Stay ConnectedOur house is a mess — come on in!
This now-complete podcast features Amber and Ben — married, mildly overwhelmed, and hilariously honest — as they roast their own parenting fails, marriage misadventures, and behind-the-scenes influencer life.
No new episodes are dropping, but the full archive is full of chaos, laughs, and the kind of relatable moments that make you feel like you’re hanging with friends. Binge now — because real life is rarely picture-perfect, and that’s what makes it great.
Copyright: © All rights reserved
If I were you, I'd take precaution....
This week we read Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston. This book has everything—climate change, blood magic, spirit zombies, pirates, and queer love. We stan all 500 pages of this epic fantasy. We also discuss what makes epic fantasy “epic.”
Directed by Remi Weekes, His House follows the story of Bol (Sope Dirisu) and Rial (Wunmi Mosaku), two asylum-seekers who've survived a tortuous journey across the Mediterranean from Sudan. We discuss assimilation, survivor’s guilt, and the horror of living in a dilapidated building.
This week Amber and Ben sat down with Author Nisi Shawl to talk about their most recent book "Talk Like A Man," and their editing work for the 2020 World Fantasy award winning collection "New Suns".
Nisi Shawl’s essay "Crash Course in Science Fiction" has been a guide for this podcast, but Nisi has also won an Otherwise Award (formerly the Tiptree Award) for their short collection "Filter House" and has been a Nebula finalist and Otherwise Honoree for their novel "Everfair," an alternate history in which the Congo overthrows King Leopold II’s genocidal regime.
Finally, Nisi is an educator and they co-wrote "Writing the Other: A Practice Approach," now the standard text on diverse character representation in the imaginative genres.
Speculative or pretentious? Terence Nance's An Oversimplification of Her Beauty is a fusion of stop-motion, animation, and camera phone footage is a headache, and heartache of unrequited art-school love.
A tedious arthouse film where humans can be either satellites or planets either mindlessly revolving or gropingly gravitating. Smoke some weed and bring your notebook for this glorious stench.
This cocktail of X-Men superpowers, the prison industrial complex, hyper-militarization of police, and hundred of years of racism spotlighted with viral videos of today is an ambitious novella. The alternate history, just a little bit, to the left of our world takes on a lot, maybe too much.
We discuss trauma porn, actual prison rodeos, god-like powers, and the future of incarceration in Tochi Onyebuchi's novella Riot Baby.
Predestination or free-will? Stefon Bristol’s directorial debut, See You Yesterday, is a brilliant nod to time travel narratives while reflecting the horrors of our time. We talk kid-scientists, annoying high schoolers, fate, BLM and Spike Lee. Ya Dig?
References:
We review the novella, The Deep, by Rivers Solomon with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes. Add it to the oeuvre of mermaid fiction, but unlike The Little Mermaid, the merfolk of this world don’t lose their voice. We discuss terror management theory, air guns, mermaid cunnilingus and not much more.
We review the instant Christmas classic of this year--Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey directed by David E. Talbert. Turns out the best Christmas movies lead to discussion of ensoulment, A.I. euthanization, the fusion of magic and science, and lost opportunities.
Also grab a Kleenex for an Afrobeats snowball fight with steampunk custom design. I’m not crying, you’re crying.
Prepare ye the way for Black Jesus! Straight Outta Compton, Black Jesus, created by the genius Aaron McGruder adds to the long list of Jesus fantasies. This Jesus brings a whole new take on our Lord and Savior. So kick back, light a joint, and watch this holy series.
What do you get when you shake Mecha, Weird Western, and Afrofuturism? The gonzo fiction of Cannon Busters. We review the anime, Canon Busters, created by the Bronx-born and Japan-based Black creator LeSean Thomas. We don’t know anime, so we get some help from, long-time anime fan,Carmilla.
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
