S&L Podcast - #469 - Venomous Breaded Hairtail Sucker
/Veronica has been in Canada for a year, and the best book in Canada is about Marie Antoinette. Tom ate some breaded hairtail and is excited about Gail Carriger's K-pop post. Plus, we announce the September book and give a few non-spoilery thoughts about Ninth House.
WHAT ARE WE NOMMING?
Tom: Breaded hairtail and brown rice
Veronica: Fresh Blackberry Bramble
QUICK BURNS
KitsuneHeart. The Hugo voter's packet is out. Supposedly.
Jan: From The Guardian: The winner of the Arthur C Clarke award for science fiction is "Venomous Lumpsucker" by Ned Beauman.
John: The writers strike claims a victim. :-( The second season of The Peripheral starring Chloë Grace Moretz was picked up for a second series by Amazon but looks to be cancelled.
Christos: Brandon Sanderson is letting other authors write novels taking place in his Cosmere universe. The first writer to take up this task is Dan Wells which makes me very excited because I loved his novel "I am not a Serial Killer and the sequels". Recently they did a podcast together discussing the Dan Wells novel, he said this will introduce a new planet and a new horse like race
Mark: from Gail Carriger 10 Great Kpop Singers & Why They’re Inspiring
BARE YOUR SWORD
terpkristin: Avgolemono soup is not typically heavy and with the lemon, can be very bright. I love it any time of year.
Ruth: To answer V’s question, I’d say that the ur-text of dark academia is The Secret History by Donna Tartt. For those unfamiliar with this book, it’s a thriller, published in 1992 and set at an exclusive New England liberal arts college. The plot and themes are a bit like The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, with a posh academic setting.
The Harry Potter books (and movies) really helped to popularise the dark academia vibe and general aesthetic, although the actual stories are a bit more Chosen One! Prophecy! Power of Friendship! than the whole privilege-hungry-morally-compromised-covering-up-murder thriller thing The Secret History has going on.
Another psychological thriller with a dark academia vibe is Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris, this one set at a British grammar school.
It’s hard to pin down exactly what makes a book “dark academia” other than general vibes but I’d say that The Magicians by Lev Grossman definitely qualifies. It has that whole secretive world/arcane college thing going on, with some people given the keys to the kingdom and others left outside in the mundane world.
Some more recent books that I think qualify as dark academia include: A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik, The Betrayals by Bridget Collins, Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang as previously mentioned, and probably a bunch of others that I can’t think of right now. One I have sitting on my TBR shelf is Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs, although I obviously haven’t read it yet so I can’t vouch for it.
Perhaps others have some suggestions too? I love dark academia so I’m always happy to hear about more books!"
—-
Paul
Thank you Tom for reading my very bad joke which I stole from a very bad Canadian comedy show from the 90s. Thank you Veronica for not calling BS on the lead football right away. I love telling absurd lies to Americans to see what I can get away with. I can't help it. I once convinced someone in Kansas that global warming was causing a housing crisis because our igloos were melting.
Also thank you to everyone (especially the Ruths) for this thread. I laughed to tears listening to the podcast, and now laughed to tears again.
Also, I thought only one of the Ruths was British and that I got you two confused, so thanks for the clarification!
—-
Ruth (tilltab) Ashworth
Haha! Not only are we both Brits, but we live near enough now for the odd meet up now and then, which is always a treat. :D
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