Appendix N Book Club

Our Patron Book Club hosts a discussion about Christopher Buehlman's "The Blacktongue Thief"!

Our Patron Book Club hosts a discussion about Susanna Clarke's "Piranesi"!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss William Goldman's "The Princess Bride", straight-forward language, Buttercup's baby, comparisons to the film, bitching about trees, DCC 0-level funnels, twists on resurrections, using character backstories, the QuestWorlds RPG, love between the most attractive people in an area, dithering players, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss A. Merritt's "The Face in the Abyss", reading a book for the first time that has been owned for decades, classical headgear, the differences and similarities between A. Merritt and H. Rider Haggard, science-fantasy, losing track of characters, non-villainous snakes, protagonists surrounded by dangerous characters, spider-people, playing with the infrared spectrum, gating in gods from other planes, the Princess Bride, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Roger Zelazny’s “Dilvish, the Damned”, military words, short stories from the 60s-80s, Jack of Shadows and the Amber books, how easy it is to lose invisible swords, tagging along like a squire to a knight, wizards in fish-shirts, half-elves in literature, sorcery requiring the assumption of an artificially-constructed personality, escaping death traps, breaking locks, assassins climbing mountains of ice, and more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss China Miéville's "Perdido Street Station", dreamlike states, the Wizard of Oz, being held at arms' length, shapeless books, dropping the true identity of a serial killer, customizing characters, coming out of deep freeze, DMs using PC ideas, the Godfather, illustrations of moments from the novel, baroque and florid language, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Lloyd Alexander's "The Black Cauldron", the case of Joseph's unreturned hardback, the unsuccessful animated adaptation, the advantage of nostalgia, complaining about invisibility, the butchering of the Welsh language, annoying anatogonists, a horse's suicide, Thor's hammer, bringing relatively low-level characters into a big epic continent-spanning war, contacting the Alexander estate, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Karl Edward Wagner's "Dark Crusade", French military lingo, eruptions of chaos and evil, trying to fight the entire world, editorial meddling, fantasy drug use, domain-building, using war game rules for larger battles, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, the grandeur of Wagner's stories, bullywugs, the Chronicles of the Kencyrath, and much more!

Roger Zelazny's "Lord of Light" by Jeff Goad, Ngo Vinh-Hoi, and special guests

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss C.J. Cherryh's "Gate of Ivrel", healing salves, claustrophobic third-person narratives, planetary-scale, parallels to Elric and Birthgrave, focusing on interiority over physical descriptions, precise and consistent language choices, endings that work, the Glorantha setting in Runequest, moving campaigns to different settings, hunger as a riveting threat, Night of the Leepus, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath", independent presses, Victorian architecture, one-thing-after-another type of books, Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom books, Edgar Allan Poe horror stories, graphic novel adapatations, recurring dreams and locations, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, weird townsfolk, barrel monsters, the Hexcrawl of Unknown Kadath, Gene Wolf and the Book of the New Sun, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Howard Andrew Jones's "The Desert of Souls", Hannibal from Carthage, first-person narratives, medieval Baghdad, Harold Lamb, the outsider vs the insider as the protagonist, making prayers at the proper times, fire magic, Oriental Adventures, historically-grounded fantasy, using perspective to spice up situations, Sign of the Labrys, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Jack Vance's "Lyonesse: Suldrun's Garden", incorrect uses of words or advanced neologisms, having less reading time in our adult lives, feeling like anything can happen, the Brothers Grimm, worlds where horrific things happen, toxic masculinity, Tolkien's influence, creating a sense of peril in combat, attacking the character sheet, the Dying Earth setting, proto-Arthurian stories, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss L. Sprague de Camp's "The Fallible Fiend", futtering spouses, the maps in front of fantasy novels, fleshed-out characters, missile weapons, Dave Arneson's rules, picking spells other than Fireball, flavorful book titles, historical fiction with magic, older styles of writing, fantasy novels as reflections of their time, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Gretchen Felker-Martin's "Manhunt", visceral horror-thrillers, section transitions, interchangeable characters, physical descriptions of characters, depictions of trans genitalia, sexualizing a wide varieties of body types, TERFs and anti-vaxxers, replacing PCs with NPCs, the Broo in Runequest, overland exploration in Forbidden Lands, parental access restrictions in libraries, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Katherine Kurtz's "Deryni Rising", sarcophagi, achieving literary liftoff, the Brandon-to-Demos scale, fantasy worlds with real-life historical cultures, female fantasy authors writing under their own names, scattered hidden magical races, Empire of the Petal Throne, AD&D psionics, counterspells, adventure hooks to clear a character's name, Dragon Magazine and White Dwarf Magazine on archive.org, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss James Enge's "Blood of Ambrose", obscure words from classic languages, Scooby Doo episodes, slowing down for character development, The Book of the New Sun books, magic from alchemy, flying horses, world maps, DCC spell corruption, blood that catches fire, other notable works by the author, trial and error, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss H. Rider Haggard's "She", the smell of the flame, Haggard's other works, "the things dudes won't do for a hottie", the city of Cambridge, the good earthy feminine logic, being torn between two ill-fated women, the lost race genre, the tombs of an ancient civilization, quaint local customs, being unalive (instead of undead), democracies and tyrants, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Charles R. Saunders's "The Quest for Cush", the Swahili glossary, the shame of the King County Library system, fiction as gaming supplements, inversions of traditional sword and sorcery, Burroughs's Mythic Africa, the Mary Sue problem, Greeks in Egypt, a dungeon under quicksand, responsible and dilligent city guards, Imaro as a demigod,, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Edgar Rice Burroughs's "The Gods of Mars", John Carter in a blond wig, repetitiveness in Edgar Rice Burroughs's works, French words, female characters' screen time, the Tree of Life, fainting characters, early examples of megadungeons, helpful ghosts, constantly escalating tension and perils, authors inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs, wish-fullfillment protagonists, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Dan Simmons's "Hyperion”, listening to audio books at work, Vaults of Vaarn, prescient fiction, choosing whether or not to continue on with fiction series, the Dying Earth, ambiguous endings, failed attempts at humor, the author's current politics, chase scenes, Shadowdark, roasting bestsellers, reading books outside of our comfort zone, plans for the future of the show, and much more!

