A Meal of Thorns (The Ancillary Review of Books)

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	Pub. Date	Title	Duration
	01 Jul 2024	A Meal of Thorns 01 – THE SCAR with Dan Hartland	01:20:26
Host Jake Casella Brookins talks to Dan Hartland, critic and reviewer, 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 Hartland Title: The Scar by China Miéville Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough Links & works referenced: Strange Horizons reviews Dan’s Snap! Criticism series Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford Dan’s review of Cahokia Jazz at Strange Horizons Him by Geoff Ryman The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar Casella’s review of PHC at the Chicago Review of Books The West Passage by Jared Pechaček Perdido Street Station and Iron Council by China Miéville Embassytown and The City and the City by China Miéville Pirate 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 Swainston Justina Robson The Wall by Gautam Bhatia The Etched City by K.J. Bishop “Infernal Transmutation: Remembering K.J. Bishop’s The Etched City” by J.R. Bolt @ Typebar Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series Terry Brooks’ Shannara series Ursula Le Guin’s fantasy Kelly Link Carmen Maria Machado Graham Harman’s idea of overmining Cormac McCarthy This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone Casella’s bit about baseline genre familiarity in his ARB essay on TIHYLTTW. The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera Christopher Priest Contact RSS 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 mealofthorns@gmail.com. Support 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.
	15 Jul 2024	A Meal of Thorns 02 – DEAD COLLECTIONS with Roseanna Pendlebury	01:03:41
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 Contact RSS 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 mealofthorns@gmail.com. Support 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.
	29 Jul 2024	A Meal of Thorns 03 – PIRANESI with Misha Grifka Wander	01:17:37
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 Wander Title: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Misha’s interviews with Sofia Samatar and Vajra Chandrasekera Exordia by Seth Dickinson Arrival (Villeneuve’s adaptation of Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life”) Weird Black Girls by Elwin Cotman Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven’s film adaptation) The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis Through the Looking Glass & Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll Christopher Nolan’s Memento Philosopher’s including John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John Rawls Augustine’s Confessions House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski “The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges Anathem by Neal Stephenson A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells David Lynch’s Twin Peaks Nic Pizzolatto’s True Detective Contact RSS 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 mealofthorns@gmail.com. Support 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.
	12 Aug 2024	A Meal of Thorns 04 – PERELANDRA with Taylor Driggers	01:13:24
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 Brough References: 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) Contact RSS 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 mealofthorns@gmail.com. Support 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.
	26 Aug 2024	A Meal of Thorns 05 – THE EMPLOYEES with A.V. Marraccini	00:54:35
More podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: A.V. Marraccini Title: The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Vladimir Nabokov’s Ada, or Ardor Anton Hur’s Toward Eternity and Casella’s review A.V.’s forthcoming book, These New Fragilities Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain Gang All-Stars Presses discussed: Lolli Editions New Directions FSG Press Fitzarraldo Seven Stories Tor Inside the Castle Kristina Carlson’s Eunuch translated from the Finnish by Mikko Alapuro Psychedlic Ray Bradbury covers Jenny Hval’s novels, such as Paradise Rot Samuel R. Delany Vajra Chandrasekera’s The Saint of Bright Doors Gretchen Felker-Martin Manhunt and Cuckoo John Trefry Olga Ravn's My Work Lea Guldditte Hestelund's sculpture Interview with Ravn about Hestelund Le Guin's Carrier Bag theory of fiction Arthur C. Clarke/Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 Stanislaw Lem’s Fiasco Angélica Gorodischer Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? & Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner Battlestar Galactica Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness Jorge Luis Borges & Italo Calvino E. Catherine Tobler's The Necessity of Stars Stanislaw Lem's Solaris Ravn's Twitter @OlgaRavn AV on Twitter @saintsoftness
	09 Sep 2024	A Meal of Thorns 06 – THE PASSION with Dan Hartland	01:13:48
More podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Host: Jake Casella Brookins Guest: Dan Hartland Title: *The Passion* by Jeanette Winterson Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: This blog has a round-up of articles and commentary on the Gaiman allegations. Dan’s Snap! Criticism series at Ancillary Handheld Press Vonda McInty’re The Exile Waiting & Dreamsnake The 2024 Academic Conference on Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Annie Luong on Margaret Atwood’s The Heart Goes Last Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle Laura van den Berg’s State of Paradise & Casella’s review Don DeLillo’s White Noise Winterson’s Written on the Body, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal, and Frankisstein Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels William Shakespeare’s As You Like It and The Winter’s Tale China Miéville’s The City & The City (though I don’t think we actually name it) Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis Julian Barnes’ A History of the World in 10½ Chapters The 1980s: A Decade of Contemporary British Fiction edited by Emily Horton, Philip Tew, and Leigh Wilson Neil Gaiman, Jeff Noon, Steph Swainston “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot Frank Herbert’s Dune Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Wendy Roy on Cherie Dimaline William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition and others Dan’s piece in LARB on Christopher Priest and his last novel, Airside
