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	Titre	Date	Durée
	A Meal of Thorns 48- READY PLAYER ONE with Matthew Leggatt	20 Apr 2026	01:10:39
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 Meal of Thorns 47- CLOUD ATLAS with Abigail Nussbaum	06 Apr 2026	01:10:53
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
	A Meal of Thorns 38- VENOMOUS LUMPSUCKER with Cameron Kunzelman	01 Dec 2025	01:23:21
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
	A Meal of Thorns 37 – THE HISTORIAN with Sean Guynes	17 Nov 2025	01:27:15
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 Guynes Title: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova 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: David Linday’s Voyage to Arcturus Sean's series on the Ballantine Adult Fantasy books Thomas Burnett Swann E.R. Eddison Gibson's Bridge trilogy Stephen Norrington’s film Blade Bram Stoker's Dracula Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis Sarah Perry's Melmoth and our episode with Jon Greenaway about it Ilana Masad’s “Holocaust Beach Reads” Machiavelli's The Prince Radu Florescu & Raymond McNally's In Search of Dracula The Turkey City Lexicon Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, including Memnoch the Devil Fred Saberhagen’s The Dracula Tape Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s St. Germaine cycle E. Elias Merhige’s film Shadow of the Vampire Claire Kohda's Woman, Eating Indrapramit Das's The Devourers Stephen Graham Jones' The Buffalo Hunter Hunter Peter S. Beagle's A Fine and Private Place Eddison's the The Mezentian Gate And be sure to check out Sean’s essay on The Historian!
	A Meal of Thorns 36 – UNDER THE EYE OF THE BIG BIRD with Eleanor McAdam	03 Nov 2025	01:04:24
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.
	A Meal of Thorns 35 – 60 Stories with Timothy Moore	20 Oct 2025	01:24:39
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”
	A Meal of Thorns 34 – BURNING BRIGHT with Ursula Whitcher	06 Oct 2025	00:53:13
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
	A Meal of Thorns 33 – THE FIFTH SEASON with Joy Sanchez-Taylor	23 Sep 2025	01:03:57
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
	A Meal of Thorns 32 – AUTHORITY with Zachary Gillan	08 Sep 2025	01:10:47
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
	A Meal of Thorns 31 – Seattle Worldcon	25 Aug 2025	01:14:25
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
	A Meal of Thorns 30 – STONE OF FAREWELL with Karlo Yeager Rodríguez	11 Aug 2025	01:14:23
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"
	A Meal of Thorns 29 – Readercon & Lovestruck	28 Jul 2025	00:52:11
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
	A Meal of Thorns 46- THE BIG SLEEP with Max Gladstone	23 Mar 2026	01:01:26
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
	A Meal of Thorns 28 – EXCESSION with Abigail Nussbaum	14 Jul 2025	01:08:43
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
	A Meal of Thorns 27 – 40,000 IN GEHENNA with Arkady Martine (and a 4th Street Fantasy Report)	30 Jun 2025	01:20:47
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
	A Meal of Thorns 26 – DEATH OF THE AUTHOR with andré m. carrington	16 Jun 2025	01:14:06
Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: andré m. carrington Title: Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor 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: andré’s Speculative Blackness, The Black Fantastic, and Audiofuturism (forthcoming) The Eaton Conference Malik Gaines & Alexandro Segade's cosmic opera Star Choir, based on the work of Octavia E. Butler Hanna Yanagahira's To Paradise Tochi Onyebuchi’s Harmattan Season George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire N.K. Jemisin Michael Zapata’s The Lost Book of Adana Moreau Tom Hanks’ That Thing You Do Andew Stanton’s Wall-E Becky Chambers' Monk & Robot Olaf Stapledon Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future andré's Bluesky Audio.futurism Instagram
	A Meal of Thorns 25 – THE HUGO NOVELS & NOVELLAS with Roseanna Pendlebury	02 Jun 2025	01:27:46
Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Roseanna Pendlebury Titles: The 2025 Hugo Novel & Novella List 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: Hugo Novella Finalists: The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed Navigational Entanglements by Aliette de Bodard The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher Hugo Novel Finalists: Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett The Clarke Award list Paul Kincaid’s Coulorfields Roseanna’s “A Path Through the Landscape” for A Reader of Else, plus Paul Kincaid’s “The Books That Made Me” for Through the dark labyrinth Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti Casella’s idea of a Hugo for Best Translated Work Renay's Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom Alex Jeffers’s A Mourning Coat Lorraine Wilson’s Last to Drown The Ursula K. Le Guin Prize The Ignyte Awards Premee Mohamed’s The Siege of Burning Grass Vajra Chandraskera’s Rakesfall Jared Pechaček’s The West Passage Seth Dickinson’s Exordia and The Traitor Baru Cormorant Emet North’s In Universes Eden Robin’s Remember You Will Die Scott Guild's Plastic Aliya Whiteley's Three Eight One T. Kingfisher’s Saint of Steel books Marie Brennan's A Natural History of Dragons Robert Jackson Bennett’s Divine Cities and Founders trilogies Adrian Tchaikovsky’s House of Open Wounds Greg Egan Charlie Stross's Neptune’s Brood Zachary Gillan’s “Reading Weird Fiction in an Age of Fascism” Foz Meadow’s A Strange and Stubborn Endurance Roseanna's review of Someone To Build A Nest In Brad Wright’s Travelers Helen MacDonald and Sin Blaché’s Prophet Roseanna’s Small Press Dispatch column Nerds of a Feather
	A Meal of Thorns 24 – THE LOST BOOK OF ADANA MOREAU with Maia Gil′Adí	19 May 2025	01:00:59
Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Maia Gil′Adí Title: The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael Zapata Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Palgrave SFF: A New Canon The Zombie Archive Doom Patterns: Latinx Speculations and the Aesthetics of Violence Augustina Bazterrica's Tender is the Flesh Fernanda Trias' Pink Slime Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go Colson Whitehead's Zone One Toni Morrison's Beloved Fernanda Melchor's Hurricane Season Indrapramit Das Brendan Shay Basham's Swim Home to the Vanished & Casella’s review Mariana Enriquez's Our Share of Night Fredric Jameson Chicago Review of Books Awards Ilana Masad’s “Holocaust Beach Reads” for The Maris Review Jason (Friday the 13th) Simón Bolívar August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft, C.L. Moore Moebius/Jean Giraud Ancient Aliens Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter & adaptation Studs Terkel US Occupation of the Dominican Republic, 1916 Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Jonbar points Aimee Pokwatka's Self-Portrait with Nothing Lavie Tidhar's The Circumference of the Earth & Unholy Land Rob Nixon's Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor Sesshu Foster's Atomic Aztecs Maia on Bluesky
	A Meal of Thorns 23 – DREAMS OF AMPUTATION with Sean McTiernan	05 May 2025	01:06:18
Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Sean McTiernan Title: Dreams of Amputation by Gary J. Shipley Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough Transcribers: Kate Dollarhyde References: The SFUltra podcast Alasdair Gray’s Lanark & Poor Things James Joyce’s Ulysses Fredric Jameson Absolute DC comics Michael Comeau’s Hellberta Alan Grant & John Wagner’s Doomlord Ray Nayler’s Where the Axe is Buried Neil Sharpson’s When The Sparrow Falls Michael Mann's Blackhat Later Die Hards Tony Scott’s Enemy of the State Jean Baudrillard Shipley’s Stratagem of the Corpse, Crypt(o)spasm, and Serial Killing: A Philosophical Anthology Dennis Cooper Blake Butler’s “Sci-Fi Doesn’t Have to Be Dominated by Horny Bro Wizards” for Vice Darko Suvin Manuela Draeger's Kree (and Antoine Volodine’s other work) Mark Danielewski B.R. Yeager Apocalypse Party William S. Burrough’s Naked Lunch Neal Stephenson Daniel Dennett Memetics Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly J.G. Ballard, M. John Harrison, John Updike Blake Butler’s Uxa.gov & the SFUltra episode Christopher Priest’s “Hull 0, Scunthorpe 3” Brian Evenson, Pierre Guyotat Harrison's Nova Swing Tad Williams' Otherland Derek Raymond (Rober Cook)’s He Died With His Eyes Open Thomas Metzinger The Ego Tunnel Bernard Wolfe’s Limbo Evenson’s Last Days / Brotherhood of Mutilation William Gibson, Bruce Sterling Warhammer 40k Ballard's Crash Curt Siodmak’s Donovan's Brain Matt from Bookpilled Nick Land CCRU & Dark Enlightenment Baudrillard’s The Transparency of Evil, Cool Memories, The Perfect Crime Mark Fisher, Kodwu Eshun, Kode9 Fisher’s “Exiting the Vampire Castle” Andrea Dworkin Brion Gysin Travis Baldree's Legends and Lattes Walter Hill's The Driver Brian Catling Ian Sinclair SFUltra episodes on Lanark, Poor Things, and Catling
	A Meal of Thorns 22 – THE TERRA IS A FORMER MISTRESS with Christian P. Haines	21 Apr 2025	01:29:49
Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Credits: Guest: Christian P. Haines Titles: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein, and The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough Transcriber: Kate Dollarhyde References: Stephen King's The Shining and Carrie Rafael Bernal’s His Name Was Death Michel Nieva’s Dengue Boy Daryl Gregory’s When We Were Real Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Service Model, Christian’s review for ARB Io9 Our Opinions Are Correct Heinlein’s Starship Troopers Christian’s The Terraformers review for LARB Newitz’s Autonomous Heinlein’s Farmer in the Sky, The Rolling Stones Archer Milton Friedman Orwell’s 1984 Rand’s Atlas Shrugged James S.A. Corey’s The Expanse Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed Ian McDonald’s New Moon trilogy Frank Herbert’s Dune Samuel R. Delany’s Babel-17 Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness Jo Walton's Among Others and our episode on it Holly Jean Buck’s After Geoengineering "Engineering Swallows Up Politics" Neal Stephenson’s Termination Shock KSR’s Aurora McKenzie Wark’s Molecular Red Ulrich Haarbürste’s Roy Orbison Wrapped in Clingfilm Star Trek's “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations” Spinoza’s idea of conatus Walter Kaufman's introduction to Martin Buber's I and Thou Kant's Categorical Imperative Abbot Elementary Delany’s Trouble On Triton Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Talents Marx’s Capital John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar Kohei Sato’s Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto KSR’s The Ministry for the Future, New York 2140 Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest Gamers with Glasses Five Theses on Antifascist Game Criticism
	A Meal of Thorns 21 – LUD-IN-THE-MIST with Marita Arvaniti	07 Apr 2025	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
	A Meal of Thorns 20 – AMONG OTHERS with Archita Mittra	24 Mar 2025	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
	A Meal of Thorns 19 – HEIR TO THE EMPIRE with Dan Hartland	10 Mar 2025	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
	A Meal of Thorns 45- THE DEEP SEA DIVER’S SYNDROME with Alexander Dickow	09 Mar 2026	01:03:30
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
	A Meal of Thorns 18 – THE SILMARILLION with Eden Kupermintz	24 Feb 2025	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
	A Meal of Thorns 17 – FIRE LOGIC with Benjamin Rosenbaum	10 Feb 2025	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
	A Meal of Thorns 16 – AURORA with Hilary Strang	27 Jan 2025	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
	A Meal of Thorns 15 – MISTRESS OF MISTRESSES with Jared Pechaček	13 Jan 2025	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
	A Meal of Thorns 14 – 2024 Wrap-Up with Roseanna Pendlebury	30 Dec 2024	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
	A Meal of Thorns 13 – THE THIS with Anna McFarlane	16 Dec 2024	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
	A Meal of Thorns 12 – MELMOTH with Jon Greenaway	02 Dec 2024	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
	A Meal of Thorns 11 – THE BALLAD OF BLACK TOM with Garrett Bridger Gilmore	18 Nov 2024	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
	A Meal of Thorns 10 – TAINARON with Shinjini Dey	04 Nov 2024	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"?
	A Meal of Thorns 09 – PATTERN RECOGNITION with Sunny Moraine	21 Oct 2024	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
	A Meal of Thorns 44- PALADIN OF SOULS with Liz Bourke	23 Feb 2026	01:08:18
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
	A Meal of Thorns 08 – GILDED NEEDLES with Juan Martinez	07 Oct 2024	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
	A Meal of Thorns 07 – THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT with Amal El-Mohtar	23 Sep 2024	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
	A Meal of Thorns 06 – THE PASSION with Dan Hartland	09 Sep 2024	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
	A Meal of Thorns 05 – THE EMPLOYEES with A.V. Marraccini	26 Aug 2024	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
	A Meal of Thorns 04 – PERELANDRA with Taylor Driggers	12 Aug 2024	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.
	A Meal of Thorns 03 – PIRANESI with Misha Grifka Wander	29 Jul 2024	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.
	A Meal of Thorns 02 – DEAD COLLECTIONS with Roseanna Pendlebury	15 Jul 2024	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.
	A Meal of Thorns 01 – THE SCAR with Dan Hartland	01 Jul 2024	01:20:26
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 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.
	A Meal of Thorns 43- DIASPORA with Eden Kupermintz	09 Feb 2026	01:13:22
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
	A Meal of Thorns 42- IMARO with Jon Tattrie	26 Jan 2026	01:07:59
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
	A Meal of Thorns 41- THE BEETLE with Marisa Mercurio	12 Jan 2026	01:06:39
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
	A Meal of Thorns 40- 2025 Wrap-Up with Dan Hartland	29 Dec 2025	01:10:59
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
	A Meal of Thorns 39- THE SECRET HISTORY with Roseanna Pendlebury	15 Dec 2025	01:25:51
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.*

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