Roseanna PendleburyTitles: The 2025 Hugo Novel & Novella ListHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughTranscribers: Kate Dollarhyde and John WM ThompsonReferences:Hugo Novella Finalists:The Brides of High Hill by Nghi VoThe Butcher of the Forest by Premee MohamedNavigational Entanglements by Aliette de BodardThe Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia SamatarThe Tusks of Extinction by Ray NaylerWhat Feasts at Night by T. KingfisherHugo Novel Finalists:Alien Clay by Adrian TchaikovskyThe Ministry of Time by Kaliane BradleyService Model by Adrian TchaikovskySomeone You Can Build a Nest In by John WiswellA Sorceress Comes to Call by T. KingfisherThe Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson BennettThe Clarke Award listPaul Kincaid’s CoulorfieldsRoseanna’s “A Path Through the Landscape” for A Reader of Else, plus Paul Kincaid’s “The Books That Made Me” for Through the dark labyrinthNnedi Okorafor’s BintiCasella’s idea of a Hugo for Best Translated WorkRenay's Hugo Spreadsheet of DoomAlex Jeffers’s A Mourning CoatLorraine Wilson’s Last to DrownThe Ursula K. Le Guin PrizeThe Ignyte AwardsPremee Mohamed’s The Siege of Burning GrassVajra Chandraskera’s RakesfallJared Pechaček’s The West PassageSeth Dickinson’s Exordia and The Traitor Baru CormorantEmet North’s In UniversesEden Robin’s Remember You Will DieScott Guild's PlasticAliya Whiteley's Three Eight OneT. Kingfisher’s Saint of Steel booksMarie Brennan's A Natural History of DragonsRobert Jackson Bennett’s Divine Cities and Founders trilogiesAdrian Tchaikovsky’s House of Open WoundsGreg EganCharlie Stross's Neptune’s BroodZachary Gillan’s “Reading Weird Fiction in an Age of Fascism”Foz Meadow’s A Strange and Stubborn EnduranceRoseanna's review of Someone To Build A Nest InBrad Wright’s TravelersHelen MacDonald and Sin Blaché’s ProphetRoseanna’s Small Press Dispatch columnNerds of a Feather

Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Maia Gil′AdíTitle: The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael ZapataHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:Palgrave SFF: A New CanonThe Zombie ArchiveDoom Patterns: Latinx Speculations and the Aesthetics of ViolenceAugustina Bazterrica's Tender is the FleshFernanda Trias' Pink SlimeKazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me GoColson Whitehead's Zone OneToni Morrison's BelovedFernanda Melchor's Hurricane SeasonIndrapramit DasBrendan Shay Basham's Swim Home to the Vanished & Casella’s reviewMariana Enriquez's Our Share of NightFredric JamesonChicago Review of Books AwardsIlana Masad’s “Holocaust Beach Reads” for The Maris ReviewJason (Friday the 13th)Simón BolívarAugust Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft, C.L. MooreMoebius/Jean GiraudAncient AliensBlake Crouch’s Dark Matter & adaptationStuds TerkelUS Occupation of the Dominican Republic, 1916Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar WaoJonbar pointsAimee Pokwatka's Self-Portrait with NothingLavie Tidhar's The Circumference of the Earth & Unholy LandRob Nixon's Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the PoorSesshu Foster's Atomic AztecsMaia on Bluesky

Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Sean McTiernanTitle: Dreams of Amputation by Gary J. ShipleyHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughTranscribers: Kate DollarhydeReferences:The SFUltra podcastAlasdair Gray’s Lanark & Poor ThingsJames Joyce’s UlyssesFredric JamesonAbsolute DC comicsMichael Comeau’s HellbertaAlan Grant & John Wagner’s DoomlordRay Nayler’s Where the Axe is BuriedNeil Sharpson’s When The Sparrow FallsMichael Mann's BlackhatLater Die HardsTony Scott’s Enemy of the StateJean BaudrillardShipley’s Stratagem of the Corpse, Crypt(o)spasm, and Serial Killing: A Philosophical AnthologyDennis CooperBlake Butler’s “Sci-Fi Doesn’t Have to Be Dominated by Horny Bro Wizards” for ViceDarko SuvinManuela Draeger's Kree (and Antoine Volodine’s other work)Mark DanielewskiB.R. YeagerApocalypse PartyWilliam S. Burrough’s Naked LunchNeal StephensonDaniel DennettMemeticsPhilip K. Dick’s A Scanner DarklyJ.G. Ballard, M. John Harrison, John UpdikeBlake Butler’s Uxa.gov & the SFUltra episodeChristopher Priest’s “Hull 0, Scunthorpe 3”Brian Evenson, Pierre GuyotatHarrison's Nova SwingTad Williams' OtherlandDerek Raymond (Rober Cook)’s He Died With His Eyes OpenThomas Metzinger The Ego TunnelBernard Wolfe’s LimboEvenson’s Last Days / Brotherhood of MutilationWilliam Gibson, Bruce SterlingWarhammer 40kBallard's CrashCurt Siodmak’s Donovan's BrainMatt from BookpilledNick LandCCRU & Dark EnlightenmentBaudrillard’s The Transparency of Evil, Cool Memories, The Perfect CrimeMark Fisher, Kodwu Eshun, Kode9Fisher’s “Exiting the Vampire Castle”Andrea DworkinBrion GysinTravis Baldree's Legends and LattesWalter Hill's The DriverBrian CatlingIan SinclairSFUltra episodes on Lanark, Poor Things, and Catling

Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Christian P. HainesTitles: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein, and The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz Host: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughTranscriber: Kate DollarhydeReferences:Stephen King's The Shining and CarrieRafael Bernal’s His Name Was DeathMichel Nieva’s Dengue BoyDaryl Gregory’s When We Were RealAdrian Tchaikovsky’s Service Model, Christian’s review for ARBIo9Our Opinions Are CorrectHeinlein’s Starship TroopersChristian’s The Terraformers review for LARBNewitz’s AutonomousHeinlein’s Farmer in the Sky, The Rolling StonesArcherMilton FriedmanOrwell’s 1984Rand’s Atlas ShruggedJames S.A. Corey’s The ExpanseKim Stanley Robinson’s Mars TrilogyUrsula K. Le Guin’s The DispossessedIan McDonald’s New Moon trilogyFrank Herbert’s DuneSamuel R. Delany’s Babel-17Le Guin’s The Left Hand of DarknessJo Walton's Among Others and our episode on itHolly Jean Buck’s After Geoengineering"Engineering Swallows Up Politics"Neal Stephenson’s Termination ShockKSR’s AuroraMcKenzie Wark’s Molecular RedUlrich Haarbürste’s Roy Orbison Wrapped in ClingfilmStar Trek's “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations”Spinoza’s idea of conatusWalter Kaufman's introduction to Martin Buber's I and ThouKant's Categorical ImperativeAbbot ElementaryDelany’s Trouble On TritonOctavia E. Butler’s Parable of the TalentsMarx’s CapitalJohn Brunner’s Stand on ZanzibarKohei Sato’s Slow Down: The Degrowth ManifestoKSR’s The Ministry for the Future, New York 2140Le Guin’s The Word for World is ForestGamers with GlassesFive Theses on Antifascist Game Criticism

Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Marita ArvanitiTitle: Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope MirrleesHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:A Meal of Thorns and the Ancillary Review of Books are Hugo finalists! We are delighted and honored; a big congratulations to all the finalists.Dianna Wynne Jones, Greer Gilman, Elizabeth BearDianna Wynne Jones’ Fire and HemlockElizabeth Hand’s Mortal LovePamela Dean’s Tam LinTerri Windling & Ellen Datlow edited fairytale collectionsRobin Hobb’s Mad Ship Patrick O'Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin booksAmal El-Mohtar’s The River Has RootsRobert Jackson Bennett’s A Drop of CorruptionE.R. EddisonLaurie J. Marks’ Elemental Logic seriesKatherine Arden’s The Bear and the NightingaleEuripedes' The BacchaeFriedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of TragedyMichael Swanwick’s Hope in the MistJ.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit & The Lord of the RingsC.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, specifically Prince CaspianRobert Luketic’s Legally BlondeEdgar Allen Poe, Julio Cortázar, Franz Kafka, H.P. LovecraftUrsula K. Le Guin’s The Farthest ShoreAnne Carson’s translation of BakkhaiChristina Rossetti’s Goblin MarketSusanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr NorrellFritz Lang’s MetropolisN.K. Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand KingdomsSofia Samatar's Olondrian novelsSylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly WillowesNaomi Mitchison’s To the Chapel Perilous and Memoirs of a SpacewomanT.H. White, Tanith LeeEllen Kushner’s Thomas the RhymerJo Walton’s Among OthersKat Howard’s Roses and RotElizabeth Hand’s Waking the MoonTerri Windling’s The Wood WifeGuardian Article on romantasyCopyright romantasy caseSarah J. MaasJacqueline Carey Kushiel's DartNicholas Stuart Gray’s Seven SwansMarita’s Instagram

Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Archita MittraTitle: Among Others by Jo WaltonHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:Eliza Chan’s Fathomfolk & Archita’s reviewSue Lynn Tan's ImmortalLavanya Lakshminarayan's Interstellar Megachef & The Ten Percent ThiefMichael Nieva's Dengue BoyIsaac Fellman's Notes from a RegicideUrsula K. Le Guin's The Lathe of HeavenErnest Cline's Ready Player OneStranger ThingsJ.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the RingsJame Tiptree, Jr.Samuel R. Delany's Babel-17List of books mentioned in Among OthersAnne Rice Vampire ChroniclesC.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of NarniaLe Guin’s “Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?” from The Language of the NightKurt Vonnegut’s Cat's CradleLe Guin’s The Dispossessed and Delany’s Trouble on TritonWalton’s Informal History of the HugosC.J. Cherryh's Gate of IvrelArchita's reviews @ Strange Horizons & LocusArchita on Twitter, Bluesky, InstagramArchita's Locus year-endCasella’s Locus year-endJared Pechaček's The West Passage, Casella's review, and of course Jared's A Meal of Thorns episode on E.R. Eddison’s Mistress of Mistress

Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Dan HartlandTitle: Heir to the Empire by Timothy ZahnHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:Gautam Bhatia's The SentenceAlex Pheby's WaterblackCristina Rivera Garza's The Taiga SyndromeKatherine Addison's The Tomb of DragonsElizabeth Sandifer's Hugboxing vs ScabpickingDavid BrinThe Wilhelm ScreamJack London's The Call of the WildBrandon Taylor’s “against casting tape fiction”The idea of “novelization style” as discussed in Garth Marenghi’s DarkplaceI saw your black chanel boots mr skywalkerTimothy Zahn’s Cascade PointDiane Carey's Ghost ShipWinamp skinsMichael P. Kube-McDowell’s Black Fleet Crisis trilogyVonda N. McIntyre's The Crystal StarUna McCormackKevin J. AndersonMichael A. Stackpole’s I, JediDresden CodakKim Stanley Robinson's 2312AndorDr. Who "New Adventures" novelsAhsoka, RebelsAlan Dean Foster's Splinter of the Mind's EyeTales from Mos Eisley Cantina and Tales from Jabba's PalaceStrange Horizons Criticism Special Issue & Tansy Gardam's article on Jackson’s LOTR filmsThe Going Rogue episode on The Star Wars Holiday Special

Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Eden KupermintzTitle: The Silmarillion by J.R.R. TolkienHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:anarchySF, heavy blog is heavy, Eden’s work at ARB, the Death // Sentence podcastAlex Pheby’s WaterblackAdrian Tchaikovsky’s House of Open WoundsDarkly Lem’s Transmentation TransienceDeath // Sentence episode on Unknown LanguageThe Dragonlance series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (and others)Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone’s This Is How You Lose The Time WarJeff Noon & Steve Beard’s Gogmagog & LudludaThe Going Rogue podcastTolkien’s The Hobbit & The Lord of the RingsRobert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure IslandBen Berman Ghan’s The Years Shall Run Like Rabbits & Eden's reviewThe Kalevala, The Mabinogion, the Matter of BritainThe Folio SocietyGene Wolfe’s The Book of the New SunOctavia Butler’s KindredUrsula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of DarknessSiegfried & the DragonKate Wagner on Wagner’s (no relation) The RingJared Pechaček’s The West PassageThe By-The-Bywater podcastE.R. Eddison’s Mistress of Mistresses, and our episode on that with Jared PechačekThe Tea With Tolkien podcastJohn Milton’s Paradise LostEden’s Death // Sentence episode on one page of the AkallabêthFallout 3 and Fallout: New VegasM. John Harrison, worldbuilding as the “clomping foot of nerdism”Anthony Burgess’s (and probably Stanley Kubrick’s tbf) A Clockwork OrangeBlind Guardian's Nightfall in Middle-Earth and “The Bard's Song”The Hobbit (1977) Dopesmoker EditionFor a concise overview of some of the conservative/fascist love affair with Tolkien, see Robert T. Tally Jr.’s “Tolkien’s Deplorable Cultus”.Jason Guriel’s Forgotten WorkEden’s Bluesky

Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Benjamin RosenbaumTitle: Fire Logic by Laurie J. MarksHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:Ben’s novel, The Unraveling, and latest game, The Ghost & The GolemThe Mohanraj & Rosenbaum Are Humans podcastGennaRose Nethercott’s ThistlefootKelly Link’s The Book of LoveAnn Leckie’s Ancillary Justice & sequelsEvan Dahm's The Last Delivery & Harrowing of HellFlyaway by Kathleen Jennings (who also illustrated the Elemental Logic covers)Myers-Briggs personality testOrson Scott Card’s The Tales of Alvin MakerAvery Alder on queer game mechanicsUrsula K. Le Guin’s “The Day Before the Revolution”George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and FireSmall Beer PressSofia Samatar's A Stranger in Olondria and The Winged HistoriesSeth Dickinson’s The Traitor Baru CormorantA Meal of Thorns 07 – THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT with Amal El-MohtarNelson Mandela wearing the Sprinbok jerseyDavids Graeber & Wengrow’s The Dawn of EverythingLe Guin’s Five Ways to ForgivenessIsaac Asimov’s FoundationJohn W. Campbell & Joseph CampbellMaimonides & SaladinCoffee & the “Europe Sobered Up” theoryIsaac Bashevis Singer’s “Yentl” & adaptations

Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Hilary StrangTitle: Aurora by Kim Stanley RobinsonHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:Marooned on Mars, a podcast about the works of KSRUrsula Le Guin’s The DispossessedMargaret Killjoy’s A Country of GhostsKSR’s Mars trilogyFredric Jameson’s Archaeologies of the FutureJohn Dos Passos’s U.S.A. trilogyWiscon“The Hard Problem” audio project adaptation of a section of Aurora, created with Marina Abramović’s workshop, mixed/composed by Adam Tinkle, with the Arthur C. Clarke Centre for Human Imagination at the University of California San Diego.Much of the web-available multimedia about this project is lost to time and linkrot, unfortunately, but there’s a very nice write-up at this fan-run KSR site.You can still find a YouTube version of the audio here.As mentioned in the show credits, the “Into the Impossible” podcast later developed into something very different, platforming far-right whackjobs, climate deniers, TESCREALists, that kind of thing, along with lots of presumably credible scientists, so: be warned. I’m not clear on how the early “Into the Impossible” podcasts with the Clarke Centre transitioned to the later, longer-running show with Brian Keating; just don’t want to accidentally contribute to any of you going down a brain-worm-inducing YouTube/podcast-algo spiral.Leyna Krow’s Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable VoidsTom Godwin’s “The Cold Equations”“Wherever you go, there you are.”KSR’s 2312 and New York 2140Sofia Samatar’s The Practice, the Horizon, and the ChainTheodore McComb’s UraniansGene Wolfe’s Book of the Long SunStephen H. Dole’s Habitable Planets for ManTracked it down: the "drop unconscious humans off on a grid to check habitability" thing is from Charlie Stross’s excellent blog.C.J. Cherryh’s Heavy Time"Enough is as good as a feast."Le Guin’s “Mrs. Brown Test” is from “Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown” in The Languages of the NightKSR’s Science in the Capital Trilogy, re-released as Green Earth"Science Fiction is the Realism of Our Times""True Voyage Is Return"The Alien filmsMary Shelley's Frankenstein

Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Jared PechačekTitle: Mistress of Mistresses by E.R. EddisonHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:Jared’s book, The West PassageBy-the-Bywater, a podcast about TolkienAnya Johanna DeNiro’s OKPsycheCaroline Hagood’s Death And Other Speculative FictionsEddison’s The Worm OuroborosThe InklingsBarbara Remington, artist and illustrator. Hard to find good scans of her works; here’s a page with the Eddison covers.Anna Vaninskaya’s Fantasies of Time and DeathLord DunsanyGriemas SquaresC.S. Lewis’s Perelandra, we did an episode on that!Eddison’s A Fish Dinner in MemisonC.S. Lewis’s Till We Have FacesSapphoJohn Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi & The White DevilChaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman”Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and NothingnessJohn Crowley’s AegyptBaruch SpinozaPre-Socratic philosophers such as HeraclitusFriedrich Nietzsche’s concept of “The Will to Power”Godspeed! You Black Emperor’s “Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven”William Shakespeare’s MacbethHope Mirlees’ Lud-in-the-MistMichael Swanwick’s Stations of the TideJared's Bluesky, Instagram, Tumblr

Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Roseanna PendleburyHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughIn Memoriam:Alan Jeffrey & Cameron Estrich-WatsonReferences:Tor’s The Most Iconic Speculative Fiction Books of the 21st CenturyJo Walton’s commentary on putting together those listsAdam Roberts, Greg EganKatherine Addison’s The Goblin EmperorJacqueline Carey’s Kushiel's DartSeth Dickinson’s The Traitor Baru CormorantC.J. Cherryh’s RimrunnersMichael Ende’s The Neverending StoryCarl Sagan’s ContactWilliam Goldman’s The Princess BrideMartin MacInnes’ In AscensionSamantha Harvey’s OrbitalWilliam Gibson’s NeuromancerIndra Das’s The Last Dragoners of BowbazarBruce Coville- Aliens Ate My Homework & Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon HatcherRobin Sloan- Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Sourdough, MoonboundNerds of a FeatherWorldconCentre for Fantasy and Fantastic at the University of GlasgowChristopher Priest & Nina AllanAdrian Tchaikovsky’s City of Last Chances, House of Open Wounds, Days of Shattered FaithTerry Pratchett’s DiscworldThe New WeirdReaderconEmily Tesh’s acceptance speechWorld Fantasy ConventionAcademic Conference on Canadian Science Fiction and FantasyEasterconOctothorpeVajra Chandrasekera’s The Saint of Bright DoorsScience Fiction Awards DatabaseMarisa Crane’s I Keep My Exoskeletons to MyselfMartha Wells’ Murderbot seriesPaul Lynch’s Prophet SongShehan Karunatilaka’s Seven Moons of Maali AlmeidaMolly Templeton’s “The Joy of Reading Books You Don’t Entirely Understand”Colson Whitehead, Marlon JamesEmily Tesh’s Some Desperate GloryNana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain Gang All-StarsWole Talabi’s Shigidi and the Brass Head of ObalufonCadwell Turnbull’s No Gods No Monsters & We Are The CrisisS.L. Huang’s The Water OutlawsMoniquill Blackgoose’s To Shape a Dragon's BreathAlissa Hatman’s SiftSarah Cypher’s The Skin and Its GirlIsabel Waidner’s Corey Fah Does Social MobilityAlaya Dawn Johnson’s The Library of Broken WorldsRebecca Campbell’s ArborealityVajra Chandrasekera’s Rakesfallaugust clarke’s Metal from HeavenJared Pechaček’s The West PassageEmet North’s In UniversesJohannes Anyuru’s IxellesKaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of TimeMadeline L'EnglePremee Mohamed- The Siege of Burning Grass, The Butcher of the Forest, & The Rider, the Ride, the Rich Man’s WifeSeth Dickinson’s ExordiaSofia Samatar’s The Practice, the Horizon, and the ChainNeon HemlockAlex Jeffer’s A Mourning CoatLuna PressLorraine Wilson’s The Last to DrownGreg Egan’s MorphotropicSolvej Balle’s On the Calculation of VolumeAbigail Nussbaum’s Track ChangesJordan S. Carroll’s Speculative WhitenessCamestros Felapton’s DebarklePositron 2020 ReportCleveland Review of Books, The Brooklyn Rail, TypebarIsaac Fellman’s Notes from a RegicideEmily Tesh’s The IncandescentAmal El-Mohtar’s The River Has RootsKatherine Addison’s The Tomb of DragonsR.F. Kuang’s KatabasisNatalia Theodoridou’s Sour CherryYoon Ha Lee’s Code & CodexOliver K. Langmead & Aliya Whiteley’s City of All SeasonsNew David Mitchell?Lincoln Michel’s Metallic RealmsRay Nayler’s Where the Axe Is BuriedTochi Onyebuchi’s Harmattan SeasonLeena Krow’s Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable VoidsAmplitudes, edited by Lee MandeloScience Fiction Research AssociationPremee Mohamed, One Message RemainsStephen King writingRoseanna’s “Small Press Dispatch” column at ARB

Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Anna McFarlaneTitle: The This by Adam RobertsHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:Anna's books, including Cyberpunk Culture and Psychology, The Routledge Companion to Cyberpunk Culture, Fifty Key Figures in Cyberpunk Culture, and Adam Roberts: Critical EssaysMary Butts’ “Mappa Mundi”Jordan S. Carroll’s Speculative WhitenessAdam Roberts’ The Thing Itself, Lake of Darkness, New Model Army, and nonfictionChristopher PriestThe Thing, dir. John CarpenterKant's Critique of Pure ReasonDeleuze’s concept of The FoldNabokov’s Pale FireMichael Swanwick Stations of the Tide & Vacuum FlowersCory Doctorow & Greg EganNeal Stephenson’s Snow CrashWilliam Gibson’s NeuromancerPatricia Lockwood’s No One Is Talking About ThisRobert A. Heinlein’s Starship TroopersJoe Haldeman’s The Forever WarStar Trek’s BorgE.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops”George Orwell’s 1984Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit"The sky above the port was the color of a television tuned to a dead channel"The idea of the pharmakonThe Big Read podcast on The ThisShulamith Firestone's The Dialectic of SexOttessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and RelaxationRobot monkey/wiremother experimentsRoberts’s review of The Book of ElsewhereRoberts on BlueskyBlack MirrorThomas Disch’s 334 & Camp ConcentrationDavid LynchPeter Watts’ Blindsight & EchopraxiaKurt Vonnegut Jr.’s Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, & GalapagosVonnegut thing about delivering a letterVonnegut’s “Biafra: A People Betrayed”Fix-up novelsJo Walton's “On Selecting the Top Ten Genre Books of the First Quarter of the Century”Casella's essay on This Is How You Lose the Time WarLavie Tidhar's Central Station, The Circumference of the World, Osama, A Man Lies DreamingA line from Hegel to Marx to Darko SuvinThe conclusion to Walter Pater's The RenaissanceMolly Templeton’s “A Modest Request for a Little More Genre Chaos”Young Frankenstein dir. Mel BrooksAnna on BlueskyThe Edinburgh Companion to Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities

Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Jon GreenawayTitle: Melmoth by Sarah PerryHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:Jon's latest books: Capitalism: A Horror Story and A Primer On Utopian PhilosophyEdgar Allen PoeFredric Jameson’s The Years of TheorySally Rooney’s IntermezzoRoberto Bolaño’s The Savage DetectivesNapoleon Dynamite, dir. Jared HessCarmen Maria Machado, George SaundersLeyna Krow’s Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable VoidsCharles Maturin's Melmoth the WandererPerry’s The Essex Serpent and EnlightenmentPerry’s essay on writing while in pain/on painkillersGoethe’s Faust, Dante’s Inferno, the myth of the Wandering JewMatthew Lewis’s The MonkHorace Walpole’s The Castle of OtrantoChina Mieville's idea of anti-fantasyMark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves“participatory anthropology”Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and BeautifulWagner’s ParsifalGod's Not Dead, dir. Harold CronkHeidegger's idea of thrownness (Geworfenheit)Philosophical theories of “the gift” and “impossible exchange”Christopher Priest’s The PrestigeRoberto Bolaño’s 2666Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s Slaughterhouse-FiveVajra Chandrasekera’s Rakesfall and The Saint of Bright DoorsPremee Mohamed’s The Siege of Burning GrassHorror VanguardJon’s Blog & Substack

More podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Garrett Bridger GilmoreTitle: The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValleHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:“The Horror At Redhook” by H.P. LovecraftLovecraft Country by Matt RuffThe Night Ocean by Paul LaFargeLone Women by Victor LaValleThe Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft“The Lovecraft Boomlet” of adaptions/retellings/reworkingsAnnihilation by Jeff VanderMeerThe Underground Railroad by Colson WhiteheadGet Out directed by Jordan PeeleTa-Nehisi Coates’ Black Panther run, Between the World and Me, The Water DancerThe Fifth Season by N.K. JemisinThe World Fantasy AwardMichael Crichton, Jurassic ParkKindred by Octavia ButlerSlapboxing with Jesus by Victor LaValleJames by Percival EverettAida Levy-Hussen’s How to Read African American Literature- reparative & prohibitive readingsToni Morrison’s BelovedP. Djèlí Clark’s Ring Shout“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe ShelleyHPL’s At the Mountains of Madness"Lovecraft in Brooklyn" by The Mountain Goats, from Heretic PrideVajra Chandrasekera’s The Saint of Bright DoorsR.F. Kuang’s Babel, or The Necessity of ViolenceGarrett's twitterPauline Hopkins’ Of One Blood

More podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Shinjini DeyTitle: Tainaron: Mail From Another City by Leena Krohn, translated by Hildi HawkinsHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:George Eliot’s Silas Marner, Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford, Charles Dickens, Karl Marx The “Post-Exotic” novels by Antoine Volodine etc- Kree, Mevlido’s Dreams, Postexoticism in 12 LessonsThe New Weird, ed. Ann & Jeff VanderMeerOn the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara HavelandWonderbook by Jeff VanderMeerItalo Calvino’s Invisible CitiesRenee Gladman’s Houses of Ravicka"Big Dumb Objects"Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern ReachJeff VanderMeer’s Hummingbird Salamander & Casella’s review"The Look", "The Gaze"Entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre & mystic Angelus SilesiusEmmanuel Levinas & Martin BuberSofia Samatar’s A Stranger In OlondriaNghi Vo’s The City in Glass & Casella’s reviewProtagoras“Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose”Longhorn beetlesJ.R.R. Tolkien’s idea of “sub-creation”Shinjini’s website & twitterHow did I fail to mention TMBG's "Snail Shell"?

More podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Sunny MoraineTitle: Pattern Recognition by William GibsonHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:Your Shadow Half RemainsLong Hidden: Speculative Fiction From the Margins of HistoryLooming LowSinging With All My Skin and BoneSerial horror podcast GoneThe Shadow Files of Morgan KnoxGibson's Neuromancer, Virtual Light, Mona Lisa Overdrive, “The Gernsback Continuum”, The Peripheral, “Fragments of a Hologram Rose”Frank Herbert’s Dune and Dune MessiahUrsula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of DarknessNathan Ballingrud’s Crypt of the Moon Spider, The Strange, and North American Lake MonstersChina Miéville’s The City and the CityMichel Foucault's notion of heterotopiaJean Baudrillard's Simulacra and SimulationWilliam Gibson & the Futures of Contemporary Culture edited by Mitch R. Murray and Matthias NilgesSheryl Vint & Charles YuBeat writers; Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. BurroughsImagism Mono No AwareSpeculative Realism/Object Oriented Ontology; Jane Bennett, Graham Harman, Timothy MortonC.J. Cherryh's notion of “Third Person Intense Internal”Aimee Pokwatka’s Self Portrait With NothingKids by The MidnightSonic Nurse by Sonic YouthAmplitudes edited by Lee MandeloSunny on BlueskyWorld Fantasy Awards

More podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Juan MartinezTitle: Gilded Needles by Michael McDowellHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:Juan’s collection Best Worst American & horror novel Extended StayJackleg PressStoryStudioTananarive Due's The ReformatoryEden Robins’ Remember You Will DieSofia Samatar's The Practice, the Horizon, and the ChainAnanda Lima's Craft: Stories I Told the DevilJesse Ball's The Repeat RoomT.E.D. Klein’s The CeremoniesPeter StraubBeetlejuice, directed by Timothy BurtonTales from the Crypt & Tales from the DarksideThe Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by Henry SelickMcDowell's The Elementals"A little bit like Edith Wharton with more murder"Jaws, directed by Steven SpielbergArthur Conan Doyle's The Adventures of Sherlock HolmesVictor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame & Les MisérablesTriangle of Sadness, directed by Ruben ÖstlundAlexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte CristoThe Abominable Dr. Phibes, directed by Robert FuestThey Might Be GiantsLydia LunchRobert MapplethorpePatti SmithShakespeare’s Titus Andronicus & Julie Taymor’s film adaptationThomas Ligotti, Bruno Schulz, & Franz KafkaMcDowell's Death CollectionStephen King, Philip K. Dick, & C.J. CherryhAnne Lamott’s Bird by BirdThe Ghosts of Where We Are FromJuan’s DNC protest coverage at the Believer, parts one & twoFollow Juan on Instagram & Threads for the good doodle content

More podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Amal El-MohtarTitle: The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth DickinsonMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:Rakesfall by Vajra ChandrasekeraIn Universes by Emmet NorthThe Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia SamatarAmal’s review of those three novelsThe Silmarillion by J.R.R. TolkienThe Grace of Kings by Ken LiuThe Craft Sequence by Max GladstoneStar WarsWicked problemsA Memory Called Empire by Arkady MartineThe Goblin Emperor by Katherine AddisonThe Fifth Season by N.K. JemisinBabel, or the Necessity of Violence by R.F. KuangThe Battle of Algiers directed by Gillo PontecorvoTony Gilroy’s Star Wars series AndorThe Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra ChandrasekeraThe sequels to Traitor Baru, The Monster Baru Cormorant & The Tyrant Baru CormorantCommedia dell’arteLee Mandelo's writing on Eve Sedwgick, paranoid & reparative readingKameron Hurley & Arkady MartineExordia by Seth DickinsonThe Unaccountability Machine by Dan DaviesAmal's next book, The River Has RootsThe ballad of The Two Sisters/The Bonny SwansLud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees

More podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Host: Jake Casella BrookinsGuest: Dan HartlandTitle: The Passion by Jeanette WintersonMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:This blog has a round-up of articles and commentary on the Gaiman allegations.Dan’s Snap! Criticism series at AncillaryHandheld PressVonda McInty’re The Exile Waiting & DreamsnakeThe 2024 Academic Conference on Canadian Science Fiction and FantasyAnnie Luong on Margaret Atwood’s The Heart Goes LastNeal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon and the Baroque CycleLaura van den Berg’s State of Paradise & Casella’s reviewDon DeLillo’s White NoiseWinterson’s Written on the Body, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal, and FrankissteinBernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novelsWilliam Shakespeare’s As You Like It and The Winter’s TaleChina Miéville’s The City & The City (though I don’t think we actually name it)Salman Rushdie, Martin AmisJulian Barnes’ A History of the World in 10½ ChaptersThe 1980s: A Decade of Contemporary British Fiction edited by Emily Horton, Philip Tew, and Leigh WilsonNeil Gaiman, Jeff Noon, Steph Swainston“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. EliotFrank Herbert’s DuneMary Shelley’s FrankensteinWendy Roy on Cherie DimalineWilliam Gibson’s Pattern Recognition and othersDan’s piece in LARB on Christopher Priest and his last novel, Airside

More podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: A.V. MarracciniTitle: The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin AitkenMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:Vladimir Nabokov’s Ada, or ArdorAnton Hur’s Toward Eternity and Casella’s reviewA.V.’s forthcoming book, These New FragilitiesNana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain Gang All-StarsPresses discussed:Lolli EditionsNew DirectionsFSG PressFitzarraldoSeven StoriesTorInside the CastleKristina Carlson’s Eunuch translated from the Finnish by Mikko AlapuroPsychedlic Ray Bradbury coversJenny Hval’s novels, such as Paradise RotSamuel R. DelanyVajra Chandrasekera’s The Saint of Bright DoorsGretchen Felker-Martin Manhunt and CuckooJohn TrefryOlga Ravn's My WorkLea Guldditte Hestelund's sculptureInterview with Ravn about Hestelund Le Guin's Carrier Bag theory of fictionArthur C. Clarke/Stanley Kubrick’s 2001Stanislaw Lem’s FiascoAngélica GorodischerKim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the FuturePhilip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? & Ridley Scott’s BladerunnerBattlestar GalacticaUrsula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of DarknessJorge Luis Borges & Italo CalvinoE. Catherine Tobler's The Necessity of StarsStanislaw Lem's SolarisRavn's Twitter @OlgaRavnAV on Twitter @saintsoftness

Taylor Driggers joins us to talk about the second volume in C.S. Lewis's SPACE TRILOGY. A richly-described and philosophical science fiction story, PERELANDRA has a lot that's interesting and a lot that's pretty weird when you think about it. A Meal of Thorns is a podcast from the Ancillary Review of Books. Credits:Guest: Taylor Driggers Title: Perelandra by C.S. Lewis Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:Queering Faith in Fantasy Literature: Fantastic Incarnations and the Deconstruction of Theology by Taylor Driggers The Ursula Le Guin Archives Laurie Marks’ Elemental Logic novel series Philophantast conference The Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic at the University of Glasgow Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman (and our episode on it) The Two Doctors Górski by Isaac Fellman The other two novels in the Space Trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet and That Hideous Strength Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia The Inklings (wiki link) Lewis’s A Grief Observed Lewis’s final novel Till We Have Faces Ursula Le Guin’s review of Lewis’s The Dark Tower Lewis’s The Great Divorce, Pilgrim’s Regress, and The Screwtape Letters Stephen Metcalf, “Language and Self-Consciousness: The Making and Breaking of C.S. Lewis’ Personae” in Word and Story in C. S. Lewis: Language and Narrative in Theory and Practice ed. Peter J. Schakel & Charles A. Huttar Lewis’s debate with Elizabeth Anscombe J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings Ridley Scott’s Alien “Sehnsucht”, the concept of inconsolable longing The Transformers franchise Aamer Rahman on defeating Nazis Satan (Milton’s version) Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and specifically the religion/philosophy of the Handdara Sofia Samatar’s The Practice, The Horizon, and the Chain Casella’s essay on (not) defending science fiction against criticisms of complicity Taylor’s seminar for his work with the Le Guin Fellowship on historicizing queerness in fantasy and “queer hiddenness in the archive”, available online this fall/winter. Greg Egan’s “Oracle”, available on his site (and in the collections Oceanic and The Best of Greg Egan) ContactRSS feed | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | +lots of other platforms (let us know if it’s not on your favorite)You can follow A Meal of Thorns on Twitter and Bluesky.Email us at [email protected] the Show!You can support the podcast (and the Ancillary Review of Books) by joining our Patreon. For $5 and up, you get access to ARB's exclusive monthly newsletter, our Discord community, and more to come.Interested in purchasing a book we mentioned on the show? Check the show notes for Bookshop links; we get a cut if you buy them through our Bookshop!It seems small, but it really does help: like and share our posts! Leave a comment or review wherever you find us. The internet's kind of broken, but that kind of thing really does help people hear about the work we're doing.