	23 Sep 2024	A Meal of Thorns 07 – THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT with Amal El-Mohtar	01:08:39
More podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Amal El-Mohtar Title: The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera In Universes by Emmet North The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar Amal’s review of those three novels The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone Star Wars Wicked problems A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin Babel, or the Necessity of Violence by R.F. Kuang The Battle of Algiers directed by Gillo Pontecorvo Tony Gilroy’s Star Wars series Andor The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera The sequels to Traitor Baru, The Monster Baru Cormorant & The Tyrant Baru Cormorant Commedia dell’arte Lee Mandelo's writing on Eve Sedwgick, paranoid & reparative reading Kameron Hurley & Arkady Martine Exordia by Seth Dickinson The Unaccountability Machine by Dan Davies Amal's next book, *The River Has Roots* The ballad of The Two Sisters/The Bonny Swans Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees
	07 Oct 2024	A Meal of Thorns 08 – GILDED NEEDLES with Juan Martinez	01:04:01
More podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Juan Martinez Title: Gilded Needles by Michael McDowell Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Juan’s collection Best Worst American & horror novel Extended Stay Jackleg Press StoryStudio Tananarive Due's The Reformatory Eden Robins’ Remember You Will Die Sofia Samatar's The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain Ananda Lima's Craft: Stories I Told the Devil Jesse Ball's The Repeat Room T.E.D. Klein’s The Ceremonies Peter Straub Beetlejuice, directed by Timothy Burton Tales from the Crypt & Tales from the Darkside The Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by Henry Selick McDowell's The Elementals "A little bit like Edith Wharton with more murder" Jaws, directed by Steven Spielberg Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame & Les Misérables Triangle of Sadness, directed by Ruben Östlund Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo The Abominable Dr. Phibes, directed by Robert Fuest They Might Be Giants Lydia Lunch Robert Mapplethorpe Patti Smith Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus & Julie Taymor’s film adaptation Thomas Ligotti, Bruno Schulz, & Franz Kafka McDowell's Death Collection Stephen King, Philip K. Dick, & C.J. Cherryh Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird The Ghosts of Where We Are From Juan’s DNC protest coverage at the Believer, parts one & two Follow Juan on Instagram & Threads for the good doodle content
	21 Oct 2024	A Meal of Thorns 09 – PATTERN RECOGNITION with Sunny Moraine	01:13:05
More podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Sunny Moraine Title: Pattern Recognition by William Gibson Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Your Shadow Half Remains Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction From the Margins of History Looming Low Singing With All My Skin and Bone Serial horror podcast Gone The Shadow Files of Morgan Knox Gibson's Neuromancer, Virtual Light, Mona Lisa Overdrive, “The Gernsback Continuum”, The Peripheral, “Fragments of a Hologram Rose” Frank Herbert’s Dune and Dune Messiah Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness Nathan Ballingrud’s Crypt of the Moon Spider, The Strange, and North American Lake Monsters China Miéville’s The City and the City Michel Foucault's notion of heterotopia Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation William Gibson & the Futures of Contemporary Culture edited by Mitch R. Murray and Matthias Nilges Sheryl Vint & Charles Yu Beat writers; Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs Imagism Mono No Aware Speculative Realism/Object Oriented Ontology; Jane Bennett, Graham Harman, Timothy Morton C.J. Cherryh's notion of “Third Person Intense Internal” Aimee Pokwatka’s Self Portrait With Nothing Kids by The Midnight Sonic Nurse by Sonic Youth Amplitudes edited by Lee Mandelo Sunny on Bluesky World Fantasy Awards
	04 Nov 2024	A Meal of Thorns 10 – TAINARON with Shinjini Dey	01:09:19
More podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Shinjini Dey Title: Tainaron: Mail From Another City by Leena Krohn, translated by Hildi Hawkins Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: 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 Lessons The New Weird, ed. Ann & Jeff VanderMeer On the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara Haveland Wonderbook by Jeff VanderMeer Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities Renee Gladman’s Houses of Ravicka "Big Dumb Objects" Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Jeff VanderMeer’s Hummingbird Salamander & Casella’s review "The Look", "The Gaze" Entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre & mystic Angelus Silesius Emmanuel Levinas & Martin Buber Sofia Samatar’s A Stranger In Olondria Nghi Vo’s The City in Glass & Casella’s review Protagoras “Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose” Longhorn beetles J.R.R. Tolkien’s idea of “sub-creation” Shinjini’s website & twitter How did I fail to mention TMBG's "Snail Shell"?
