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Schedule Update
We have decided on our next episode of Novel Ideas! We will be reading three short stories from the Sherlock Holmes canon, written by Arthur Conan Doyle. The three we have chosen are: Scandal in Bohemia, The Adventure of the Speckled Band, and The Final Problem. We’re hoping to record next week and have the episode posted some time during the week of April 13.
Rumblings and Hearsay
The Novel Ideas production crew is having discussions about bringing some new things online and possibly “relaunching” the site, which has been dormant for a while. For the exact timing of “a while,” go check the timestamps yourself, we’d prefer to acknowledge a more general form of shame. I’m denying the rumors of our deaths and confirming any hearsay. About anything. You know it’s true because you read it on the internet. Be seeing you soon!
Love,
Novel Ideas Staff (Ok, Ben and Gabs)
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 Poddercast Extravaganza
An announcement for those of you who don’t listen to every episode because you’re avoiding spoilers, books outside your genre, us, etc… July 2013 is going to be our Harry Potter fanboy/girl extreme geekout nerdgasm theater month (still working on an official title). The plan is this: We’re going to read all seven Harry Potter books and post episodes as we finish the books, posting just over our usual one per week episode rate. We know that a lot of our friends and listeners (let’s be honest, basically the same group of people) are big fans of that series, so we’re also looking for guests for these shows.
Here’s what you DON’T have to do.
Be some kind of an expert on literature, magic, publishing, or anything in between. I mean, come one, have you actually listened to us?
Here’s what you DO have to do.
If you want to be a guest for a particular book, contact us through our website, e-mail, twitter, or phone (if you have those numbers already, I’m not posting them here). There’s not necessarily a per episode limit, but we’ve already finished the first book, so letting us know sooner rather than later is a good idea.
Also, please read (or more likely, re-read) the book you want to discuss with us. We know you’ve read them a hundred times already. Refresh your memory. We only discuss the current book in a series, not the series as a whole.
To the last point, I lied a little bit. We are going to discuss the series as a whole after we post the seventh episode. We’re going to do a bonus whole series breakdown as an eighth episode where everything is up for grabs, including movies, fandom, and any other related material. The overview episode will be a roundtable discussion with as many people as can make it.
If you want to participate in this final episode, we ask that you have either: 1) Read the whole series at least twice, or 2) Have read it for the first time recently, let’s say having finished it in the last six months. Ish.
So that’s the plan. Please join us for some Harry Potter vanity fan project fun. And please feel free to participate in recording episodes, especially the finale. We hope to hear from you soon!
Watership Down
We apologize again for taking a week off, but we have returned with Watership Down by Richard Adams, or as he is affectionately known by no one, Dickie. You’ve probably heard of this book and know kind of vaguely that it has something to do with rabbits. I think that’s about as much explanation as it needs. If you crave more, download this week’s episode where we will discuss the parallels with ancient Rome, the lack of female rabbits, and the political implications of warren organization. We also tackle what a stoat is, what a sentence is, and what comic relief is. Actually, between us and Dickie, I’m not sure that we know what any of those three things are.
The music bump is “Watership Down,” a surprisingly catchy song by America, the band. (Not to be confused with the book or the country.)
36 – Watership Down – Insane Death Rabbit
To avoid skipping weeks unexpectedly, we are going to begin skipping weeks… expectedly. If that’s a thing. With longer titles, there will now be a two week delay between episodes instead of one week. We’ll let you know as we go along.
The Fellowship of the Ring
Welcome to Middle Earth (or possibly New Zealand), as we discuss The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien this week on Novel Ideas. This is an obscure fantasy tale with an even more obscure feature length movie that no one has seen. Also, the Peter Jackson movie that everyone in the world has seen. In this episode, we cover the big issues, such as: world building, the logical way to divide an epic story in three parts, and the lack of female characters. We also cover more philosophical questions, like whether elves bang, if Gandalf is shy, and Tom Bombadil’s ADHD. I also attempted a tweak with my audio processing, so if it sounds weird on your listening device of preference, please leave a comment.
The music bumps are from Howard Shore’s excellent score to the movie version of Fellowship, specifically the theme that probably comes to mind when you think of that soundtrack.
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