A Meal of Thorns

A Meal of Thorns 30 – STONE OF FAREWELL with Karlo Yeager Rodríguez Guest: Karlo Yeager RodríguezTitle: Stone of Farewell by Tad WilliamsHost: Jake Casella BrookinsMusic by Giselle Gabrielle GarciaArtwork by Rob PattersonOpening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by Jo…

It's 608 pages, it's WaldenBooks-core: @kjy1066.bsky.social joins to discuss Tad Williams' STONE OF FAREWELL, with many musings on mass market fantasy:
ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2025/08/11/a...

Vajra Chandrasekera : Rakesfall Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry · Episode

This interview with Vajra is really really good open.spotify.com/episode/5JBn...

Tiffany Pollard "Beyoncé?" meme but instead it says "Igjarjuk?"

Wrapping up Monday's episode on Memory, Sorrow, & Thorn, with @kjy1066.bsky.social, like

Eating the Fantastic Listen to Eating the Fantastic wherever you get your podcasts!

ICYMI — a new episode of Eating the Fantastic went live this morning with @benjaminrosenbaum.com. Join us and learn why the story he found the most difficult to sell became his most-read work, the reason he couldn’t write for a while after his first Nebula nomination — and more. pod.link/1083737796

Hugo, Girl!: Episode 83 - The Diamond Age: Ending Needed This month we read The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. It was long! DM: Lori Music by Links:

Also hello I forgot to tell you that our Diamond Age episode dropped today! That book is long! Here you go!

hugogirl.libsyn.com/episode-83-t...

This is a great listen, & well timed, as I've been revisiting Cherryh's work this year.

Critical Friends Episode 14: Hard Times In this episode of Critical Friends, Dan Hartland speaks with writers and critics Octavia Cade and M. L. Clark about writing in hard times.

🎙️ Also today at @strangehorizons.bsky.social, another episode of Critical Friends, the Reviews department’s podcast!

It was a pleasure to convene a conversation between @mlclark.bsky.social & @octavia-cade.bsky.social, jumping off their two most recent reviews for us.

On writing amid challenge:

Trying something out. This is me describing what surprised me about Naked Lunch. It's a clip from episode 2 of Right Where You Are Sitting Now, my podcast series on William Burroughs. To hear more, you can click this link: www.patreon.com/posts/rwyasn... or search SFULTRA on the usual podcast places

Enjoyed this latest episode about @casella.bsky.social 's adventures in Readercon and the area around.

this is the kinda subtweet i appreciate

A Meal of Thorns 24 – THE LOST BOOK OF ADANA MOREAU with Maia Gil′Adí Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Maia Gil′AdíTitle: The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael …

THE LOST BOOK OF ADANA MOREAU should already be on your list! Here's our conversation with @maiagiladi.bsky.social about it:
ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2025/05/19/a...

Extremely cool news; keep your eyes out for THE CENSUS TAKER

The Translated Hugo Initiative Putting the World in Worldcon

Also thanks to @willmcmahon36.bsky.social for letting us use a clip from "The International Imagination in a Time of Nationalism" — and if you're a Meal of Thorns listener but haven't heard about the Translated Hugo Initiative (@translatedhugo.bsky.social), check it out: translatedhugo.org

A Meal of Thorns 29 – Readercon & Lovestruck Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Featuring interviews with:Rae Borman @ ReaderconRiley @ Lovestruck …

Book-club break; still pretty bookish: for Episode 29, bringing you a con report about @readercon.org and travels about the Boston area, including an interview at @lovestruckbooks.bsky.social!

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2025/07/28/a...

I just published the second episode of Right Where You Are Sitting Now, a podcast series about William Burroughs. It's called Routine Excercise. It's 6.5 hours long and features a conversation with @hangsawoman.bsky.social.
www.patreon.com/posts/rwyasn...
Works covered:
Naked Lunch
Interzone

2024 Favorites with Roseanna Roseanna from Nerds of a Feather joins Renay to talk about her 2024 favorites.

Good things are worth waiting for! @chloroformtea.bsky.social was on Fangirl Happy Hour back in the spring and now everyone can enjoy her incredible list-making skills.

