This is the “show notes” section for the podcast Genre Stop! The goal of the show note is to provide a concise textual description of the audio content of the attached podcast, as podcasts are an aural medium and many of the devices on which humans listen to podcasts do not have a feature by which podcast previews may be spoken aloud through an automated voice, even though (and this is important) the device does allow for the conveyance of sound (such as when someone plays a podcast, for instance). Show notes therefore need to be written down. Maybe someday, some wondrous far-off future day, there will exist a means by which podcast show notes can be just as audible as the podcast they are describing. And on that wonderful day, my great grand-daughter will dismount her trusty Hoversteed, call up the podcast app wired into her retina (and slightly visible to any curious bystander or time-traveling ancestor) as a nearly translucent milky presence flattened across her iris, and peruse the latest offerings. Say one tickles her fancy. Say it’s called “Your Daily Blorpball Update!” Well, she can just thoughtselect “Show Notes” at that moment and, as she’s walking into the Blorpball Arena, you better fucking believe it that her SecondMe implant will speak those notes to her.

This, however, is not that day.

That was an exact copy of the show notes for our last episode. Show notes are hard. They can often take upwards of 30 minutes to write. And those are thirty sweet, sweet minutes I might have otherwise spent not writing. ‘Not writing’ is an activity I enjoy. Plus, I assume they go unread. Or, maybe not. Tell you what, if you’ve read this far, have noticed my show note plagiarism, and would like some new ones from here on out, let us know. Toss up a twit or comment and they’ll be back. It’ll be a Christmas miracle.

[audio https://s3.amazonaws.com/genrestop/Episode+16_+%27Lagoon%27+by+Nnedi+Okorafor.mp3]

Hello.

This is the “show notes” section for the podcast Genre Stop! The goal of the show note is to provide a concise textual description of the audio content of the attached podcast, as podcasts are an aural medium and many of the devices on which humans listen to podcasts do not have a feature by which podcast previews may be spoken aloud through an automated voice, even though (and this is important) the device does allow for the conveyance of sound (such as when someone plays a podcast, for instance). Show notes therefore need to be written down. Maybe someday, some wondrous far-off future day, there will exist a means by which podcast show notes can be just as audible as the podcast they are describing. And on that wonderful day, my great grand-daughter will dismount her trusty Hoversteed, call up the podcast app wired into her retina (and slightly visible to any curious bystander or time-traveling ancestor) as a nearly translucent milky presence flattened across her iris, and peruse the latest offerings. Say one tickles her fancy. Say it’s called “Your Daily Blorpball Update!” Well, she can just thoughtselect “Show Notes” at that moment and, as she’s walking into the Blorpball Arena, you better fucking believe it that her SecondMe implant will speak those notes to her.

This, however, is not that day.

Stick around for Genre Stop!’s fifteenth episode, as Bri and Scott discuss Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. Along the way, Bri abandons Natalie Portman at a Wal-Mart, they debate the merit of dream sequences, and Scott shields himself from the white hot heat radiating outwards from Bri’s undying loveflame for the novel.

[audio https://s3.amazonaws.com/genrestop/Episode+15_+%27American+Gods%27+by+Neil+Gaiman.mp3]

I never could sleep growing up. A lot can go through a kid’s mind laying there, waiting for papa to drag his bum foot across my dirty bedroom floor. Mama’d wasn’t much of a cleaner. Two years a coat-check girl on Music Row and you couldn’t convince her she wudn’t Loretta Lynn. Papa’s plant wasn’t doing so good regardless. Jim’d been laid off. Aunt Karen had moved on. And Uncle Billy only really had a job on account of losing two fingers on the line twenty years before. He hadn’t raised much of a fuss about it then and they made good on it by finding room for him now in return. Wasn’t much of a raw deal, the more ya set to think on it. Hell, I reckon dozens of boys woulda taken that trade in a blink.

Anyway, when dad got home he’d read City of Bones to me.

On Genre Stop!’s fourteenth episode, Bri and Scott revisit Cassandra Clare’s 2007 urban fantasy. Along the way, they discuss age-appropriate club drugs, invisible European countries, and the correct number of sequels.

[audio https://s3.amazonaws.com/genrestop/Episode+14_+%27City+of+Bones%27+by+Cassandra+Clare.mp3]

Ah, who doesn’t love camping? The smell of the grass. Relaxing with friends. Eating sunflower seeds and cotton candy. Watching your favorite player hit a home run. Driving home in your car after the end of the baseball game.

Oh, wait. That’s baseball.

Tune in for Genre Stop!’s long-awaited thirteenth episode, as Bri and Scott pop an epic Mythago Wood for Robert Holdstock’s 1984 novel. Along the way, they debate the sexuality of dead actors, clear markers of genre writing, and Britain, pedophile incubator.

[audio https://s3.amazonaws.com/genrestop/Episode+13_+%27Mythago+Wood%27+by+Robert+Holdstock.mp3]

Ted was going to end it all. He took $400 out of an ATM and started walking toward the gorge. He passed a video store on the way. He realized that he hadn’t seen Tank Girl in a couple decades. They had a copy. On the way home he bought an old VHS player from Jerome for 45 bucks and a pair of broken-in penny loafers. They were just what Jerome needed. They sat down and watched Tank Girl.

