Discussion of The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter Seven

Join Cam and Maggie for a spooky, echo-laden chapter of Daddy Tolkien's sci-fi epic, Fantastic Beasts and In the Darkness Bind Them. We're in a good mood this week, it's a fun episode. Faramir leaves and provokes a new evolution in Cam's "living ghost" theory. Maggie gets to talk about Gothic architecture and gargoyles and freaky grinning stone heads because Tolkien is officially leaning in with the horror imagery. We also work through a dozen beautiful, weaponized callbacks to The Hobbit and the happier days of Fellowship that Tolkien buries in this pages, and chart the reflections / realizations that they provoke in the reader. Lots of masterful storytelling on deck this week, and more burping than usual. Maggie has a beer and head butts her microphone.

In our Second Breakfast, Maggie leads us through the introduction to Stephen King's short story collection Night Shift, which is full of Tolkien references. Stevey makes some fun claims about Tolkien's tendency to drift into horror and his work's relationship to Middle-earth. Dracula gets dragged into the mix too, and we try to think of a successful work of fantasy horror that isn't LOTR. Also featured: a conversation about influential speculative fiction, Tolkien's influence on genres outside of fantasy, and George R.R. Martin's comments on Tolkien imitators: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AofPBrletA&pp=sAQA

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