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PODCAST

Is This Just Fantasy?

Is This Just Fantasy?

The book club where we review all things fantasy! Join Duncan and Geordie as they embark on a quest to track the breadth and history of the fantasy genre, one epic at the time. Whether you"re a fan of book-stopper tomes like Duncan, or lighter YA fantasy like Geordie, we want you to read-along with us. Episodes are released every two weeks, giving you enough to read the book (or skim the synopsis if you"re just here for the banter.)

arts books

All Episodes

85:45

The Witcher: The Last Wish

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2025/01/25

The fellas kick off their 3rd year of the podcast with a long awaited story. The Witcher: The Last Wish, by Andrzej Sapkowski. They cover its dark take on familiar fairy tales, how it compares to its many adaptations, misogyny, and accucastions of plagarism.

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70:08

A Look Back at 2024 - Our Top Books!

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/12/31

What a year, and what a closer. The fellas gather together to celebrate the year that has been and look forward to the one coming. As with every year, they're examing the highs and lows of all the books they've covered in 2024, and awarding books the following categories:The Biggest Surprise, the Biggest Disapointment, their Favourite, the Worst, and the greatest reward of all: the Best book of 2024.Join in on the celebration and see if you can guess who will come out on top!

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71:34

The Dallergut Dream Department Store

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/12/27

In their final episode of 2o24, the fellas tackle their third, and perhaps final, tangentially-related Christmas book with Miye Lee's Dallergut Dream Department store. And despite the winter weather, things are heating up. With Duncan praising the book's easy, fluffy tone, and Geordie savaging the book's prose and glacial pacing. Who will triumph in the debate?Look forward to two more episodes this month: a Bonus episode on the third season of the Legend of Vox Machina, and their annual season

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93:33

Priory of the Orange Tree

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/12/15

The long awaited and long delayed episode on Priory of the Orange Tree. Duncan and Geordie come together to discuss this modern fantasy classic by Samantha Shannon. But Duncan has a secret to share. This time he has fallen short on finishing this novel and Geordie is left to take him through the ending and give his opinions and insight. As Duncan is left to makes wild and inaccurate predictions on how things ended.

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93:45

Red Country

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/11/27

And so, as the year's end approaches, Duncan and Geordie put the wrap on Joe Abercrombie's second trilogy within his First Law series with Red Country. Its the fellas' first encounter with the Fantasy0-Western subgenre, But there are no wizards with sombreros here. Its a little Fist Full of Dollars, a little Deadwood, a lot of True Grit and The Searchers, but with some brooding, evil Northmen and the triumphant return of Nicomo Cosca.No surprise, they love it, and this episode's a good one.

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69:32

The story lost for a century - Bram Stoker's Gibbet Hill

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/11/09

Lost in a Dublin archive for 150 years, the fellas are excited to be among the first to read, rate and review it. Geordie recounts the amazing story of its discovery, as well as some of its.... slightly overenthusiastic scholarly appraisal. Duncan gives a slightly scathing takedown of both Gibbet Hill and Dracula, whilst Geordie tries to comprehend some truly archaic xenophobia.

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85:03

Even the Worm Will Turn

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/10/27

At long last, it's time for Duncan and Geordie to visit the book series from one of their favourite episodes, the sequel to The Worm and His Kings: Even the Worm Will Turn. Things gets quantum-ey and timey-wimeyesque as the fellas follow on from a book Geordie was astounded to discover has a sequel. It's certainly the most audacious sequel to any book they've read so far. Will it stick the landing?The fellas discuss the story's amazing dual-narrative, the what-ifs of life, take a digression to talk

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98:22

Berserk: Holy Evil War - Troll Arc

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/10/12

Following tradition, its time to kick off spooky season with our annual Berserk episode. Following on from The Conviction Arc the fellas head into the first part of The Millenium Falcon Arc: Holy Evil War Chapter, (vol. 22-27).Geordie introduces Duncan to new characters in what is probably the biggest change to the status quo of Berserk outside of the Eclipse, Schierke, high fantasy magic, the berserker armour and the introduction of new friends for both Guts and Griffith. They cover the

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100:14

The Heroes

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/10/03

Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie was one of the fellas' all time favourite novels for the pod. Can its sequel, The Heroes, live up to its successes? Well to no one's surprise, it did. They discuss how much of the book can be enjoyed even with Geordie's limited knowledge of the series and characters. Geordie tries to deduce who exactly "The Bloody Nine" is from context clues, whilst Duncan gives Geordie a crash-course on the series up to this point, and they dive into the amazing characters and