	18 Nov 2024	A Meal of Thorns 11 – THE BALLAD OF BLACK TOM with Garrett Bridger Gilmore	01:11:16
More podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Garrett Bridger Gilmore Title: The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: “The Horror At Redhook” by H.P. Lovecraft Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff The Night Ocean by Paul LaFarge Lone Women by Victor LaValle The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft “The Lovecraft Boomlet” of adaptions/retellings/reworkings Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead Get Out directed by Jordan Peele Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Black Panther run, Between the World and Me, The Water Dancer The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin The World Fantasy Award Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park Kindred by Octavia Butler Slapboxing with Jesus by Victor LaValle James by Percival Everett Aida Levy-Hussen’s How to Read African American Literature- reparative & prohibitive readings Toni Morrison’s Beloved P. Djèlí Clark’s Ring Shout “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley HPL’s At the Mountains of Madness "Lovecraft in Brooklyn" by The Mountain Goats, from Heretic Pride Vajra Chandrasekera’s The Saint of Bright Doors R.F. Kuang’s Babel, or The Necessity of Violence Garrett's twitter Pauline Hopkins’ Of One Blood
	02 Dec 2024	A Meal of Thorns 12 – MELMOTH with Jon Greenaway	01:06:08
Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Jon Greenaway Title: Melmoth by Sarah Perry Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Jon's latest books: Capitalism: A Horror Story and A Primer On Utopian Philosophy Edgar Allen Poe Fredric Jameson’s The Years of Theory Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives Napoleon Dynamite, dir. Jared Hess Carmen Maria Machado, George Saunders Leyna Krow’s Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer Perry’s The Essex Serpent and Enlightenment Perry’s essay on writing while in pain/on painkillers Goethe’s Faust, Dante’s Inferno, the myth of the Wandering Jew Matthew Lewis’s The Monk Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto China Mieville's idea of anti-fantasy Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves “participatory anthropology” Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful Wagner’s Parsifal God's Not Dead, dir. Harold Cronk Heidegger's idea of thrownness (Geworfenheit) Philosophical theories of “the gift” and “impossible exchange” Christopher Priest’s The Prestige Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s Slaughterhouse-Five Vajra Chandrasekera’s Rakesfall and The Saint of Bright Doors Premee Mohamed’s The Siege of Burning Grass Horror Vanguard Jon’s Blog & Substack
	16 Dec 2024	A Meal of Thorns 13 – THE THIS with Anna McFarlane	01:16:00
Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Anna McFarlane Title: The This by Adam Roberts Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Anna's books, including Cyberpunk Culture and Psychology, The Routledge Companion to Cyberpunk Culture, Fifty Key Figures in Cyberpunk Culture, and Adam Roberts: Critical Essays Mary Butts’ “Mappa Mundi” Jordan S. Carroll’s Speculative Whiteness Adam Roberts’ The Thing Itself, Lake of Darkness, New Model Army, and nonfiction Christopher Priest The Thing, dir. John Carpenter Kant's Critique of Pure Reason Deleuze’s concept of The Fold Nabokov’s Pale Fire Michael Swanwick Stations of the Tide & Vacuum Flowers Cory Doctorow & Greg Egan Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash William Gibson’s Neuromancer Patricia Lockwood’s No One Is Talking About This Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War Star Trek’s Borg E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” George Orwell’s 1984 Hegel'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 pharmakon The Big Read podcast on The This Shulamith Firestone's The Dialectic of Sex Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation Robot monkey/wiremother experiments Roberts’s review of The Book of Elsewhere Roberts on Bluesky Black Mirror Thomas Disch’s 334 & Camp Concentration David Lynch Peter Watts’ Blindsight & Echopraxia Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, & Galapagos Vonnegut thing about delivering a letter Vonnegut’s “Biafra: A People Betrayed” Fix-up novels Jo 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 War Lavie Tidhar's Central Station, The Circumference of the World, Osama, A Man Lies Dreaming A line from Hegel to Marx to Darko Suvin The conclusion to Walter Pater's The Renaissance Molly Templeton’s “A Modest Request for a Little More Genre Chaos” Young Frankenstein dir. Mel Brooks Anna on Bluesky The Edinburgh Companion to Science Fiction and the Medical Humanities
