Appendix N Book Club

Appendix N Book Club episodes:

• 01.29.2024

  Episode 146 – Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s "A Canticle for Leibowitz” with our Patron Book Club

  This episode is dedicated to Rick Byrne. Please consider sending a gift to support Leukemia research at UCSF: UCSF Foundation, PO Box 45339, San Francisco, CA 94145 or make a gift online at makeagift.ucsf.edu. Please be sure to note that...

  
• 01.14.2024

  Episode 145 – Michael Moorcock's "The Mad God's Amulet” with our Patron Book Club

  Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Michael Moorcock's "The Mad God's Amulet, Michael Moorcock's love of arcane texts, action scenes, hyperviolence and gore, following expectations, whimsical supporting characters, battles over land and sea, reskinning monsters for science-fantasy, a...

  
• 01.01.2024

  Episode 144 – Gustave Flaubert's "Salammbô” with special guest Robert Poyton

  Robert Poyton joins us to discuss Gustave Flaubert's "Salammbô”, October horror films, the etymology of Hygaxian words, Howardian prose, varied treasures, the French "oh là là", the literary influences of Clark Ashton Smith, the diversity of intersecting cultures in North...

  
• 12.18.2023

  Episode 143 – Susanna Clarke's "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell” with special guest Tim Mendees

  Tim Mendees joins us to discuss Susanna Clarke's "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell”, the dangers of massive hardbacks, literary rabbit holes, the Dorset dialect, cursing those who have wronged us, classist hypocrits, the couragousness that comes with conviction, interdimensional travel...

  
• 09.04.2023

  Episode 142 – Robert Asprin's "Thieves' World" with special guest Brian Yaksha

  Brian Yaksha joins us to discuss Robert Asprin's "Thieves' World", the give and take of what you're going to give to the audience, fantasy shared worlds, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar, Aragorn's tax plan, Machiavelli, passing off as older for added...

  
• 08.07.2023

  Episode 141 – Edgar Rice Burroughs's "A Princess of Mars" with special guest Goran Gligovic

  Goran Gligovic joins us to discuss Edgar Rice Burroughs's "A Princess of Mars", Asterix and Obelix, the Library of Wonder, Tarzan, being 30 for as long as you can remember, main characters as blank canvases, Robert E. Howard, the Fighting...

  
• 07.10.2023

  Episode 140 – Lloyd Alexander's "The Book of Three" with special guest Becky Annison

  Becky Annison joins us to discuss Lloyd Alexander's "The Book of Three", the Dungeons and Dragons movie, dwarven guides, Welsh myth, characters with firm personality hooks, spaghetti westerns, the Black Cauldron, clear linear mission paths, giving each character their moment,...

  
• 06.12.2023

  Episode 138 – Jack Vance's "Cugel's Saga" with special guest Brad Kerr

  Brad Kerr joins us to discuss Jack Vance's "Cugel's Saga", virtual tabletops, Brom, pompous vocabulary, whimsical characters, world-class worldbuilding, being nickel-and-dimed by the boss, moving from one grift to the next, interesting mounts, making monsters more mysterious, D&D 4E, being...

  
• 05.14.2023

  Episode 138 – George MacDonald's "Phantastes" with special guest Conner Habib

  Conner Habib joins us to discuss George MacDonald's "Phantastes", D&D's influence on a young person's imagination, Irish mythology, the art of Gervasio Gallardo, a focus on environment over character, main characters as blank slates, living in a perpetual state of...

  
• 04.17.2023

  Patron Book Club 137 – William Gibson's "Neuromancer" with our Patron Book Club

  Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss William Gibson's "Neuromancer", hypnogogic images, heists with scifi crap on top, retrofuturism, slow-moving death, the Velvet Underground, Dan Brown novels, splitting the party, simstims, genetic engineering in RPGs, cyperpunk RPGs, sentient AIs,...

  
• 04.03.2023

  Episode 137 – William Gibson's "Neuromancer" with special guest Nathaniel Webb

  Nathaniel Webb joins us to discuss William Gibson's "Neuromancer", D&D Next playtests, self-contained cities in a building, people writing fiction written by Chat-GPT, action/heist stories, ninjas and Rastafarians, getting the heist team together, the hacker's role in a cyberpunk game,...

  
• 03.20.2023

  Episode 136 – Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" with special guest Yochai Gal

  Yochai Gal joins us to discuss Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", Ursula K. LeGuin, Cairn's influences, Book of the New Sun, the Blade Runner movie, androids and empathy, what makes a belief system valid, Philip K....

  
• 03.06.2023

  Episode 135 – Caroline Stevermer's "A College of Magics" with special guest Katrin Dirim

  Katrin Dirim joins us to discuss Caroline Stevermer's "A College of Magics", the diverse gaming scene in Turkey, YA book covers, politically correct highwaymen, the price that magic extracts, inevitable Harry Potter comparisons, the changing experiences of college students, playing...

