House of R(ecommends): If You Loved These Five Stories, Here's What to Try Next
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estimated savings of one plus cancellation, paid membership with connected payment accounts required. See Experian.com for details. This episode is brought to you by Alien Romulus, the scariest movie of the summer. Alien Romulus is now playing in theaters everywhere, including IMAX. This movie looks terrifying.

and I cannot wait to see it. Alien Romulus comes from Fede Alvarez, the director of intense horror movies like Evil Dead and Don't Breathe, and it is produced by the legendary Ridley Scott, the mastermind behind iconic films like Blade Runner and the original Alien. Can't wait for this one. Alien Romulus, rated R, now playing only in theaters. Get your tickets now.

And welcome into the Ringerverse here on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin, and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only back to King's Landing and Numenor and Coruscant and Hawkins and Talakon, but to so many new awaiting wonderlands. And of course, join us on the Ringer's Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom.

joining me today. Now that she's finished reminding Steve and Arjuna and me that whatever happens on today's pod, we made it. It's my house of our work title. Co-host Joanna Robinson. Fun fact though, Joanna Robinson can swim, so she's not being left behind on Arquina 5. No, no. No.

Oh, but we did make it to the end of the podcast slate for House of R and Ringerverse for 2022. We did, but let me make one other thing clear about this fellowship of the Ringerverse. If you or Steve or Arjuna or Jomie or Charles or Van or Ben or anyone else that has been on the podcast can't swim,

I will tow you to shore and we will get there eventually. No, no Kino's left behind on this ringer verse feed. You can't tell we're referencing Andor a lot because that's one of many things that we're going to talk about and revisit in order to then talk about other stories that we love today because we are here for a year end edition of House of Recommends. It's a recommendations pod, folks. But before we explain exactly how today's show is going to work,

A few programming reminders, as always. Yeah. You've noticed we're in the year end swing of things. The Midnight Boys have, by the time you're hearing this podcast, already published their highly anticipated, eagerly awaited Midnight Mulligans episode. It's right there on the feed for you to enjoy. Next week, the whole Ringerverse family

got together for the 2022 Versys Awards. Are you listening to this and thinking, wasn't there a 2022 Versys Awards in my feed in March? Don't worry about it. That was a look back mostly at 2021. Thank to the Oscars. What is the celebration of 2022? Exactly. It's a flat circle, I hear. That's what I hear. Yeah. We're in the era of time travel and multiverses. Absolutely. Absolutely.

So that will be coming next week and that will be the final ringer verse pod of the year. We will be back with you at the top of the year to kick things off in 2023. Joe, if people are wondering, how will I know when you all are back? How will I know what's coming in 2023? Yeah. How can our beloved listeners follow along? What a great question. I'm so glad you asked me. Um,

Listen, first and foremost, what I would recommend, and this is a recommendations podcast, but I would recommend... There you go. Follow the pod wherever you get your podcasts to subscribe, and then it'll just pop up and you'll know and you'll be there. So no sweat, okay? That's one way to do it. Another way, if you are more adventurous of spirit, fine. Follow us on social, wherever you want to be, like MasterCard, I suppose. And so, you know...

We're on Twitter. We're on Instagram. We're on TikTok. Jomie's just like popping out the content, the memes, everything that you could want. So follow along there. Also, I just want to say on a very personal to House of R note, we've still we're still getting emails, despite the fact that we're not like mailbagging episodes. And we got a very lovely portrait of Fiona Shaw and an eagle from someone the other day.

We're getting Apple content. We're getting all kinds of year-end thank yous from folks, which is really nice. So, you know, hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. If you see an oil portrait of an Andor actress and an animal somewhere in the wild, take a photo and send it to us. Thanks. If you're an artist, maybe paint one. Sure. Okay. It's time to explain today's podcast.

Today we are gathering here at the end, not of all things, but nearing the end of this year in podcasts for some Ring of Earths Recommends action, House of Recommends, where we will be offering recommendations for other shows, films, books, maybe albums, that you should try, that you should check out if you loved Ring

a handful of stories that came out in 2022. A classic, if you loved X, try Y show. Last year, some of you listening today may remember, our colleague and pal Zach Cram joined Ringiverse for...

This was in Loki season at the end of the Loki run. And Zach did a really fun, if you love Loki, check out these other multiverse and time travel books chat. It was a blast. We love a recommendations show. This year, we're looking at even more stories and even more types of media. And we won't be doing it alone. This is a podcast that celebrates fellowship. Today, five of our colleagues in nerddom

Five of our fellows in fandom will be joining us. Chris Ryan. A notorious fellow of fandom, Chris Ryan. Oh, a scholar of spycraft? Story? Scholar of spycraft. Love it. Yeah. See, we're amending in real time. This is all about discovery. Ben Lindbergh.

Kim Renfro, Dave Gonzalez, and of course, the aforementioned Zach Cram. Steve is with us. Arjuna is with us. It's going to be a party. Have you heard of us? For each of the five 2022 releases that we're going to use as prompts, as launching pads here, our guest...

We'll offer a recommendation based on something, anything that feels elemental to the experience of enjoying that thing this year that you might be able to find in another tale. Maybe it's the genre. Would you call it vibes? Yeah. This is a vibe. I would call it vibes. Yes. It's about the vibe. It's about the hang. And isn't it always, Joe? Maybe it's about just the vibe. Maybe it's about the streamer that something's on. Who knows? You can take this in any direction. That's part of the fun. Let's find out together.

What stories await? Folks, our first guest today has made his mind a sunless space. He shares his dreams with ghosts. He wakes up every day to an equation he wrote 15 years ago from which there's only one conclusion. It's time to record another episode of The Watch. But before he gets back to cranking...

beloved Talk the Thrones co-host Chris Ryan is back in the ringerverse to bask for one more moment in the brilliance of Andor. Chris, we missed you. Hello. How are you guys? It's good to see you again.

It's so nice to be back. I thought maybe we could do like a hard 45 on the Dutton family and just kind of check in, see how we're feeling there, and then we can get to Andor. Don't fucking tempt me. We had a good time. Promises, promises. That actually sounds great. We should do that. Pencil that in for next week, maybe. Just right in the middle of the holidays. CR, Captain Crank, pal. When it comes to spy thrillers,

You are the Luthan of this podcast network. You have sacrificed everything. You are the fearless leader. If somebody loved Andor as much as you did, as much as we all did, what would you recommend that they try?

I'm going to try and do my best Oprah, my favorite things voice right now. Okay. And there were, I was just almost overwhelmed by this assignment because there's a bunch of different TV, a bunch of different movies that I could recommend. But I know that this podcast is going up at the end of the week and I don't know about you, but there's nothing better than that kind of like Christmas to New Year's time where you're basically loathe to leave the house. What

What if I could just give you a good book recommendation? How about that? So I'd like to ask you too. And I'd like to ask our listeners, are you looking for a novel about a young man recruited for, and then thrown into the world of espionage on behalf of a nascent resistance to a fascistic power?

Would you like said guy to be seemingly ordinary but somehow preternaturally gifted at the art of spying? Would you like said spy to have an enigmatic spymaster with his own secrets? Would you like this story to span a decade and multiple romantic and exotic locations? And would you like the stakes to be nothing short of the fate of the world? I give you the 1988 novel Alan First's Night Soldier! Night Soldier!

You get a 460-page book, and you get a 460-page book. This was easily, honestly, when I was thinking about this, and then I picked this book up, so...

Alan First is just a guy from Long Island who has written over a dozen novels set in the era, basically right on the eve of World War II. And they're all about ordinary people, film producers. You know, this is just a young man living in a Bulgarian village. Characters from across Europe who get drawn into the world of spying on TV.

of the larger allied forces against Nazi Germany. And this book is literally Andor. Andor.

It is his first novel. It was written in 1988. And a lot of spy novels, a lot of mystery novelists, you'll see sometimes the novelist's first book will be like, what if I never get to write another one? I better make this 450 pages of every trick I know. And then he writes 15 more exactly like them, but just a little shorter. So if you like it, I have tons more recommendations. It's Alan First, F-U-R-S-T. And it's about a Bulgarian guy named Kristo Stoyanev.

who's living with his family in a pretty rural part of Bulgaria in 1934. And fascists start showing up in his village and start basically ruling with an iron fist. And at about the same time, a mysterious man named Antepin shows up in that village as well. And there's an inciting incident, a traumatic inciting incident that happens at the beginning of the book that makes it so that Stoyanov basically goes under Antepin's tutelage

And the book spans 10 years, goes up to 1944. It's set in Bulgaria, Catalonia, and Paris, as well as some rest stops and some Siberian prisons. And it is absolutely...

You will get completely swept away. There's long, long passages that are just about French brazzeries or about sleeping with various women and smoking Russian cigarettes in Paris apartments. Hell yeah. But this book is, it's just Andor. It's Andor, but with real Nazis. Any peazies? What's that? Green and grays? Green and grays? No, but there's no droids. I guess that's the one drawback. Oh.