This episode is dedicated to Rick Byrne. Please consider sending a gift to support Leukemia research at UCSF: UCSF Foundation, PO Box 45339, San Francisco, CA 94145 or make a gift online at makeagift.ucsf.edu. Please be sure to note that the gift is in memory of Rick Byrne to support the Leukemia research of Dr. Neil Dunivan.

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Michael Moorcock's "The Mad God's Amulet, Michael Moorcock's love of arcane texts, action scenes, hyperviolence and gore, following expectations, whimsical supporting characters, battles over land and sea, reskinning monsters for science-fantasy, a device that can unlock any lock, the Devil's Rejects, our friend Rick Byrne, and much more!

Robert Poyton joins us to discuss Gustave Flaubert's "Salammbô”, October horror films, the etymology of Hygaxian words, Howardian prose, varied treasures, the French "oh là là", the literary influences of Clark Ashton Smith, the diversity of intersecting cultures in North Africa, African nations, horse nomads, cult generators, unearthly treasure hoards, and much more!

Tim Mendees joins us to discuss Susanna Clarke's "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell”, the dangers of massive hardbacks, literary rabbit holes, the Dorset dialect, cursing those who have wronged us, classist hypocrits, the couragousness that comes with conviction, interdimensional travel through reflective surfaces, interesting and flavorful spells, failing sanity rolls, faerie rewards, and much more!

Brian Yaksha joins us to discuss Robert Asprin's "Thieves' World", the give and take of what you're going to give to the audience, fantasy shared worlds, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar, Aragorn's tax plan, Machiavelli, passing off as older for added credibility, rotating GMs, bespoke stat blocks, power levels, player character points of entry, random tables, and much more!

Goran Gligovic joins us to discuss Edgar Rice Burroughs's "A Princess of Mars", Asterix and Obelix, the Library of Wonder, Tarzan, being 30 for as long as you can remember, main characters as blank canvases, Robert E. Howard, the Fighting Man class in OD&D, when to embrace realism and when to eschew it, Frank Frazetta's action scenes, gargoyles taking a piss, a brightly dressed Elric, and much more!

Becky Annison joins us to discuss Lloyd Alexander's "The Book of Three", the Dungeons and Dragons movie, dwarven guides, Welsh myth, characters with firm personality hooks, spaghetti westerns, the Black Cauldron, clear linear mission paths, giving each character their moment, changing the stakes of successes, horror mechanics, destroying books or cards for art, and much more!

Brad Kerr joins us to discuss Jack Vance's "Cugel's Saga", virtual tabletops, Brom, pompous vocabulary, whimsical characters, world-class worldbuilding, being nickel-and-dimed by the boss, moving from one grift to the next, interesting mounts, making monsters more mysterious, D&D 4E, being your own boss, and much more!

Conner Habib joins us to discuss George MacDonald's "Phantastes", D&D's influence on a young person's imagination, Irish mythology, the art of Gervasio Gallardo, a focus on environment over character, main characters as blank slates, living in a perpetual state of wonder, how people are changed by their history of trauma, readers seeking the consequences of character actions, the woods as both a singular living entity and a collection of entities, the making of meaning after a story is finished, loss of innocence, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss William Gibson's "Neuromancer", hypnogogic images, heists with scifi crap on top, retrofuturism, slow-moving death, the Velvet Underground, Dan Brown novels, splitting the party, simstims, genetic engineering in RPGs, cyperpunk RPGs, sentient AIs, and much more!

Nathaniel Webb joins us to discuss William Gibson's "Neuromancer", D&D Next playtests, self-contained cities in a building, people writing fiction written by Chat-GPT, action/heist stories, ninjas and Rastafarians, getting the heist team together, the hacker's role in a cyberpunk game, Tom Clancy novels, quick dramatic actions, player-facing tools, cozy fantasy, and much more!

Yochai Gal joins us to discuss Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", Ursula K. LeGuin, Cairn's influences, Book of the New Sun, the Blade Runner movie, androids and empathy, what makes a belief system valid, Philip K. Dick's less approachable works, sex as a survival strategy, current concerns about AI, cyberpunk LARPs, Jack Vance, and much more!

Katrin Dirim joins us to discuss Caroline Stevermer's "A College of Magics", the diverse gaming scene in Turkey, YA book covers, politically correct highwaymen, the price that magic extracts, inevitable Harry Potter comparisons, the changing experiences of college students, playing the outsider, Dungeon Crawl Classics luck checks, players who struggle stepping into the spotlight, hat bombs, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Michael Chabon's "Gentlemen of the Road", miniature wargaming, doing "a Jeff" by listening to the audiobook, Robert E. Howard's Middle Eastern adventures, melancholy guys dressed in black, the role of the animals in the story, surviving in a ruined temple, dual power structures, chloroform mini-games, five-page backstories, being rewarded in-game for bringing in aspects of your character, hitting Wikipedia hard, and much more!

Bill Gosline joins us to discuss Michael Chabon's "Gentlemen of the Road", reading books written for adults as kids, Deities & Demigods as Appendix N, elephant-related words, "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay", smug afterwords, Ren faire troupes, world-building in epic fantasy, world-building around the characters, historical fiction, when magic is not a technology, the future demise of Twitter, and much more!

Andy from Breakfast in the Ruins joins us to discuss Poul Anderson's "Operation Chaos”, homemade ginger beer, Moorcock's influence on the fantasy genre, frothing latter-day conspiracy theorist wet dreams, the limitations of the word lycanthropy, main characters who suck, heroes defending the military industrial complex, Anderson's influence on Moorcock, Van Helsing the Cleric, werewolves as player characters, Gygaxian naturalism, statting up Christian mythology, and much more!

Rick Byrne joins us to discuss Scott Oden's "A Gathering of Ravens", demons in Norse mythology, purging darkness with creativity, faction play, the various Viking lands, grim dark, authentic Irish representation, giving monsters meaning, Orc morality, periods of transition, Conan, the number 42, and much more!

Maxwell Lander joins us to discuss P. Djèlí Clark's "A Master of Djinn", programming VR games, conversational RPGs, Audible audiobooks, villains plotting since childhood, the steampunk literary genre, when men write women, antisocial characters, Tunnel Goons, Shadowrun, freaky angels, anti-colonial violence, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Arkady & Boris Strugatsky's "Hard to Be a God”, impecunious dons, Brave New World, the Soviet Union in the 1960s, de-Stalinization, going straight to feudalism to fascism, the stench of the 18th century, saving artists to advance society, the great expansion of man, the collaboration between criminals and reactionary religious clashes to create facism, the 2007 video game adaptation, The Worm Ouroboros, and much more!

Aaron King joins us to discuss Arkady & Boris Strugatsky's "Hard to Be a God”, West Marches-style gaming, fantasy bestiaries, impecunious dons, astronauts in the middle ages, the character arcs of doomed nobles, the inherent tension that exists from generation to generation, keeping each other safe in the dirt, playing with Barbies, Warhammer 40K, characters using their imagination to see their future, our patron book clubs, and much more!

