Author: Ben and Gabs Roman
Fahrenheit 451
Banned Book Month continues with a classic dystopian novel that taught me an important lesson, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. What I learned from this book is how to spell the word “Fahrenheit.” It’s a tough one, guys. In this episode we discuss Bradbury’s unique writing style, accurate futurism, the difficulty of determining cause and effect, and the origins of dystopian stories. We also talk about manic pixie dream girls, sage characters, the impossibility of being universally liked, and what plagues the youth of the future. Also, this is one of our more self-referential episodes. You don’t have to be familiar with our previous episodes and books to follow the conversation, but be prepared for references to: A Handmaid’s Tale, Divergent, Hunger Games, Brave New World, The Giver, Childhood’s End, The Road, and Harry Potter. And possibly a couple of others I forgot to write down.
The music bump is “The Cliffs of Dover” by Eric Johnson in reference to the poem “Dover Beach,” which plays a prominent role in the book. This selection narrowly edged out “House on Fire” by Kansas, but I decided to zag instead of zig.
Fahrenheit 451 – Dystopian Origins
Recommendations:
A well known book that offers an obvious theme and plenty to talk about, but written in a style that is rather difficult if you don’t enjoy artistic prose.
Gabs: 6/10 for importance as a classic, 2/10 for actual enjoyment.
Ben: She totally stole my bit. 7/10 for assigned reading, 3/10 for entertainment.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Bestseller Month concludes with… No, wait, I mean Banned Book Month begins with… Oh, right. BOTH of things happen this week on the Novel Ideas podcast with The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. This is a YA book that has been frequently banned or challenged due mostly to the content of the whole book. Holy smokes, there are some issues in this one. In this episode we cover: child molestation, autism, bad cycles, and teen sex. We also talk about Charlie’s similarity to Martians, pothead humor, essay writing, and the lack of sexual tension between step-siblings.
The music bump is “Asleep” by The Smiths. Read the book if you want to know why.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower – A Well Known Phenomenon
Recommendations:
Gabs – 7.5/10. An interesting read with a few minor flaws.
Ben – 9/10. Possibly my favorite podcast book of year 2.
World War Z
Welcome back to the zombie apocalypse. Or almost apocalypse. This week on Novel Ideas, we read World War Z by Max Brooks. This book is a little bit different from other books that we’ve read in that it doesn’t really have characters or a plot, but is instead written in the style of an oral history. Because of that, we changed our format slightly for this week’s episode. We talked about the movie, the breakdown of society, the nature of celebrity, and gender balance. We also discussed zombie tropes, the fact that dogs hate zombies, historical zombie fiction, and zombie war psychology. Basically, we discussed everything zombie related we could think of.
The music bump is “The Trooper” by Iron Maiden, used to bait zombies at the Battle of Hope.
Recommendations:
An interesting and compelling book about 80-90% of the time. It drags just a little at the end, but not enough to put a damper on the experience of reading it. The book includes some excellent world building in telling a well covered genre story in a different way.
Ben: 8.5/10
Gabs: 8/10
Inferno
The great Harry Poddercast Extravaganza continues with… Oh, it’s over? Right. In that case, Novel Ideas is back with a non-Potter podcast for the first time in several weeks with Inferno by Dan Brown, a thriller that involves Dante and lots of obscure art knowledge. This episode also launches a new theme month, Bestseller Month, where we examine books that have sold well and recently. We would like to offer a legitimate spoiler alert for this episode, as the book has several plot twists, and even we would be less interested in the story if we had known those twists in advance. If you’ve already read it, or aren’t planning on reading it soon, tune in (Like on a dial? Maybe I don’t understand the internet yet…) to hear us discuss the aforementioned plot twists, infodumps, overpopulation, and feminism. We also talk about unlikely character pairings, victorious villains, the existence of gay people, and the consequences of monologuing. In a very special turn, we also get to experience a couple of minutes of Gabs rage. Hooray!
The music bump is from Franz Liszt’s “Dante Symphony,” which is being performed during much of the climactic scene of this book.
Recommendations:
Gabs: 5/10 If you like thrillers, read it. If you like the stuff we like, skip it.
Ben: 4/10 Pretty dull for a thriller.
Plug Alert!
Check out Epic One, a collaborative fiction project involving Gabs Roman, half of Novel Ideas. The link will take you to the first chapter of an ongoing online e-book.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
The portion of the Harry Poddercast Extravaganza that involves specific volumes of the series draws to a close with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. In this episode, we discuss why anyone listening would need a spoiler alert, love, redemption, hubris, character flaws, and realism within a fantastical world. We also discuss Neville’s giant brass balls, love again, the Ron-Hermione shiptease, the stupidity of Death Eaters, and name issues. We’re not quite through yet, there will be one more massive episode where we sit around a table with some friends and break down the entire series. It has been recorded already, and it is exactly what we thought it was going to be. Long, mostly.
The music bump is a departure from the Potter related music of the previous six episodes, but is thematically appropriate. It is “Love Has the Power” by Toto, though I’m reasonably certain they weren’t referring to magic.
Recommendations:
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Episodes Page
The “Episodes” page has been revised! Formerly a quagmire of links that only made sense if you had access to Ben’s personal file storage, it is now a chronological listing of every episode we have recorded. Also included are all of Ben’s clever (a matter of opinion – Gabs) episode titles, which WordPress only sometimes sees fit to include with the link to the episode file. So… look for that.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Harry Poddercast Extravaganza continues with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling. I keep expecting someone else to pop in and write a guest novel, but so far, I have been wrong. Very, very wrong. However, Novel Ideas did have a special guest this week. Jessica joined us to talk about Dumbledore as a criminal profiler and Harry as Spiderman. We also talked about war politics, horcruxes, spoilers, and fandom’s misunderstanding of the word “slut.” Not to mention Slytherins who aren’t dicks, how to say “fuck you” politely, Dubledore and Gandalf’s budding friendship, and Draco… not being a dick? Next week, the Harry Poddercast Extravaganza comes to a close, but there’s still time to squeeze yourself into our roundtable wrap up discussion if you contact us immediately.
The music bump is the Potter Puppet Pals in “The Mysterious Ticking Noise.”
Recommendations:
Possibly the best book in the series! Though I can’t imagine that you would be listening to this episode without having read/listened to the previous five…
Novel Ideas 