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Back Seat Book Club Shows

Back Seat Book Club – Book Eighteen: Apocalypse Cow

Author: Michael Logan

Published: 2012

Doubleday

Plot Summary – When scientists with warped imaginations accidentally unleash an experimental bioweapon that transforms Britain’s animals into sneezing, bloodthirsty zombies with a penchant for pre-dinner sex with their victims, three misfits become the unlikely hope for salvation.

Abattoir worker Terry Borders’ love life is crippled by the stench of death that clings to his skin from his days spent slaughtering cows; teenage vegan Geldof ‘Scabby’ Peters alternates between scratching furiously at his rash and baiting his overbearing New Age mother; and inept journalist Lesley McBrien struggles forlornly in the shadow of her famous war correspondent father and the star journalist at the Glasgow Tribune.

When Britain begins a rapid descent into chaos and ministers cynically attempt to blame al-Qaeda, Lesley stumbles upon proof that the government is behind the outbreak. During her bumbling quest to unveil the truth, she crosses paths with Terry and Geldof, and together they set out to escape a quarantined Britain with the evidence and vital data that could unlock a cure for the virus.

Standing in the way are rampaging hordes of animals, a ruthless security agent and an army ready to shoot anybody with a case of the sniffles on the off-chance the virus has mutated.
Three losers. Overwhelming odds. A single outcome: the world is screwed.

Quick Thoughts:

  • [this space for lease]

“Somewhere out there, the cows were waiting.  And they were hungry.”

Your Hosts:

  • Krissy
  • Lena
  • Sam
  • Scott

Recorded: 01/27/14

Next Time: Vicious by V. E. Schwab

Categories
Back Seat Book Club Shows

Back Seat Book Club – Book Seventeen: Clockwork Orange

Author: Anthony Burgess

Published: 1962

William Heinemann Ltd.

Plot Summary – In Anthony Burgess’s nightmare vision of the future, where criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends’ social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. When the state undertakes to reform Alex—to “redeem” him—the novel asks, “At what cost?”

Quick Thoughts:

  • [now hiring: show note guy]

“Great Music, it said, and Great Poetry would like quieten Modern Youth down and make Modern Youth more Civilized. Civilized my syphilised yarbles.” 

Your Hosts:

  • Jim
  • Lena
  • Scott

Recorded: 01/08/13

Next Time: Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan

Categories
Back Seat Book Club Shows

Back Seat Book Club – Book Sixteen: Last Unicorn

Author: Peter S Beagle

Published: 1968

Roc

Plot Summary – The unicorn discovers that she is the last unicorn in the world, and sets off to find the others. She meets Schmendrick the Magician–whose magic seldom works, and never as he intended–when he rescues her from Mommy Fortuna’s Midnight Carnival, where only some of the mythical beasts displayed are illusions. They are joined by Molly Grue, who believes in legends despite her experiences with a Robin Hood wannabe and his unmerry men. Ahead wait King Haggard and his Red Bull, who banished unicorns from the land.

Quick Thoughts:

  • [forthcoming]

“We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream.” 

Your Hosts:

  • Lena
  • Sam
  • Scott

Recorded: 11/25/13

Next Time:  A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Categories
Back Seat Book Club Shows

Back Seat Book Club – Book Fifteen: Sacré Bleu

Author: Christopher Moore

Published: 2012

HarperCollins

Plot Summary – In his latest novel, the immortal Moore takes on the Great French Masters. A magnificent “Comedy d’Art” from the author of LambFool and Bite Me, Moore’s Sacré Bleu is part mystery, part history (sort of), part love story, and wholly hilarious as it follows a young baker-painter who joins the dapper Henri Toulouse-Lautrec on a quest to unravel the mystery behind the supposed suicide of Vincent van Gogh.

Quick Thoughts

  • [forthcoming]

“The Painting is not shit,’ said Lucien.

‘I know,’ said Henri. ‘That was just part of the subterfuge. I am of royal lineage; subterfuge is one of the many talents we carry in our blood, along with guile and hemophilia.”

Your Hosts:

  • Lena
  • Sam
  • Scott

Recorded 10/25/13

Next Time: The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

 

Categories
Back Seat Book Club Shows

Back Seat Box Office #167

Congrats to Jeff and Mrs. Beast for their high scores of 24!

Picks:

Jeff

  1. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
  2. Frozen
  3. Black Nativity
  4. Thor: The Dark World
  5. Homefront

Lena

  1. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
  2. Frozen
  3. Homefront
  4. Delivery Man
  5. Black Nativity

Art’s House picks:

  • Jeff & Lena – Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Categories
Back Seat Book Club Shows Special Guests

Back Seat Book Club – Interview: Matthew Woodring Stover

Guest Matthew Stover joins Scott to talk about the inspirations behind the style and setting of Heroes Die, along with a discussion on tie-in fiction and getting punched the face.

Host:

  • Scott

Recorded: 11/11/13

 

Categories
Back Seat Book Club Shows

Back Seat Book Club – Book Fourteen: Heroes Die

Author: Matthew Woodring Stover

Published: 1998

Del Rey

Plot Summary – Renowned throughout the land of Ankhana as the Blade of Tyshalle, Caine has killed his share of monarchs and commoners, villains and heroes. He is relentless, unstoppable, simply the best there is at what he does.