Well, that is devastating, but still. They didn't have robots in 1934. But I was kind of unoverwhelmed because I was sort of thinking, oh, well, maybe the Bureau, maybe Tinker Taylor, the original Alec Guinness version that you can sometimes see on YouTube, but you kind of have to buy on eBay or whatever. There's lots of different things out there that you could recommend. But this is, if you were looking to scratch, the four quadrant and or itch. The only thing this book doesn't have is space,

Lightspeed Travel and Droids. Incredible. Any followers? What a recommendation. I'm excited. What a journey.

I have not read this. No. I loved the way that you held it up and showed it to us, even though this is a podcast. I feel like you are so invested in this. I just, as always, I'm inspired by your passion. I can't wait to read this. Jo, have you read this? I have not. Yeah. I feel like there's an Alan First that I have read, but it's not that one. Well, they made either a limited series or a TV movie or something out of The Polish Officer, which is one of the shorter books that he did.

following Night Soldiers. It's kind of called the Night Soldiers series and there's 15 books. The most recent one came out in 2019. He started writing these in 1988. And they're just every couple of years. It's just a guy likes to smoke,

Lives in Paris, trying to stay out of trouble, and then something pulls him into trouble. In this case, in Night Soldiers, it's an NKVD, Soviet intelligence officer who basically recruits him. But I love the feeling of going through a long historical period across many locations, many settings, many environments with one POV character. And this book also does these really great tricks where...

First, a new chapter will start and you're like, I don't know who this character is. Why are we spending all this time with this guy who is going to work every day and then has a love affair with his secretary? And then you find out that this is the guy that Stoyanev is going to compromise to get something. You know what I mean? It's just very good at setting up these sort of background characters and giving them a lot of depth and richness.

Oh my goodness. I read The Spies of Warsaw. And did you like it? Because I did. Because, and this is predictable for me, BBC made a miniseries with David Tennant. So I was like, well, I'll read the book. And I did. I really liked the book. Yeah. And yeah, it's a similar, it's in that series. Yeah.

I love that the brasserie appears to be the main character of all the books. Yes. There's one restaurant in Paris that shows up in 12, if not all of the novels. Whether they just have lunch there one day, or in this case, Stoyanov winds up being a busboy there. It's really cool. And lots of characters from these books show up in other books. So you'll wind up reading and then all of a sudden...

somebody will go and do a laundromat and it's the guy from, you know, from Dark Victory or something like that. Yeah. You love a connected universe. You love cameos. I do. I do. Just roll that IP up. Oh, man. This is incredible. I can't wait to check this out. Did you consider... You mentioned some of the other things that you were mulling. Did you consider recommending Slow Horses? I did. But Slow Horses...

is glib in a way that I really like, but is glib in a way that I don't feel like is super Andor. You know what I mean? Like there's kind of always a bulletproof feeling to slow horses with the exception of some characters where it's like, everybody's going to kind of talk their way out of this situation. And, and everybody in Andor, like it's the reverse. I mean, I think that Andor is almost the counter, the anti glib show because we know where this is going and it's not very glib. Right. Yeah.

Meanwhile, Slow Horses just keeps like devastating me with character deaths where I'm like, surely they will. Oh, yeah. I guess since I've read those books, I'm like, oh, well. Oh, I did. Okay. Yeah. I love this. Okay, Joe, what are you recommending to fans of Andor? Yeah, well, to suck up to Chris Ryan, I decided to pick a...

do you want a story about a young ordinary man who was swept up into a world but is somehow perniciously gifted to, you know... Anyway, in 1993, John Le Carre, ever heard of him, wrote a novel called The Night Manager. And many years later, BBC did a miniseries called The Night Manager, which then aired in the US on AMC, starring Tom Hiddleston, never heard of him. This came out in 2016, and...

And I think it was, I mean, obviously Tom Hiddleston and Loki were a thing, but it was before Olivia Colman, who was also in this, was like really, really a thing here in the U.S. It was before people knew all the things that Elizabeth Debicki could do. It was before people had seen White Lotus season two and so knew what Tom Hollander could do. It's just got an incredible cast, like banger after banger on this cast. Really...

You want globe-hopping sort of espionage. We're in Egypt. We're in Switzerland. We're in Spain. We're in England. Like, all over the place. Le Carre, of course, is like an icon of the genre, but I thought this was one of the best spy adaptations that has ever existed and, like, doesn't fall apart in the end, which I think a lot of

spy stories and spy adaptations can when things just get too, like, naughty and convoluted and whatever in the landing of it. The Night Manager just seems, like, strong throughout. And if you're a Hiddleston fan and you somehow never saw this, like, this was Hiddleston's sort of James Bond audition is what many people considered it. It's definitely the closest he's ever going to get to playing James Bond, I think, at this point. And so if that sounds fun for you, it's definitely not as gritty or...

you know, as politically austere as Andor is. You know, it might have some of that Glib Slow Horses vibe to it. It is more James Bondian than Andor is. But I think in terms of that ordinary man caught up in something bigger than himself, one wrong move. And I didn't mention, I ran through cast list and I didn't mention Hugh Laurie, who's the heavy and is very scary and very good. So I just love this show. And I think because

Because it aired in the U.S. on AMC, not as many people saw it as they would have maybe if it had been on HBO. Right now, you can catch it on Amazon Prime. And I just think it's an excellent time to circle back if you didn't watch The Night Manager. I think Night Manager and the Little Drummer Girl miniseries are both going to... Love both. Yeah. I hope that they don't get lost to sort of the vagaries of AMC possibly. Yeah.

not being a thing in a couple of years so that people can still see them because at the time, I think for true, like I am a big Le Carre reader and sometimes the adaptations come up a little short because they can't possibly match the psychological and narrative depth of the novels. But both of those are,

like absolutely gangbusters pieces of TV, especially Drummer Girl. And I love Night Manager. I'm so glad you said that, Joe. Like it's obviously like Night Manager. Everybody's really tan, you know, like everybody looks dynamite in that show. When you're reading the book, it's much more like pasty Brits and...

grimy arms deals, but I love it when people get tan on TV. I also love a pasty Brit, to be clear. I loved, loved Night Manager and Drummer Girl. Glad we talked about both. What a wonderful recommendation. This is great. I was assuming that you two would both go spy thriller genre. And so I've decided to have the courage to recommend something inside of the Star Wars universe.

So brave. You need me on that wall. So, in all seriousness, in our collective adulation, it is euphoria over an adoration of Andor, which we rightly are toasting as not only one of the best things of the year, but one of the best pieces of Star Wars ever. I think we all sincerely felt that way and will continue to as we move forward.

just want to remind people that like there's a lot of other great Star Wars stuff that we could still discover for the first time too. And one of the things that I really enjoyed discovering recently are the new canon Timothy Zahn Thrawn novels. So 2017's Thrawn, 2018's Thrawn Alliances, 2019's Thrawn Treason. Bonus, if you blaze through those and love them, you could just move right on to the next Zahn Thrawn trilogy, which is

The Ascendancy trilogy, that's actually a prequel trilogy. These are all books. These are all books. But glad you asked that because there's a larger kind of Star Wars connected universe impetus for recommending this now, which is Thrawn is about to enter the live action. You heard Thrawn's name uttered in Mando season two. Thrawn's going to be part of Ahsoka and shows to come. This is part of the Filoni Favs Mando timeline. Yeah.

Speaking of watching Thrawn, I could certainly also recommend Rebels, Star Wars Rebels, if you haven't seen it, which not only features Thrawn, but is, I think, definitely something that people are interested in Andor for the early years of the budding Rebel Alliance. That's definitely a show that would be worth checking out. I love Star Wars Rebels. It's still one of my favorite pieces of Star Wars. So with the caveat that nothing is Andor and that the Thrawn novels are quite distinct in terms of the writing style from Andor,

If you enjoyed Andor because it gave you a glimpse of just something new in the galaxy far, far away. Like if you enjoyed time with characters who felt like they broke archetype, I was thinking Joe of our chat from earlier in the Andor season with Lindbergh about how like Cyril felt like a really distinct kind of character who was a little bit atypical inside of the traditional archetypes. Like if you love an archetype breaking figure and somebody who like,

shows you something new in a Star Wars story, but then very quickly feels foundational to how you think about what Star Wars is and can be,

Thrawn, as a figure, I think can give you a lot of that. The methodical, meticulous tutelage of this exacting figure who has devoted their entire life to some all-encompassing pursuit. I recommend the books more broadly, but I really would recommend getting to know Thrawn as a character for those reasons, if Andor was something that you loved. Check them out. So Mal...