How to Vote Instructions for voting in the 2025 Hugo Awards.

Last day to vote for this year's #HugoAwards! ARB is up for Fanzine, and A Meal of Thorns is up for fancast, and friends of ARB & AMOT have cool work in a lot of categories:
seattlein2025.org/wsfs/hugo-aw...

The Incandescent by Emily Tesh “School as a teacher is pretty different from school as a student,” said Walden. “Better, honestly, in the way that being an adult is generally a lot better than being a child.” In her Hugo-winning…

My review of Emily Tesh's The Incandescent is up at @strangehorizons.bsky.social. After writing about it briefly in the Guardian, it was a pleasure to get to dig into the ways the novel works, where it wobbles, and what it has to say about education and class. strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...

A table with bookmarks, flyers, and free books, with one square sticker with the Meal of Thorns logo.

One sticker left at the #ReaderCon freebie table!

… holy shit

hell of a thing to happen while I was in an airplane

I am so very very honored.

(And thanks, @wiswell.bsky.social, for standing in for me to accept it! ❤️)

Becca sent me the rough cut to do the transcript and I just messaged her back like THREE HOURS???

So… in this one we talk about Fire and Hemlock for three hours. Maybe our best ever episode. But that’s fair because it’s maybe DWJ’s best ever book.

Beautiful day here at #ReaderCon! I'll be snagging a few quick interviews, and nodding appreciatively at various panels—say hi if you're a fan of @ancillaryreview.bsky.social or @mealofthorns.bsky.social!

The words “Octothorpe 139” appear at the top and the words “…our tiny bottles…” appear at the bottom. Three bottles are drawn in the middle. The left-hand bottle is a Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge Coca-Cola bottle. The middle bottle is a bottle that looks a bit like a moose. The right-hand bottle is Bottle #18, “The Original Canton Delicate Ginger Liqueur”.

This episode, we welcome @tammylc.bsky.social to the podcast as our Stunt Liz! We discuss @montreal2027.bsky.social and whether they can step up to the plate, before talking about the virtual Business Meeting at @seattlein2025.org. Listen here! octothorpe.podbean.com/e/139-mostly...

So I've listened to two podcasts from @mealofthorns.bsky.social (hosted by @casella.bsky.social) - on 40K In Gehenna with @byzantienne.bsky.social and the one on Seth Dickinson's Traitor Baru Cormorant with @amalelmohtar.com, and I have two reactions.

1. I want to be that articulate, guys, fuck me.

It was a thrill to be invited on AMOT, and a delight to talk about this book. I never felt like I did right by Excession when I reading through the Culture sequence, and having returned to it, I think there's an argument for it as one of the series' best.

Podcast Latest Episode: About the Podcast: A Meal of Thorns is a critical book club hosted by Jake Casella Brookins. Each episode, we’ll be looking closely at works of speculative fiction, thinking a…

That's definitely our format (ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/amealofthorns/); would recommend @wizardsvslesbians.bsky.social also. @coodestreet.bsky.social have an immense backlog with lots of great interviews; it's been on hiatus for a while but worth tracking down the Midnight in Karachi pod from Tor.

I dislike 90% of fantasy novels I start; I loved this book.

If you're cranky and weird like me, you should read this book, with its crumbling city, eldritch rulers, and ill-made heroes stumbling through Wizard of Oz as re-written by Hieronymous Bosch.

A Meal of Thorns 28 – EXCESSION with Abigail Nussbaum Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Credits:Guest: Abigail NussbaumTitle: Excession by Iain M. BanksHost: Jake …

The wonders of scale, the tricky bits of fully automated luxury gay space communism, echoes of interventionist worries, and more: @abigailnussbaum.bsky.social joins to discuss Iain M. Banks' EXCESSION!

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2025/07/14/a...

Interview where I discuss horror, pulp fiction, and my upcoming novel The Bewitching.

Photo of a square made w red duct tape on a window

Photo of a square made w red duct tape on a window (close up)

didn’t want to brag but there’s a teeny portal to hell right by my Metra stop