  
• 02.20.2023

  Patron Book Club 134 – Michael Chabon's "Gentlemen of the Road" with our Patron Book Club

  Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Michael Chabon's "Gentlemen of the Road", miniature wargaming, doing "a Jeff" by listening to the audiobook, Robert E. Howard's Middle Eastern adventures, melancholy guys dressed in black, the role of the animals...

  
• 02.06.2023

  Episode 133 – Michael Chabon's "Gentlemen of the Road" with special guest Bill Gosline

  Bill Gosline joins us to discuss Michael Chabon's "Gentlemen of the Road", reading books written for adults as kids, Deities & Demigods as Appendix N, elephant-related words, "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay", smug afterwords, Ren faire troupes, world-building...

  
• 01.23.2023

  Episode 133 – Poul Anderson's "Operation Chaos” with special guest Andy from Breakfast in the Ruins

  Andy from Breakfast in the Ruins joins us to discuss Poul Anderson's "Operation Chaos”, homemade ginger beer, Moorcock's influence on the fantasy genre, frothing latter-day conspiracy theorist wet dreams, the limitations of the word lycanthropy, main characters who suck, heroes...

  
• 01.09.2023

  Episode 132 – Scott Oden's "A Gathering of Ravens" with special guest Rick Byrne

  Rick Byrne joins us to discuss Scott Oden's "A Gathering of Ravens", demons in Norse mythology, purging darkness with creativity, faction play, the various Viking lands, grim dark, authentic Irish representation, giving monsters meaning, Orc morality, periods of transition, Conan,...

  
• 12.26.2022

  Episode 131 – P. Djèlí Clark's "A Master of Djinn" with special guest Maxwell Lander

  Maxwell Lander joins us to discuss P. Djèlí Clark's "A Master of Djinn", programming VR games, conversational RPGs, Audible audiobooks, villains plotting since childhood, the steampunk literary genre, when men write women, antisocial characters, Tunnel Goons, Shadowrun, freaky angels, anti-colonial...

  
• 12.12.2022

  Patron Book Club 130 – Arkady & Boris Strugatsky's "Hard to Be a God" with our Patron Book Club

  Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Arkady & Boris Strugatsky's "Hard to Be a God”, impecunious dons, Brave New World, the Soviet Union in the 1960s, de-Stalinization, going straight to feudalism to fascism, the stench of the 18th...

  
• 11.28.2022

  Episode 130 – Arkady & Boris Strugatsky's "Hard to Be a God" with special guest Aaron King

  Aaron King joins us to discuss Arkady & Boris Strugatsky's "Hard to Be a God”, West Marches-style gaming, fantasy bestiaries, impecunious dons, astronauts in the middle ages, the character arcs of doomed nobles, the inherent tension that exists from generation...

  
• 11.14.2022

  Episode 129 – Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Farthest Shore" with special guest Joshua Phillip Johnson

  Joshua Phillip Johnson joins us to discuss Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Farthest Shore", elves named Josh, media being smarter than us, Audible audiobooks, hanging in Hort Town, magic being leached from the world, ideas of power and kingship, the...

  
• 10.30.2022

  Episode 128 – Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere” with special guest Jim Hall

  Jim Hall joins us to discuss Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere”, art school, crunchy combat, time loops, manic pixie dream girls, the Tony Blair-era of the UK, addressing audience needs, ideas for the sequel, using the Floating Market in an Underdark campaign,...

  
• 10.17.2022

  Patron Book Club 127 – Robert E. Howard's "Conan the Conqueror" with our Patron Book Club (Part 2)

  Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Robert E. Howard's "Conan the Conqueror", art pull-outs in paperbacks, the de Camp vs the Karl Edward Wagner introductions, sword and sorcery tropes, Conan's Greatest Hits, Shakespearean battles, Conan in disguise as...

  
• 10.03.2022

  Patron Book Club 127 – Robert E. Howard's "Conan the Conqueror" with our Patron Book Club (Part 1)

  Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Robert E. Howard's "Conan the Conqueror", the terrible glue on Lancer paperbacks, Howard's attempts to reach the English audience, the reach of Weird Tales Magazine, Conan's anti-colonialist stance, Howard's horror writing, de...

  
• 09.19.2022

  Episode 127 – Robert E. Howard's "Conan the Conqueror” with special guest Eric Johnson

  Eric Johnson joins us to discuss Robert E. Howard's "Conan the Conqueror”, artists to draw visual inspiration from, de Camp's editorial choices, the rabbit hole of research involved in writing historical fiction, The People of the Black Circle, 10,000 year...

