Welcome back to How to Bake a Book! This week, Mary and Cole finish their deep-dive into Locus Award-winning sci-fi novel The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders. The hosts discuss the second half of the book, Mary shares a recipe inspired by one of the last remaining Citizens, Cole discusses translation theory and what a human/alien hybrid might represent. The two also touch on the horrifying implications of a product named "cat butter" and how poorly the space mafia manages their reroofing of a palace.
Content Warnings: Police violence, police brutality, PTSD, attempted murder, murder, protest-specific violence, public shaming, trauma, panic attacks, animal death, death, violence, blood and gore, gaslighting, toxic relationships, homophobia, queerphobia, exposure to the elements, freezing, burning alive, alien encounters, tentacles, agoraphobia, attacks by wild animals, extreme poverty, climate crisis-based conditions, alcohol, sea monsters, body disfigurement, human/alien hybridization, infant death (alien), genocide, insect swarms, being eaten alive, decapitation