Bad Books for Bad People

The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison is considered to be a classic of the fantasy genre, rediscovered during the 1960s as the canon of modern fantasy was developed in a post-Tolkien world. Drawing its influences from classic epics of the Nordic, Celtic, and Greek cultures, the novel tracks the culture clash between the noble and straight-dealing denizens of Demonland and their treacherous enemies in...

Caitlin R. Kiernan's  Black Helicopters  is an atmospheric, ultra-dark fantasy novella that manages to do modern-day Lovecraftiana oh-so-right. Creepy twins, cosmic horror, and shadowy conspiracies combine to create a mind-bending reading experience. Is the best Lovecraftiana the stuff that strays furthest from the mythos? Why were conspiracy theories so awesome in the 1990s? How can a book that d...

For better or for worse, 2018 is one for the history books. Jack and Kate take some time to recommend some of media they enjoyed during the year that hasn't been discussed on the podcast. 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 2018. Your hosts go down pop...

During his lifetime, Jim Thompson's masterful novels of crime, obsession, and dark Americana were published as pulp novels. Intervening years have seen a reassessment of his work, with Stephen King singing his praises and cultural historian Geoffrey O'Brien dubbing him "The Dimestore Dostoyevsky."  A Swell-Looking Babe  finds Thompson at his sharpest, weaving a taut tale of a bellboy who finds him...

Jack and Kate go off-mission for this very special episode in which they work through their feelings about the Luca Guadagnino-helmed  Suspiria remake. Risk the boop of death and join your hosts on this emotionally-fraught journey. Be warned that SPOILERS ABOUND! Did the world require a nearly-three-hour-long, beige remake of Dario Argento's hyper-saturated psychedelic fairy tale? How many Tildas...

Jack and Kate dive right into the deep end of the Guy N. Smith Crabsiverse with book six in the cult (?) horror (?) series,  Crabs: The Human Sacrifice , a book that combines killer crustaceans, ecoterrorism, and BDSM into a particularly grotesque gumbo. When Charles Manson-esque cult leader Pete Merrick decides to sacrifice people in order to save giant crabs from the cancer that threatens to des...

Jack and Kate celebrate the Halloween season with a visit to R.L. Stine's fictional town of Shadyside, a suburban hamlet with more than its fair share or spooky teen-centric violence. For their first venture onto Fear Street, your hosts read and dissect  The Wrong Number and  The Halloween Party . Surprisingly, the books contain many of the perennial BBfBP favorite themes along with some insight i...

Katie Skelly's graphic novel  My Pretty Vampire blends an array of 60s and 70s references to create a brightly-colored, deceptively sweet-looking comic that explores repressed desires, poisonous relationships, and vampiric murder. Jack and Kate take a pop art journey into the dark corners of the human psyche, taking some side trips into horror conventions, vintage TV, and the films of Jess Franco...

William S. Burroughs'  The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead is a psychedelic, stylized journey through a near-future world where roving gangs of gay youth are on a mission to destroy Western civilization. The experience of reading the book is something like watching  Dr. Strangelove on one screen,  Apocalypse Now on a second screen, and having both feeds interrupted by explicit gay erotica. Join Jack...

At the time when they were published, Seabury Quinn's stories for Weird Tales were among the publication's most popular titles, but today, his name has been eclipsed by his contemporaries H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. In this episode, Kate and Jack explore Quinn's work by discussing his tales of the extremely French occult detective Jules de Grandin . Is possession by the ghosts of evil kni...

In Richard Matheson's  Hell House , the ultra-haunted Belasco House is described as "the Mount Everest of Haunted Houses" and boy howdy, does it ever live up to that moniker. Matheson's horrifying shock-fest throws four unwitting paranormal investigators into the veritable mouth of Hell, subjecting them to all manner of psychological and physical torment in this most steroidal of ghost stories. Co...

Octave Mirbeau's 1899 novel  The Torture Garden is a notorious and extreme work of French decadence. The book pulls no punches in its discussion of political corruption, sexual deviancy, and body horror, maintaining its capacity to shock across the decades. Join Jack and Kate for a macabre journey from the cynical sewers of French politics to the blood-soaked abbatoirs of the Far East. Does using...

