I’ve eased up on the book club because I think it’s hard for a critical mass of folks to keep up—we all have a lot on our pop culture agendas. But some people have been asking me what I’m reading or what I’m looking forward to this summer. So here are five books that are either coming out, or are relatively new releases that I think are worth making time for if you’re escaping to the beach somewhere.

-Alif the Unseen, G. Willow Wilson, Out on July 3: Alif The Unseen may not be the first major fictional take on the Arab Spring, but it’s definitely the first to examine what would happen to a censorious oil state if a talented young hacker of Indian-Arab origin, after having his heart shattered by the upper-class girl he’s in love with, goes on the run with his veiled neighbor and best real-life friend and a djinn. It’s a terrifically fun novel about the connections between literature and coding, magic and Islam, and the identities we create for ourselves.

-Shadow and Bone, Leigh Bardugo, Out on June 5: For all my YA readers of all ages in the house, Bardugo’s fantasy set in a Russia where the tsar’s advised by both a Rasputin-like holy man and a powerful wizard is the first part of a trilogy, and by the end of Shadow and Bone, you’ll be glad that’s the case. Fictional authoritarians don’t always pack the punch or capture the rot of unstable regimes, but Bardugo’s does. Plus magic and smooching and some super-scary demons.

-Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel, Out on May 8: Wolf Hall, the first book in Mantel’s trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, is one of my favorite books of recent years, a rich, strange volume that actually captures what it feels like to be inside a non-modern mindset. I’m excited for the HBO adaptation, if it ever comes to fruition. But I’m even more excited for this sequel.

-The Orphan Master’s Son, Adam Johnson: Johnson’s novel of life in North Korea has been out for a while, and at first blush, it might not seem like beach reading. But it’s gorgeously written, and a propulsive adventure, a reminder that life as we know it can be so strange as to approach magical realism. If you want a reckoning with American inability to comprehend the world beyond ourselves, this is one of the most innovative ways to have that conversation with yourself and a piece of literature.

-Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel: I feel like I shouldn’t even have to make the case for this graphic novel memoir, given how wonderful Bechdel’s meditation on her father, Fun Home, is. But for those of you who are unfamiliar, Alison Bechdel is a genius, and Dykes to Watch Out For, her long-running syndicated comic strip about a lesbian community, was fantastic, no matter what your sexual orientation.

Saladin Ahmed wrote my all-time favorite essay about race and Game of Thrones, so I was terrifically excited to read Throne of the Crescent Moon, his first novel. The first installment in a series, the book follows Dr. Adoulla Makhslood, a hunter of monsters called ghuls who do terrible violence for the men who create them. Raseed bas Raseed, his dervish apprentice, struggles with his religious devotion even as he admires some aspects of the more profane Adoulla’s life and work. The world in which they do their work isn’t ours, nor is the religion that shapes their lives Islam, at least not precisely. But Throne of the Crescent Moon is a riff on and a response to everything from our contemporary conversations about Islam to the tropes of the Western fantasy canon. Ahmed and I talked about everything from his mythological influences to the way he thinks about writing women. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

When you started thinking about the novel, I’d be curious what kind of research you did into the mythology? I feel like Western readers are familiar with non-Western myths like djinns as they’ve been shoehorned into the edges of fairy tales, but they’re not often at the center of the frame.

In some ways, it’s two separate questions. What the research was going in was a hodge-podge. Growing up in Arab immigrant communities, my grandmother would, in halting Arabic, try to tell me stories. But [I also read] also translations of the Koran and stuff like that. Some of it was from my heritage. And some of it is integrating bits of, dare I say, Orientalist use of quote unquote Eastern mythologies…It’s very Arab-American novel in the mix of mythology that’s in there. And that made it easier to connect with a Western audience because there are a whole swath of things in there that nerds who read a lot of Western fantasy recognize.

The monster stuff, a lot of it’s my own stuff. The ghuls, which are the main creatures in there, they’re really just using the name. In actual Arab mythology, ghuls are sentient, and they’re dimwitted but cunning. They’re cannibals. I’ve had a lot of people in there use the zombie metaphor for them. They are these kinds of mindless hordes of creatures, but they’re not raised from the dead in the same way. They’re more like golems than anything else. There is probably some intra-Semitic mythology going on there…There’s definitely a take on the djenn in the later books…I’m interested in the theology issues that the Koran has with the djenn.