Yeah. Give Star Wars a try. I'm just a pretty simple guy, right? Yeah. Yeah. How dense is it? How Star Wars-ian is it? I mean... Do you think I could rock with this if I have a little bit of baked-in skepticism about the Thrawn of it all? I'm of two minds. My inclination is to say yes, I think so, but with the caveat that there are going to be connections to the wider canon. That's definitely...

a big part of the impetus for the stories is, and, and, you know, I mentioned Star Wars Rebels, but like for, for that aspect of the canon at large is like taking an event. And of course, this is how Cassian Andor came into our lives in the first place with Rogue One, taking an event that is seminal to Star Wars or a moment in the timeline that is seminal to Star Wars and moving us over to

like a degree or two to show us figures who had something to do with shaping this in a way that we didn't previously understand. So I think that like, yes, it connects to a lot of the wider Star Wars story in a way that could feel like, oh boy, this is a lot of new characters. I'm learning about all sorts of new mining things. So Chris, one of the other things you loved about Andor was mining. You texted us and told us you were on Wikipedia reading

Reading about mining, my guy, guess what? You're going to get to learn about mining dunium in these Thrawn books. If you check it out, you're going to love it. So I don't want to like get into the particulars of the plot, but like, yes, there are a lot of connections. It also though feels like its own story.

sliver of the universe that I think you could just enter without necessarily worrying. Like, I wouldn't say you have to read these books feeling like, boy, I'm going to need to file all of this away so that I remember points X, Y, and Z when I see Thrawn in live action for the first time. It's not that. It's more like that Thrawn is such a

such a specific rendering inside of the story. And I think that you would feel really energized by the freshness that he brings. When do you think we will see Thrawn in live action? Ahsoka. Ahsoka. Yeah. So fall 2023, you got a little bit of time. Read these books. Maybe listen to the audio books. You know what's weird? In the beginning of the year, when they did Boba and then they did Obi-Wan,

And I was like, I don't know what we're doing on Star Wars anymore, guys. And now, after Andor, and all the news that's kind of come out, and then just like the hints of like, the John Watts show, the Leslie Hedlund show, got Mandalorian coming back, Damon Lindelof's writing a movie. It's a cool time to be a Star Wars fan, right? Like what a turnaround in 12 months. I never doubted Kathy Kennedy personally, but like I know a lot of people did. Never for a minute. Yeah, I had her back.

I never sold the Kathy Kennedy stock. No, it's just, it's just been a, it just goes to show you how much these things can turn around in a short period of time. We don't know yet who's playing Thrawn in live action. There is the rumor that it might be Lars Mikkelsen, but we don't know. Who voices the character on Rebels. Who voiced Thrawn, yeah. Okay. But it should be someone with

like European gravitas is, is what I want in a Thrawn performer. Chris Thrawn is a admirer of the arts, right?

One of the things that Thrawn likes to assess when learning about a culture that the Empire is perhaps preparing to overrun or eliminate is, like, you know, what do people on this planet like to paint? What can I learn? And again, like, I mean this sincerely in a way that is, like, fascinating and new that somebody inside of the Empire would...

approach the work of being in the Empire in a different way. I think that's the other Andor adjacency is like we talked a lot on our respective Andor pods about the ISB scenes and our time with Dedra and like the kind of different flavor and energy of...

seeing somebody go about the business of operating inside of palpatine's machine i think that thrawn for me seeing thrawn do that has been the most rewarding version of that in in star wars awesome well i i know what i'm doing i'm re-watching night manager and i'm reading nine thrawn novels or maybe just the wiki chris i just started the cormac mccarthy novel and uh

I don't know if I'm... I think I might be getting too dumb for it. I was just like, I literally have to keep... For reading in general? Yeah. No, I mean, I think I'm pretty... I still think I'm sharp enough. You're a sharp guy. Yeah. You can still read. Yeah, I can read. Yeah. But am I as good of a reader as I was? Or...

Or is Cormac McCarthy just moved into like complete abstract territory is the question. I'm humble enough to think it might be me. Okay. Yeah. Maybe. It's really abstract. I like, we start, the book starts and there's a guy with flippers and I was like, he said flippers, right? And I keep having to go back two pages and be like, this is like a guy with flippers. Yeah.

Like we're in William Burroughs territory, right? And I just am like, I'm having a hard time, you know, keeping it, keeping it all straight. And then I just start looking at NBA trade rumors. This is great. Yeah. Well just, why don't you take breaks and read the Thrawn way? I got to just get up on my Wikipedia mining. Chris, last thing I'll say to try to, to sway you. And I'm realizing this has become a recommendation specifically for you, but also it remains a recommendation for our audience that,

You know who recommended these books to me? Who? Tony Gilroy? No. Can you imagine if that

It was Bo Willeman. Yeah. Rushing Thrawn novels. Our beloved pal and friend of the watch and friend of the ringerverse and friend of the ringer podcast network, Jason Mantzoukas. These are among his favorite Star Wars stories. Oh, man. Yeah. Okay. So think of how happy you'll make Jason. I don't need any extra, you know, juice on this recommendation. If it comes from you, it's certified, Mal. I don't know. You seem more excited after I told you that than you did when I recommended them. Wait.

Can I circle back to this Cora McCarthy novel, which is definitely like what we're talking about on the spot. Are you reading, you're reading Stella Maris? Is that what you're reading? I'm reading The Passengers. You're reading The Passengers. Yeah. Can I just read this quote from Cora McCarthy in a 2009 interview? Yeah, for sure. Where she said,

He's been planning on writing about a woman for 50 years. Same. 10 years later. Plus, he finally did it. Yeah. Yeah, he dropped two books this year. So, you know, maybe it's not you, Chris. Who knows? Who knows? I think it's good. The Passenger, I recommend it, but not really. You know, and I especially don't recommend it if you like Andor because...

That's why I'm on this podcast today. And I wouldn't want people to take it the wrong way. Alan first, F-U-R-S-T. Let's get those numbers up for him. Love it. Love it. Thank you, Chris. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. You know, for me, fitness has always been about finding that groove, whether it's hitting the pavement outside, which I've been allowed of, or dialing up a sweat session indoors.

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or the Peloton app. It's like having your own personal coach with you or right at home in your living room. Call yourself a runner with Peloton at onepeloton.com/running. This episode is brought to you by Experian. I don't know if you've ever looked in your subscriptions on your phone and noticed that you had like four or five subscriptions. Maybe you didn't realize you were still paying for, or maybe you got some email for something and you're like, "I thought I canceled that." Well,

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sports teams. New York City is one of those places that oozes choice. It's got something for every taste. So it's fitting that vitamin water was born there. It's a product of its environment. Colorful, flavorful, anything but boring. Vitamin water injects a daily dose of vibrancy into a watered-down life. So grab some vitamin water today, NYC style. Vitamin water is a registered trademark of Glasso. Joining us now,

A longtime occupant of our hearts, but a first-time visitor to the ringerverse. You've read Kim's wonderful words on Insider. You have heard Kim's brilliant insights on a cast of kings. You have soaked up Kim's wisdom, up the king of wisdom as well, in Kim's book, The Unofficial Guide to Game of Thrones. Folks, it's Kim Renfro. Hey!

We're so excited. I'm so excited. Oh, Kim, in perhaps a surprise to our listeners and to the three of us who are potting together right now in this very moment, we're not going to be talking about Thrones together. You are joining us. It's a twist. In the upside down. You are here to talk about what someone who loves Stranger Things season four in 2022, as much as we all did, might want to check out next. What are you recommending?

What will Vecna enthusiasts enjoy about your pick? Vecna enthusiasts. Oh, I think that the Vecna enthusiasts would love what I'm about to say.

Which is that they should listen to Beyonce's Renaissance start to finish multiple times. It is the only way to key into the thing that I picked out of Stranger Things season four that I thought was so great, which was the use of music as like not only an experience for the people watching, but for the characters themselves. And so for me, I'm bringing a music wreck to you, which might be unexpected, but here we are.

Why is it this album in particular that you want to pick out, Kim? So I was really, when I was like thinking about Stranger Things 4 and like why I loved it so much, I think the Max storyline really resonated with me as I think it did with a lot of people. And I kind of saw what she was going through as like a solid metaphor for like depression or any sort of like

traumatic struggles that I think are extraordinarily relatable to the world in the last few years. And the way that they used her music listening as like a way to ground her when she was kind of like feeling isolated and then create a connection with her friends was just like

beautiful. And Beyonce's Renaissance album came out shortly after part two of stranger things for dropped like late summer. And I have never become so obsessed with an album so quickly. And like, I love another thing that like a stranger things connection is like the rewatch ability for stranger things. I think like that, that investment went through the roof this year when they sort of like busted open the timeline and like,

I went back and I rewatched all four seasons of Stranger Things after watching season four and just like really soaked in the comfort and the nostalgia and like the excitement of it. And I think Beyonce's Renaissance had a similar effect on me where like it became a comfort, but also like this healing release of

Like, it is such a good dance record. It's a minute... It's an hour and two minutes. So, you know, shorter than an episode of Stranger Things. This is a third of the length of a traditional House of Art podcast. Yeah. It's true. So, like...

