What has numerous squid-like appendages, a blind devotion to satiating its evolutionary needs, and negligible levels of sentience?

If you said Stephen Markley, Genre Stop!’s first-ever guest host, you’re right!

We also would have accepted ‘that strange alien antagonist in Peter Watts’s Blindsight,’ the book at the center of the newest episode. Oh well. Join Bri, Scott, and Stephen as they debate the literary function of the T junction, the mental health of torturers, and the role of honeycombs in othering aliens.

What do scheming wizards, all-powerful rings, and a world populated by elves, hobbits, and trolls all have in common?

All of these words can describe The Lord of the Rings. We read a book about vampires called Agyar, though.

Tune in to this week’s Genre Stop!, as Bri and Scott tussle over a slim book that’s about either a suave lothario or a stone-cold undead killer. Along the way, they discuss the three tiers of vampire knowledge, Scott’s unhealthy fixation on early 90’s fashion, and Bri pretending not to know what Trueblood is.

Ugh, another book about goblin kings? Bor-ring. At this point, you’d think the market’s a bit over-saturated. If I have to read one more word about goblin duchies…

What’s that? The goblin EMPEROR? We’re in!

In Genre Stop!’s fifth episode, Bri and Scott put that old saw to the test: power corrupts, absolute power goblin goblin. Along the way, they expose the scandal behind a pseudonym, work out the real-world equivalents of fantasy racial types, and unmask the recalcitrant royalist in their midst.

Gunnar? Kentavious? Sheryl? Fww-wooooo?

All of these candidates and more vie for the title of “Name of the Wind” in Patrick Rothfuss’ 2007 epic fantasy.

Which will it be?

In this episode of Genre Stop!, Bri and Scott power through 700 pages of ‘no-really-I-swear-this-isn’t-Hogwarts’ wizarding campus novel to spoil the answer. Along the way, they parse the parenting strategies of itinerant mummers, consider etymology’s place within magic systems, and bemoan the ubiquity of the manic-magic dreamgirl.