Media Catch-Up - Books - Blasphemous Tomes

We’re back and we’re putting on our reading glasses. At least two of us are now old enough that we need them to make out anything smaller than a billboard. Even then, we’re still not old enough to have been around when one of the books we’re discussing was written. Really. Stop looking at us like that. Well, we assume you’re looking at us like that. Give us a moment to find our glasses.

Main Topic: Media Catch-Up – Books

Once again, we’re presenting one of our regular discussions about the media we’ve been consuming recently. This time, we’re talking about some of the books that have been planting ideas in our heads. Nasty ideas, mostly. They’re the best kind.

We are joined by a special guest — Emily Fricker, Paul’s daughter, who has recently completed a degree in English. In particular, she has been studying Old English, focusing on Beowulf, which turns out to be very handy given one of the books we’re discussing!

News

Full Fathom Five in Print

Paul’s scenario “Full Fathom Five” has gone electrum on DriveThruRPG! This means that he is now able to offer print-on-demand copies for those who want something more tangible than a PDF. In case you haven’t heard us mention the scenario before, this is a weird Call of Cthulhu scenario, set on board a whaling ship in the nineteenth century. There is plenty of bloodshed, and not just of the cetacean variety.

The Blasphemous Tome Issue 7

Issue 7 of The Blasphemous Tome will be creeping your way before the end of June. It features a brand new Call of Cthulhu scenario, licensed by Chaosium, written by our very own Matt Sanderson. This time, we talk about some of the wonderful submissions from our equally wonderful listeners. Everyone backing us on Patreon will receive a Tome. Please see our Patreon page for more details.

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5 comments on “Media Catch-Up – Books”

Anthony May 25, 2021

Good friends,

What fun to hear Emily speaking of Beowulf on the show. Although the Good Friends podcast is my primary focus these days, my PhD is in Old English, Norse, and Latin, and Beowulf in OE has been a huge part of my life. Kudos to her for finishing a difficult degree. She described the prosody better than I could!

Anthony Adams

PS: I don’t think these pages are read anymore, but it’s the only way I have to communicate with you. Cheers!

Scott Dorward Jun 6, 2021
We stopped getting alerts from the site for some 18 months and didn’t realise people were still commenting. Sorry about that!
Not only did Emily have a lot of insight into the story we never would have managed on our own but she also proved far easier to edit than any of us. The sections of the recording where she’s speaking aren’t the usual frenzy of little edits it normally takes to make an episode listenable. We should just pass the podcast over to her!
I shall pass your comment on to Emily via Paul.
Reply

Evan Dorkin Jun 6, 2021

I don’t know if anyone reads these comments, either, but I will say, anyway, that I really liked The Only Good Indians but would have preferred far, far less basketball. Jones tends to dig into gritty details of certain things to the point where it descriptions of things are nearly incomprehensible to lay persons like myself. I know nothing about motorcycle repair jargon or basketball technique jargon. It’s no big deal except when I literally can’t follow an action or a scene clearly.

Scott Dorward Jun 6, 2021
We stopped getting alerts from the site for some 18 months and didn’t realise people were still commenting. Sorry about that!
My reaction to the basketball scenes surprised me. While I have absolutely no interest in any spectator sports, something about the way they were written drew me in. That last scene in particular really felt like a myth being born. Somehow, that moved me past the jargon and my normal antipathy towards all things sporty.
Reply
- Evan Dorkin Jul 13, 2021
  Yeah, I really liked the myth creation, just not entirely sold on how it was laid out. A LOT of gut-wrenching, horrible shit had just gone down, and now we’re shifting to a basketball game with evil and a character we haven’t spent a ton of time with — just seemed off to me in places, especially where the jargon had me utterly lost. Exciting and confusing like a stylized Shonen Jump fight scene. I think I’m following what’s going on here and there, at least I know I’ll know the outcome when one player is still standing.
  There is a wonderfully fucked-up movie called The Laughing Dead (1990) that has a similar, if utterly ridiculous basketball-as-combat scene — and it even has mythic (Mayan) overtones — maybe that memory didn’t help things for me. Other than minor quibbles that was really the only place where I felt knocked out of the book a little.
  Reply

Anthony May 25, 2021
Good friends,
What fun to hear Emily speaking of Beowulf on the show. Although the Good Friends podcast is my primary focus these days, my PhD is in Old English, Norse, and Latin, and Beowulf in OE has been a huge part of my life. Kudos to her for finishing a difficult degree. She described the prosody better than I could!
Anthony Adams
PS: I don’t think these pages are read anymore, but it’s the only way I have to communicate with you. Cheers!
- Scott Dorward Jun 6, 2021
  We stopped getting alerts from the site for some 18 months and didn’t realise people were still commenting. Sorry about that!
  Not only did Emily have a lot of insight into the story we never would have managed on our own but she also proved far easier to edit than any of us. The sections of the recording where she’s speaking aren’t the usual frenzy of little edits it normally takes to make an episode listenable. We should just pass the podcast over to her!
  I shall pass your comment on to Emily via Paul.
Evan Dorkin Jun 6, 2021
I don’t know if anyone reads these comments, either, but I will say, anyway, that I really liked The Only Good Indians but would have preferred far, far less basketball. Jones tends to dig into gritty details of certain things to the point where it descriptions of things are nearly incomprehensible to lay persons like myself. I know nothing about motorcycle repair jargon or basketball technique jargon. It’s no big deal except when I literally can’t follow an action or a scene clearly.
- Scott Dorward Jun 6, 2021
  We stopped getting alerts from the site for some 18 months and didn’t realise people were still commenting. Sorry about that!
  My reaction to the basketball scenes surprised me. While I have absolutely no interest in any spectator sports, something about the way they were written drew me in. That last scene in particular really felt like a myth being born. Somehow, that moved me past the jargon and my normal antipathy towards all things sporty.
  - Evan Dorkin Jul 13, 2021
    Yeah, I really liked the myth creation, just not entirely sold on how it was laid out. A LOT of gut-wrenching, horrible shit had just gone down, and now we’re shifting to a basketball game with evil and a character we haven’t spent a ton of time with — just seemed off to me in places, especially where the jargon had me utterly lost. Exciting and confusing like a stylized Shonen Jump fight scene. I think I’m following what’s going on here and there, at least I know I’ll know the outcome when one player is still standing.
    There is a wonderfully fucked-up movie called The Laughing Dead (1990) that has a similar, if utterly ridiculous basketball-as-combat scene — and it even has mythic (Mayan) overtones — maybe that memory didn’t help things for me. Other than minor quibbles that was really the only place where I felt knocked out of the book a little.