"If anyone’s doing the heavy lifting, it’d be us... Hey! Manager Bud! More incoming!"

In this episode, I take a look at suffering and redemption in The Metamorphosis, philosophical pessimism, and how Gregor in Limbus Company might be Georg Bendeman, the happiest Gregor yet, or even Kafka himself. Reincarnation is a heck of a thing.

Plus of course the traditional (I've done it three, now it's definitely a tradition) interlude dub!

Narrated and produced by Thomas Barker

If you'd like to chip in a couple of dollars to help with hosting and production costs, I'd be enormously grateful.
https://ko-fi.com/ttt

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_pessimism

Ryan, M. P. (1999). Samsa and Samsara: Suffering, Death, and Rebirth in “The Metamorphosis.” The German Quarterly, 72(2), 133–152. https://doi.org/10.2307/408369

Kafka: The Metamorphosis,  translated by Willa and Edwin Muir 

https://limbuscompany.wiki.gg/wiki/Gregor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/on-translating-kafkas-the-metamorphosis

Queries, comments? Write to me at: [email protected]

Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU9gAlZeexHnFHASayT0nGM17V4hCSzSi

New friends are made, and the true magnitude of the trials ahead begins to manifest, as the pilgrims arrive at the ancient and forbidding City. But with sickness and potential conspiracy threatening their safety, is there anyone left they can turn to?

Part 10 of a 10-part dark fantasy full-cast audio drama.

• Andrew Winson as Fork-in-the-Road, Dream Voice
  https://andrewwinson.com/
• Thomas Barker as Athamas
  www.thomasva.com
• Jesse D. Hill as Longarm, Halvar
  [email protected]
• Emily Morse-Lee as Wide-Eye, Gate Guard
  @TheRealGChu.bsky.social
• Melissa Carrington as Split-Heel, Mysterious Voice
  @melissac-va.bsky.social
• Virtue as Hears-Whispers, Scout
  X: @VirtueVestigial
• Asha Lear as Finn
  https://www.castingcall.club/asha_lear

Produced and written by Thomas Barker

Queries, comments? Write to me at: [email protected]

Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU9gAlZeexHnFHASayT0nGM17V4hCSzSi

Mysterious, tree-like branches with the power to actualize the feelings, wishes, and psyches of people. The primary objective of the LCB is to gather them up.

In this episode, I nearly get over my skis in examining the literary origins of the Golden Boughs of Limbus Company, particularly looking at the book of the same name by Sir James George Frazer, and the Aeneid, by Vergil.

Plus of course the traditional (I've done it twice, now it's a tradition) interlude dub!

Narrated and produced by Thomas Barker

If you'd like to chip in a couple of dollars to help with hosting and production costs, I'd be enormously grateful.
https://ko-fi.com/ttt

References:

WOOD, G. (1982). Frazer’s magic wand of anthropology : interpreting “The Golden Bough.” European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie / Europäisches Archiv Für Soziologie, 23(1), 92–122. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23999226
 
Weber, C. (1995). THE ALLEGORY OF THE GOLDEN BOUGH. Vergilius (1959-), 41, 3–34. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41587127

https://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/frazer/

https://limbuscompany.wiki.gg/wiki/Rivers#cite_note-LC_47-1

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Aeneid_(Conington_1866)/Book_6#cite_ref-1

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/a/aeneid/poem-summary

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertextuality#

Queries, comments? Write to me at: [email protected]

Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU9gAlZeexHnFHASayT0nGM17V4hCSzSi

He stooped to laugh again, and his mirth was yellow-toothed -- menacing.
“Have no fear!”  he reiterated, and with that stretched his hand toward the wall, there came a click and we were in black, impenetrable darkness.

A rumination on the nature of evil, and the ability to see things FROM BEYOND, courtesy of a groundbreaking writer of dark fantasy. This story was first published in 1919.

Narrated and produced by Thomas Barker

If you'd like to chip in a couple of dollars to help with hosting and production costs, I'd be enormously grateful.
https://ko-fi.com/ttt

Queries, comments? Write to me at: [email protected]

Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU9gAlZeexHnFHASayT0nGM17V4hCSzSi

Limbus Company begins with Dante (our clock-headed manager-protagonist) beset by three sinister individuals known as Wolf, Panther and Lion. These characters have parallels in the Inferno, by Dante Alighieri.

In this episode, I draw upon some scholarship, a coupla wikis and my own general knowledge to pull together some additional information about the beasts, and what they mean, beyond what we are shown in the narrative thus far.

Plus I have a go at dubbing said interlopers!

