We talk empires, dragon slayers, dragons, finding your place, and going home again in this lovely novella. Your hosts are Steph Kingston (@StephOKingston), Christina Ladd (@christinaladd), and Joshua MacDougall (@FourofFiveWits). You can find us all on Bluesky. Our art is by Mangoyu Art (@MangoyuArt), and our music is by Bad Sparrow (@BadSparrowMusic). You can find …
The Devils by Joe Abercrombie feels fresh while still retaining the style of writing the author has become famous for. It’s set in a new world, our world in an alternate timeline Europe, where the church wages war with elves that eat the flesh of man and are waiting for their chance to wage war …
Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame by Neon Yang is written like a folktale, not about slaying dragons but finding yourself again after you’ve lost who you were to protect yourself. It’s a tale of identity, isolation, and culture. The fact that its main character, Kunlin Yeva, is a famous dragon slayer is less crucial …
We discuss food Gideon has never had before, Magnus’s dad vibes, mayonnaise uncle, and 9th House Zoom calls. We also speak on podcast amnesia, magic as science, the fantasy equivalent of Like A Dragon, and deus ex machinas as the plot thickens. Your hosts are Steph Kingston (@StephOKingston), Christina Ladd (@christinaladd), and Joshua MacDougall (@FourofFiveWits). …
Journies are important in a tale; they must hook the reader in order to arrive at an ending, but an end that leaves one bitter at the time taken on the journey is to no one’s satisfaction. The Fury of the Gods by John Gwynne arrives at an end that left me wanting to turn …
April Fools’! We love boat books; well, specifically, we love Alexandra Rowland’s Running Close to the Wind. A perfect combination of our running bit of disliking boat books and this being one of the funniest books we’ve ever read, we thought it perfect for the day. Your hosts are Steph Kingston (@StephOKingston), Christina Ladd (@christinaladd), …
Our penultimate episode on Jenn Lyons’ The Discord of Gods / A Chorus of Dragons episode. We talk about new guardians, Relos Var’s point of view, the final battle starts, and Teraeth doing a Kamehameha. Your hosts are Steph Kingston (@StephOKingston), Christina Ladd (@christinaladd), and Joshua MacDougall (@FourofFiveWits). You can find us all on Bluesky. …
On this episode we discuss chapters 71-80 of The Discord of Gods, the fifth book in Jenn Lyon’s A Chorus of Dragons. We’re close to the very end now, and events get near apocalyptic levels of crazy. Your hosts are Steph Kingston (@StephOKingston), Christina Ladd (@christinaladd), and Joshua MacDougall (@FourofFiveWits). You can find us all …
The end of Arc 1 of Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive is here, and Wind and Truth feels enormous, metaphorically and physically. The release of The Way of Kings feels like another lifetime, and yet just yesterday, as the end of the first arc seemed so far away in 2010. Now we’ve reached the midpoint where one …
On this Off the Books, we are interviewing Sung-il Kim, author of Blood of the Old Kings, and Anton Hur (Toward Eternity, transl. Blood of the Old Kings, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Se-Hee) to discuss Kim’s book, falling empires, publishing, translations, technofeudalism, and what’s next for The …