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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References:

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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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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.

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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.

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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.

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Calypso by Oliver K. Langmead

Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is a literally giant work that’s an exemplar of the chain-bookstore and mass-market epic fantasy boom. Author, editor, and critic Karlo Yeager Rodríguez joins to talk about the trilogy’s second entry, Stone of Farewell: its position within and influence upon the genre, and how it holds up.

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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.

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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.

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