  
• 09.05.2022

  Episode 126 – William Hope Hodgson's "Carnacki the Ghost-Finder” w/ special guest James Mendez Hodes

  James Mendez Hodes joins us to discuss William Hope Hodgson's "Carnacki the Ghost-Finder”, Sonic the Hedgehog fandom, changing conversations around cultural appropriation, Harlem detectives, Greek translations, disembodied limbs, the journey down the magical hog hole, Arthur Conan Doyle stories, the...

  
• 08.22.2022

  Episode 125 – Michael Shea's "A Quest for Simbilis” with special guest Jason Cordova

  Jason Cordova joins us to discuss Michael Shea's "A Quest for Simbilis”, Powered by the Apocalypse games, the correct pronunciation of Cugel, gothic horror, the publishing world in the 1970s, Lovecraftian horror fiction, high stakes games of strip poker, moving...

  
• 08.08.2022

  Episode 124 – Michael Moorcock's "The Knight of the Swords” with special guest Stefan Surratt

  Stefan Surratt joins us to discuss Michael Moorcock's "The Knight of the Swords”, other aspects of worldbuilding, uncaring beings of great power, loss of innocence, fantasy genocides, the Dresden bombings, the Vadaugh as elves, Daniel J. Bishop magic items, gods...

  
• 07.24.2022

  Episode 123 – Fritz Leiber's "The Knight and Knave of Swords" with special guest Ahimsa Kerp

  Ahimsa Kerp joins us to discuss Fritz Leiber's "The Knight and Knave of Swords", Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in Riverside, ooh naughty sexy times, sex-obsessed adventurers, the city of Lankhmar, transgressive swords and sorcery, aging characters in fantasy RPGs,...

  
• 07.11.2022

  Episode 122 – E.R. Eddison's "The Worm Ouroboros” with special guest Caroline Stevermer

  Caroline Stevermer joins us to discuss E.R. Eddison's "The Worm Ouroboros”, depictions of Elizabethan masculinity, characters that don't have parents, archaic language, excerpts from Western European literature, understanding characters through their deeds, a woman's virtue measured by her maidenhood, the...

  
• 06.27.2022

  Patron Book Club 121 – N.K. Jemisin's "The Fifth Season” with our Patron Book Club

  Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss N.K. Jemisin's "The Fifth Season”, AD&D's obsession with gem names, the tonal resonances between this book and Octavia E. Butler’s “Fledgling”, the missing moon, savior narratives, sci-fi slang traditions, a melonated future,...

  
• 06.13.2022

  Episode 121 – N.K. Jemisin's "The Fifth Season” with special guest Tanya DePass

  Tanya DePass joins us to discuss N.K. Jemisin's "The Fifth Season”, Black people cosplaying as White characters, the formation of mountain ranges, effective plot twists, how a Black woman reading a Black woman author might have resonances other people may...

  
• 05.30.2022

  Episode 120 – Peter S. Beagle's "The Last Unicorn” with special guest Brian Cortijo

  Brian Cortijo joins us to discuss Peter S. Beagle's "The Last Unicorn”, how wars affect settings, irredeemably evil Drow and Orcs, splitting a wizard's gizzard, the melancholy themes of the film and the books, heroics as showmanship, character agency and...

  
• 05.15.2022

  Episode 119 – Octavia E. Butler’s “Fledgling” with special guest Tim Hutchings

  Tim Hutchings joins us to discuss Octavia E. Butler's "Fledgling", modern D&D-insired art, the effect of slavery on language, the book's use of childhood sexuality, vampire fiction of the early 2000s, vampire society, old racist vampires, Thousand Year Old Vampire,...

  
• 05.01.2022

  Episode 118 – Peter Bebergal's "Appendix N” with special guest Ian McGarty

  Ian McGarty joins us to discuss Peter Bebergal's "Appendix N: The Eldritch Roots of Dungeons & Dragons”, games publishing, lifting magic items from fiction, the Swords Against Darkness anthologies, skeletal vampires, Tanith Lee's wild fiction, Elric and Moonglum, the old...

  
• 04.18.2022

  Episode 117 – Clark Ashton Smith's "The End of the Story" with special guest Matt King

  Matt King joins us to discuss Clark Ashton Smith's "The End of the Story: The Collected Fantasies, Vol. 1", Italian horror films, Nightshade Press, the Lin Carter anthologies, all the things CAS wants to have sex with, lamias, pulp magazines,...

  
• 04.04.2022

  Episode 116 – Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Tombs of Atuan" with special guest Noora Rose

  Noora Rose joins us to discuss Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Tombs of Atuan", game masters as game designers, non-white people writing fantasy and sci-fi, the trauma of forced identities, sex and intimacy, Le Guin's masterful character development, reclaiming identities,...

  
• 03.21.2022

  Episode 115 – Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein” with special guest Karlo Yeager Rodríguez

  Karlo Yeager Rodríguez joins us to discuss Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein”, Vampire LARPing, the 1818 vs 1831 texts, Victor Frankenstein as a narrator, Mary Shelley's commentary on the fate of Native Americans, Frankenstein's monster as a metaphor for queer angst, Victor...