Joshua Phillip Johnson joins us to discuss Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Farthest Shore", elves named Josh, media being smarter than us, Audible audiobooks, hanging in Hort Town, magic being leached from the world, ideas of power and kingship, the importance of mentorship, journeying from the quiet places to the places where stuff happens, adult themes in YA lit, warriors' powers being looked at as magic, the reason for the season, and much more!

Jim Hall joins us to discuss Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere”, art school, crunchy combat, time loops, manic pixie dream girls, the Tony Blair-era of the UK, addressing audience needs, ideas for the sequel, using the Floating Market in an Underdark campaign, journeying into the underworld, D&D as a combat game, his monthly zine, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Robert E. Howard's "Conan the Conqueror", art pull-outs in paperbacks, the de Camp vs the Karl Edward Wagner introductions, sword and sorcery tropes, Conan's Greatest Hits, Shakespearean battles, Conan in disguise as a headsman, wanting to spend more time in Stygia, the dangers on the left path, mummy tour guides, smaller villains, August Derleth's landscapes, Savage Worlds RPG, The Tower of the Elephant, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Robert E. Howard's "Conan the Conqueror", the terrible glue on Lancer paperbacks, Howard's attempts to reach the English audience, the reach of Weird Tales Magazine, Conan's anti-colonialist stance, Howard's horror writing, de Camp's editing, vampires, evil priests, killer illusions, the Hyborian Age as a living and breathing world, Call of Cthulhu RPG for sword and sorcery, and much more!

Eric Johnson joins us to discuss Robert E. Howard's "Conan the Conqueror”, artists to draw visual inspiration from, de Camp's editorial choices, the rabbit hole of research involved in writing historical fiction, The People of the Black Circle, 10,000 year old hotties, Howard's attitudes toward civilization, The Whole Wide World, Mystara, A Song of Ice and Fire, evil temples packed with unspeakable horrors, Raymond Chandler, and much more!

James Mendez Hodes joins us to discuss William Hope Hodgson's "Carnacki the Ghost-Finder”, Sonic the Hedgehog fandom, changing conversations around cultural appropriation, Harlem detectives, Greek translations, disembodied limbs, the journey down the magical hog hole, Arthur Conan Doyle stories, the Trail of Cthulhu RPG, avoiding stereotypes when playing races other than your own, GMs falling asleep at the table, offers to help with high school projects, and much more!

Jason Cordova joins us to discuss Michael Shea's "A Quest for Simbilis”, Powered by the Apocalypse games, the correct pronunciation of Cugel, gothic horror, the publishing world in the 1970s, Lovecraftian horror fiction, high stakes games of strip poker, moving from absurdity to horror in an instant, crunchier traditional game systems, comedic hijinks, high fantasy vs sword and sorcery, fantasy fiction in the 80s and 90s, and much more!

Stefan Surratt joins us to discuss Michael Moorcock's "The Knight of the Swords”, other aspects of worldbuilding, uncaring beings of great power, loss of innocence, fantasy genocides, the Dresden bombings, the Vadaugh as elves, Daniel J. Bishop magic items, gods with cool and specific spheres of influence, the Lords of Law, our Patreon, and much more!

Ahimsa Kerp joins us to discuss Fritz Leiber's "The Knight and Knave of Swords", Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in Riverside, ooh naughty sexy times, sex-obsessed adventurers, the city of Lankhmar, transgressive swords and sorcery, aging characters in fantasy RPGs, moon priestesses, pushing luck mechanics, having identifiably unique cultures, mythic Greece, and much more!

Caroline Stevermer joins us to discuss E.R. Eddison's "The Worm Ouroboros”, depictions of Elizabethan masculinity, characters that don't have parents, archaic language, excerpts from Western European literature, understanding characters through their deeds, a woman's virtue measured by her maidenhood, the passage of time in Tolkien's work, the taming the savages trope, the changing landscape of contemporary academia, San Francisco in 1906, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss N.K. Jemisin's "The Fifth Season”, AD&D's obsession with gem names, the tonal resonances between this book and Octavia E. Butler’s “Fledgling”, the missing moon, savior narratives, sci-fi slang traditions, a melonated future, meta vs in-text author motivations, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, using Numenera for the Broken Earth setting, being surrounded by superheroes, systemic abuse in youth institutions, and much more!

Tanya DePass joins us to discuss N.K. Jemisin's "The Fifth Season”, Black people cosplaying as White characters, the formation of mountain ranges, effective plot twists, how a Black woman reading a Black woman author might have resonances other people may not, finding new meaning in a text by returning to a piece of fiction later in life, using complex morality in worldbuilding, characters together by necessity rather than being in an adventuring party, Green Ronin RPG systems, how game design is harder than many folks think, how people bring their biases to the games they run, TwitchCon Amsterdam, and much more! The patron poll for episode 129 will drop on Sunday.

Brian Cortijo joins us to discuss Peter S. Beagle's "The Last Unicorn”, how wars affect settings, irredeemably evil Drow and Orcs, splitting a wizard's gizzard, the melancholy themes of the film and the books, heroics as showmanship, character agency and the consequence of choice, the abundance of printed material available about the Forgotten Realms, having a mythical creature in your adventuring party, games that are more "story forward", game systems and their reliance on dependability, weeping spiders, and much more!

Tim Hutchings joins us to discuss Octavia E. Butler's "Fledgling", modern D&D-insired art, the effect of slavery on language, the book's use of childhood sexuality, vampire fiction of the early 2000s, vampire society, old racist vampires, Thousand Year Old Vampire, power dynamics between vampires and their symbionts, explaining monster lore as a tool for world building, blueberry pies, being terrible at social media, and much more!

Ian McGarty joins us to discuss Peter Bebergal's "Appendix N: The Eldritch Roots of Dungeons & Dragons”, games publishing, lifting magic items from fiction, the Swords Against Darkness anthologies, skeletal vampires, Tanith Lee's wild fiction, Elric and Moonglum, the old school D&D thief class, wanting to die a warrior's death, the Vivimancer class, necromancer PCs, crisp mountain air, and much more!

Matt King joins us to discuss Clark Ashton Smith's "The End of the Story: The Collected Fantasies, Vol. 1", Italian horror films, Nightshade Press, the Lin Carter anthologies, all the things CAS wants to have sex with, lamias, pulp magazines, cultivating a sense of dread, highways becoming footpaths, Gygax's theoretical stance on CAS, Gary Con, and much more!

Noora Rose joins us to discuss Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Tombs of Atuan", game masters as game designers, non-white people writing fantasy and sci-fi, the trauma of forced identities, sex and intimacy, Le Guin's masterful character development, reclaiming identities, creating barriers with purple prose, cast-and-forget spellcasting, fantasy whodunits, the rising costs of paper, and much more!

Karlo Yeager Rodríguez joins us to discuss Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein”, Vampire LARPing, the 1818 vs 1831 texts, Victor Frankenstein as a narrator, Mary Shelley's commentary on the fate of Native Americans, Frankenstein's monster as a metaphor for queer angst, Victor Frankenstein as Lucifer falling from grace, the Bride of Frankenstein, Wraith: The Oblivion, the claim of Frankenstein as the first work of science fiction, and much more!

Pete Johannsen joins us to discuss Tim Powers's "Declare”, using amber beads as tokens, books found on your doorstep, the language and pace of spy novels, the djinn as fallen angels, power as a human motivator, Rube Goldberg occultism, the U.S. vs the Soviet Union, Torg RPG, djinn as ancient vampires, exploring Christian mythology in fiction and gaming, and much more!

Menion (AKA Rob) joins us to discuss Michael Moorcock's "The Jewel in the Skull”, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the influence of Burroughs on Moorcock, the initial emptiness and passivity of Hawkmoon, character motivation, mixing scifi and fantasy, characters being swept up in the current of world events, old-school versus new-school ways of thinking about gaming, what we lose when gaming online, runes as cosmic forces in RuneQuest, the gaming scene in Japan, and much more!

Lucas Zellars joins us to discuss William Hope Hodgson's "The House on the Borderland”, natural history as a science, out of body experiences, b-movie monsters, horse pistols, geological time, unreliability injected into the fiction, cosmic pigs, Super Mario Bros., and D&D as Capitalism: The Game or Colonialism: The Game, and much more!

Jason Lutes joins us to discuss Glen Cook's "The Black Company”, Dungeon World, Ursula K. Le Guin, conquistador helmets, swords-for-hire, what makes a villain, grim dark's celebration of the darkest sides of the human experience, wizards as marketing and PR agents, eating tacos, fantasy metropolises, random words as proper nouns, and much more!