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91:52

The Last Unicorn

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/09/19

By the advice of our lawyers and other sensible people, we do not endorse the "Is This Just Fantasy Last Unicorn Drinking Game," wherein players take a shot every time Duncan and Geordie describe this novel as "beautiful." You have been warned.Yes, in this episode the fellas visit a classic of American fantasy, Peter S. Beagle's the Last Unicorn. A spell-binding fairy tale full of heart and humour. In addition to covering the story, they also cover Beagle's role in Ralph Bakshi's animated Lord of

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100:21

How Conan the Barbarian began a fanfic empire

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/09/05

Robert E. Howard was a poor writer who died in tragedy; unknown. His creations, especially Conan of Cimmeria, destined to be forgotten. Until the vultures began to circle. Duncan leads Geordie on the incredible almost 100 year long story of how Conan was either stolen or rescued from obscurity by L. Sprague de Camp, and continued to be a figurehead of fantasy until today.Duncan chronicles the many, many writers who tried their hand at writing the barbarian, from books, to movies, to comics.This

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82:59

Promise of Blood

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/08/20

The fellas get together to discuss Brennan McClellan's cordite drenched debut, The Promise of Blood, the first book in the Powder Mage trilogy. The discuss some awesome action, fun characters and a promising beginning, as well as some... less than awesome, and even baffling parts.This episode's release was delayed, so apologies. We won't say whose fault it was, but it wasn't Duncan's.

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94:29

Circe

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/08/07

Song of Achilles was tied for the pod's best book in the history of the podcast, so what will the fellas make of its... prequel? Sequel? Midquel? Madeline Miller's crazy collage of Greek Mythology through the hawkish eyes of Circe. It's a beautiful tale covering millennia of isolation, sadness, love, and more sadness. They compare the it against Song of Achilles, they argue over the pronunciation of Circe (Duncan wins), and for a change it's Duncan who's teaching Geordie about Greek Mythology.

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89:53

Star Wars: The Last Command

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/07/13

Before Geordie embarks on his trek through the wilds of Sweden, there to battle moose and attempt to order food using his very bad Swedish, the fellas settle in to wrap up their review of Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy. They cover Palpatine's revenge check-list, get important villain names wrong, and cloning logistics. Also how great The Last Command is.

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108:02

Children of Anguish and Anarchy

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/06/30

The fellas cover the much anticipated finale to the Legacy of Orisha series by Tomi Adeyemi which began with the smash Children of Blood and Bone, They discuss how it measures up the the successes of the first book and the misses of the second. They cover conspicuous character absences and dropped themes, and an in-depth analysis on the author's differing approach to each book; Geordie brings up the Rise of Skywalker an unfortunate number of times, whilst Duncan schools him on Norse mythology in a

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91:24

Star Wars: Dark Force Rising

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/06/27

The fellas carry on their Star Wars Legends marathon with Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn. They discuss Leia actually being allowed to do things in this book, get annoyed at there being too many lightsabre colours, Geordie gets bent out of shape about the name: "Katana Fleet." Speaking of shapes, I hope you like nerds discussing the different alphabet themed Star Fighters, because they spend more time talking about those than Luke Skywalker.

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91:50

Star Wars: Heir to the Empire

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/06/13

Much to Geordie's horror he has been compelled to read another Star Wars book. And worse yet... he likes it. The fellas review Timothy Zahn's continuation of the original Star Wars trilogy. They have their first encounter with iconic characters like Thrawn and Mara Jade, discuss wife-guy Han Solo, the significance of light sabre colours, the presence of hot chocolate in the series, and Geordie vents his feelings on Star Wars fans.

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85:57

The Gunslinger

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/05/31

The fellas journey across the desert to hunt a man in black and discuss the beginning of Stephen King's celebrated series: The Dark Tower. They cover their histories with King, uncover the surprising backstory behind the book's origin, discover a meta-twist neither of them saw coming, Geordie teaches Duncan about the Song of Roland, and they debate whether or not there was a goat-man in the book.

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102:56

Dune

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/05/16

This is a fantasy novel, we promise, Duncan and Geordie gather round the northern hemisphere of Arrakis to discuss Frank Herbert's Science-Ficti,,, I mean Science-Fantasy epic, Dune. They discuss its astounding world building, its fascinating connection to real history, the intricacies of its world, spend an unusual amount of time talking about Brian Herbert, and discuss its incredible ending.Editing note: this was Geordie's first time recording with a new microphone, so there may be some teething

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91:08

Empire of the Damned

Is This Just Fantasy? ·

2024/05/09

In the much anticipated follow-up to Empire of the Vampire, Geordie and Duncan get stuck into everything they love about it, and its a long book with a lot to love. They talk sincerity, big anime swords, massive retcons, twists, awesome art, difficult to pronounce Scottish names, and perhaps the funniest blunder in the podcast's history as Duncan completely misreads the ending of the book.

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