[audio https://s3.amazonaws.com/genrestop/Episode+12_+%27Dawn%27+by+Octavia+Butler.mp3]

This is a true story. In the ‘20’s I ran rum for some unsavory characters. I rode a bit too high on what Abigail Adams dubbed the ‘petrol pony.’ Fast cars. Fast girls. Fast times. Turns out, I’d borrowed money from the wrong cat. Al Capone! Uh-oh. One day, he shows up at Ma’s still, eyes all aflame. I tell him I ain’t got his money. He takes out his piece and he shoots me. He makes off on his bicycle before Ma can get at him. Luckily, I’d been carrying a copy of Kate Elliott’s Cold Magic in my breast pocket. It stopped the bullet and saved my life. I gave up ‘haulin’ hooch’ (as Shelley called it) that very day.

…

Guess what? Nothing in that previous story was actually true. It was an example of something humans call ‘alternate history.’ Alternate histories are stories about the Nazis winning the war. They can also be about any other thing in history being different than it was.

And Cold Magic itself, our book for the eleventh episode of Genre Stop!, just so happens to be one of these stories. Stick around, as Bri and Scott discuss ways not to let readers know about your character’s big breasts, various skimming strategies, and Scott’s suspect secondary world sexual ethics.

[audio https://s3.amazonaws.com/genrestop/Episode+11_+%27Cold+Magic%27+by+Kate+Elliott.mp3]

Nothing like a good human v. nature novel to get the blood flowin.’ And, oh-wee boy, have we got a good one for you in Andy Weir’s debut novel! He starts from a simple premise: how long could you survive, stranded in a marsh? If you’re like me, man, not very long!

I mean, I don’t think I could. What are marshes? I guess it’s not exactly a swamp. Or is it? Either way, no one’s gonna do better than the dude in our book! He survives for a really long time!

On Genre Stop!’s tenth episode, Bri, Scott, and extra-special guest host Christina Jensen discuss Weir’s 2011 blockbuster, The Marshian. Along the way, they touch on Bri’s veiled obsession with The Edge, Scott’s continuing Jane Austen ignorance, and Christina’s teenaged encounter with that ceaseless Cerberus of male sci-fi fandom: chauvinism, condescension, and sexist hiring practices.

[audio https://s3.amazonaws.com/genrestop/Episdoe+10_+%27The+Martian%27+by+Andy+Weir.mp3]

We needed something special this week. Not just your run-of-the-mill epic, with the same bland political intrigue, the same conniving highborn jetsetters, and the same Clausewitzian martial maneuvering. Something special.

What we needed was a run-of-the-mill epic, with the same bland political intrigue, the same conniving highborn jetsetters, and the same Clausewitzian martial maneuvering that was also very very short.

Stay tuned for the ninth episode of Genre Stop!, in which Bri and Scott discuss all those things K.J. Parker’s Purple and Black has going for it beyond its 120 pages. Along the way, Bri invents a Jane Austen book, Scott solves morality, and they both conveniently look past Bri’s consistent ableism.

[audio https://s3.amazonaws.com/genrestop/Episode+9_+%27Purple+and+Black%27+by+K.J.+Parker.mp3]

An energetic youth finds himself in a new home. His old family, it seems, does not want him. No matter—there are new and exciting animals to play with here! Uh-oh, why does my dad keep leaving me? Looks like I’ll have to gather up my furry crew to go and find out. Who knows what perils await over the mountains!

Now, that synopsis describes both Homeward Bound and The Assassin’s Apprentice, our book for this week. The latter has only slightly fewer dog scenes.

In this week’s Genre Stop!, Bri and Scott trawl through 500 pages of canine-based magic systems. Along the way, they discuss Bri’s thinly veiled desire for an abusive mentor, the lyrics of “No Scrubs,” and the interminability of fantasy Bildungsromane.

[audio https://s3.amazonaws.com/genrestop/Episode+8_+%27The+Assassin%27s+Aprentice%27+by+Robin+Hobb.mp3]

What has numerous squid-like appendages, a blind devotion to satiating its evolutionary needs, and negligible levels of sentience?

If you said Stephen Markley, Genre Stop!’s first-ever guest host, you’re right!

We also would have accepted ‘that strange alien antagonist in Peter Watts’s Blindsight,’ the book at the center of the newest episode. Oh well. Join Bri, Scott, and Stephen as they debate the literary function of the T junction, the mental health of torturers, and the role of honeycombs in othering aliens.

[audio https://s3.amazonaws.com/genrestop/Episode+7_+_Blindsight_+by+Peter+Watts.mp3]

What do scheming wizards, all-powerful rings, and a world populated by elves, hobbits, and trolls all have in common?

All of these words can describe The Lord of the Rings. We read a book about vampires called Agyar, though.

Tune in to this week’s Genre Stop!, as Bri and Scott tussle over a slim book that’s about either a suave lothario or a stone-cold undead killer. Along the way, they discuss the three tiers of vampire knowledge, Scott’s unhealthy fixation on early 90’s fashion, and Bri pretending not to know what Trueblood is.

[audio https://s3.amazonaws.com/genrestop/Episode+6_+%27Agyar%27+by+Steven+Brust.mp3]