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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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• 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!

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.

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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.

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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.

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