Really? You have no reason if you haven't. I feel like Renaissance is one of those, like, if you know, you know, and if you don't, you don't. And that's fine. If you don't know yet how like addicting and like joyful that album is. It's like, it's like getting your own private club experience in your house where like put on your headphones, put on your comfiest dance outfit and just run it. Do not, do not dare shuffle this album. Anyone listening, please.

Don't do it. It was designed for like a single run through a binge, if you will. And like every song transitions into the next. It's very, it is like impeccably crafted, much like a really great TV show that, you know, has consistent themes and callbacks and references and timeline blowing ups. Like you can listen to it over and over again. And I think discover like a new favorite song every day.

if it behooves you. I think I have listened to this album every single day. I love this. It was amazing. What a great talk to you all the time. And I haven't talked to you about Beyonce. I love this. Yeah. It's kind of one of those, like, and some people in my life are on the same track as me of like, Oh yeah. Album of the year, hands down album of the decade. Maybe we can throw that out there. It's a little fresh, but whatever. Uh,

And then there are some people who are like, oh yeah, I haven't checked it out yet, but I've been meaning to. And so at the end of the year here, if I get a chance to like soapbox for a second, I'm going to say, listen to Renaissance. It is like healing in the way that music throughout Stranger Things had like a very direct correlation. There's so many like great lyrics about like, that are just self-affirmations, you know,

Just, yeah, it's an album that made me feel really good this year when I really needed that feeling. And Stranger Things did the same thing for me over the summer. Oh, I love it. Kim, what a wonderful pick. This is great. Vecna is cowering in terror knowing how many people are about to be inspired by new music. This is great. On the shuffle point, I love this because you just port yourself right back into the 80s. It's like you couldn't hit shuffle on your phone in the 80s. You had to just...

pop something into your Walkman. And flip that cassette over when it's done. Totally. And there is like a decades nostalgia element to Renaissance too that like it's very heavy disco, R&B, pop influenced, but like...

as the title tells you with like a sort of rebirth, a rehashing of it for modern day that I think is just like incredible. And so again, Stranger Things, I think brings the 80s to you in a very like relatable, updated, engaging way. And Renaissance brings like the disco dance club into your head whenever you want to scare away Vekta. All right. Phenomenal. Amazing pick. I love that we got music in here. Joe, what are you recommending?

to people who love Stranger Things. I love that Kim is bouncing off the music angle of the season. I want to bounce off the Stephen King angle and take us someplace a little darker. Oh, yeah. Which is...

The larger Mike Flanagan-verse in general on Netflix, but specifically Midnight Mass, which is a merge, is my favorite. So Mike Flanagan, if you're unfamiliar, is sort of the go-to adapter of Stephen King at this point. He did a great film of Gerald's Game. I really loved his Doctor Sleep adaptation, and he has the rights now to do Dark Tower, which apparently he's going to...

try to do well as opposed to some other folks who have done it. So, but when he's not directly adapting Stephen King, he has done a series of

you know, TV shows, one a year for the last few years. There's The Haunting of Hill House, which is a masterpiece. Haunting of Bly Manor, which I quite liked. Midnight Mass, then this year was Midnight Club. The Midnight Club was not my favorite. Haunting of Bly Manor is a little spotty at times too. But I think Midnight Mass is the most closest corollary to Stranger Things because you get this sort of

It takes place on an island community. There is a strong horror element to it, but it's got some of that like sort of satanic panic. What will a small community do when confronted with the supernatural? It's, again, a lot darker, more violent than even Stranger Things can get. So, you know, this is like for a mature, but there's also a lot of really interesting stories.

religious themes and ideas, some like really, really incredible performances. Um, Mike Flanagan almost always puts his wife, Kate Siegel and everything he does. And she's tremendous in this Zach Guilford of Friday night lights fame, Maddie Saracen. This is the best thing I think that Zach Guilford's ever done. He's tremendously good. Um,

Raul Coley's here. He's a regular as well. But Hamish Linklater, who plays the sort of priest at the center of this community, is like the standout. And I just, I rewatched this show back to front, I think three different times. It's seven episodes. I think it's extraordinary. So Midnight Mass. Yeah. Jo, I haven't seen the show because I'm afraid. You're afraid of horror and I completely support you in that. So I wouldn't recommend this to you, Mallory, but I would recommend it to almost anyone else.

What's the, like, if Stranger Things is, like, a three or four on the horror scale, what is Midnight Mass? Out of ten? Yeah. I don't know. Would we put Stranger Things that low? I can watch it and I hate horror, which is why I think, like, it's got to be low. Yeah, it's pretty... I would say seven or...

eight it gets pretty bloody i will say all right maybe like so bloody that it's almost like comical like that happens sometimes it's camp yeah a little maybe a little bit um but yeah it's it's not i don't i think i think it's more chilling than scary and like gory than gruesome if that makes sense okay excellent yeah it does

Interesting. But I don't think either of you should watch it, but I think someone who's listening or should watch it. It's really, it's smart. It's intensely emotional and really tightly paced and some, yeah, just great performances. So yeah. That's the one where there's like a sort of like AA Alcoholics Anonymous like thread underneath. I've heard that that's like

Yeah, like a really well-told iteration of that story. Yeah, and that's what Zach Guilford has sort of wrapped up in that storyline. Really good stuff. Mallory, what do you got? I also have a Netflix binge coming. Ooh. I'm going Netflix binge. I'm going original sci-fi universe inside of a Netflix binge. I'm going...

times scary and intense, but not unbearable horror. I'm going with what Kim Renfro almost picked to take people behind the curtain here for a second. I am going with Dark. And in a classic House of Arse smuggle, I will also mention 1899, the new Netflix show from the creators of Dark. Dark is the German...

Sci-fi spectacular that began in 2017. It aired for three seasons. I only caught up on it and watched it for the first time last year. I became obsessed with it. Joe, a couple months ago, asked me, did you just watch Dark for the first time?

It had been like a year and a half at that point, but I was mentioning it so often for really no reason that she assumed I had just watched it like the prior weekend, which was a reasonable deduction based on the context. I almost don't want to say anything about Dark because I don't want to give anything away, but I will just say broadly, if you love Stranger Things and you love Stranger Things Season 4 because...

Mysterious things are happening in a sleepy town. If you love Stranger Things because a group of youngsters band together or split apart often on bikes to discover something about the world and then themselves, I really cannot recommend Dark highly enough. It is totally quite distinct from Stranger Things in numerous ways.

It induces what I would describe, I think, fairly as an ample amount of existential angst and dread. It is a total mindfuck. It is a real, like, track the theories on your corkboard as you go show. But it is utterly immersive. It is so inventive and smart. It's full of twists and surprises and characters in their universe challenging convention. If you love sci-fi, if you're looking for something to just fall into so fully that you never want to leave your couch as Netflix just boots up

episode after episode after episode. This is it. Kim, as someone who also almost picked Dark, is there anything else that you want to say about why Stranger Things fans should check out Dark? Yeah, I mean, right off the bat, when you watch the pilot episode, if you're a Stranger Things fan, you're going to like be like,

wait a second, kids in the woods on their bikes trying to find a person and there's a mysterious government building that no one really knows the true purpose of, like just outside this small town. Like they start on very, very similar story beats, not in a way that I think like cheapens it, but just you'll recognize the motifs that they're going with. And then, yeah, just like you, I don't really want to say more, but it...

like breaks open its story in such incredible ways over like season over season. Also another strong one with like rewatch ability. I watched season three of dark and went back and then, and I was like blown away by how tight the storytelling is. It is. It's like, it, like you said, you know, maybe have a notebook out and jot down some names from time to time. Oh, also in

the same way that you don't you dare shuffle Renaissance don't watch dark with the dubbing on right like subtitles I know it's I know it's like a bigger lift sometimes you know you can't be on your phone at the same time and reading subtitles but like the the immersion and the story is so good when you just watch it in its original German language don't Google anything while you're watching dark there is one sort of

helpful family tree sort of thing that exists that you can look at sort of episode by episode. So like to keep yourself oriented, but not spoil yourself on certain things, but like you're really careful and cautious with your supplemental internetting while you're watching dark. It's very important. Yeah.

Great pick. I love it. That is my favorite Netflix rec to give people if they like sci-fi and just haven't watched it. And I'm like, it is so worth your time. And 1899, I think for me is like in the same boat so far, although dark, like I don't. When you say in the same boat. The actual boat? The same steamship, if you will.

