DEATH // SENTENCE

At last! The fated prophecy has been completed and the first episode of the Book of the New Sun arrives! Spaceships fly to the forested moon! Swords are wielded in the dark! Time bends like so many swallows in the last light of the day! Lots of confusing shit is soon to happen so Langdon and Eden do some setup for the next few episodes, diving into Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun. FEATURED MUSIC: Gonemage - The Gullying and the Purple Hoax https://gonemage.bandcamp.com/album/mystical-extraction

Smelling faintly of roses and holy words, Eden conjures forth this solo episode. He tackles one of the most beautiful, delicate, and magical books he's read in the last few years, Sofia Samatar's A Stranger in Olondria. FEATURED MUSIC: serpentwithfeet - Amir https://serpentwithfeet.bandcamp.com/album/deacon

On a blazing steed of heat and light, Death // Sentence arrives once again. This time around, Langdon and Eden navigate the post-modern labyrinth that is the Suez Canal stoppage, unravelling the blood-ritual at its core. Then, they discuss "Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space" by Keller Easterling, a mind-boggling, expansive analysis of how capital uses Free Trade Zones, mobile networks, and standardization to move around the world. FEATURED MUSIC: Cirith Ungol - Brutish Manchild https://bit.ly/2PrkPZ6 Boss Keloid - Gentle Clovis https://bosskeloid.bandcamp.com/album/family-the-smiling-thrush

After recovering from falling out of two buildings consecutively, Langdon finally posts the newest episode. In it, Eden and Langdon tackle NFTs, the new psychopoison of the capitalist age, then tackle the psychedelic mindwarp SF/F novel LIGHT by M. John Harrison. FEATURED MUSIC: Steel Bearing Hand - "Command of the Infernal Exarch", Seputus - "The Learned Response" Steel Bearing Hand - SLAY IN HELL https://steelbearinghand.bandcamp.com/album/slay-in-hell Seputus - PHANTOM INDIGO https://seputus.bandcamp.com/album/phantom-indigo

On this week's death sentence, Eden and Langdon tackle Suzette Elgin's ambitious linguistic-feminist science fiction novel/project NATIVE TONGUE. But first, they must conquer the United States Stock Market and defeat the evils of reactionary analysis at root within the Gamestop investing push. Eden is transformed into a psychocloud and Langdon contacts six of the seven buddhas. FEATURED MUSIC: Stonehealer - "Into the Spoke of Night" Humavoid - "Aluminum Rain"

Langdon and Eden tackle The Vorrh trilogy by B. Catling, a wild lysergic absinthian literary feast combining shards of magical realism, avant-garde literature, ecstatic spiritualist poetry and prose, anti-colonialism, paganism, fantasy, horror and historical fiction into one spellbinding modern masterwork. But first they must discuss how utterly fucked that coup was, which sucked mondo ass. FEATURED MUSIC: Frozen Soul - "Encased In Ice", The Botanist - "Water"

On this new Death//Sentence Solo Series, Eden explores award-winning author Kij Johnson's AT THE MOUTH OF THE RIVER OF BEES, a collection of magical realist fantasy fiction. FEATURED MUSIC: Snooze - "Amicus Pawsterum"

On this episode, Langdon and Eden tackle the universe's most pressing issue: the nature of the Grinch, the contradictions of the Grinchgeist, and the spiritual warfare that fires his burning heart. Additionally, they cover P. Djeli Clark's novella RING SHOUT, Langdon's book of the year, which is a Lovecraftian counter-read interposing the KKK as servants of Lovecraftian darkness and hateful chaos. There's a magic sword and killer politics. FEATURED MUSIC: Tribulation - "Hour of the Wolf", Beaten to Death - "The Dying Egg"

Langdon and Eden do the long-threatened and discuss House of Leaves, both as a cultural object and as a novel, especially as it pertains to literalizing anxiety states. The novel carries both an overwhelming adoration a reciprocal stigma, both of which cloud its functions as an art object. We seek at least in part to dispel that. Discussion of the book starts at 46min. TW: descriptions of anxety attacks, physical violence. FEATURED MUSIC: Ithaca - "Hold Fast Hope" (Thrice cover), Cinder Well - "Our Lady's"

Recovered from Langdon being extremely bad at technology comes an episode long in the making. We actually started prep for this episode over a month ago but, between anxiety breakdowns and, tech issues. BUT: Now we cover the powerful novel THE ONLY GREAT HARMLESS THING by Brooke Bollander, a novel about humanity's history of atavistic self-harm and our abusive relationship with the biology of the ecosystem of the world, as well as the politics of health and the body in the age of COVID, especially as world leaders contract the illness. FEATURED MUSIC: Cryptae - "Cryptic Passage", Enslaved - "Urjotun"