Genrelisation

This episode we get fired up about tails of dragons reading A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan and Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey. We go on flights of fancy about class, the dragons that surround us, and why Anne McCaffery should’ve scaled back on the Pern books.

We’re joined by Gina Rushton, Buzzfeed reporter, and James Baxter-Gilbert, resident IRL dragon expert (did you think we would just wing it?).

Give it a listen, we promise not to drag on.

We're back, and we're reading. What an outrage! What a menace! The books were good though, so come find out why. Alex got distracted by talking about some other content formats in the episode as well, so get excited.

The books are:

4 3 2 1 - Paul Aster

You - Austin Grossman

The Night Masquerade - Nnedi Okorafor

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman

Strange The Dreamer - Laini Taylor

The City & The City - China Mieville

What are ghosts? Will Alfie knock over a bunch of cymbals? Alex talks about how he was a king’s poop-collector in a past life and we also debate the merit of having your soul outside your body in physical form ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This episode, we're reading The Northern Lights (Golden Compass) by Phillip Pullman and Zoo City by Lauren Beukes. We're joined by two very excellent guests: Courtney Fry, who writes for Pedestrian, covering music, food, and pets, and their weekly RuPaul's Drag Race recaps (you can also find her words in the SMH's album reviews) and Alfie, who is a dog and doesn't know how to read or write but is v cute.   

Also half the episode is missing (sorry)

This episode, we're reading The Northern Lights (Golden Compasss) by Phillip Pullman and Zoo City by Lauren Beukes. We're joined by two very excellent guests: Courtney Fry, who writes for Pedestrian, covering music, food, and pets, and their weekly RuPaul's Drag Race recaps (you can also find her words in the SMH's album reviews) and Alfie, who is a dog and doesn't know how to read or write but is v cute.   

We talk about the niche genre of animal companion fantasy, Matt Demons, the Suck Fairy and who's started calling Alex daddy. 

Bonus ASMR from both Alfie and Alex chewing on things loudly.

Before we launch into an episode on Animal Pals feat. Northern Lights and Zoo City, we talk about The Book Of Dust, Philip Pullman's latest step into a world full of the best animal friends you've ever imagined. This episode does have spoilers and, surprise, one of us likes it and the other does not. 

Five dollars if you can figure out who.

We're back and (literally) bigger than ever in a bumper episode talking about the best and worst books we read in 2018, and spend at least a little time talking about why all books need dragons, what happens when you use pretention as an argument, and what thhe future of books looks like. 

We're joined comedian and producer Kara Schlegl, host of history podcast little tiny (out now from the ABC). You can find her online as @karaschlegl. Returning for the third time, it’s friend of the show, real life enemy, and repentant member of Sydney’s theatreati Pierce Wilcox, online as @pierceindeed.

We're lean, mean, book reading machines but we've been busy not doing podcast and doing life. Oops. But we're back and the books are red hot. Except for the ones that aren't but such is life, you know?

We read Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend, The Core by Peter V Brett, Vicious by V.E. Schwab, Too Like The Lightning by Ada Palmer, The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (again!), and The Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks.

Do aliens have elbows? Could learning a new language change your brain? What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis? (Answers: Maybe! Probably not? And, look, we still don't know.)  Plus, hear Alex mispronounce some more words while we talk about how cool language is...irony! 

 This episode, we're reading The Story Of Your Life by Ted Chiang and Embassytown by China Mieville, and joined by language researcher Tiger Webb and comedian/reformed linguist Maddie Parker.

Now we'll use the power of *~ words and language ~ * to remind you to rate and subscribe because it gladdens our hearts: so, uh please rate and subscribe, it gladdens our hearts.

What makes words good? You won't find answers to that here, but you will learn about first contact, verbose sci-fi, and the challenges of monolingual field situations (we know you've been aching to learn more about monolingual field situations).

This episode, we're reading The Story Of Your Life by Ted Chiang and Embassytown by China Mieville, and joined by language researcher Tiger Webb and comedian/reformed linguist Maddie Parker.

Now we'll use the power of *~ words and language ~ * to remind you to rate and subscribe because it gladdens our hearts: please rate and subscribe, it gladdens our hearts.

We're back, we're talking, and we're reading a nonstop list of complete bangers that you can pick up right now. Alex & Alex are reading all the below, and you could be too. 

The Power by Naomi Alderman: all the women in the world get a super power and the world changes

The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin: some people have a super power, but the world is ending (and has been for thousands of years)

Raven Stratagem by Yoon Ha Lee the world is space but it's weird as hell. 

Hot Little Hands by Abigail Ulman a collection of short stories about young women discovering the world and themselves - much less cliched than that sounds! 

The Vorrh by Brian Catling a wild existential ride involving a forest, colonialism, fallen angels, the inventor of photograpahy and a French poet (plus a bunch of other stuff)

Provenance by Ann Leckie it's a heist, probably, and it's loosely connected to Ancillary Justice