Read it and Weep

Just when you thought it was safe to assume a book called Bone Season would be about sex, Samantha Shannon shows up and disappoints you.

Not that The Bone Season is bad as such, it’s just really not what you’d expect from the title alone. And if you’ve read any young adult fantasy recently, it’s exactly what you’d expect. Girl, magic powers, hot but emotionally distant man, clumsy for no reason, extremely complicated future. It’s all of those, but surprisingly readable.

The first book in what will surely be a 1,000 book series, follows Paige, a “dream walker” (clairvoyant who can pass out and tickle your subconscious at the same time) as she gets taken to clairvoyant prison. Her captor is ghost/angel/zombie who feeds on her blood but generally treats her well. His fiance is a jerk and wants to murder Paige. Eventually she sortof escapes but simultaneously creates 200 plots to be solved later.

If you’re in the mood for not very much boning, but you love the idea of a tarot card reader in battle, then you should read The Bone Season.

Welcome to sitcom pilot season! You might want to put on a coat. It’s raining shit.

First up it’s Dads from two Family Guy writers. It stars Seth Green, Giovanni Ribisieaeioeae and a bunch of racist jokes. It’s so bad, you guys. All I can say is ugh.

The Michael J. Fox Show (in comparison) is quite awesome. It’s not super funny, but Fox is still a charming dude.

Robin Williams is also a tad charming in The Crazy Ones but he’s also desperate and sad seeming.

Every one of these shows has people we’ve liked in other places, but these are not their best vehicles. I know retiring on top is hard, but the alternative is being in Dads.

If you liked Hunger Games but thought it needed more rules, you’re going to love Divergent!

The debut novel from Veronica Roth, Divergent imagines a future after a great war. The only way to restore peace is to divide humanity up into 5 Death Frats named after SAT words. People join them by having only one personality trait: brave people join Dauntless where they jump off trains and punch each other. Smart people join Erudite where they wear glasses. Amish people join Abnegation where they don’t eat hamburgers. And the other two are basically Hufflepuff.

In the EXTREMELY RARE situation where somebody has two personality traits (I have glasses and don’t eat hamburgers!) they are “divergent” (a Latin word meaning “too cool for school”). Eventually the smart people use the brave people to kill the Amish people and only a teenage girl with two different interests can save them all. With her boyfriend.

Expect a million more books about distopian futures where kids kill each other, because Hunger Games sold faster than a grey tunic in an Abnigation camp.

Happy birthday, Geri! I hope you like your 1970s disaster movies… roasted!

The Towering Inferno is a star-studded movie adventure featuring Steve McQueen (famous for Bullitt and The Great Escape) and Paul Newman (famous for salad dressing), not to mention Fred Astaire (famous for dancing) and OJ Simpson (famous for… sticking to his story?). The plot is simple: put all these people in a very tall building and light it on fire.

The plot of The Poseidon Adventure is similar. Lots of stars, tall boat, flip it over and sink it. In both movies some people make it out alive while others die in exciting ways (on fire falling out of a building, on fire falling into water, etc.). There’s a lot of excitement, a lot of disasters, and a lot of comedy (fat lady climbing a Christmas tree, what!).

If you’ve got something to celebrate and a favorite campy genre, sponsor an episode!

It’s important for any book to have a moral, but this week’s book has a few. [1] A little bullying goes a long way. [2] Even in Africa, being white is pretty good. and [3] Always go with strange men, they only want to help you become a genius.

The Power of One explores these ideas set over the backdrop of apartheid South Africa. But while apartheid may sound like bummertown, don’t worry! It almost never comes up! Sure, the main character fixes racism everywhere through his great boxing and pet chicken, but other than that, it’s not even an issue. You know why? Because being white is awesome. That’s what Bryce Courtenay really wants you to know.

PK, a young English boy with a tiny penis (it’s important) gets picked on as a kid and that turns him into an incredible human being, a genius, and the best boxer in the world. He tries his hand at mining, then goes back to being great at everything! He even signs a boys arm. How nice!

Thanks to Winston for sponsoring this episode. I hope it was everything you ever dreamed of.

If you like soft-core gay porn with just a hint of witchcraft, than we have got a show for you. If you don’t like either of those, watch it anyway. It’s actually pretty fun.

Dante’s Cove is a short-live LGBTQ fantasy soap opera set in a fictional seaside town. Between bouts of gay sex (are they called bouts? They’re called bouts, right?), they have to battle the city’s population of witches (witch population: 2). Sometimes people get killed, sometimes they get brought back to life, and every time they get laid.

Tanya joins us by request and is glad she did; Dante’s Cove checks all her boxes. We discuss other niche soap operas we’d like to see and what ingredients go on a penis melt.

If you’re wondering what makes a perfect sponsored topic, it’s this: plenty to make fun of, not very long, and characters having sex while flying on the back of giant eagles. This book is a perfect sponsored topic.

The Tarnsman of Gor is about an Englishman who goes camping in the United States, is captured by aliens, agrees to lead an army of those aliens against other aliens, finds true love, and then gets sent back to earth. Englishmen, it turns out, are game for almost anything.

It’s also about the Counter Earth, an earth that is an awful lot like Normal Earth in the 1600s but with more “pleasure slaves” and giant eagles (called tarns). It’s a stupid place, really. In this episode we discuss numerous ways the Counter Earth could be better, which giant animals would be most fun to have sex above (not with), and why John Norman is so obsessed with the letter R.

Some girl with no redeeming characteristics finds out she’s secretly a magical hero and, as usual, there are no responsible adults in this world so she has to save the world alone. We are the generation of the idiot hero. Oh and she’s also in love with her brother who might not be her brother.

This time, angels and demons are real (plus vampires and warlocks for good measure) and locked in a never ending battle for a cup, I think. The cup makes more demon-slayers but it also makes demon slayers stronger but it also is highly regulated by the demon-slayer beaurocracy but you also have to put your own blood into it and then drink that so maybe the power is actually coming from you in the first place. It really is a confusing mess and that’s why nobody saw it in theaters.

New guest Caitlin Gill joins us to talk about this pile of trash and helps us sort through even the most confusing moments using her Rune of Humor.

Alex just got married, for his bachelor party we made him watch 3 terrible wedding movies. We’re great friends!

Brider Wars is about two supposed friends who care more about their childhood wedding fantasies than eachother. My Best Friend’s Wedding is about a woman trying to ruin the wedding of her supposed friend because she wants to marry him. 27 Dresses is about a woman who… actually I have no idea what that movie was about. It was far too stupid to pay attention. Suffice it to say, romantic comedies don’t have a high view of weddings.

But we do. And we wish Alex well with his new bride. May you live long and watch lots of terrible movies together!

When a book is bad, the movie can’t help but be better. It can fix the stupidity of a character, the offensiveness of another character, the glaring plot holes, and most importantly, it can show a giant monster made of lava who falls apart as he walks and then reconstitutes himself.

Percy Jackson is at it again with another confusing quest to save the world from rediculous monsters. In movie #2, he finds himself in the middle of the ocean and, at one point, swalled by a giant spikey anus. Surprise, the evil guy was behind it all and in the end, Percy wins. What an amazing story well told.

The presence of a Centaur and a Satyr means Alex is unhappy but Ezra, always looking on the positive side, made us this image: