Bad Books for Bad People

The Sound of His Horn is a 1952 speculative fantasy novel by Sarban (pen name of English diplomat John William Wall). British POW Alan Querdillon is catapulted through time after attempting to escape from the clutches of the Nazis. He finds himself in a future controlled by fascists, trapped in the holding of the larger-than-life Reichsforester Count von Hackelnberg and subject to unimaginable ter...

The Lustful Turk is an 1828 pornographic adventure that presents readers with a cornucopia of semi-consensual sexual scenarios, fully intended to be read in a one-handed manner. Written by an anonymous writer at a time when publishing and selling pornography came with the risk of stiff legal penalties, this bodice-ripper tracks the turgid horizontal career of Ali, the Dey of Algiers, who ravishes...

Jack and Kate look at what they've read and watched in the first half of 2020 and make some recommendations in the world of books and beyond. The rules of engagement are simple: the hosts each choose one movie, album, TV show, book and "wild card" from any category that was the best experience of its kind encountered during the first half of the year. Ranging from hideous cinematic abjection to mu...

Kai Ashante Wilson's 2015 novel The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps establishes a new and vibrant fantasy world that draws inspiration from African culture. This sword and sorcery tale depicts the journey of Demane, a gifted healer and fighter who hides numerous secrets, as he helps guard a caravan against enemies of the mortal and supernatural varieties. What are the similarities and differences to trad...

Welcome to the Valley of Plenty! In these green and gentle pastures, Jack explains the plots of stories from the Witcher series to Kate, who feels like she already completed her tour of duty in this particular fantasyland. In this bite-sized episode, Jack explains what he's learned about the world portrayed in Andrzej Sapkowski's short story collection The Sword of Destiny . Does Geralt of Rivia b...

Bram Stoker's iconic creation Dracula has been translated into numerous languages, but as it turns out, some of these translations are more like adaptations. One such adaptation is Iceland's Powers of Darkness  ( Makt Myrkranna ) by Valdimar Ásmundsson, originally published in serialized format in 1900 - 1901 in an Icelandic newspaper. The story introduces new characters, shifts the emphasis of th...

Charlaine Harris begins her blockbuster Southern Vampire Mysteries series with  Dead Until Dark , a psychic girl meets undead boy romance set against the backdrop of serial sex murders. Weird tonal shifts and wacky plot twists abound, but how will Jack and Kate fare in this urban crowd-pleasing fantasy climate? Does everyone love Sookie because of her telepathy, or because of her spectacular rack?...

Welcome to the Valley of Plenty! In these green and gentle pastures, Jack explains the plots of stories from the Witcher series to Kate, who feels like she already completed her tour of duty in this particular fantasyland. This bite-sized episode covers "The Bounds of Reason" from Andrzej Sapkowski's short story collection The Sword of Destiny .  This story was adapted as part of Netflix's  Witche...

In this mini-episode, Kate occult-splains the 1983 novel  Lammas Night by Katherine Kurtz to Jack. The book promises the tale of a coven of British witches that is all that stands between the UK and devastation at the hands of Hitler's black magicians. What it delivers is plentiful inter-coven politicking, intricate descriptions of British military dress, and in-depth descriptions of other people'...

Mephistophela   by Catulle Mendès (1889) is one of the key works of decadent literature, describing the various paving stones on one woman's descent into an erotic hellscape. Translated into English for the first time by Brian Stableford, the book's lush horrors are now accessible to a new audience. Jack and Kate tackle the lurid and tragic story of Baronne Sophor d'Hermelinge, lesbian seducer and...

Welcome to the Valley of Plenty! In these green and gentle pastures, Jack explains the plots of stories from the Witcher series to Kate, who feels like she already completed her tour of duty in this particular fantasyland. This bite-sized episode covers "A Grain of Truth" from Andrzej Sapkowski's short story collection The Last Wish .  Will this tale have the fairy tale flavors that your hosts are...

Before it was a hit video game series,  The Witcher was a series of novels by Andrej Sapkowski, the "Polish Tolkien." Geralt of Rivia is fast becoming one of the most recognizable modern fantasy heroes, a stoic combo of monster-puncher and irresistible ladies' man who travels the strife-torn landscape in search of dark creatures to battle. Join Jack and Kate as they explore the first full-length n...