Rev. Dak Ultimak joins us to discuss Fred Saberhagen's "Changeling Earth”, the DCC RPG zine scene, reclaiming H.P. Lovecraft, tanks and UFOs in fantasy fiction, the paperback culture of the 1970s, transcending humanity, cosmic horror, evil characters getting their comeuppance, the Luke Skywalker-type protagonist, genre crossing, throwing out the Firearms issue of Crawl, and much more!

Ellen Kushner joins us to discuss Ursula K. Le Guin's "A Wizard of Earthsea”, Choose Your Own Adventure books, the explosion of Tolkien's popularity, the feminist revision of Earthsea, wizarding schools, designing magic system limitations, Larry Niven's science brain, the teenage search for identity, wizards of color, normalizing protagonists belonging to marginalized populations, the Jewish inspirations on Riverside, and much more!

Moss Bosch joins us to discuss Gene Wolfe's "The Shadow of the Torturer”, socially intimate games, tasty and tender world building, reading a book without realizing it is the first in a series, ridiculous ways to introduce new PCs, reading a book written for multiple audiences, cities the size of a nation, Blades in the Dark, stolen sex dolls, flowers as awkward and incredibly dangerous weapons, obvious foreshadowing, Tik Tok, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Ellen Kushner's "Swordspoint", typing up D&D character sheets on a typewriter, normalized gay content, the 80s crack epidemic, double- and triple-crosses, characters who think they're smarter than they are, playing a D&D game in the Riverside, gamifying Honor, staying true to social mechanism in the game, DCC Lankhmar, A Princess Bride, A Princess of Mars, and much more!

Angela Lemus-Mogrovejo joins us to discuss Ellen Kushner's "Swordspoint”, the indie tabletop roleplaying game scene, questioning why fantasy is wedded to the European medieval era, our patron polls, confusing characters with one another in political intrigue, relatable gay content, a shortage of female characters being given the spotlight, female characters as whores and laundresses, examples of noir prose, giving the generic fantasy tavern more character, making cool use of support characters, scholars of disappearance, and much more!

Cora Buhlert joins us to discuss C.L. Moore's "Jirel of Joiry”, used book store finds, kisses as stand-ins for sex, the appropriateness of using genre to explore our fear of sexual violence, cozy stories, writers being inspired by their peers, comparing and contrasting Conan and Jirel as characters, employing undead suckers, the influence of comics on the early pulps, her work with Henry Kuttner, fictitious France, C.L. Moore's reemerging popularity, and much more!

Megan Connell joins us to discuss G.K. Chesterton's "The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare”, chocolate-covered raisin trees, satire we don't understand, club infiltration, anarchist elections and bylaws, issues of trust and emotional risk in therapeutic games, good versus evil, dehumanizing those who disagree with us, using XP to encourage better gaming, whether it was all a dream or not, losing cultural context in reading works from before our time, and much more!

Brendan LaSalle joins us to discuss Clive Barker's "Books of Blood, Volume 1", our listeners 100 years from now, ghosts taking over theaters, Barker's literary beginnings, relatable characters, "Mama, they fed me to the pig!", Kaiju as political commentary, Willpower saves, stories were everything goes wrong, giving monsters the 411, embodying delusional characters, X-Crawl Classics, and much more!

Patrick Stuart joins us to discuss Mervyn Peake's "Titus Groan”, oral traditions, lush prose, taking pride in working as a servant, the sun as an old cake bun, Peake's popularity, Cormac McCarthy, Gormenghast as a demiplane, maintaining status quo as a party goal, the court of Melniboné, physical differences as "monstrous traits", going back in time to support expired Kickstarters, and much more!

Sarah Doom joins us to discuss Michael Shea's "Nifft the Lean”, Vampire: The Masquerade, horror stories set in the Deep South, "big guava breasts", matching prose style to genre, which came first: humans or demons, the Pagan way of doing things, entitled brats, taking away character agency, drawing upon vocational experience for inspiration, playing characters that are smarter than we are, old school sword and sorcery, and much more!

Pete Petrusha joins us to discuss Charles R. Saunders's "Imaro”, developing management skills through game mastering, how map projections shrink Africa, flipping the script, Charles R. Saunders's legacy, acceptance through truth, depicting differing cultures without judgment, leveling up through campaigns, DCC RPG corruption, the mysterious world outside the PC's hometown, and much more!

