DEATH // SENTENCE

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"

On our newest Death Sentence Solo Series, Eden (@tallesteden) discusses Andrew Krivak's THE BEAR, a heart-wrenching and powerful book that peers deeply into both a human and a naturalist terror. That of grief, of solitude, of love and of the natural world. He mentioned sobbing at the end of the book; prepare for a heavy and real one. FEATURED MUSIC: Amiensus - "A Convocation of Spirits"

On our newest Death Sentence Solo Series, Eden discusses Jeff Noon's series The Nyquist Mysteries. Jeff Noon is a remarkable figure in the field, sitting somewhere between Philip K Dick and Paul Auster; following that analogy, this series functions almost like Noon's own version of what The New York Trilogy by Auster might look like in the hands of a cerebral but still richly pulpy genre writer. FEATURED MUSIC: Xythlia - "Ablation of Subconscious"

Langdon and Eden tackle Becky Chambers' Hugo-nominated novella TO BE TAUGHT, IF FORTUNATE, a work which grapples with the holocratic and highly mediated communal/social side of science. Meanwhile, on the first half, they discuss two radically different images of the teenager: the Kenosha shooter and the girl who made a smart-than-she-got-credit TikTok about the philosophy of math. TRIGGER WARNING: suicide (0h21m - 0h22m). FEATURED MUSIC: Motorpsycho - "The All Is One", Ulver - "A Thousand Cuts"

A solo episode! Langdon launches a new sub-series working through analysis of all of Kazuo Ishiguro's body of work in chronological order. This time it's his debut, A PALE VIEW OF HILLS (1982), a novel exploring a Japanese woman's grief after losing her eldest daughter to suicide following a move to Britain and the confounding non-response of her youngest daughter who doesn't mourn her sister at all. FEATURED MUSIC: Unleash the Archers - "Legacy"

Langdon and Eden breakdown the glittering poetic beauty of Roger Zelazny's seminal science fiction novel LORD OF LIGHT. But first, we have to talk about shoes that look straight up like ribbed condoms as well as the VP pick for the 2020 election. Spoiler: Electoral leftism in the West is a near systemic impossibility and worth less time than the boots-on-the-ground activism happening all around us. Also, holy shit, those shoes look fucking terrible. FEATURED MUSIC: Primitive Man - "Foul", nug - "Night Shine"