Left on Read: The Taiga Syndrome

tay-ga must be a Canadian thing

couple minutes in and i kinda wanna go back to listening to how the white scars are fighting back against the perfidious Tau's 3rd sphere expansion

Can I be a pedant for one sec? Oh I can? We good then. I really enjoyed you talk on the Taiga Syndrome ... but I studied Latin American lit and lived in Bogota for a year in the midst of lots Narco violence. But when I wasn't explaining to soldiers what a stupid gringo was doing in Bogotá, I was studying Maglcal Realism and the Boom. Magical Realism has Realism in the name for a reason. In Hundred Years of Solitude for example, in the passage where there is a massacre, Garcia Marquez is citing the actual document which was read out before the actual people was massacred. So The Taiga Syndrome, which does seem like a great book, doesn't seem to be Magical Realsim, rather just Magical ... so Fairy Tale as one of you said at some point.

Ok, you’ve convinced me to read this book.

"You bring that smooth shit to the Taiga, you get Taigen"

I really want Riley to just bring a black library book to left on read next time

In Texas I've only ever heard it pronounced "t-eye-guh" but pronunciation is a fickle and regional thing

@riley Could I make a suggestion for the inevitable Blindsight episode? Do a crossover with Death // Sentence, IMO the best genre fiction podcast in the podverse. The hosts are geniuses and their are politics are Good. a couple standout episodes: https://soundcloud.com/death-sentence-pod/b-catling-the-vorrh-trilogy https://soundcloud.com/death-sentence-pod/m-john-harrison-light https://soundcloud.com/death-sentence-pod/ottessa-moshfegh-lapvona Selfishly, I just want more people to be exposed to this! (incidentally, I discovered TF via your Corner Spati "Massimo Autismo" bit)

I don't know this book or writer but your discussion really made me want to read it. Of course it reminded me of Angela Carter and I suspect you may also like Sara Gran's Claire DeWitt series, also about a woman detective with strong elements of noir and existentialism. Also with a magical feel but also social realism: from one of them I learnt a lot more about the horrors of Hurricane Katrina. She's also written Dope which has an incredibly dark noir ending. Do keep up this excellent series!

on the topic of magical realist avengers, grant morrison's run of doom patrol had the brotherhood of dada, a group of villains with powers such as "every superpower you didn't think of" or "he comes as no surprise". their plans included stealing the bicycle on which albert hoffman rode while under the influence of lsd and using it to run a psychedelic presidential campaign. come to think of it, the doom patrol itself probably counts as "magical realist avengers"...

Loving this series, hope it keeps going..!

loved this discussion and want to read the book now. this was a good interview with the author about it (in Spanish): https://www.informador.mx/Cultura/El-mal-de-la-taiga-rima-con-desamor-20121204-0240.html

If the author had never been to Anchorage Alaska I’d be shocked. It’s such a perfect description.

This sounds like such a good read tbh

The talk at the end about how discussion crystallised your understanding of the book reminded me of a moment I had recently describing A Canticle for Leibowitz to some friends. It’s funny how just speaking something can change what you understanding so much.

Magical Realist Avengers is an excellent bit, don't sleep on it

As the violence of the periphery is visited upon the imperial core, white people will become more and more capable of writing magical realism.

Taiga, as a word, just makes me think of spamming fireballs as Sagot, in Streer Fighter II.