Ancillary Review editors Jake Casella Brookins and Misha Grifka Wander discuss Susanna Clarke's PIRANESI: epistolary realism and the novel, numinous personhood, and glimpses of utopia in rejecting capitalist expectations. Notes, Links, and Transcript A Meal of Thorns is a podcast from the Ancillary Review of Books.Credits:Guest: Misha Grifka WanderTitle: Piranesi by Susanna ClarkeMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughReferences:Misha’s interviews with Sofia Samatar and Vajra ChandrasekeraExordia by Seth DickinsonArrival (Villeneuve’s adaptation of Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life”)Weird Black Girls by Elwin CotmanDisorientation by Elaine Hsieh ChouStarship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven’s film adaptation)The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia SamatarJonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna ClarkeThe Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. LewisThrough the Looking Glass & Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis CarrollChristopher Nolan’s MementoPhilosopher’s including John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John RawlsAugustine’s ConfessionsHouse of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski“The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis BorgesAnathem by Neal StephensonA Stranger in Olondria by Sofia SamatarThe Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. WellsDavid Lynch’s Twin PeaksNic Pizzolatto’s True DetectiveContactRSS feed | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | +lots of other platforms (let us know if it’s not on your favorite)You can follow A Meal of Thorns on Twitter and Bluesky.Email us at [email protected] the Show!You can support the podcast (and the Ancillary Review of Books) by joining our Patreon. For $5 and up, you get access to ARB’s exclusive monthly newsletter, our Discord community, and more to come.Interested in purchasing a book we mentioned on the show? Check the show notes for Bookshop links; we get a cut if you buy them through our Bookshop!It seems small, but it really does help: like and share our posts! Leave a comment or review wherever you find us. The internet’s kind of broken, but that kind of thing really does help people hear about the work we’re doing.

Host Jake Casella Brookins talks to critic Roseanna Pendlebury about Isaac Fellman's DEAD COLLECTIONS (a novel about a trans vampire archivist) and how it addresses grief, portrayals of bodies and identities over time, fanfic and low-budget television, and the place of more experimental fiction in genre publishing. Notes, Links, and Transcript ContactRSS feed | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | +lots of other platforms (let us know if it’s not on your favorite)You can follow A Meal of Thorns on Twitter and Bluesky.Email us at [email protected] the Show!You can support the podcast (and the Ancillary Review of Books) by joining our Patreon. For $5 and up, you get access to ARB’s exclusive monthly newsletter, our Discord community, and more to come.Interested in purchasing a book we mentioned on the show? Check the show notes for Bookshop links; we get a cut if you buy them through our Bookshop!It seems small, but it really does help: like and share our posts! Leave a comment or review wherever you find us. The internet’s kind of broken, but that kind of thing really does help people hear about the work we’re doing.

For the very first episode, host Jake Casella Brookins talks to Dan Hartland, critic and reviews editor, about China Miéville's novel THE SCAR, the genre of the New Weird, and many related works and ideas. Notes, Links, and Transcript Credits:Guest: Dan HartlandTitle: The Scar by China MiévilleMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John BroughLinks & works referenced:Strange Horizons reviewsDan’s Snap! Criticism seriesCahokia Jazz by Francis SpuffordDan’s review of Cahokia Jazz at Strange HorizonsHim by Geoff RymanThe Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia SamatarCasella’s review of PHC at the Chicago Review of BooksThe West Passage by Jared PechačekPerdido Street Station and Iron Council by China MiévilleEmbassytown and The City and the City by China MiévillePirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia by David Graeber“Epic Pooh” by Michael Moorcock (pdf)“The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane (pdf)The Year of Our War by Steph SwainstonJustina RobsonThe Wall by Gautam BhatiaThe Etched City by K.J. Bishop“Infernal Transmutation: Remembering K.J. Bishop’s The Etched City” by J.R. Bolt @ TypebarRobert Jordan’s Wheel of Time seriesTerry Brooks’ Shannara seriesUrsula Le Guin’s fantasyKelly LinkCarmen Maria MachadoGraham Harman’s idea of overminingCormac McCarthyThis Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max GladstoneCasella’s bit about baseline genre familiarity in his ARB essay on TIHYLTTW.The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra ChandrasekeraChristopher PriestContactRSS feed | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | +lots of other platforms (let us know if it’s not on your favorite)You can follow A Meal of Thorns on Twitter and Bluesky.Email us at [email protected] the Show!You can support the podcast (and the Ancillary Review of Books) by joining our Patreon. For $5 and up, you get access to ARB’s exclusive monthly newsletter, our Discord community, and more to come.Interested in purchasing a book we mentioned on the show? Check the show notes for Bookshop links; we get a cut if you buy them through our Bookshop!It seems small, but it really does help: like and share our posts! Leave a comment or review wherever you find us. The internet’s kind of broken, but that kind of thing really does help people hear about the work we’re doing.