A Meal of Thorns

About A Meal of Thorns

A critical book club from the Ancillary Review of Books. Host Jake Casella Brookins invites writers, scholars, and critics to discuss thorny works of science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative genres.

Publisher

The Ancillary Review of Books

Category

arts · fiction

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

1 Jul 2024

Latest episode

5 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

60 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   5 Oct 2026

   A Meal of Thorns 60- 2026 UKLG List with Roseanna Pendlebury

   Only in its 5th year of operation, the Le Guin Fiction prize has already become something of a critical darling, with very interesting shortlists and winners that rarely overlap with other genre awards. Critic and reviewer Roseanna Pendlebury returns to the podcast to share opinions and insights on the nine books on this year’s list. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Roseanna Pendlebury Titles: The Ursula K. Le Guin Fiction Prize Shortlist, 2026 Audition by Pip Adam (Coffee House Press) Sunward by William Alexander (Saga Press) Call and Response by Christopher Caldwell (Neon Hemlock) Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur (Algonquin) The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes (Tor Books) Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman (Tor Books) Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta (DAW Books) One Message Remains by Premee Mohamed (Psychopomp) Slow Gods by Claire North (Orbit) Host:Jake Casella Brookins Music byGiselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork byRob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: C.J. Cherryh’s Gate of Ivrel Eastercon Toshiyuki Kusakihara’s Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave LA Worldcon Hugo Awards Clarke Awards Otherwise Awards Olga Ravn's The Employees (AMOT episode) Stanislaw Lem The End of Everything by M. John Harrison Iain M. Banks …as opposed to Banksy Niall Harrison Ann Leckie Paradox’s Stellaris Becky Chambers Martha Wells' Murderbot series “squeecore”, originally proposed on the Rite Gud podcast; elaborated a bit in Simon McNeil’s “Notes on Squeecore” Elizabeth Sandifer’s idea of "torwave" T. Kingfisher's Astarion (and bizarre discourse thereon) Phobos Sarah Palin Arturo Serrano Akwaeke Emezi's Freshwater Oliver Langmead AMOT’s First Episode with Dan Hartland China Miéville’s Bas-Lag trilogy Alex Pheby’s Cities of the Weft K.J. Bishops’s The Etched City Rebecca Roanhorse Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi (AMOT episode) Elwin Cotman’s work, eg Weird Black Girls Le Guin’s Changing Planes In Your Spare Time, a podcast where various people read entries from Le Guin’s blog Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves Premee Mohamed’s The Siege of Burning Grass Sarah Mueller's The Bone Orchards Ursula Whitcher's North Continent Ribbon Adrian Tchaikovsky's Tyrant Philosophers Le Guin’s Four/Five Ways to Forgiveness & The Word for World Is Forest A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine Gene Wolfe & Harlan Ellison Colson Whitehead & Marlon James Le Guin (and Virginia Woolf), “Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown” Frodo & Sam from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Roseanna & Casella’s AMOT discussion of Fellman’s Dead Collections Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest The Mulai by Munir Hachemi, translated by Julia Sanches Fitzcarraldo office shoot Nerds of a Feather Small Press Dispatch series at ARB Roseanna's blog & bluesky Roseanna & Dan Hartland discussing the Clarke shortlist at NoAF

2. 

   21 Sept 2026

   A Meal of Thorns 59- OF ONE BLOOD with Garrett Bridger Gimore

   Out of print for the greater part of the 20th century, Hopkins’ Of One Blood looks a lot like Afro-futurism, using ancient Ethiopian technology and the new science of mesmerism to think about racial politics. But it’s actually a bit stranger than that—Garret Bridger Gilmore returns to walk us through some of the novel’s contexts and theories. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Garret Bridger Gilmore Title: Of One Blood, or, The Hidden Self by Pauline E. Hopkins Host:Jake Casella Brookins Music byGiselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork byRob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carré The Fog by James Herbert The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe by D. G. Compton J.G. Ballard Japan Sinks by Sakyo Komatsu, translated by Michael Gallagher Plessy V. Ferguson Mesmerism, Vitalism, Magnetism H.G. Wells William James Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Martin Delany Black Panther Hazel V. Carby's edited collection of Hopkins' Work Deborah E. McDowell MIT Radium Age series Minister Faust George S. Schuyler's Black Empire Marcus Garvey H. Rider Haggard's She Geoffrey Sanborn's "The Pleasure of Its Company: Of One Blood and the Potentials of Plagiarism" Edward Bulwer-Lytton Our Stand On Zanzibar Episode W.E.B. DuBois & double consciousness Mississippi Quarterly article on race in the Southern Reach trilogy Cora Jean Moten’s “The Creeping Thing”

3. 

   7 Sept 2026

   A Meal of Thorns 58- LACON V

   Worldcon episode time: we’ve got interviews, we’ve got a coffee report, we’ve got an only-mildly chaotic group podcast attempt! Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guests & Collaborators: Thomas Ha Alex Kingsley Frauke Uhlenbruch Marshall Ryan Maresca & Cass Morris of Worldbuilding for Masochists Kevin Anderson & Lori Anderson of Hugo, Girl! John Coxon of Octothorpe Helen Montgomery Sam Kim of Kumquat Host: Jake Casella Brookins Music by Giselle Gabrielle Garcia Additional sounds & music: The Los Angeles Metro “Surf Shimmy” by Kevin Macleod “Through the Woods We Ran” by Vindsvept And the cool theremin sounds Kevin made for Hugo, Girl! Artwork by Rob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: Thomas Ha’s Uncertain Sons The Best of Jeffrey Ford and Pandemonium Waltz Steve Rasnic Tem & Brian Evenson Michel Siffre, French cave-and-sleep explorer J.S. Fields Zoe Franznick DePaul Pop Culture Conference Sabrina Mittermeier: The Routledge Handbook of Star Trek and Fighting For The Future Alien vs. Predator, Hellraiser, Dogma The Bible in Motion, edited by Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch Memory Alpha Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park Chuck, Earth: Final Conflict, Scavengers Reign, Battleship The Speculative Literature Foundation and their Deep Dish reading series HWA (Horror Writers Association) Playground Chicago Strong Branch SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association) Goblin Market Mary Robinette Kowal, Curtis Chen Alexy on Bluesky & Instagram Space Wizard publishing Loquat coffee Artist Devon Sinead Arboretum and Botanical Garden at Cal State Fullerton E.G. Condé Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman Uketsu’s Strange Houses, Strange Pictures,Strange Buildings, translated by Jim Rion Jo Walton Lightspeed and Reactor Alasdair Stuart & Marguerite Kenner (of projects like The Full Lid and Escape Artists) Liza Groen Trombi of Locus Magazine Cube Gene Wolfe The Prestige by Christopher Priest The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov Green Marsby Kim Stanley Robinson Widow’s Bay Fonda Lee, Shannon Chakraborty, Gabriella Buba SFF Addicts Robert Shearman’s Tiny Deaths, Ian Mond’s pick for a recent episode Nerds of a Feather

Who has been a guest on A Meal of Thorns

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Arkady Martine
• André M Carrington
• Roseanna Pendlebury

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

18 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

29 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 58 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

81

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

85

Contact A Meal of Thorns

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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