Similarly, a lot of fantasy relies on readers having some cursory knowledge of European history and geography, like George R.R. Martin’s use of the War of the Roses as an analogue for the concepts in Game of Thrones. What kind of knowledge did you assume on the part of your readers?

It’s a funny thing becuase so many aspects of this book, and discussing this book are counterpoints to European fantasy this and European fantasy that. Most people don’t actually know that much about European history, and most European geography. [In Western fantasy novels] where’s people’s terror of salvation, for instance? That seems like it would be a pretty big thing. I’m pretty much assuming nothing [about what people know]. In some ways, that’s freeing. This is very intentionally not historical fantasy per se, because it felt extremely constraining in ways I didn’t want to be constrained. The kind of straight-up analogues will start to come in more in later books. There’s a central Crusades analogue that will come up in books two and three. And the [series' version of the] standard trope of a dark army that’s on the rise where there will be the final clash will be the Crusader analogue. But hopefully I’m not just flipping the sides. In the Muslim world, [the story of the Crusades is that] there’s these savages that came. That’s not entirely accurate either. It’s proving thorny to write.

Dervishes are, of course, a real thing rather than a fantasy or cultural creation, but it’s not quite clear in the book whether your characters are Muslim or not, or whether they follow an analogous but not identical faith. How much did you want the novel to be directly tied to and function as a reflection on contemporary understandings of Islam?

That’s been probably one of the most interesting things that’s kind of been raised and discussed about this book. Some people reading the book feel like they’re mentioning God every couple of pages, it’s getting annoying. It’s a secular reading that wants an anachronistically secular reading of pre-industrial fantasy world. And there are some people who are reading it who say ‘I expected it to be more Islamic.’ It’s a secondary world. It’s a made-up world. It’s not Islam. It’s not the Middle East. It’s not Earth. It’s a made-up world in the way that Robert Jordan or George R.R. Martin, that most people writing today are writing in made-up worlds. It might look like historical periods in our own Earth, but they’re made up. And that’s very intentional. And I didn’t want to wrie a book that’s about Islam. I’m choosing to write a religion that looks like a religion that gets maligned a lot in the culture the book is being read in. At the end of the day, this is an adventure fantasy novel that can’t bear the weight of truly depicting Islam in such a problematic world on its little shoulders.
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Last week’s episode of Game of Thrones, “What Is Dead May Never Die,” was my favorite of the show’s run so far, full of marvelous character development and deep attention to questions of fealty, faith, sexual identity, and courage. Bryan Cogman, who wrote the episode, and serves as story editor and keeper of the Game of Thrones mythology, was kind enough to take the time to answer some questions about “What Is Dead May Never Die,” and about sexposition, his relationship to the Game of Thrones fan community, the awesomeness of getting to introduce Brienne of Tarth, and the crazy suggestions that women don’t like fantasy.

I’d be curious to know how much the decisions to diverge from characterization—or to bring a character who doesn’t have a point of view perspective to the fore as is the case with Margaery—are driven by the simple demands of narrative economy, and how much they’re driven by the capacities of the actors involved?

In a few cases, there’s a kind of energy a certain actor possesses that inevitably informs how we write the character. For example, John Bradley’s Samwell Tarly is arguably funnier and maybe a bit more self-assured (at least amongst Jon and his friends) than his book counterpart. Or there’s Theon Greyjoy—his storyline has remained more or less the same but the characterization is quite different as a result of us de-aging the character when Alfie Allen was cast. This immediately changed the dynamic between him and Robb—they became contemporaries—and a more brotherly relationship developed between them over the course of Season One. This makes his decision to betray the Starks in Season Two markedly different than it was in the books.