Yeah. Like season one of 1899, I think is like, especially once I'm just assuming everyone's going to go and watch dark after this, because why wouldn't you with that lovely recommendation yourself and then watch season one of 1899. And like, there's a lot of faith that the creators developed within me. They buried it there in dark. And now I'm like willing to watch whatever multi-season thing they want to try next because I was bad.

That impressed. Impressed. For sure. Yeah. I'm fascinated by their minds. Okay. What a wonderful series of recommendations. We hope that everybody checks them out and enjoys them. Kim, next time you're listening to Renaissance, I don't know, invite us for a listening party. Why not? I will. We can. Silent disco. Yes. On my Zoom. I love it. Kim Renfro, thank you for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. It was an honor.

Our next guest needs no introduction, but he's going to get one anyway. He blesses us with his Star Wars lore dives whenever we head to a galaxy far, far away. He has recently treated Ringerverse listeners to some video game content. Delightful. Love a goatee pod. He has some thoughts on the New York Mets waiting for you and Sean Fantasy right now on the ringer.com. What a great website.

the Lindbergh of Lindbergh and Associates. It's Ben Lindbergh. Ben, welcome. That was a great introduction. I'm glad you gave me one. Thanks, buddy. You're not here to talk about Star Wars. It is a genuine twist. Maybe the twist of the podcast.

It's fair to say it's the twist of the pod. You were here to chat about something else that we all spent a lot of time covering and enjoying this year. Hot D, House of the Dragon. So as a fan, Ben, of Hot D, as a fan of fantasy epics, as a fan of numerous other story strands inside of this that you might choose to use as your inspiration, what are you recommending to enthusiasts of

the Targaryens incest, who can say? You tell us. That's why you're here. Yeah. I'll spare you the jokes about these little known shows called Game of Thrones and Succession that someone who enjoyed House of the Dragon might also enjoy. I just, I don't want to waste any time getting to my recommendation because I feel so strongly about this show. It is called The Last Kingdom. It's all on Netflix. I would really recommend it to anyone whether they liked House of the Dragon or not. Do you watch TV? Great. You would love The Last Kingdom. But it's

But if you do like House of the Dragon or Game of Thrones, I'm even more confident in this recommendation because they all have a lot in common. So this series started in 2015, first on the BBC and then on Netflix, which acquired it after the second season.

There are five seasons in total, the last of which dropped earlier this year. There's also an upcoming movie, which has already finished filming and will come out on Netflix next year. So you still have time to binge before then. The movie is called Seven Kings Must Die. So seven kings, seven kingdoms. Come on. This comp makes itself interesting.

The show is based on this 13-book series called The Saxon Stories by Bernard Cornwell, who's a really great writer of historical fiction. Yeah. Whose books about the Napoleonic War I read when I was a very cool kid. Yeah, Sharp. Love the Sharp books. I'm a big Sharp fan. Me too. Sean Bean. Awesome.

On screen, sharp. So there's a ton of source material here, and Cornwell has finished this series. So there are no concerns about The Last Kingdom catching up and running out of runway, unlike some series I could name. And so basically, it's the story of the unification of England by Alfred the Great and his successor in the 9th and 10th centuries, and the battles between the Saxons and the Danes. And it's told through this fictional character called

Uhtred, who's born Saxon but raised Dane. And so he's constantly pulled between both worlds without fully belonging to either. And he's having his loyalties tested. So sometimes he serves Alfred, but sometimes he feels bad about it. And he's also trying to reclaim his ancestral home and exact vengeance on the side. So there are succession struggles and uneasy alliances and sex scenes and brutal battles and also time jumps, which I know is not

the best part of House of the Dragon, but which The Last Kingdom does really well. The show actually takes place over a period of about 50 years, but Uhtred seems to age about five years. So it's sort of straight out of the Outlander school of like when your leads are really, really good looking, it would just be a crime to hide them. Straight out of the Outlander school. Does anyone get saved by a timely hand job?

One of my all-time favorite Ben Lindbergh articles.

Me too. But when you have someone who's just this smoking handsome in this case, like you just you don't want to bury that beneath a bushel basket, beneath makeup and prosthetics. So he doesn't seem to age all that much, although time passes. And I'm not the only Uhtred head at the Ringer. Actually, early this year, Ringer deputy managing editor Eric Jenkins, who is not prone to sensational statements, I would say, he said on Slack, and I quote,

Maybe hyperbolic, but considering the similar vibes, I think it's just as good as Game of Thrones, arguably better. Wow. Yeah. Strong statement. And I'm not here to argue that. I'm just here to say that if you like one, you will probably like the other. And the quality is consistent across the entire run. It has a really strong last season and a fantastic finale. And I think

One more sweetener, there are multiple male cast members. I was going to say, cast a lot of actors out of last year, right? Yeah, I strongly suspect would be of great interest to both of you based on your feelings for the likes of... Hot actors for sure, right? Very much from the Ian Glenn, Ewan McGregor, Timothy Oliphant school here. So like the actors who play... Say no more.

Yeah, I could have led with that probably and just dropped the mic. But the actors who play Uhtred and his sidekick, Finnin, Alexander Draymond and Mark Raleigh are, I think, very strong candidates to join Joe's cardboard cutout collection. Oh, wow. Oh, my goodness. Rarity.

I really don't know that I can have more cardboard cuts in my mind. So the actor who plays Eamon Targaryen, Ewan Mitchell, is in The Last Kingdom. And I feel like there's, aren't there like a couple more hot D actors in The Last Kingdom? I think there are also some crossovers. Yeah. So you'll see some familiar faces, certainly, which I guess is often the case with any kind of like,

BBC-adjacent fantasy content. So I've just been telling people to watch this show almost since it started. So I'm just sort of opportunistically seizing my moment here. There's a lot of Viking content out there, but you just, you got to get in on The Last Kingdom. So this was just such a gimme for me that I only briefly considered watching

other series like Foundation, for instance. I think this is just such a go-to pick. Although there is one more thing I will say, which is that I think you may have thought that I would recommend the Kingkiller Chronicle. Yeah, I'm surprised. Are you? Yeah, well, I mean, you did include a bit in your explanation there about not wanting to recommend something that isn't finished. So I guess by that standard, I'm not. But

You never miss an opportunity to remind me that you mailed me the name of the wind nine years ago and a sign of friendship. I was just going to say, because this is a fantasy series by Patrick Rothfuss. And in general, I do recommend it. But just to explain why I didn't choose it for this segment. Yeah, I mean, it's related to a formative moment in our friendship. And the date was December 2014. Yeah.

I had just joined the staff of Grantland full time and been assigned to work with a wonderful editor named Mallory Rubin. I wrote about baseball. She edited sports stories. We were both so young. Yeah, this is a Taylor Swift song. Lifetime ago.

And for the holidays in our first full year working together, just as a token of my gratitude for her help and companionship and encouragement, I sent her a copy of the book, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, the first volume of the King Color Chronicle, which I loved and thought she would also because I care. I'm sure I will.

thinking of her interests and what would make her happy. And the book went straight to her shelf or night table, I believe. And there or somewhere near there, it has stayed for the past eight years, untouched by human hands.

Halo rubs up against it sometimes. I hope Halo has gotten some use out of it because he's the only one. Adam read it. Okay, well, that's something. That's two-thirds of the household. I didn't waste my money. But for a few years, periodically, I would say, hey, any plans to read The Name of the Wind? And Mal would say, oh, yeah, I'm totally going to get to it. I just need to reread Harry Potter or A Song of Ice and Fire for the 18th time. Yeah, I had Polly.

Lots to record, you know? Eventually, I just gave up on getting Mal to read the book, much as I gave up on ever reading the rest of the Kingkiller Chronicle, which Rothfuss has infamously failed to finish. Well, I told Mal that I apologize, Ben,

Because rather than join your cause, I told Mal she could wait until the third book comes out to start it. That is wise at this point. That's the thing. Ben, I cherish, and this is a recommendations pod, but in all of our interactions, conversations,

I cherish your recommendations. I cherish and value your insights. We like a lot of the same things, a lot of the same stories. We both like baseball. We love to never leave our homes and spend all of our time in sweatpants with our pets. But I can't embark on another unfinished dance.

I need to know that there's a lease in it. No, you know what? I'm going to do it. This is the year. Wow. Not 2022, to be clear. But like, maybe next year. No, there's not a ton of time left. Yeah. It's going to happen. Okay. All right. You're on record. She's going to watch Doctor Who and read The King of the Cross.

If it doesn't happen, I've let you down before. And if it does, what an amazing, beautiful way to end our first decade together. It depends how many more Taylor shared and shows there are next year, because that's really cutting into our time significantly. But I'm just saying I can't help but wonder what could have happened differently, because ever since you spurned my thoughtful gifts,

There has been no new full-length novel in this series, and all the movie and TV and video game adaptations fell apart. And I can't help but hold Mal a little bit responsible for that. Remember when I thought Ben was going to talk about King Kong? We didn't. We didn't.