References:
https://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/

https://worldofdante.iath.virginia.edu/comedy/dante/inferno.xml/1.1

Demaray, J. G. (1969). The Pilgrim Texts and Dante’s Three Beasts: Inferno, I. Italica, 46(3), 233–241. https://doi.org/10.2307/477804

https://limbuscompany.wiki.gg/wiki/Wolf#Assets-0

https://retcons.github.io/limbus-storylogs/chapters/prologue.html

Schildgen, B. D. (2010). Animals, Poetry, Philosophy, and Dante’s Commedia. Modern Philology, 108(1), 20–44. https://doi.org/10.1086/656448

Narrated and produced by Thomas Barker

If you'd like to chip in a couple of dollars to help with hosting and production costs, I'd be enormously grateful.
https://ko-fi.com/ttt

Queries, comments? Write to me at: [email protected]

Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU9gAlZeexHnFHASayT0nGM17V4hCSzSi

To round out Season Two of TTT (though, seriously - I'm on hiatus right now!), and to say thank you to everyone who's tuned in during 2025, I've put together a little sampler of sinners.

Features excerpts from:

• Moby Dick
• Don Quixote
• The Metamorphosis
• The Odyssey
• The Stranger
• Demian
• Wuthering Heights

A little out of my usual subject matter, but we'll resume our regular programming next month.

See you in 2026! Take care. It's a scary world out there.

Narrated and produced by Thomas Barker

If you'd like to chip in a couple of dollars to help with hosting and production costs, I'd be enormously grateful.
https://ko-fi.com/ttt

Queries, comments? Write to me at: [email protected]

Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU9gAlZeexHnFHASayT0nGM17V4hCSzSi

Tom's Terror Trove is still technically on a little Summer break, but that doesn't mean I don't have a few pressies to hand out before the end of the year!

Short story by Michael Botur

Two lovers with not long left to live put aside a portion of paradise, creating their own country while the planet rots -- though of course, holding onto nature isn't easy. In fact, managing wildlife becomes life-or-death difficult...

Michael Botur is an award-winning Auckland/Northland writer of horror and 'dirty realism' screenplays and fiction. 

www.michaelboturwriter.com

Story featured with kind permission from the author

Narrated and produced by Thomas Barker

If you'd like to chip in a couple of dollars to help with hosting and production costs, I'd be enormously grateful.
https://ko-fi.com/ttt

Queries, comments? Write to me at: [email protected]

Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU9gAlZeexHnFHASayT0nGM17V4hCSzSi

"I never eat pork. It's not that I'm vegetarian, or Jewish or Muslim, it's all to do with something that happened in the 70's, when I was fifteen years old."

So begins a tale of innocence lost, buckets of blood, and the lengths someone might go to in order that they might... sustain a life.

A gruesome tale from New Zealand.

Story featured with kind permission from the author: Jane Percival (https://heni-irihapeti.com/)

Narrated and produced by Thomas Barker

If you'd like to chip in a couple of dollars to help with hosting and production costs, I'd be enormously grateful.
https://ko-fi.com/ttt

Queries, comments? Write to me at: [email protected]

Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU9gAlZeexHnFHASayT0nGM17V4hCSzSi

In the late 1920's, folklorist and assistant professor at Miskatonic University Albert N. Wilmarth investigates the ominous events that occured in the wake of the historic Vermont Floods.

His ill-advised delving, and correspondance with the recluse Henry Akely, will lead to a series of cosmically horrifying revelations.

Turn your lights down low, put your headphones on, and tune in to the penultimate episode of Tom's Terror Trove Season 2.

Narrated and produced by Thomas Barker

If you'd like to chip in a couple of dollars to help with hosting and production costs, I'd be enormously grateful.
https://ko-fi.com/ttt

Queries, comments? Write to me at: [email protected]

Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU9gAlZeexHnFHASayT0nGM17V4hCSzSi

Two unsuspecting ambulance attendants get far, FAR more than they bargained for, in this disgusting story from 1938.

Running from 1934 to 1947, Lights Out was an old-time radio program devoted to stories of horror and the supernatural. Created by Wyllis Cooper, later in the run it was helmed by the brilliant (and eccentric) Arch Oboler.

I was spoilt for choice in picking an episode to recreate (it came down to this one and Chicken Heart).

Unlike usual episodes of Tom's Terror Trove, this Hallowe'en special makes use of a full palette of foley sound effects.

I hope you enjoy listening to it, as much as I did in working with a script by one of the masters of the genre.

Narrated by Thomas Barker

If you'd like to chip in a couple of dollars to help with hosting and production costs, I'd be enormously grateful.
https://ko-fi.com/ttt

Queries, comments? Write to me at: [email protected]

Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU9gAlZeexHnFHASayT0nGM17V4hCSzSi