Words About Books

It's that time of year again, the time where we finally get to end BHBM. Thank God! Hey wait, wasn't this parking lot a lot better lit before? Who is that exceptionally hairy man over there and why is he advancing toward me very aggressively, with an H.P Lovecraft tome in his hand? Oh God! He's beating me! Somebody send help, oh, this hurts so  much. I'm currently in the proces...

Ben has spent the month of October doing a deep dive into literary horror fiction magazines. He presents his findings to a disinterested Nate. Featuring: Unnerving Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, Dark Magazine, and Boneyard Soup. Support the show Blue Sky - https://bsky.app/profile/wordsaboutbooks.bsky.social Discord - https://discord.gg/6BaNRtcP8C Threads - https://www.threads.net/@wordsaboutbooksp...

Ben insists that we return to the Dark Carnival for more faygo and youth-restoring carousel rides. Nate thinks it's a bad idea, but what does he know? He spent all last night murdering innocent balloons.  Support the show Blue Sky - https://bsky.app/profile/wordsaboutbooks.bsky.social Discord - https://discord.gg/6BaNRtcP8C Threads - https://www.threads.net/@wordsaboutbookspodcast Instagram -...

Ladies and Gentleman! Juggalo's and Juggalette's! It is October and The Dark Carnival has come to town. We have games. We have rides. Unconventionally, our main event is a podcast. And not just any podcast! A BOOK PODCAST! It is time to discuss Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.  Listen, if you dare, as our very own Illiterated Man locks intellectual horns with a creatu...

It's that time of the year again: time for Nate to be subjected to some horror stories that Ben picked out for an entire month! We start off Ben's Horror BS month with Uzumaki by Junji Ito, a story that Nate learns is nothing like Naruto Uzumaki. If you love cosmic horror mysteries where everybody is slowly going insane, this story is for you. Otherwise you'll be like Nate: "Sp...

The boys are back with more Dune content to burn Ben out and give Nate an absolute victory. This time we discuss the Dune Miniseries from 2000. We keep calling it the BBC Dune because Nate foolishly thought it was a BBC thing but everything looks like it's a Sci-Fi thing. Who know!? Or cares?! Let's talk about the miniseries and some of the things it does very right and some of the thing...

Nate gets his first taste of The Expanded Duniverse as we dive into House Atreides by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. This time, though, we did things a little differently and we decided to check out a graphic novel adaptation of the hit novel. We hoped some great art might distract us from the terrible writing. It didn't. Support the show Blue Sky - https://bsky.app/profile/wordsaboutbo...

Did you think we could cover Sandkings without talking about Game of Thrones for an hour? Of course we couldn't!  From the Words About Books editing room floor we're bringing you a special bonus episode. Everyone else has beat this dead horse, now it's our turn. Stick around to the end because Ben actually has a solid idea for how to end A Song of Ice and Fire. GRRM if you're l...

Ben and Nate are back to talk about Dune Messiah! The exciting conclusion to the book, but unfortunately not the Dune Series. Ben didn't write a script to keep us on task so Nate is here to entertain mostly himself and to annoy Ben nonstop. Occasionally we talk about Dune Messiah and whatever J-Rays are. Also there's a discussion about Joseph Stalin for some reason. Should be a blast! Su...

Words About Dune is back for a second year in a row! By popular demand the boys read the misunderstood sequel to Frank Herbert's original Dune book: Dune Messiah. We tackle and dissect a number of huge philosophical questions such as: Constitutions = bad?  Heroes = bad? If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, something something enlightenment? And the most important que...

Ben is joined by friend of the show Scott a.k.a. Pizza Snail to talk about mythology. Their conversation quickly branches into a multifaceted examination of religion, human nature, canonical texts, copyright law, and Rick Astley.  Prepare yourself, Dear Listener, to play a game of "Deep or Dumb" unlike any you've encountered before... Support the show Blue Sky - https://bsky.app/pro...

Nate has another video game book for Ben, just in time for Halo Infinite! This time we go back to the distant year of 2001, a month before Halo: Combat Evolved was set to change the video game landscape. That's right! Today Nate discusses Halo: The Fall of Reach. This is the definitive* story of The Master Chief's origin, in which he single-handedly saves Reach from being destroyed and t...

Imagine a world ravaged by plague. Ok, well, imagine a world ravaged by plague but this one has magic.  Ben and Nate join the ranks of the Moonsworn to see if they can unravel the secret of the mysterious illness sweeping the content: The Wrack! Support the show Blue Sky - https://bsky.app/profile/wordsaboutbooks.bsky.social Discord - https://discord.gg/6BaNRtcP8C Threads - https://www.threads.net...

