Authors Die Twice

Nathan and guest host Justin Carpenter speak with Daniel Fedor and Corey Waite Arnold about their new space noir sim Ostranauts. They talk about the game’s mind-boggling number of systems, simulating the quotidian within fantasy, the theater of the mind, and attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.

Ostranauts: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1022980/Ostranauts/

Corey's website: https://coreywaite.com/

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Bryan and Nathan talk to novelist Sean Thor Conroe about his new book The Walk Book (2026). Sean Thor Conroe is the author of Fuccboi (2022) and the forthcoming novel Savior. His work has appeared in The Paris Review, Playboy, and Vice, and he also hosts the book podcast 1storypod.

The Walk Book: https://www.littleengines.shop/shop/p/the-walk-book

Sean's podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1storypod/id1238415112

Find us on YouTube at youtube.com/@authorsdietwice

Have questions or comments? Email us at [email protected]

Bryan and Nathan are back once again with a Formless One. They discuss the Devil May Cry franchise, Michael Clune's White Out: A Secret Life of Heroin, and Sean Thor Conroe's recently published The Walk Book.

Find us on YouTube at youtube.com/@authorsdietwice

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This week Bryan and Nathan return to Dark Souls 3, joined once again by friend of the pod, writer, and co-host of Reel Rap, Shane. They talk about what makes Dark Souls 3 stand out, for better and worse, including playerly progression, moments of silence, and the tropical melancholy of the final area.

Shane's writing: https://www.splittoothmedia.com/author/spfender/

Reel Rap: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reel-rap/id1792646198

Find us on YouTube at youtube.com/@authorsdietwice

Have questions or comments? Email us at [email protected]

Bryan and Nathan are back with another Formless One. They discuss the Diablo franchise and a handful of books: Vacated Landscape by Jean Lahougue; Train Lord by Oliver Mol; The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell by Brian Evenson; Living on After Failure by Irving Goh; and The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson.

Bryan's appearance on Reel Rap to discuss Vacated Landscape: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vacated-landscape-by-jean-lahougue-with-bryan-counter/id1792646198?i=1000774623175

Tristram Village theme from Diablo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnMR6SOBa9k&list=RDAnMR6SOBa9k&start_radio=1

Find us on YouTube at youtube.com/@authorsdietwice

Have questions or comments? Email us at [email protected]

In this episode, Bryan and Nathan discuss FromSoftware’s 2016 game Dark Souls III. They talk about the game’s traversability, fan service, repetition, memory, and its relationship to the other games in the trilogy. 

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In this episode, Bryan and Nathan are joined by special guest Luke Barnhart to discuss the work of American painter Cy Twombly.

Luke's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luke.a.barnhart/

Fifty Days at Iliam: https://www.philamuseum.org/objects/85709

Find us on YouTube at youtube.com/@authorsdietwice

Have questions or comments? Email us at [email protected]

After a break, the podcast is back with another Formless One. Bryan and Nathan discuss the YouTube channel Eleftherios, the 2016 remake of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (originally released in 2007), Fallout 4 (2015) and the series more generally, and the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard.

Find us on YouTube at youtube.com/@authorsdietwice

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In this episode, Bryan and Nathan are joined by special guests James Martell and Erik Larsen to discuss Dead by Daylight. They discuss experiences with multiplayer games, ideas about horror and Lovecraftian tropes, and the ephemerality of that first time.

James Martell is Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Lyon College, and was a visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge in 2025. He is the author of Beckett and Derrida (2024) and Modernism, Self-Creation, and the Maternal (2019), and the editor of Understanding Sade, Understanding Modernism (2025). His current projects are Thinking Surfaces in French Contemporary Thought and Foiled Reflections: Mirror Stages for Stupid Times in Literature, Art, Film, Psychoanalysis, and Philosophy.

Erik Larsen is an associate professor of Health Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Rochester. His research and teaching focus on biopolitics, critical theory and medicine, and the many intersections of narrative and healthcare. He holds a PhD in comparative literature from the University of Notre Dame.

Find us on YouTube at youtube.com/@authorsdietwice

Have questions or comments? Email us at [email protected]

Bryan and Nathan talk about the 2023 action role-playing game Lies of P. They think through some impressions (or lack of impressions) of it, wonder about the intertwined roles of the clown and the puppet in the game and in horror more broadly, and briefly touch on Heinrich Von Kleist’s 1810 story “On the Marionette Theater” to consider the relationship between the automaton and the human.

Find us on YouTube at youtube.com/@authorsdietwice

Have questions or comments? Email us at [email protected]