	30 Dec 2024	A Meal of Thorns 14 – 2024 Wrap-Up with Roseanna Pendlebury	01:39:26
Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Roseanna Pendlebury Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough In Memoriam: Alan Jeffrey & Cameron Estrich-Watson References: Tor’s The Most Iconic Speculative Fiction Books of the 21st Century Jo Walton’s commentary on putting together those lists Adam Roberts, Greg Egan Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel's Dart Seth Dickinson’s The Traitor Baru Cormorant C.J. Cherryh’s Rimrunners Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story Carl Sagan’s Contact William Goldman’s The Princess Bride Martin MacInnes’ In Ascension Samantha Harvey’s Orbital William Gibson’s Neuromancer Indra Das’s The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar Bruce Coville- Aliens Ate My Homework & Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher Robin Sloan- Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Sourdough, Moonbound Nerds of a Feather Worldcon Centre for Fantasy and Fantastic at the University of Glasgow Christopher Priest & Nina Allan Adrian Tchaikovsky’s City of Last Chances, House of Open Wounds, Days of Shattered Faith Terry Pratchett’s Discworld The New Weird Readercon Emily Tesh’s acceptance speech World Fantasy Convention Academic Conference on Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Eastercon Octothorpe Vajra Chandrasekera’s The Saint of Bright Doors Science Fiction Awards Database Marisa Crane’s I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself Martha Wells’ Murderbot series Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song Shehan Karunatilaka’s Seven Moons of Maali Almeida Molly Templeton’s “The Joy of Reading Books You Don’t Entirely Understand” Colson Whitehead, Marlon James Emily Tesh’s Some Desperate Glory Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain Gang All-Stars Wole Talabi’s Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon Cadwell Turnbull’s No Gods No Monsters & We Are The Crisis S.L. Huang’s The Water Outlaws Moniquill Blackgoose’s To Shape a Dragon's Breath Alissa Hatman’s Sift Sarah Cypher’s The Skin and Its Girl Isabel Waidner’s Corey Fah Does Social Mobility Alaya Dawn Johnson’s The Library of Broken Worlds Rebecca Campbell’s Arboreality Vajra Chandrasekera’s Rakesfall august clarke’s Metal from Heaven Jared Pechaček’s The West Passage Emet North’s In Universes Johannes Anyuru’s Ixelles Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time Madeline L'Engle Premee Mohamed- The Siege of Burning Grass, The Butcher of the Forest, & The Rider, the Ride, the Rich Man’s Wife Seth Dickinson’s Exordia Sofia Samatar’s The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain Neon Hemlock Alex Jeffer’s A Mourning Coat Luna Press Lorraine Wilson’s The Last to Drown Greg Egan’s Morphotropic Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume Abigail Nussbaum’s Track Changes Jordan S. Carroll’s Speculative Whiteness Camestros Felapton’s Debarkle Positron 2020 Report Cleveland Review of Books, The Brooklyn Rail, Typebar Isaac Fellman’s Notes from a Regicide Emily Tesh’s The Incandescent Amal El-Mohtar’s The River Has Roots Katherine Addison’s The Tomb of Dragons R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis Natalia Theodoridou’s Sour Cherry Yoon Ha Lee’s Code & Codex Oliver K. Langmead & Aliya Whiteley’s City of All Seasons New David Mitchell? Lincoln Michel’s Metallic Realms Ray Nayler’s Where the Axe Is Buried Tochi Onyebuchi’s Harmattan Season Leena Krow’s Sinkhole, and Other Inexplicable Voids Amplitudes, edited by Lee Mandelo Science Fiction Research Association Premee Mohamed, One Message Remains Stephen King writing Roseanna’s “Small Press Dispatch” column at ARB
	13 Jan 2025	A Meal of Thorns 15 – MISTRESS OF MISTRESSES with Jared Pechaček	01:11:12
Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Jared Pechaček Title: Mistress of Mistresses by E.R. Eddison Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Jared’s book, The West Passage By-the-Bywater, a podcast about Tolkien Anya Johanna DeNiro’s OKPsyche Caroline Hagood’s Death And Other Speculative Fictions Eddison’s The Worm Ouroboros The Inklings Barbara 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 Death Lord Dunsany Griemas Squares C.S. Lewis’s Perelandra, we did an episode on that! Eddison’s A Fish Dinner in Memison C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces Sappho John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi & The White Devil Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman” Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness John Crowley’s Aegypt Baruch Spinoza Pre-Socratic philosophers such as Heraclitus Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of “The Will to Power” Godspeed! You Black Emperor’s “Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven” William Shakespeare’s Macbeth Hope Mirlees’ Lud-in-the-Mist Michael Swanwick’s Stations of the Tide Jared's Bluesky, Instagram, Tumblr
	27 Jan 2025	A Meal of Thorns 16 – AURORA with Hilary Strang	01:22:39
Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Hilary Strang Title: Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Marooned on Mars, a podcast about the works of KSR Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed Margaret Killjoy’s A Country of Ghosts KSR’s Mars trilogy Fredric Jameson’s Archaeologies of the Future John Dos Passos’s U.S.A. trilogy Wiscon “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 Voids Tom Godwin’s “The Cold Equations” “Wherever you go, there you are.” KSR’s 2312 and New York 2140 Sofia Samatar’s The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain Theodore McComb’s Uranians Gene Wolfe’s Book of the Long Sun Stephen H. Dole’s Habitable Planets for Man Tracked 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 Night KSR’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 films Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
	10 Feb 2025	A Meal of Thorns 17 – FIRE LOGIC with Benjamin Rosenbaum	01:22:52
Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Benjamin Rosenbaum Title: Fire Logic by Laurie J. Marks Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Ben’s novel, The Unraveling, and latest game, The Ghost & The Golem The Mohanraj & Rosenbaum Are Humans podcast GennaRose Nethercott’s Thistlefoot Kelly Link’s The Book of Love Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice & sequels Evan Dahm's The Last Delivery & Harrowing of Hell Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings (who also illustrated the *Elemental Logic* covers) Myers-Briggs personality test Orson Scott Card’s The Tales of Alvin Maker Avery Alder on queer game mechanics Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Day Before the Revolution” George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire Small Beer Press Sofia Samatar's A Stranger in Olondria and The Winged Histories Seth Dickinson’s The Traitor Baru Cormorant A Meal of Thorns 07 – THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT with Amal El-Mohtar Nelson Mandela wearing the Sprinbok jersey Davids Graeber & Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything Le Guin’s Five Ways to Forgiveness Isaac Asimov’s Foundation John W. Campbell & Joseph Campbell Maimonides & Saladin Coffee & the “Europe Sobered Up” theory Isaac Bashevis Singer’s “Yentl” & adaptations
	24 Feb 2025	A Meal of Thorns 18 – THE SILMARILLION with Eden Kupermintz	01:19:17
Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Eden Kupermintz Title: The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: anarchySF, heavy blog is heavy, Eden’s work at ARB, the Death // Sentence podcast Alex Pheby’s Waterblack Adrian Tchaikovsky’s House of Open Wounds Darkly Lem’s Transmentation Transience Death // Sentence episode on Unknown Language The Dragonlance series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (and others) Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone’s This Is How You Lose The Time War Jeff Noon & Steve Beard’s Gogmagog & Ludluda The Going Rogue podcast Tolkien’s The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island Ben Berman Ghan’s The Years Shall Run Like Rabbits & Eden's review The Kalevala, The Mabinogion, the Matter of Britain The Folio Society Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun Octavia Butler’s Kindred Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness Siegfried & the Dragon Kate Wagner on Wagner’s (no relation) The Ring Jared Pechaček’s The West Passage The By-The-Bywater podcast E.R. Eddison’s Mistress of Mistresses, and our episode on that with Jared Pechaček The Tea With Tolkien podcast John Milton’s Paradise Lost Eden’s Death // Sentence episode on one page of the Akallabêth Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas M. John Harrison, worldbuilding as the “clomping foot of nerdism” Anthony Burgess’s (and probably Stanley Kubrick’s tbf) A Clockwork Orange Blind Guardian's Nightfall in Middle-Earth and “The Bard's Song” The Hobbit (1977) Dopesmoker Edition For 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 Work Eden’s Bluesky