At home on Earth, Caine is Hari Michaelson, a superstar whose adventures in Ankhana command an audience of billions. Yet he is shackled by a rigid caste society, bound to ignore the grim fact that he kills men on a far-off world for the entertainment of his own planet–and bound to keep his rage in check.

But now Michaelson has crossed the line. His estranged wife, Pallas Rill, has mysteriously disappeared in the slums of Ankhana. To save her, he must confront the greatest challenge of his life: a lethal game of cat and mouse with the most treacherous rulers of two worlds . . .

Quick Thoughts

  • [forthcoming maybe]

Now that it’s too late, now that I lie here dying on this bloodstained sand, I finally get it.

I understand, now.

I understand. I know what he meant. My father told me that to know
the enemy is half the battle. I know you, now. That’s right.

It’s you.

All of you who sit in comfort and watch me die, who see the twitch of
my bowels through my own eyes: You are my enemy.

Corpses lie scattered around me, gleanings left in a wheat field by a careless reaper. Berne’s body cools beneath the bend of my back, and I can’t feel him anymore. The sky darkens over my head—but no, I think that’s my eyes; Pallas’ light seems to have faded.

Every drop of the blood that soaks into this sand stains my hands and the hands of the monsters that put me here.

That’s you, again.

It’s your money that supports me, and everyone like me; it’s your lust that we serve.

You could thumb your emergency cut-off, turn your eyes from the screen, walk out of the theatre, close the book . . .

But you don’t.

You are my accomplice, and my destroyer.

My nemesis.

My insatiable blood-crazed god.

Ah, ahhh, Christ . . . it hurts .

Your Hosts:

  • Chris 
  • Dirk
  • Scott

Recorded: 09/26/13

Next Time: Sacré Blue by Christopher Moore

Extra Life

Chris’ Web Presence

 

Categories
Back Seat Book Club Shows

Back Seat Book Club – Book Thirteen: From a Buick 8

Author: Stephen King

Published: 2002

Scribner

Plot Summary – The story begins in western Pennsylvania in 1979, when a mysterious figure parks a vintage Buick Roadmaster at a local gas station, then disappears forever. The police discover that the Buick isn’t a car at all but rather a Buick-shaped enigma: self-healing; impregnable to dents, dirt, and scratches; composed of unidentifiable materials; and containing a completely nonfunctional engine. Confronted with a mystery of unprecedented proportions, the troopers of Barracks D claim the Buick for themselves and spend 20 years attempting to understand its nature, purpose, and provenance.

Quick Thoughts

  • [forthcoming]

It’s funny how close the past is, sometimes. Sometimes it seems as if you could almost reach out and touch it. Only who really wants to?

Your Hosts

  • Lena
  • Scott

Recorded: 08/29/13

Next Time: Heroes Die by Matthew Woodring Stover

Categories
Back Seat Book Club Shows

Back Seat Book Club – Book Twelve: The Gunseller

Author: Hugh Laurie

Published: 1996

Washington Square Press

Plot Summary –  The irresistible tale of a former Scots Guard-turned-hired gun, a freelance soldier of fortune who also happens to be one heck of a nice guy. Cold-blooded murder just isn’t Thomas Lang’s cup of tea. Offered a bundle to assassinate an American industrialist, he opts to warn the intended victim instead — a good deed that soon takes a bad turn. Quicker than he can down a shot of his favourite whiskey, Lang is bashing heads with a Buddha statue, matching wits with evil billionaires, and putting his life (among other things) in the hands of a bevy of femmes fatales. Up against rogue CIA agents, wannabe terrorists, and an arms dealer looking to make a high-tech killing, Lang’s out to save the leggy lady he has come to love…and prevent an international bloodbath to boot.

Quick Thoughts:

  • [forthcoming]

“There’s an undeniable pleasure in stepping into an open-top sports car driven by a beautiful woman. It feels like you’re climbing into a metaphor.” 

Your Hosts:

  • Lena
  • Scott

Recorded: 07/25/13

Next Time: From a Buick 8 by Stephen King

 Vote on what should be added to the to-read pile 

Categories
Back Seat Book Club Shows

Back Seat Book Club – Book Eleven: Redemption in Indigo

Author: Karen Lord

Published: 2010

Small Beer Press

Plot Summary – Paama’s husband is a fool and a glutton. Bad enough that he followed her to her parents’ home in the village of Makendha—now he’s disgraced himself by murdering livestock and stealing corn. When Paama leaves him for good, she attracts the attention of the undying ones—the djombi— who present her with a gift: the Chaos Stick, which allows her to manipulate the subtle forces of the world. Unfortunately, a wrathful djombi with indigo skin believes this power should be his and his alone.

Quick Thoughts:

  • [forthcoming]

All my tales are true, drawn from life, and a life story is not a tidy thing. 

Your Hosts:

  • Jim
  • Lena
  • Sam
  • Scott

recorded 06/26/13

Next time: The Gunseller by Hugh Lawrie