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Calendrical Rot

Calendrical Rot

Shonalika and Adam
Arts

A podcast about sci-fi books with Shonalika and Adam

9 - Episode 7 - The Fifth Season
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  • 9 - Episode 7 - The Fifth Season

    get comfy in your wire chairs it's a new episode

    Shonalika and Adam talk about N. K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season and the rest of the books in the Broken Earth trilogy.

    Strong spoilers from the very beginning, and also for the Machineries of Empire and Imperial Radch books.

    we thought/talked about this series even more after the podcast was over, here are some additional notes from Shona:

    Schaffa forgetting most of who he is and consequently becoming a 'better' person is a lot less interesting/compelling than the same resulting from introspection and deliberate change, making him more of a plot device than a character in the second and third books than the first the Guardians being vampires is unnecessary imo the story doesn't benefit particularly from them being very old, very strong, or literally parasitic. orogeny-negating magic is more than enough to make them top of the social hierarchy and the parasitic relationship is obvious already. an additional vampire metaphor is putting a hat on a hat the bit where they think there's an informant in Castrima really got me because the stone eaters can literally hide in the walls On the line that made my brain shortcircuit ('LAY THE BOY DOWN GENTLY IN THE WIRE CHAIR'): Behaving as if the genteel manner in which structural oppression is carried out overrides the harm of the oppression itself is a major feature of oppressive systems. If Scaffa is genuinely convinced this is the only way to do things, then by doing so politely he can genuinely consider himself loving and kind without cognitive dissonance. I've witnessed/experienced real white people exerting and excusing structural power with very similar behaviours and logic. The line appears unhinged not because Shaffa's relationship to his actions is unusual, but because most of us couldn't imagine justifying this particular form of oppression in our current social context. The only differential is the exact social permissions On further reflection I think it might be one of the most brilliant lines in the series and I'm pissed I didn't formulate these thoughts properly while we were recording

    Shonalika's stuff // Adam's blog

    Sun, 22 Feb 2026 - 2h 18min
  • 8 - Episode 6 - Absolution

    hey at least we didn't leave it ten years

    Shonalika and Adam talk about Jeff Vandermeer's Absolution

    Strong spoilers from the very beginning, and also for all the previous Southern Reach books.

    Shonalika's stuff // Adam's blog

    Sun, 12 Oct 2025 - 1h 02min
  • 7 - CR X Memhaz: Andor S1

    we have friends everywhere, and some of them are on this episode

    Special crossover episode with Adam's other podcast Memetic Hazard! Shonalika and Adam (and Josef from Memhaz, and Owen from Being Our Friend) talk about Tony Gilroy et al's Andor Season 1

    Strong spoilers from the very beginning.

    Shonalika's stuff // Adam's blog

    Fri, 25 Jul 2025 - 2h 25min
  • 6 - Episode 5 - Light

    the book that made Shonalika angry and gave Adam depression

    Shonalika and Adam talk about M. John Harrison's Light

    two corrections and some final notes from Shonalika:

    "1. Want to rectify 'people identify with this character therefore he's meant to be sympathetic'. People misinterpret media e.g Joker, Fight Club all the time as endorsements of the subject they explore. This wasn't a fair comment on my part (however I do Kearney *is* meant to be at least partially sympathetic, based purely on the text itself).

      Instead of 'all the women are sex objects' I should have said; 'treated on a sliding scale of sexism that could be *intended* to be critique, but shows a lack of the required understanding of the subject for critique. The result is straight depiction without meaningful subversion or commentary.'

    Finally, highly privileged people can write excellent science fiction. However, when alleged valuable content is so deeply buried, it's worth remembering that you don't *need* to waste your time on M. John Harrison or other writers like him. The notion that you *should* give a writer the benefit of the doubt, that there *must be* something of value else why the critical acclaim? - the culture of assumed competence and automatic authority - is, like many white men's careers, the product of patriarchy; a system that science fiction, of all genres, would do better to question.

    For every self-important white man there are a hundred marginalised writers of equal skill, greater insight, and a fraction of the adulation.

    If you want to think outside the box, look elsewhere than the box itself."

    Shonalika's stuff // Adam's blog

    Tue, 06 May 2025 - 45min
  • 5 - Episode 4 - The Space Between Worlds

    what about the space between episodes? folks,

    Shonalika and Adam talk about Micaiah Johnson's The Space Between Worlds

    Strong spoilers from the very beginning.

    Shonalika's stuff // Adam's blog

    Sun, 17 Nov 2024 - 1h 11min
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