DEATH // SENTENCE

In this house... we read Free Indirect: The Novel in a Postfictional Age by Timothy Bewes with Jon Greenaway aka also known as TheLitCritGuy. What can a novel do? How can it 'think'? What does this all have to do with posting and low-budget Canadian analog horror? Music by BIG|BRAVE

We finally did it. We tackled 'the Ulysses of Science Fiction', all 600 pages of Samuel R. Delaney's magnum opus Dhalgren. We talk about race, sex, Deleuze, Doctor Who, and the bad compromises queer writers had to make in the seventies. Music by GEL

What will be your job in the Leftist Commune? M. E O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi have written the book of the evergreen Twitter question. and I'm only kind of joking. Everything for Everyone is a fictional oral history of post-revolutionary New York, taking the reader through how life could work without money, the government or even the family. Music by Fvnerals and Cremation Lily.

Dr. Eleanor Janega (also of the We're Not So Different podcast) joins us to discuss her book The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval On Women's Roles in Society. We discuss how Plato and Hippocrates ruined things for everyone, what the average person gets wrong about the Medieval period and what our boy Satan has to do with all of this. Music by Yokai & Kekht Ararkh and Grave Babies

Eden returns with another solo episode, this time diving into the New Weird inflected fantasy of K.J. Bishop's "The Etched City"! God-creators stalk the night, crocodiles prowl the river, gunslingers duel in the streets, and all the while the world unravels before our eyes. Just another day in Ashamoil! Music played: Agriculture - The Circle Chant https://agriculturemusic.bandcamp.com/track/the-circle-chant-3

This episode, Langdon reports on his adjusted power levels while Eden rambles about dying alone in space. Or perhaps building a flourishing community in space? Both? You'll see (it's the first one). Then, we discuss Stepan Chapman's The Troika, potentially one of the most (if not the most) whip-lashing, weird, and exquisitely written books we've covered. Join us as the souls of three poor people mix in purgatory, leading to revelations about fish, squids, brontosaurs, sentient jeeps, human extermination, sorcery, body horror, and more. Music played: Guillame David - Vanir's Legacy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSa-ngVZdXY

Tariq Goddard joins us to talk about his new book High John the Conqueror - part police procedural, part folk-horror fantasy. Tariq also happens to be the publisher of Repeater Books, the best leftist press in the entire world, so we have plenty to talk about, including cops, psychedelia, the South West of England and the state of publishing.

On this episode of Death // Sentence, Langdon and Eden kick things off by summoning the worst version of Eden possible - Conservative Eden! He rants on and on about the whiplash reaction to Sad Puppies and the inevitable, and awful, rise of identity politics focused SFF. Then, the two discuss Jeffrey Ford's The Physiognomy, a World Fantasy Award winning, weird-ass book about corrupted cities, immortality, heaven, time travel (possibly), neurosis, paranoia, fascism, and a protagonist who really, really sucks. No, really. He sucks. Book's great though! Music played: Reliqa - The Bearer of Bad News https://reliqa.bandcamp.com/track/the-bearer-of-bad-news-2 God Alone - Kung Fu Treachery https://godalone.bandcamp.com/track/kung-fu-treachery-2

NORMAL ISLAND RIGHT? Britain has been even more NORMAL than usual lately, so we invited Phil Burton-Cartledge on the show to talk about his book Falling Down: The Conservative Party and the Decline of Tory Britain. We cover the past, present and hopefully short future of the Tory Party, the hidden motivations of its leading figures and our shared love of White Zombie. Music by Ripped to Shreds and Lana Del Rabies.

Hark, wary traveler: Today, Langdon ventures out alone to feast, to hunt, to kill. Also they interview a returning Trevor from Putrescine and Ivan from Kosmogyr about their recent split LP DESOLATE TIDES. All being pretty bored of standard interview shapes and topics, the results are more a conversation than drilling into what inspired them to write sick riffs. (The inspiration is that riffs are very sick and it's cool to write sick riffs.) FEATURED MUSIC: Putrescine - "The Accursed" Kosmogyr - "Ring"