We want the Lin-Manuel Miranda Kingkiller Chronicles show on Showtime. Did we? Or stars? I don't know. He seems to love the series. I didn't need Lin to do that. Lin can do other things, but not that. Well, I'm just saying it'd basically be like sending someone a copy of Game of Thrones in 2010 and being like, hey, check out this series. The fifth book is about to come out. There's going to be a great adaptation. And then the rest is history or not. Yeah.

How could you not draw some kind of connection there? That's all I'm saying. Anyway, I hope it ends and I hope you read it at some point. That's all I'll say. It's been a beautiful decade together. Thank you for that. Joanna, what is your recommendation? Well, if you like me...

enjoy a messy royal, then I would love to recommend one of my favorite shows that exists, which is The Great. There are two seasons of it, 20 episodes total on Hulu. It stars the incredible Elle Fanning and Nicholas Holt as Catherine the Great and her failure of a husband, Emperor Peter in Russia. And this is one of those shows where...

There is a modern irreverent, it's not a stuffy period drama. This is a very modern irreverent. There's a lot of sex. There's a lot of swearing. There's a lot of violence, like not, not Thrones level violence, but there's like some violence like that.

It is just such a joyous time at a royal court where everyone is an asshole and scheming to backstab each other and sleeping with each other. Schemes and plots? I cannot... Yes, they're the same thing, Mallory, and they just abound here. I cannot...

I cannot express to you how much fun this show is. And, like, Elle Fanning is wonderful. But Nicholas Holt, who's, like, one of my all-time favorites, is just, like, top-tier hilarious. Because Peter is an idiot and the absolute worst. But he's also on a journey of growth. So all of that is true. We love an art. I'm, like, shipping to horrible people who...

Historically, it did not work out for any of these people. Spoilers. Spoilers for ancient Russian history. But...

But the show is sort of disregarding history in season two, so I'm fine with it. And yeah, I love this show. And again, like if you, if you love them, if you want someone to run up with a dagger and hold it against the eye of someone else and to talk about things being trampled under their pretty little foot like this, that's, that's the vibe, but funnier. Yeah. In the great. That's all. What a recommendation. I love this. Okay.

I am staying in universe for my recommendation. I am recommending.

Tales of Dunk and Egg. A Night of the Seven Kingdoms, this collection of novellas from George R. R. Martin, never heard of them. The Hedge Knight, The Sword Sword, The Mystery Knight, more to come. Who can say exactly how many? The indicated number varies depending on the moment in time. And who can say when? So here I am, right back in recommending a tale that isn't finished. Yes.

Yeah, but those at least feel contained because they're like little stories and they begin and end. Yes. And I think for a number of reasons, many of which are probably fairly obvious, if you enjoyed House of the Dragon, it's a great time to check out Dunkin' Egg, the adventures of Sir Duncan the Tall and his squire, Egg, the future King Aegon V. You might recall our beloved Maester Aemon.

And his little moments where he would emit, egg, egg. This is the egg. Egg, I dreamed I was old. I'm so slaying heartbreaking, I'm about to weep. If you like Thrones, here's more Thrones, right? If you like George, here's more George. If you like the Targaryens, here's more of the Targaryen and Targaryen adjacent timeline. These novellas are set...

90 years before the events of Game of Thrones, so about a century after Hot D. You're far enough away from Hot D that you don't have to worry about like, oh, am I reading in the Tales of Dunk and Egg? Am I going to learn too many things about

the events to come in Hot D, though, of course, anytime you dive into the wider A Song of Ice and Fire textual canon, that's something that you have to be prepared for. And frankly, part of the joy. It's this wide and vast fictional universe. I invite you to join us in it. It's great. One of the things I'm really excited about revisiting these novellas is

We've talked about this a lot on our Hot D-Pod, Joe, but anything that connects to the Targaryen dynasty, who knows what will stand out anew on the prophecy clue front. So I'm really excited to check that out. But Dunkin' Egg, one of the many spinoffs and future shows that is in development, you can get ahead. These are...

brisk, breezy reads. There's a real spirit of adventure gallivanting about the kingdoms. Just delightful. Check them out if you haven't. Thrones. It's great. That's basically my recommendation and there's more of it to discover. I love Did This Damn Prophecy as you know. No, but Duncan, I mean, that's a great, I mean, you didn't, you didn't think too far outside of the box on this one, Mallory, but it's a great recommendation. Because they're stuck in the box for us to enjoy. To

Because I was thinking about how, and you know, again, it's no surprise, but like how often during our pause we discuss the question of

or received, received questions from people like, should I read fire and blood? Right. And it's like, we know Duncan egg is a development. It's really easy. It's so much easier to catch up on Duncan egg. So much easier than to read even fire and blood, let alone all of a song of ice and fire. So if you're considering dabbling in the, the books in the universe for the first time, this is a great place to start. It's a real great on-ramp to the wider world. This,

This is always a bookseller trick of mine where I would like if people were like, should I read Hemingway or should I whatever? I'm like, try this collection of short stories. And if you like the vibe, you like the vibe. And if you don't, don't bother. It's almost like reading The Hobbit before you dive into The Silmarillion or something, which I also love. But it's a good gateway. It's a little lower barrier to entry. The Hobbit.

Yeah, right. What if you started with the Silmarillion? I mean, that would be a choice. Tough sledding. Tough sledding. Yeah, well, I love Dunkin' Egg, too. These were great recommendations also. The Last Kingdom was a tough act to follow, I think. I don't think there's a better recommendation out there, but I am on board with both of yours as well. Wow. Oh, my God. Ben didn't get the moment. This isn't a competition. Real energy from you today. This is a shared celebration.

I'm bringing the Maori superhero draft energy to this recommendation segment. It's my lingering bitterness about you not reading the book that I gave you eight years ago.

All right. One of these days, we're going to be talking about something. Who knows what it'll be? And I am just going to drop something on you that I could only know from being like 700 pages into the Kingkiller. And you're going to be so proud of me. And I can't wait. It's going to be the ability to pronounce Kvothe because that's a struggle. Yeah, it's a contentious topic. Yeah, it is.

All right, Ben, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for all of your wonderful appearances on The Ringerverse this year. We will see you in 2023. Thank you for having me. My pleasure. Our next guest has blessed your earbuds on The Ringerverse before. Our next guest.

Took you to Middle Earth on TheRinger.com. What a great website. This fall, our next guest take you to the halls of podcasting justice every week with Joanna and Neil Miller on Trial by Content. Follow Trial by Content on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Our next guest. Who could it be? I know.

is, if you haven't figured it out yet, Dave Gonzalez. Hello, House of R listeners. You are here today because you loved Rings of Power, and so did we. What are you recommending to someone else out there who loved the Rings of Power? And what will that person or those listeners enjoy about your pick?

Having talked to some people who also liked Rings of Power or loved Rings of Power, I learned that there's a great swath of why that actually was. I greatly enjoyed it because I reread the Lord of the Rings trilogy every year. I'm a big fan of textual adaptations. I also, of course, watch the extended editions, which I know Joanna does yearly as well. And there's a lot of people who have never...

It experienced the book trilogy and sort of came to the rings of power as a prequel to a beloved trilogy of Peter Jackson movies, the beloved ones, not the other trilogy of Peter Jackson movies, which is a whole other thing.

Um, so I'm going to try to reach specifically to a group of, uh, watchers who maybe are also readers because I think that's something the Rings of Power did well, uh, not so much in being a straight adaptation of texts that of course they don't have the rights to. So I'm not going to recommend the Cimmerillion or the Numenoreans, which I think are great books to add context to the Rings of Power world. I'm going to talk about another series that

that took a literary basis and sort of colored outside of the lines of what we expected from it. And that is going to be the series Castle Rock that had two seasons on Hulu. I think that the Bad Robot team that produced this series with some input from Stephen King

Really, we're on to something in terms of taking the spirit of King, just like Rings of Power took the spirit of Tolkien and imbuing it into a show that has a lot of surprises. If you think you know who or what this character situation is based on.

Bad news, maybe, for Castle Rock. It is not coming back. The two seasons that it had are the ones that existed. They keep trying to produce new content in the King universe. But as we all know, Warner Brothers Television, kind of a mess right now in terms of what's been picked up, what's been developed. Last I heard, some of the folks behind Castle Rock were still working on developing a series called

which will be a similar thing to Castle Rock, but be focused around the book The Shining and some of the previous people who lived at the hotel, which I think is great because one of the hanging threads of the Castle Rock series with the two seasons is got the

was a character named Jackie Torrance, who was going to go investigate her family history in Colorado. And we never got to go there. So I would love to see Overlook pop up somewhere like Netflix and be like a shadow continuation of this. Because as somebody who likes Stephen King books as much as he likes Tolkien books for different reasons...