Cameron Pierce's 2009 novella  Ass Goblins of Auschwitz has a stand-out title even in the outrageous world of bizarro fiction, a subgenre of fantasy that uses that uses elements of absurdism, pop-cultural references, grotesquery, and over-the-top scatological imagery--often for the purpose of surreal satire . In this month's episode, Jack and Kate crack the covers of this notorious story and see i...

Anne Somerset's  The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide, and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV tells the all documented, all true story of a years-long scandal that rocked the court of the Sun King, leading to prominent members of the French court being accused of poisoning and black magic. Join Kate and Jack as they approach the true crime genre in their own trademark style (to whit: "Ol...

Jack and Kate are back from vacation! We're just about at the midway point of the year and your hosts are ready to take a look back at some of the things they've enjoyed during 2018 so far. 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 2017. Join us to hear abou...

Bringing the ennui of the Decadents to tried-and-true Gothic themes, Tanith Lee's  Dark Dance is a fascinating entry in the 90s horror novel canon. Heroine Rachaela drifts back and forth from her shoddy apartment to her dull retail job until the relatives of the father she never met lure her out to their rambling seaside mansion. Once there, she learns the secrets of the mysterious and sinister Sc...

Jack and Kate take a different approach in this mini episode by paying tribute to author, scholar, theater expert, and collector Mel Gordon. Mel's books had a huge impact on both of your hosts and they discuss his importance and the legacy he leaves us with. Kate talks about her personal encounters with Mel and Jack dives into where he fits within an academic context. How does one get cast in a Me...

L.P. Hartley's  Facial Justice depicts a post-nuclear dystopia in which absolute equality is enforced by rule of... well, not law, but supposedly benevolent edicts designed to protect citizens--or in the book's language, "patients and delinquents"--from themselves. In this world, anything that might inspire envy is corrected by the state, even if that means surgically altering a person's physical...

For this mini episode, Jack and Kate take a look at the "title track" from Angela Carter's famed short story collection,  The Bloody Chamber . This feminist reimagining of the Bluebeard story blends sensuous language, heady atmosphere, and clever inversions of typical fairy tale tropes.  What perils await young women as they venture into the wider world? How do fairy tales translate into the moder...

In  Creatures of Will and Temper , Molly Tanzer takes elements of Oscar Wilde's The   Picture of Dorian Gray   and crafts a story of romance, swordplay, and demonology. It's an ambitious premise that goes beyond simply gender-swapping its source material. Listen and find out what Jack, a Wilde scholar, and Kate, a reader with a deep fear of contemporary takes on fin de siecle themes, think about t...

In an effort to atone for the damage done during the Book Battle episode, Jack and Kate trade short story selections designed to delight one another. Do their efforts succeed? Kate assigns Jack "The Adventure of 'The Brain,'" a 1910 comedy tale by Bertram Atkey that finds a bumbling pickpocket tied up with a cult of phrenology-obsessed suffragettes. Read the story in Otto Penzler's anthology  The...

Ray Russell's  Incubus   has a place of pride even among the outrageous titles of the horror paperback boom of the 70s and 80s. Telling the story of a series of horrific rape-murders in a strangely New England-ish seaside town in California,  Incubus combines authorial style with an unflinchingly graphic storyline that combine to create a book unlike anything else Jack and Kate have encountered. I...

Jack and Kate take a look back at the year that was and discuss some of their top picks for 2017. 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 2017.  Listen and hear about fantastical bookstores, grisly land disputes, pop music about dark episodes in history, m...

The much beloved--and also frequently reviled--Dragonlance books are a series of Dungeons & Dragons tie-in novels written by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis. Combining the high fantasy of Tolkien with sword and sorcery elements from authors like Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock, these books served as the launchpad to a lifelong love of fantasy for many young readers. Jack is one such reader,...

Matthew G. Lewis's 1796 novel  The Monk  represents the first sordid blooming of the gothic horror novel. Rockstar Spanish monk Ambrosio faces an increasingly jaw-dropping series of temptations thanks to a novice monk who may not be what he seems, imperiling the virginal young Antonia in the bargain. But that's just the beginning! With more plot developments per scene than most soap operas, this i...