Martian Kat joins us to discuss Edgar Rice Burroughs's "Land of Terror", Star Wars, reading something you wouldn't normally read on your own, effective uses of satire, bearded women, evolving perceptions of Black Americans in the 1940s, the global war on terror, one-shot adventures in comics, escaping captivity in RPGs, the Savage Worlds Adventure Deck, humanizing the "other", Twitch streaming, and much more!

Alyssa Faden joins us to discuss Lord Dunsany's "Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley", the Tegel Manor map, ancient history as gaming inspiration, the Wheel of Time series, singing blades, Dunsany's poetic and relatable prose, the frying pan as a character, how to win a castle, river travelling, staying in character, Yoon Suin crab-men, designing city maps, and much more!

Little Red Dot joins us to discuss Andre Norton's "Three Against the Witch World", Fate RPG, reading comics in the barber shop, Mars as Australia, Mercedes Lackey, the division between science fiction and fantasy, the gender spectrum, the gendered divisions of labor, Andre Norton's bravery, the love of war history, the D&D druid class, Kobold Press, and much more!

Cora Buhlert joins us to discuss Clark Ashton Smith's "Xiccarph", German science fiction, pulp magazines, morbid beauty, vampire flower women, Jirel of Joiry, the Dark Eye, foreshadowing, Gary Gygax's exclusion of Clark Ashton Smith from the Appendix N, Alphonse Mucha, doomed protagonists, the 2022 World Science Fiction Convention, and much more!

Oliver Brackenbury joins us to discuss August Derleth's "The Mask of Cthulhu", the Lin Carter Conan stories, competing Appendix N Book Club listener complaints, writing in another author's IP, dem hillbillies who ain't talk too good, being a broke millennial while reading about haunted inheritances, the authorial voice, psychic residue, letting players continue to run their characters during PC possession, the trappings of the Cthulhu mythos, Lovecraft Country, and much more!

Angeline B. Adams joins us to discuss Fredric Brown's "What Mad Universe”, psychogeography, toxic fandom, fictionalizing the writer's process, near-future sci-fi, the Troubles conflict in Northern Ireland, the relationship between the text and the art, loose worldbuilding, environmental and knowledge hazards, having protagonists deal with a big scary world, organic plot development, what this book looks like in other mad universes, and much more!

Newton Nitro joins us to discuss Stanley G. Weinbaum's "The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum", Brazilian speculative fiction, Malazan Book of the Fallen, celebrations of the heterosexual white male, coming to acceptance with death, different cultural moral frameworks, the Virgin-Whore Complex, Brazilian miscegenation, dark humor, reskinning the Keep on the Borderlands, using RPGs to subvert facism, and much more!

Peter Bebergal joins us to discuss Michael Moorcock's "Elric of Melniboné", gaming stores, Gygax's love of pulp, meta-levels inside of dungeons, grimoires IRL, Elric's rotating sidekicks, the limits of idealism, the tragedy of addiction, Elric in art, the Eternal Champions, Elric as anime, and much more!

Shauntelle Benjamin joins us to discuss Roger Zelazny's "The Hand of Oberon", TTRPG Twitch streaming, the protagonist's internal experience, similiar sounding names, casual incest, combat mechanics in literature, cybernetic limbs, life-draining highways, getting stabbed by uncles you've just met, interior monologues in gaming, and much more!

Kienna Shaw joins us to discuss Philip José Farmer's "The Lavalite World", using present-day religious texts as mythology, literary info dumps, the petty egos of immortals, making moral choices when you your life is at stake, close third-person narration, the dangers of presenting racist characters without critique, Bluebeard's Bride, being a collaborative player instead of a lone wolf, constantly shifting landscapes, and much more!

Ginny Loveday joins us to discuss Fletcher Pratt's "Invaders from Rigel", small books with even smaller fonts, colonialism, space travellers who don't understand combustibles, goofily over-capable heroes, interesting adversaries, home play vs organized play, overly replying on combat to handle challenges, separating the art from the artist, and much more!

Paige Leitman joins us to discuss Jack Vance's "The Killing Machine", Alexandre Dumas, sexism, interplanetary skin tones, examples of successful worldbuilding, D&D as a western, roleplaying vs rollplaying, planet-hopping revenge games, Star Wars, the OSR community, and much more!

Jason Ray Carney joins us to discuss Fritz Leiber's "The Big Time", urban modernism, Lovecraft's fear of the other, period slang, the time travel genre, deeply traumatized protagonists, Leiber's understanding of language, being the Black Svengali to one's Trilby, unity of time and space, Conan vs Fafhrd, chronomancy, and much more!