An alternate title for this episode was "Today's Dystopia is Tomorrow's Utopia." The boys dive back in to William Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy, and needless to say, it makes them think. It makes them think perhaps a little too hard. Join us for a discussion of a cyberpunk masterpiece that slowly turns into an impassioned plea for the institution of a global technocracy. Support...

It's always intimidating to cover an author who changed absolutely everything about literature. You can imagine how hard it was for the boys to even begin discussing a novel written by a titan of the craft like Dr. Cecil H. H. Mills. One shudders to imagine where society would be right now if Mills's magnum opus, Cerberus From On High, had not been destroyed in a tragic warehouse fire. W...

Ben & Nate recruit two other people to build castles and go to war with one another. Spoiler Alert: Nate wins by running away and letting them kill each other off. On an unrelated note the boys dive into Sandkings from a little known indie sci-fi writer named George R. R. Martin. Maybe you've heard of him? Support the show Blue Sky - https://bsky.app/profile/wordsaboutbooks.bsky.social Di...

The time has finally come to talk about some uncomfortable elephants in the room. In this episode we discuss the weird "romantic" choices that the book makes, And of course, we reach the exciting conclusion to this chapter in the Powder Mage Trilogy.  Support the show Blue Sky - https://bsky.app/profile/wordsaboutbooks.bsky.social Discord - https://discord.gg/6BaNRtcP8C Threads - https:/...

Ben and Nate continue their exploration of Brian McClellan's gunpowder infused epic. With the mystery of Kresimir revealed, and the Kez army on the borders of Adopest there's only one thing left for Tamas to do...go on the annual St. Adom's Day hunt! Will Tamas's hound catch the fox first? Will Mihali finish his roast in time?! Oh...and to a lesser extent...will Taniel be able...

It's the 4th of July. We find ourselves in America, a nation with little tolerance for kings. A masculine, manly, musk arises from our hosts as they slave over a hot grill. The smell of gunpowder lingers fresh in the air. There could be no better time or place to immerse one's self in Brian McClellan's Powder Mage trilogy. Journey with Ben and Nate into  a world not unlike our own,...

It's that time again! It's time for our boys to sit down in our comfy overstuffed chairs, light the fireplace in the study, put on our finest silk smoking jackets, pour a glass of whiskey and way too much ice, and grab our gentlemanly pipes. Nate's blows bubbles. Yes it's time for another evening with Ben and Nate discussing books that didn't make it into the podcast over...

Ben sits down with longtime friend of the show and Twitch Pinball Wizard, Pizza Snail. They tackle the the ever complicated topic of book discovery and book recommendations. Will these two elderly men be able to stay on topic? No. The answer is no. Our editor is furious.  Check out Pizza Snail on twitter https://twitter.com/1Pizza_Snail/ or on Twitch at https://twitch.tv/pizza_snail and check out...

Ben and Nate conclude their discussion about this shared universe science fiction anthology.  If you haven't already, please check out part 1 as we will be picking up right where we left off.  Support the show Blue Sky - https://bsky.app/profile/wordsaboutbooks.bsky.social Discord - https://discord.gg/6BaNRtcP8C Threads - https://www.threads.net/@wordsaboutbookspodcast Instagram - https://www...

Suggested to us by Jay Key, author of The Adventures of Duke LaGrange. Ben and Nate check out a new shared-universe short-story anthology. Beyond the Galaxy imagines a world where, in the year 2020, aliens came to Earth and harvested most of humanity to use as spaceship fuel. You know what? For all I know, that may have actually happened. I haven't left my house in 16 months.  Support the sho...

Nate is out on paternity leave and has left the show in the capable hands of Ben and Spooky Chey a.k.a. Ben's wife! They discuss one of Spooky Chey's favorite books. Unfortunately for Ben, it's a video game book. Will this be the one that changes his mind?  Support the show Blue Sky - https://bsky.app/profile/wordsaboutbooks.bsky.social Discord - https://discord.gg/6BaNRtcP8C Thread...

It's that time, once again. Ben was unable to decide on a novel for next month's Book Club. So once again, Nate has put together a list of 5 mystery books for Ben to choose from based solely on their covers. I don't know about you, but I've got a good feeling about this. Support the show Blue Sky - https://bsky.app/profile/wordsaboutbooks.bsky.social Discord - https://discord.g...