	10 Mar 2025	A Meal of Thorns 19 – HEIR TO THE EMPIRE with Dan Hartland	01:22:36
Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Dan Hartland Title: Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Gautam Bhatia's The Sentence Alex Pheby's Waterblack Cristina Rivera Garza's The Taiga Syndrome Katherine Addison's The Tomb of Dragons Elizabeth Sandifer's Hugboxing vs Scabpicking David Brin The Wilhelm Scream Jack London's The Call of the Wild Brandon Taylor’s “against casting tape fiction” The idea of “novelization style” as discussed in Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace I saw your black chanel boots mr skywalker Timothy Zahn’s Cascade Point Diane Carey's Ghost Ship Winamp skins Michael P. Kube-McDowell’s Black Fleet Crisis trilogy Vonda N. McIntyre's The Crystal Star Una McCormack Kevin J. Anderson Michael A. Stackpole’s I, Jedi Dresden Codak Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312 Andor Dr. Who "New Adventures" novels Ahsoka, Rebels Alan Dean Foster's Splinter of the Mind's Eye Tales from Mos Eisley Cantina and Tales from Jabba's Palace Strange Horizons Criticism Special Issue & Tansy Gardam's article on Jackson’s LOTR films The Going Rogue episode on The Star Wars Holiday Special
	24 Mar 2025	A Meal of Thorns 20 – AMONG OTHERS with Archita Mittra	00:57:02
Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Archita Mittra Title: Among Others by Jo Walton Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Eliza Chan’s Fathomfolk & Archita’s review Sue Lynn Tan's Immortal Lavanya Lakshminarayan's Interstellar Megachef & The Ten Percent Thief Michael Nieva's Dengue Boy Isaac Fellman's Notes from a Regicide Ursula K. Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven Ernest Cline's Ready Player One Stranger Things J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings Jame Tiptree, Jr. Samuel R. Delany's Babel-17 List of books mentioned in Among Others Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia Le Guin’s “Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?” from The Language of the Night Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat's Cradle Le Guin’s The Dispossessed and Delany’s Trouble on Triton Walton’s Informal History of the Hugos C.J. Cherryh's Gate of Ivrel Archita's reviews @ Strange Horizons & Locus Archita on Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram Archita's Locus year-end Casella’s Locus year-end Jared 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
	07 Apr 2025	A Meal of Thorns 21 – LUD-IN-THE-MIST with Marita Arvaniti	01:21:14
Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Marita Arvaniti Title: Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: 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 Bear Dianna Wynne Jones’ Fire and Hemlock Elizabeth Hand’s Mortal Love Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin Terri Windling & Ellen Datlow edited fairytale collections Robin Hobb’s Mad Ship Patrick O'Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin books Amal El-Mohtar’s The River Has Roots Robert Jackson Bennett’s A Drop of Corruption E.R. Eddison Laurie J. Marks’ Elemental Logic series Katherine Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale Euripedes' The Bacchae Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy Michael Swanwick’s Hope in the Mist J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, specifically Prince Caspian Robert Luketic’s Legally Blonde Edgar Allen Poe, Julio Cortázar, Franz Kafka, H.P. Lovecraft Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Farthest Shore Anne Carson’s translation of Bakkhai Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Fritz Lang’s Metropolis N.K. Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms Sofia Samatar's Olondrian novels Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes Naomi Mitchison’s To the Chapel Perilous and Memoirs of a Spacewoman T.H. White, Tanith Lee Ellen Kushner’s Thomas the Rhymer Jo Walton’s Among Others Kat Howard’s Roses and Rot Elizabeth Hand’s Waking the Moon Terri Windling’s The Wood Wife Guardian Article on romantasy Copyright romantasy case Sarah J. Maas Jacqueline Carey Kushiel's Dart Nicholas Stuart Gray’s Seven Swans Marita’s Instagram

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