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More Crap Books Episodes

Some good news! Due to the popularity of the Crap Books episodes, Podside Picnic decided to have me on once a month to ramble some more about my genre mis-education. This will continue for as long as it's still something Pete and I are interested in doing. I'm currently racking my brains to list different novels I've not yet discussed for upcoming episodes. Full disclosure: we may reserve the right to circle back for a deeper dive of certain tie-in novels we've already discussed at any time. For the moment, we'll very likely discuss the Shadowrun novel, Burning Bright (which I'm currently reading in preparation), as well as the Vampire: the Eternal Struggle CCG (!) tie-in, House of Secrets sometime soon. We'll probably want to also explore what Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman wrote after Dragonlance. There's plenty of material to draw from already, but we wanted to gauge interest. This is...

August 23, 2020
Public Appearance, Reading, Uncategorized
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Annotations to Crap Books II: Son of Crap Book

This post is a bit late, but I got invited back to Podside Picnic to continue my conversation with Pete on what we jokingly call "crap books". This time, we circled back to talk a little bit more about the influence of D&D and the Satanic Panic on what I'm calling my genre (mis)education. Again, the latest episode is free to listen here if you haven't yet, and I also had some follow-up posts with annotations that build upon that first episode. Because the crap books conversations tend to flow, I may misremember stuff, so of course I'd name the wrong title of Leiber's Lankhmar books. I mentioned Swords Against Wizardry or Swords Against Deviltry, when the one I meant is simply called The Swords of Lankhmar. My interest in Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser was spurred by my friend César lending me the books, but I don't remember if this was...

August 15, 2020
Horror, Memoir, Reading, Uncategorized
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Annotations to My Podside Picnic Interview

This is a bit of a companion piece to my most recent appearance on Podside Picnic talking about "crap books" that got me reading science fiction and (mostly) fantasy. My first two years of high school were consumed by reading anything Dragonlance I could get my hands on. That included the initial "Chronicles" and the subsequent "Legends" that I mentioned on the show, but there were so, so many Dragonlance anthologies and other stand-alones that followed I couldn't follow all of them. I remember reading what seemed to be a baker's dozen of anthologies that had Tanis and Company going on so many adventures before the events of Dragons of Autumn Twilight that I wondered exactly what level the heroes were when the first book in the trilogy started. With all those stories, it couldn't possibly be 1st level. A couple that stand out even now as charming subversions of the...

July 1, 2020
Public Appearance, Reading
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To Strike Through The Pasteboard Mask of This World – Reading John Langan’s “The Fisherman”

On the last full day of vacation in Maine, I got "The Fisherman," by John Langan and started reading. Something about the languorous tone of Abe, the story's protagonist, and his tale of grief and loss drew me in. So much so that several hours later, when I put the book down to go swimming, I was 40% through the book. I wouldn't finish it until I got back to Maryland, driving for the better portion of a day, and passing over the Hudson River to get home. By that time, though, I'd already gotten to the story-within-a-story portion of book detailing the background of Dutchman's Creek, running from the Ashokan Reservoir in the Catskills. When we drove over the Tapan Zee Bridge in the early evening, with the last streaks of daylight dancing on the horizon, singing along with Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now," I could see why the Catskills...

August 19, 2018
Horror, Reading
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