Terrible Book Club

Sometimes you go to a pool party. Sometimes, that pool party also has a car with a trunk full of books. This was one of those books. 
Resources & References:
The Vampire Myth and Christianity by Dorothy Ivey
Addictive Religion: Midnight Mass, Dracula, and the Prosperity Gospel by Alyssa Johnson
Important Show Update: This episode was mostly edited, but did not go through our final editing process because, most unfortuantely, Scribando's laptop was lost in Canada yesterday. If any of you live in or near Montreal, we wouldn't mind some help retrieving it (seriously)! The show may need to take on a different character for a few episodes while we get our bearings to deal with this major loss of material. We were about to wrap up recording for the entire year in early June, so we may be faced with re-recording episodes or pivoting entirely for now and re-recording them later. In the meantime, we greatly appreciate your patience and sacrifices to Terriblo to remedy this.

This is the continuation of Episode 240. If you haven't listened to that, please go back and do so because otherwise this isn't going to make a ton of sense.
If you've ever wanted TBC to be a sleepy podcast to help you drift off into dreamland, you're in luck this episode and the next! Scribando worked really hard on this one but it is really just him retelling history, both real and imagined.
Our Patron Miles submitted this as his Patron's Choice this season saying, "This book was originally published online via the website Alternatehistory.com and then was later given an actual published release. Much like a lot of stories on that site, it's broken up into various segments detailing how things have changed leading up to a certain point. I suppose the best way to summarize this book is "What if Mussolini was Stalin?" Because he's very much still a dictator in this universe but he ends up becoming a US ally here and then rules for quite a while...I'll also say that this book contains a personal pet peeve of mine when it comes to alternate history, namely that the point of divergence, the moment where things truly become different, basically boils down to a moment that never happened in real life featuring people that didn't exist."
Now Miles has been a loyal patron and did try to keep to the roughly 350 page limit we have on requests for our sanity, since, well, when you go look at the physical copy on Amazon it sure seems like it's around that length. However, Terriblo had other plans. As a result, we're splitting this into two episodes so you heard the first half in Episode 240 and you'll hear the rest today.
In addition to our usual barnyard language, today's episode includes discussion of World War 2 and all associated atrocities. You know that big list of horrible shit that happened? It's in here. Sometimes double or triple!
RESOURCES & REFERENCES:
alternatehistory.org

https://reallifemag.com/considered-alternatives/

https://www.alternatehistory.com/wiki/doku.php?id=timelines:timelines_and_scenarios

TBC is an AI-free production. Audio by Oselka Sound.

If you've ever wanted TBC to be a sleepy podcast to help you drift off into dreamland, you're in luck this episode and the next! Scribando worked really hard on this one but it is really just him retelling history, both real and imagined.
Our Patron Miles submitted this as his Patron's Choice this season saying, "This book was originally published online via the website Alternatehistory.com and then was later given an actual published release. Much like a lot of stories on that site, it's broken up into various segments detailing how things have changed leading up to a certain point. I suppose the best way to summarize this book is "What if Mussolini was Stalin?" Because he's very much still a dictator in this universe but he ends up becoming a US ally here and then rules for quite a while...I'll also say that this book contains a personal pet peeve of mine when it comes to alternate history, namely that the point of divergence, the moment where things truly become different, basically boils down to a moment that never happened in real life featuring people that didn't exist."
Now Miles has been a loyal patron and did try to keep to the roughly 350 page limit we have on requests for our sanity, since, well, when you go look at the physical copy on Amazon it sure seems like it's around that length. However, Terriblo had other plans. As a result, we're splitting this into two episodes so you'll hear the second half of this discussion in two weeks on Episode 241.
In addition to our usual barnyard language, today's episode includes discussion of World War 2 and all associated atrocities. You know that big list of horrible shit that happened? It's in here. Sometimes double or triple!
RESOURCES & REFERENCES:
alternatehistory.org

https://reallifemag.com/considered-alternatives/

https://www.alternatehistory.com/wiki/doku.php?id=timelines:timelines_and_scenarios

TBC is an AI-free production. Audio by Oselka Sound.

We're back, we're sober, and another Boston book has appeared on our digital doorstep! Now That You Have Seen Me was submitted to the show by the author herself sometime over the last two years. Every once in a while it's fun to experience Boston-based fiction and it's been a little bit since we've dealt with an unreliable narrator, so we thought we'd take this for a spin this season.
In addition to our usual barnyard language, today's episode includes discussion or mention of drug use, severe mental illness, sex, and just a dash of racism and a pinch of some phobias we gotta' talk about a little bit.
TBC is an AI-free production. Audio by Oselka Sound.

At last, we give you the final episode in our alcohol-fueled quadrilogy. Our wonderful Patron Beastwiththeleast mailed us this book of their own free will. Thoroughly in debt to them and their glorious book packages, we selected this one for review this year especially for our dear Beast.
As we are far from being biblical scholars ourselves, we're desperately trying to summon Dan McClellan for an assist here to provide a fact check for our own sanity.
In addition to our usual barnyard language, today's episode includes discussion and consumption of alcohol (your hosts are intoxicated after sampling cocktails from the book we reviewed two episodes ago in your timeline, but have yet to record in ours) along with a whole lot of Christianity.
TBC is an AI-free production. Audio by Oselka Sound.