It's really fun to see this sort of series take on like a dark tower level amount of mythology, if that means anything to you, while keeping a character focus really tight, I feel, even in its somewhat chaotic second season. So I'm going to say just like Rings of Power.

you're not going to get exactly what you want, but I think you're going to have a lot of fun along the way. There is an episode of season one of Castle Rock where

called The Queen, directed by House of the Dragon director Greg Utanis. That is like one of the best hours of television that exists. It's a real timey-wimey, sissy spacek bravura episode of television. You can almost watch outside of context in general. I would recommend watching that episode. And then if you like it, watch the rest of Castle Rock as well. That might be a way to do it. But yeah, that's a great recommendation. Yeah.

And our pal Mark Bernard also worked on that show. So there you go. Yeah, it's got some power hitters. Great one. Great one. Thank you. Joanna, where are you taking us?

I am taking, I'm bouncing off the vibe of fellowship and being on the road for my recommendation, which is Station Eleven, which I've talked about, you know, at length on the Prestige TV podcast feed. Chris and Andy have talked about it. This is a big ringer favorite. It's on HBO Max. It's a great one.

It's an adaptation of Emily St. Mandel's book. And again, sort of similar to Rings of Power, it's a loose adaptation of a book that I really liked, but then I liked the show even better. It has, like Rings of Power, it has musical moments. It has intensive darkness and then hope and love and friendship and...

you know, bizarre bedfellows that you find at the worst, you know, at the most harrowing moments of, you know, this is sort of a post-apocalyptic scenario in Station Eleven. So I just, for that...

It's a tough hang, I think, for a lot of people, and I won't say that it isn't, but it is also one of the most uplifting things I have ever watched. I don't know that I've ever felt so emotionally connected to a group of characters the way that I feel to some of the characters in Station Eleven, which I recommend you watch.

as soon as possible in case HBO Max buries it for all time. I don't know what's going to happen to it, honestly. And I've been trying to get like a buy a copy of it and I can't so far. So if you know where I can get a forever mine a copy of Station Eleven, I just don't want it to vanish. Legally? And

And maybe if everyone watching this watches it on HBO Max, Zazz will be like, wow, people love that Station Eleven. I'm going to keep it on HBO Max forever. So maybe just like play it in the background while you're doing your dishes or whatever. Just to keep those numbers up, those streaming numbers up. Take the traveling symphony with you always. Yes. Exactly. When I first saw you chose this, I was like, did she choose this because if she were part of the traveling symposium, she would be the person...

trying to make up what happened before the Lord of the Rings to everybody being like, yeah, so there was some rings and there was Sauron, but he was hot. That's, I remember that. Yeah.

Sarn was definitely hot. That I do know. There's actually, there's a song. Mallory was talking about how Wandering Day was on her Spotify raft from Rings of Power this last year. There's a song from the Station Eleven soundtrack, Wandering Under the Moon, that was on my Spotify raft this year, which is just like a beautiful little travel campfire song that they sang at a certain point in the show. Amazing. So, yeah.

Love this show. I love that. I love that. What a pick. My Spotify wrapped is always a mix of songs from shows and movies I've watched a lot at a given year and then like CCR and Bob Dylan every year. Joe, what an amazing pick. You know, I...

I'm one of the legions who read Station Eleven during the pandemic. Wild read. That is part of my book club with college pals, and it seemed like a...

perplexing choice as we were heading in. But like you're saying about the show, it was so affirming and moving and affecting. And I adored the book. I absolutely adored the show. I think this is a wonderful pick. I really hope that anybody who hasn't checked it out does for all of the reasons that you said. It's just a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful show. Speaking of wonderful shows. Yes. Okay. I really struggled with this one. I think of all, all of our buckets today.

The recommendation based off Rings of Power was the hardest one for me to figure out. Like, there were just... I mean, there are a million ways you could go with any of these, but there are really a number of different ways you could go with this. And I was thinking about recommending His Dark Materials because that's something that we adore so much, Joe, the Philip Pullman novels. Yeah. And, you know, the IP of His Dark Materials is kind of on my mind because of the new season of the show. But in recent weeks and days...

doing our year-end pods, doing our Top 10 Moments pods, banking the Versys, which people will get to hear next week. Music came up so often in our chats. And so I started to think about, again, the music of Rings of Power, how much we love the score, how much we love the original songs. And I started thinking about Bear McCreary and Bear McCreary scores and other Bear scores that I love and other genre stories in which those scores have...

brought so much wonder into our lives. And one of the things that I believe is that it's just never the wrong time to talk about Battlestar Galactica again. And so that is what I'm recommending here today. Battlestar, for a few different reasons. The music-centric ones, the bear score that we just discussed. I think that this is truly still to this day an iconic all-time musical accompaniment to a wonderful show. And I don't know, more broadly, I don't know if it

don't know if it was something about returning to Westeros this year, but I have just been thinking a lot about like my all time favorite stories and how badly I want to revisit some of the shows and books and films that I haven't gone back to in a long time. And it's been a minute since I've rewatched all of Battlestar and I'm like really craving a BSG rewatch. So I think I'm mostly just projecting here, but I do think that a lot of people would love this if they haven't checked it out. I'm sure many people have. If you haven't,

Carve out the time. It is very totally distinct from Rings of Power, to be clear. But even though one is this, like, incredibly moving, earnest, sprawling fantasy epic, and one is this deeply dystopian...

Sci-fi tale. They're both about adventure. They are both about found family and fellowship emerging in surprising places and the way that we can use that fellowship to confront something quite daunting that is unfolding around us. Also, both of these top tier will they or won't they shipping discussion prompts. So that's my recommendation. Battlestar.

I almost put both Battlestar and The Expanse, like really almost made it on like almost every one of these categories. I feel like it's, as you say, it's never a bad time to recommend like any of those. So yeah. I was also very close to The Expanse. Yeah.

Oh, man. We have a lot of expanse heads at the ringer. I thought when you were going with the Bear McCreary thing that you were about to recommend God of War Ragnarok. And I was like, because he's also in that. And I've seen behind the scenes footage of him motion capturing his own hurdy-gurdy performance. So it might be the most Bear McCreary thing. I love a hurdy-gurdy. Yeah. In the game, playing it as himself.

Wow. Did they put on the ball suit? I think it's, I'm sure there is a better name for that than the ball suit. Than the ball suit? Phrasing? I retract that. It's official canon. The ball suit. You heard it here. You heard our recommendations. If you loved Rings of Power, check out all of the above. Have a blast and come back in 2023 for more on the Ringiverse and Trial by content. Thank you, Dave. Bye, Dave. Thank you, ladies. It is time.

for the final guest of today's House of Recommends podcast. You have read his work all year long on Hot D, on baseball, on basketball, on The Expanse, the works. Zach is back. As mentioned in the intro of today's pod, it was so much fun last year to chat with Zach about time travel and multiverse stories and books that you should check out if you loved Loki and

If you are eager for even more reading recommendations, Zach has a wonderful column on TheRinger.com. What a great website where he is sharing a ton of recommendations and gems with you, and he is here to share some of those with us today. Zach, welcome. What an introduction. Hello. Okay, Zach, there were a lot of different stories that you were interested in using as your prompt to make a recommendation. A lot of different things that came out in 2022 that

Could have been your segment today. But you had a request. You had a number one on your list, and it was Black Panther, Wakanda Forever. You're so excited to share this recommendation with us. Tell us.

So Wakanda Forever was not my favorite movie of the year, but the book I am going to recommend aligned with Wakanda Forever was my favorite book series I read this year. It is the Green Bones trilogy by Fonda Lee. Starts with the book Jade City, followed by Jade War and Jade Legacy. And this book series is awesome. I can get into a little bit more, but I think

Like most of the folks who talked about it on Ringer Pods, I thought Wakanda Forever was kind of lacking in some places, but really strong in others. And in my opinion, it did three things best. It built out a distinct set of cultures, both expanding in Wakanda and adding in

It dealt with loss and grief, obviously, and it staged a sort of philosophical argument about what a group with the monopoly on power owes to the rest of the world. And Green Bones takes all of those pitches and blasts them out of the park to extend your baseball analogy from in this pod. It is a story that takes place in an isolated island nation. This is a made up world, however, and this is important because

It's not a medieval European inspired fantasy world like so many of the stories we love. This is an urban fantasy story in the urban fantasy subgenre, which means it's a mostly modern world. There are phones, there are planes, but there are

are also these magic stones and they're not vibranium but they are jade thus the the names of each book in the series and jade gives its holders essentially superpowers they are stronger in fights they can sense other people's emotions the kind of superpowers you might see in a marvel story

However, they're only found on this one island nation, kind of like Vibranium is only found in Wakanda and Telecon. And that means the rest of the world wants it. The story follows a group of characters who...

are one of the gangs that control access to Jade. This story is often inspired. This story is often compared to like a Godfather kind of fantasy story because there are two gangs that control access to Jade and they're battling each other, but also have to deal with the rest of the world. So there are internal and external problems. And it's a really incredible story.

set of characters and with character arcs, it's an incredible plot, incredible world building. And I highly recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy stories, likes the philosophical arguments in the Black Panther series about how much do you focus on just retaining all of the jade or vibranium for yourself versus giving it to the rest of the world. If,

It can do things like improve the lives of people outside your country, but might also expose you to military conflict. Is that something you delve into or not? And I think this series is a fantastic exploration of all of those themes. Amazing. I have not... Yeah, I have not read these. I am so excited to check these out now. The last couple...

