A Meal of Thorns

If you haven't read Barthelme and you like weird, funny, smart stuff, do yourself a favor and pick this up. Travesty that spec lit conversations don't bring in this kind of work more frequently; it was a lot of fun to revisit this with Timothy.

and well worth listening to @davidnaimon.bsky.social 's superb interview with @vajra.me

it goes deep on religion, politics, and just how Vajra conjures and structures his epic, brilliant novels

If you can, please donate to help one of our regular contributors in this time of need.

More odd bits of unplanned synchronicity: listening to this got me reading up a bit about CRAZY HEART, and it turns out Bridges' character is based on Barthelme!

archive.nytimes.com/artsbeat.blo...

A Meal of Thorns 35 – 60 Stories with Timothy Moore Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Guest: Timothy MooreTitle: 60 Stories by Donald BarthelmeHost: Jake Casella…

Venturing a bit further afield this week: musing on speculative-adjacent ideas of irrealism, and mostly just enthusing about Barthelme's 60 STORIES with @timothymoore.bsky.social. A very fun conversation about a remarkable stylist, check it out: ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2025/10/20/a...

Ink illustration of a gigantic bat flying above a gigantic wolf in a clearing at night, the moon high above

talking about Beren and Lúthien next time on @bythebywater.bsky.social (and since it’s October I drew their scary forms)

People don't have to be excellent to deserve help, but: Archita's a super-active and talented contributor to a whole bunch of different spheres of spec fic, including fiction and criticism in venues big & small, behind-the-scenes editing and enthusiasm, and more. If you can, see if you can chip in.

Hey SF readers & especially folks who like criticism: Archita Mittra is in a tough spot and could use some help.

saw a photo of Donald Barthelme without a beard and thought it was Tim Robinson for a second

bsky.app/profile/ckun... sounding the "the living can assist the imagination of the dead!" klaxon

The Devil's Party - Paradise Lost - All Recitations and Analysis Episodes | Anthony Oliveira Get more from Anthony Oliveira on Patreon

And, if you're interested in reading PARADISE LOST through a queer scholarly lens along with us (because it's hard but it's SO COOL!), you can listen to EVERY EPISODE over here! www.patreon.com/posts/devils...

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…

Forgot to share on here! If you wanted to know which stories we're focusing on for next week's discussion of Barthelme's 60 STORIES, one of the greatest, they're listed on our page:
ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/amealofthorns/

Everything Is Permitted An entertaining deep dive into the world, gameplay, and evolution of the hugely successful Assassin’s Creed video game franchise​A hooded figure stands i...

ALERT! ALERT! We're in the last days of being able to preorder my book EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED: ON ASSASSIN'S CREED, which is a book about the Assassin's Creed franchise and how games reflect and impact the real world! Click this link and use the code MN93450 for 30% off! z.umn.edu/14943

Sad news everyone, I’m officially pulling the plug on Brightsiders, my super fan podcast for the 2017 movie Bright. I still feel like there were many interesting topics left to discuss but after 7 years of weekly episodes I’ve learned that no one has ever listened to the show.

Imagined Agency: Review of Stefano Gualeni and Riccardo Fassone’s Fictional Games Eric Stein Under Review:Fictional Games: A Philosophy of Worldbuilding and Imaginary Play. Stefano Gualeni and Riccardo Fassone. Bloomsbury Academic, January 2023. Throughout the media we enjoy, fr…

Check out this nice review of FICTIONAL GAMES that @steinea.bsky.social did for ARB a while back: ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2023/05/26/i...

Very nice interview here (and lovely to run into discussions speculative games so soon after reading BURNING BRIGHT):

Episode 4! | Hugo History Get more from Hugo History on Patreon

Episode 4 just released! In this episode, we discuss Fritz Lieber's The Big Time and Christine gets nerdy about the history of the USO. Our guest is Nora of @leafittouspod.bsky.social!

eeeeeeeeeee OTHER PEOPLE WHO WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS BOOK, I have loved this book since I was nine years old

Starship Alexandria The Sci-fi and Fantasy podcast from the best of futures! In this future, humanity has solved its problems and is now sending spaceships from Earth, not in a desperate attempt to escape the apocalypse...

Episode 7 of Starship Alexandria goes live tomorrow. We discuss The Ministry of The Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. The end blooper is one of my favourites, mostly because making @aptshadow.bsky.social dissolve into giggles with the opening line of the show made me so happy! starshipalexandria.com

In which @casella.bsky.social and I both discuss novels of two halves, and in which Nileena Sunil and @yarntheory.bsky.social both sing the praises of @indrapramitdas.bsky.social.

This would be impressive co-working with @mealofthorns.bsky.social had we done any actual co-working.

Seriously @danhartland.bsky.social and @casella.bsky.social … Critical Friends from @strangehorizons.bsky.social and also @mealofthorns.bsky.social on the same day? Y’all gotta space these SFF criticism podcasts …

Come talk to us about Burning Bright, whether my take on the tiny ending mystery makes sense, and why cyberpunk/space opera fusions are best!

Critical Friends Episode 16: Length and Breadth Dan Hartland is joined by Redfern Jon Barrett and Nileena Sunil to discuss those novels that feel too sure or not long enough: what's behind that feeling we have that a text is lacking something, o…

📣 NEW CRITICAL FRIENDS!

In a new ep of the @strangehorizons.bsky.social SFF criticism podcast, I talk with @redfernjon.bsky.social and Nileena Sunil about books that might be longer, and others that could be shorter.

How to read a text that offers too little, or too much, stuff? Some ideas.

Authors address religion in horror writing - Chronicle Media Juan Martinez, an assistant and associate professor at Northwestern University since 2013, wrote Extended Stay, which published in 2023.

Here’s a fun write-up about the American Writers Museum event I’m doing this Friday 10/10 with Tananarive Due and Matt Ruff!

chronicleillinois.com/features/aut...

A Meal of Thorns 34 – BURNING BRIGHT with Ursula Whitcher Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books.Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon!Guest: Ursula WhitcherTitle: Burning Bright by Melissa ScottHost: Jake Case…

For Episode 34, @yarntheory.bsky.social joins to talk about structure, art & endings, relationships, and much more in Melissa Scott's 1993 cyberpunk space-Venice thriller BURNING BRIGHT:
ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2025/10/06/a...

It's true, I have a podcast!! In which I chat with friends who work on fascinating stuff related to disasters (expansive definition). Check it out: issues.org/category/the...

I've finished my essay on Kostova's THE HISTORIAN, complete with discussion of dark academia, her conservative, apolitical view of history and violence, and, of course, vampires.

The 11k-word essay will be released in November to coincide with my @mealofthorns.bsky.social episode on the novel.

Olga Ravn : The Wax Child - Tin House Set during the 17th century witch trials in Denmark, and relayed to us through the voice of a magically animated wax child of one of the accused, Olga Ravn’s new book, which creates something uncannil...

Don't miss today's conversation with @olgaravn.bsky.social. Witches, folk magic, alchemy, the fear of women gathering, animating the archive through ritual & the imagination, & much more
Audio📻: tinhouse.com/podcast/olga...
@ndbooks.bsky.social @bookhugpress.bsky.social @vikingbooksuk.bsky.social

SF Foundation Latest Issue | SF Foundation Org

When it rains it pours! An excerpt of Ch 2 of Dispelling Fantasies, "Blood Magic is not Always Black Magic," is available in the journal Foundation's newest issue: www.sf-foundation.org/sf-foundatio...