Nicole Emmelhainz-Carney joins us to discuss Robert E. Howard & L. Sprague de Camp's "Conan the Usurper", body horror, de Camp's heavy-handed editing, offensive physical descriptions of black characters, Lovecraft's contemporaries, the experience of talking about problematic elements in the fandom, Howard's creative process, audience analysis in pulps, the cliche of the dumb barbarian, unknown characters seeking revenge on PCs, and much more!

Kira Magrann joins us to discuss Lin Carter's "The Immortal of World's End", LARPing as an awkward teenager, goth teenage years, blending sci-fi and fantasy, tonal shifts, strange metaphors, the cognitive dissonance of glorifying violence after seeing war firsthand, evolving cultural norms, positive inclusions of beasts and animals, sexualizing all or none of the characters instead of just the female-presenting characters, random charts, Trancore as a music genre, and much more!

Jason Vey joins us to discuss Fred Saberhagen's "The Black Mountains", owlbears, waiting for the fun evil parts, the Swords trilogy, cold war themes in a post-apocalyptic world, wizards with swords, the root of the lich, making magic unique, designing for 5e vs DCC RPG, mutations tables, and much more!

Clio Yun-su Davis joins us to discuss Gardner F. Fox's "Kothar and the Conjurer's Curse", sexual violence, sword and sorcery LARP ideas, non-stop magical hijinx, video game boob physics, the journey in gaming, using the "rule of cool" with cultural sensitivity in mind, monsters that represent human populations, coincidences as plot devices, creative death curses, power levels for heoric gaming, and much more!

Misha B joins us to discuss Jack Williamson's "The Humanoids”, relatable yet opposing idealogies, babies kept in cribs too long, the value of degenerates, the character arch of authors within their careers, morally ambiguous antagonists, superpowered humans overtaking the galaxy, setting ground rules at the table, characters with godlike abilities, moving force down the chain of challenges, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss Manly Wade Wellman's "Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds", classic Sherlock, the Professor Challenger stories, sycophantic women, the differing moral compasses of the characters, the lens of the Vietnam War, tearing down H.G. Wells, undefeatable villains, adding mechanical wings to random encounters, proto-Lovecrafian beasties, high versus low-level gaming, and much more!

Our Patron Book Club joins us to discuss H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror and Others”, setting construction, Lovecraftian punchlines, Robert Bloch, character development, ancient castles, inescapable monsters, the Whateleys, sudden developments of secret knowledge, characters built on people we know, and much more!

Vicki Lalonde joins us to discuss Edgar Rice Burroughs's "Back to the Stone Age”, damsels in distress, messages of empathy, shedding the bonds of the civilized world, the power of friendship, Barsoom, slavery as a plot device, large megafauna, fighters with six-shooters, foreshadowing villains, and much more!

Chris Wolf joins us to discuss A. Merritt's "The Ship of Ishtar", slaves in pulp fiction, magic hair-growing shrubs, film noir femme fatales, early wargaming, magic compasses, epic death as a story ender, the Mega Dumb Cast, playing on the Spaceship of Ishtar, and much more!

Members of our Patron Book Club (Jeremy Harper, Christopher Murrie, and Adam Styers) join us to discuss Robert E. Howard's "Conan the Warrior", the Conan paperback publication history, Conan's rapey inner-dialogue, the "barbarism is the natural state of mankind" quote, the roles of priests in sword and sorcery, Red Sonya and Dark Agnes, the strengths and weaknesses of Valeria, the fragile state of Whiteness, Lovecraftian racism, the immensity of the Hyborian world, giving L. Sprague de Camp the credit he's due, Conan casting spells, and more!

Sharang Biswas joins us to discuss L. Sprague de Camp's "The Clocks of Iraz", Indian classics, wights, internal logic, stories within stories, female characters who entirely exist as sex objects, queer bashing, unified tonal through lines, pre-skill system play styles, diversity in medieval simulationism, magic as a source of law or chaos, how to support sex-positive charities, and much more!

Jerry D. Grayson joins us to discuss Michael Moorcock's "The Vanishing Tower", discovering gaming as a kid, fantasy reading as a kid, comics, looking for representation, Elric as pulp, the grab-bag style of old-school gaming, morose scenery-chewing, the other Eternal Champions, Elric's childhood education, DMG relics, how you too can make hundreds of dollars in the roleplaying industry, and much more!