Book recommendations, Cram, that you made to me that I, I mean, I hope that Ben Lindbergh has stopped listening by this point in the pod after yelling at me earlier for not taking his literary recommendation to heart. But I have read the recent things that Cram has recommended to me. Once a Future Witches, this is how you lose a Time War. Joe, I know you're a huge Time War enthusiast also. I mean, just...

banger after banger on the Crayon Reco list here. So I cannot wait. Those are doorstoppers. Lindbergh sent you a doorstopper. Crayon is recommending much more digestible books for you. Was that Name of the Wind? Yeah. Yes.

See, the difference is I don't recommend books to you that still have an unfinished finale of the trilogy. The point. The whole point. I agree. There we go, Zach. Okay, I love this. I'm adding this to the list. I'm really excited to check this out. This is wonderful. Jo, you also, you have not read these either, right? I have not. No, I'm excited. This is just, this is great. This is great. All right, Jo, what are you recommending to Wakanda Forever fans?

Yeah, the first thing that came to mind for me was this. It's a slightly older book, but it's a book that I absolutely love, which is called Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor, who's a Nigerian-American author. And this was my introduction. This was recommended to me back when I used to work in a bookstore. This was recommended to me by one of my fellow booksellers.

And it was my introduction to Afrofuturism, which is, you know, somewhat the genre that Black Panther and Wakanda Forever exist in. And this particular story takes place, it's sort of like, it's a blend of sci-fi fantasy. There's magical elements, but there's also, it takes place in future tech as well. Follows the journey of a young woman in a fictional African village that

an African Civil War, things that come from there. I will just say, as a warning that I put on sort of Midnight Mass, this is much more mature than Black Panther, Wakanda Forever, not...

in terms of some of the violence or some of the subject matter. So like, I wouldn't recommend like a kid read this necessarily. There's some kind of harrowing stuff that goes on, but it's just one of the most inventive, engrossing, emotionally engrossing books I've ever read. And then I had forgotten when I put this down, I had forgotten that the author, Nadia Khorafor, had also written, she wrote,

Black Panther comic books from Marvel. She wrote the Shuri comic book in 2018. She wrote Shuri Wakanda Forever in 2020. She wrote Wakanda Forever in 2018. So actually, I wrote this down before I remembered that. So that makes it, I guess, even more of a sort of one-to-one with Wakanda Forever. But I just... Afrofuturism is such an interesting genre. And this is, I think, the best...

book I've ever read in that genre with the fantasy element thrown in there. So that's why I would recommend this book. That sounds great. I've read her Binti series, but I have not read Who Fears Death. Highly recommend. What a phenomenal pick. Those were both wonderful. I am going in a completely different direction. Much to Joanna's dismay. I am

to talk about Avatar the Way of Water for the third time this week on the Ringiverse. Though when you hear this, you will only have heard two of them. There's a little tease for next week's mercies, folks. Honestly, I'm shocking myself by talking about the Way of Water so much. But the reason I wanted to bring it up here. The sea is dope. Yeah.

This is dope. Chris Ryan taught us that at Grantland so many years ago. And you know what? It's true. It's true. James Cameron has known that it's true for some time. If you loved being underwater, seeing a telecon, exploring an entire universe in the depths that you had not previously gotten to see, I'd love to recommend a film where you can spend literally hours, literally hours, literally

letting the water and, you know, some of the story, but mostly the water wash over you. Go spend time with the Metcaina clan, with the Sully's, with my beloved Tolkoons. Shout out, Pyakon, my favorite space whale, this side of the Pergils. And

If you are interested in seeing movies set in the water, it's just really a visual splendor and a visual treat. That's my pick. Joe, have I swayed you? No. Stunned silence. Oh, boy. I just love the water. Like James Cameron, I love the ocean. And this movie looked astonishing. Cram, have you seen The Way of Water? I have not seen The Way of Water. You interested in the ocean?

I like the ocean. I don't know if I'll be seeing the way of water. Oh, yes. There are dozens of us. Dozens. We might be the only ones, given how much money it's making. However... There are two of us, too!

Well, there are going to be more than two recommendations in this segment because as mentioned, Cram, you have a column where you're recommending a lot of other books that people check out based on certain releases from 2022. So as we end today's pod, as we wrap up here, let's do a little like rapid fire lightning round of some of the other things that you're eager to recommend to people. I was so glad when you told me I could do this because we all know how much you love a smuggle on these pods. Love a smuggle. So I know you've talked about some other 2022 things

nerd properties already, but a couple others that I will be referencing in my column include The Boys. We all love The Boys and also She-Hulk. Kind of had the same recommendation for me because it is a sort of satirical take on the superhero genre. It is called Hench by Natalie Zena Walshots. And

I think that this book has a stronger premise than Climax, but the premise is so strong. And it also has a sequel coming out in 2023, I believe, that I'm excited for. This is about a character who...

is a temp worker for a supervillain. Because if you think about it, if you're a supervillain, you have to have so many employees, right? You need janitors, you need getaway drivers, you need secretaries. They can't all be true believers in the cause. So the supervillain in this world has temp workers. The main character is a temp worker who has a bad run-in with essentially the Superman or the, you know, the Homelander of this world and goes on from there. So I'd recommend Hench. I would recommend...

For fans of For All Mankind, my favorite non-andor sci-fi show, if you're a fan of that Apple TV Plus series, the Lady Astronaut series by Mary Robinette Kowal is another alternate history version of 20th century space travel. And then the last one I reference here is the one that I'm most excited to tell Mal about.

uh, because I know how much you love the avatar series. I also know you do too, Joe. I've mentioned this book to you before. Actually, it is the rise of Kiyoshi by FCE, which is about, guess what? It's the rise of Kiyoshi, one of our favorite avatars, uh,

And I'm referencing this for fans or maybe not so much fans of the Obi-Wan series. I would consider myself in the latter category. But if you want a better example of how to explore IP prequel nostalgia, The Rise of Kiyoshi is awesome. Excellent for both kids and adults, probably more so than any of the other series I've referenced here so far. Yeah.

Of course, you probably need to be an Avatar fan to enjoy this one as well. But it's really good. It also has a violent streak that Avatar The Last Airbender did not, which I enjoyed as an adult. Kiyoshi's a badass. Yeah, there are some gnarly deaths in this book in a way that Aang never explores. So I

I would highly recommend The Rise of Kiyoshi. Also, because it's more of a young adult novel than the others I've referenced, it's a pretty quick read for anyone who wants to check out Kiyoshi over the holidays. Boy, does Ewan McGregor get really sweaty cutting up meat out under the Tatooine suns in that at any point?

I must have missed that part. However, I think this one is better than Obi-Wan, not to delve too far into my Obi-Wan feelings, because it both shows us some fun Easter eggs, like we get a role for the Beifong family, which obviously was very rich and powerful at the time. But also it expands the lore. There are new bending techniques we've never seen before. So I think it is additive as opposed to just nostalgic.

Joe and I welcome any avatar talk on the pod here. Always. It's true. Yeah. Kiyoshi's also a bisexual icon. So like, yes, big fan. Good relationships in these books. There is a second book, which I didn't love as much, and it continues the relationship. But I think the first book is much stronger. Delightful. What a wonderful series of recommendations. Zach.

Thank you for that. Everybody go read Zach's column on TheRinger.com. What a great website. Zach, we can't wait to chat about more book recommendations with you next year. Thanks, buddy. Happy holidays. All right, friends, we've bent our way all the way to the end of the podcast, and there's only one thing left to say. This is the stuff, Lionel.

How else can we end our final House of R of the Year? Podcasters that learn together, train together, knock each other down, pick each other up. They will certainly form a lifelong bond. Wouldn't you agree? Oh boy. Thank you to our

Dragon Lords of 2022. Steve Ullman for producing this episode and so many others. Arjun Ramgopal for his additional production work on this episode and all of the Ringiverse. And Jomi Adeneron for his work on the social for this episode and all of our RV pursuits. Remember to keep the emails coming. Send them to hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. We will be back in the new year. Until then, happy holidays.

From House of R to you. And remember, alone, it's just a journey. Now podcasts, they must be shared.

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