Weird fiction luminary Laird Barron ventures into red-blooded, two-fisted territory in his 2018 novel Blood Standard . The book follows wise-cracking mafia enforcer Isaiah Coleridge as he navigates Upstate New York's organized crime world in search of a missing teen. Themed gangs, knuckle-busting dust-ups, and unexpected romance are just part of what he encounters in his unlikely hero's journey. K...

Jack and Kate look at what they've read and watched in the second half of 2019 and make some recommendations in the world of books and beyond. The rules of engagement are simple: the hosts each choose one movie, album, TV show, book and "wild card" from any category that was the best experience of its kind encountered during the last half of the year that was. Ranging from comfort food comedy to c...

In the 2019 biography I Put a Spell on You: The Bizarre Life of Screamin' Jay Hawkins , journalist Steve Bergsman tracks the life of the noted shock rocker including his rise-and-fall-and-rise to fame, run-ins with the law, and rocky romantic life. Kate and Jack discuss the book as it relates to the biography as a literary form, the perils of the Big Rock Bio, and the challenges and responsibiliti...

John Norman's long-running Gor series has a reputation that precedes it. Set on a brutal counter-Earth where beautiful women long to be enslaved by the strong men who maintain nature's moral balance, it would seem that the books have all the trappings of spicy, guilty pleasure reading. Jack and Kate dive into the sixth title, Raiders of Gor , alleged to be the last "good" entry in the thirty-five...

Fritz Leiber is probably best known to fantasy fans as the creator of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, but he was also an accomplished author across a myriad of pulp formats. In his 1943 novel  Conjure Wife , he creates a world that is only modern on its surface, where behind every great academic is an equally great witch. When sociologist Norman Saylor discovers his wife's occult activities, he convin...

Before the anime, before the manga, there was the Hideyuki Kikuchi's Vampire Hunter D light novel series. Don't be fooled by that nomenclature, though: these books are chock full of wackiness. Part sci-fi, part weird western, part dark fantasy, and part teen romance, the Vampire Hunter D books take a kitchen sink approach to their stories. Buckle in for a thrill-a-minute adventure set in the post-...

Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre composed the 32-novel saga of  Fantômas in the three years between 1911 and 1913. Over the course of the series, France's elusive master criminal commits a litany of heinous deeds that unfold at a baffling breakneck pace. The books are early examples of the crime procedural genre, putting significant narrative weight on forensic science, police methodology, and c...

Coldheart Canyon brings together two amazing tastes--horror icon Clive Barker and Hollywood decadence--and the results are... maybe not what one would expect. Set in the 21st Century Hollywood of blockbuster movies, big egos, and bland artifice, the novel tells the tale of fading megastar Todd Pickett who attempts to escape from recent trauma by moving into a mansion formerly owned by a glamorous...

Jack and Kate look at what they've been reading and watching so far in 2019 and make some recommendations in the world of books and beyond. The rules of engagement are simple: the hosts each choose one movie, album, TV show, book and "wild card" from any category that was the best experience of its kind encountered during the first half of 2019. Follow your hosts as they talk about gritty frontier...

The pulp paperback boom of the 70s and 80s delivered an occasional genre gem, and Ken Greenhall's  Childgrave is a prime example of a book whose back cover premise actually undersells its uncanny creep factor. Nominally the story of a photographer who is shocked when his camera captures the shapes of his young daughter's invisible friends, leading him to an isolated community in Upstate New York,...

Jack and Kate make a return trip into the realms of best selling author Anne Rice under the literary guise of A. N. Roquelaure. The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty is Rice's pseudonymous experiment to create a book that packed so many "hot scenes" into its pages that readers wouldn't need to bookmark the naughty bits. Loosely inspired by the fairy tale, the book finds our heroine swept away by a domin...

Pat Walsh's The Crowfield Curse and The Crowfield Demon are two novels for young readers that take us back to the Middle Ages for a tale of the mysterious supernatural circumstances surrounding a monk's abbey, the fey creatures nearby, and a young orphaned boy that the monks have taken on as a servant. Jack and Kate take a journey into a gentler variety of genre this month in an effort to understa...

The Humans , a 2015 comic by Keenan Marshall Keller and Tom Neely, finds a recipe for far-out action by combining grimy vintage biker pulp with  Planet of the Apes fantasy. Prepare yourself for drugged-out gladiator fights, raunchy ape sexytimes, and surprisingly deep commentary on PTSD. What is ape-world Vietnam like? How does this comic avoid the pitfalls of nostalgia? Can you name all the squar...