  
• 03.07.2022

  Episode 114 – Tim Powers's "Declare” with special guest Pete Johannsen

  Pete Johannsen joins us to discuss Tim Powers's "Declare”, using amber beads as tokens, books found on your doorstep, the language and pace of spy novels, the djinn as fallen angels, power as a human motivator, Rube Goldberg occultism, the...

  
• 02.21.2022

  Episode 113 – Michael Moorcock's "The Jewel in the Skull” with special guest Menion (AKA Rob)

  Menion (AKA Rob) joins us to discuss Michael Moorcock's "The Jewel in the Skull”, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the influence of Burroughs on Moorcock, the initial emptiness and passivity of Hawkmoon, character motivation, mixing scifi and fantasy, characters...

  
• 02.07.2022

  Episode 112 – William Hope Hodgson's "The House on the Borderland” with special guest Lucas Zellars

  Lucas Zellars joins us to discuss William Hope Hodgson's "The House on the Borderland”, natural history as a science, out of body experiences, b-movie monsters, horse pistols, geological time, unreliability injected into the fiction, cosmic pigs, Super Mario Bros., and...

  
• 01.24.2022

  Episode 111 – Glen Cook's "The Black Company” with special guest Jason Lutes

  Jason Lutes joins us to discuss Glen Cook's "The Black Company”, Dungeon World, Ursula K. Le Guin, conquistador helmets, swords-for-hire, what makes a villain, grim dark's celebration of the darkest sides of the human experience, wizards as marketing and PR...

  
• 01.10.2022

  Episode 110 – Fred Saberhagen's "Changeling Earth” with special guest Rev. Dak Ultimak

  Rev. Dak Ultimak joins us to discuss Fred Saberhagen's "Changeling Earth”, the DCC RPG zine scene, reclaiming H.P. Lovecraft, tanks and UFOs in fantasy fiction, the paperback culture of the 1970s, transcending humanity, cosmic horror, evil characters getting their comeuppance,...

  
• 12.27.2021

  Episode 109 – Ursula K. Le Guin's "A Wizard of Earthsea” with special guest Ellen Kushner

  Ellen Kushner joins us to discuss Ursula K. Le Guin's "A Wizard of Earthsea”, Choose Your Own Adventure books, the explosion of Tolkien's popularity, the feminist revision of Earthsea, wizarding schools, designing magic system limitations, Larry Niven's science brain, the...

  
• 11.28.2021

  Episode 108 – Gene Wolfe's "The Shadow of the Torturer” with special guest Moss Bosch

  Moss Bosch joins us to discuss Gene Wolfe's "The Shadow of the Torturer”, socially intimate games, tasty and tender world building, reading a book without realizing it is the first in a series, ridiculous ways to introduce new PCs, reading...

  
• 11.28.2021

  Patron Book Club 107 – Ellen Kushner’s “Swordspoint” with our Patron Book Club

  Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Ellen Kushner's "Swordspoint", typing up D&D character sheets on a typewriter, normalized gay content, the 80s crack epidemic, double- and triple-crosses, characters who think they're smarter than they are, playing a D&D...

  
• 11.14.2021

  Episode 107 – Ellen Kushner's "Swordspoint” with special guest Angela Lemus-Mogrovejo

  Angela Lemus-Mogrovejo joins us to discuss Ellen Kushner's "Swordspoint”, the indie tabletop roleplaying game scene, questioning why fantasy is wedded to the European medieval era, our patron polls, confusing characters with one another in political intrigue, relatable gay content, a...

  
• 11.01.2021

  Episode 106 – C.L. Moore's "Jirel of Joiry” with special guest Cora Buhlert

  Cora Buhlert joins us to discuss C.L. Moore's "Jirel of Joiry”, used book store finds, kisses as stand-ins for sex, the appropriateness of using genre to explore our fear of sexual violence, cozy stories, writers being inspired by their peers,...

  
• 10.18.2021

  Episode 105 – G.K. Chesterton's "The Man Who Was Thursday” with special guest Megan Connell

  Megan Connell joins us to discuss G.K. Chesterton's "The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare”, chocolate-covered raisin trees, satire we don't understand, club infiltration, anarchist elections and bylaws, issues of trust and emotional risk in therapeutic games, good versus evil,...

  
• 10.04.2021

  Episode 104 – Clive Barker's "Books of Blood, Volume 1" with special guest Brendan LaSalle

  Brendan LaSalle joins us to discuss Clive Barker's "Books of Blood, Volume 1", our listeners 100 years from now, ghosts taking over theaters, Barker's literary beginnings, relatable characters, "Mama, they fed me to the pig!", Kaiju as political commentary, Willpower...