In the case of Margaery Tyrell, this is an example of us taking advantage of the fact that we don’t have to adhere to the book’s strict POV structure. Margaery is pivotal to the plot of the novels, but she doesn’t really come front and center until the fourth book and, even then, you don’t know a whole lot about her. That’s fun in its own way but we decided when plotting out the current season that it would serve the show better to give the character a stronger presence earlier on. It gave us the opportunity to examine a key part of the game (the arranged marriage) up close. And once Natalie Dormer was cast, her persona certainly influenced the writing of the character.

Those are just a few examples… but there are plenty of characters on the show that seem like they leaped from the pages of the books onto the screen, unchanged — Gwendoline Christie’s Brienne and Conleth Hill’s Varys are examples of this, I think. So I think we have a healthy mix.

I’m sure you’ve heard the suggestion that Game of Thrones relies on sexposition, scenes where someone lays out an idea while unrelated sex is taking place somewhere in the frame. This week’s scenes between Loras and Renly and Renly and Margaery were the exact opposite of sexposition—the nudity and sexual contact between the characters were absolutely critical to our growing understanding of the characters—but I’m curious how you approached writing that scene given the larger conversation about sex and the series.

I appreciate that you don’t consider the scenes in my episode to be “sexpository”. Frankly, I think the term has been overused when talking about the current season and, in most cases, used incorrectly. From my point of view, there has been exactly one Season Two “sexposition” scene so far, between Theon and the Captain’s Daughter, and that was taken directly from George’s book, thank you very much! Sure, there’s still plenty of sex on the show — but far less “sexposition” than last year.

And I guess I take exception to the idea that we “relied” on sexposition last year. There were several scenes in Season One where backstory and mythology were peppered into dialogue that didn’t involve a sexual act. Robert’s “war story” scene with Ser Barristan and Jaime is one example, Theon’s encounter with Tyrion in my own Season One episode is another. Of course, there were plenty of exposition scenes that did feature sex (hence the term) but I also take exception with the idea that the sex is unrelated to what’s being discussed… but that’s a whole other conversation.

Anyway, back to Season Two. It was an exciting challenge to get to tackle the sexual gamesmanship of the Renly/Loras/Margaery triangle, which doesn’t really exist in the books. And I particularly enjoyed pulling the curtain back on Renly. The strength and swagger on display at the beginning of the episode is nowhere to be found at the end, after he’s gone a couple of rounds with brother and sister Tyrell. But I don’t think I approached the writing of these scenes any differently than I would the others. I’m certainly not thinking about the larger discussion of sex on the show — we can’t let those kind of discussions influence how we tell our story. And, make no mistake, sex is a big part of this world, as it is in George’s books, as it has been throughout history, and as it is in the lives of every human being, whether they admit it to themselves or not. [Note: Bryan emailed me to say he should add that he loved Saturday Night Live's Game of Thrones and sex skit, in which Andy Samberg plays a horny 13-year-old who consults on the episodes]

One thing we see in this episode—and that gives the episode its title—is a baptism, and Jon Snow also gets something of a theology lesson. Given your role as keeper of Game of Thrones mythology, what role do you think religion plays in the franchise? And do you think there are particular challenges in bringing religions where gods are active in the world, and fealty, which is a similar emotion to worship, to a modern audience?

George’s exploration of religion is, without question, one of my favorite aspects of his story. It plays an increasingly significant role as the series goes on, not only in the lives of the various characters but in the “game” itself. Last season, faith was largely depicted in a personal way — Ned’s quiet vigil under the weirwood tree, Cat’s homemade shrine to the Seven, etc. This season, we begin to see how religious faith is used in the pursuit of power, specifically with Stannis and Melisandre. And while the various religions in our story (the Seven, the Lord of Light, the Drowned God) were born out of George’s imagination and are somewhat fantastical, I think modern audiences can definitely relate while watching. I would say that “gods” are very “active” in our own world, especially when it comes to those in the pursuit of power — you need only examine some of the rhetoric from the candidates in the current presidential race to find examples of that.
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This trailer for the still release-date-less The Legend of Korra looks pretty excellent:

The one real question I have is how the rise of technology’s going to change the Avtar universe. One of the things that I liked best about Avatar: The Last Airbender was how the creative uses of bending effectively took the place of technology—you don’t need schmancy technology to run a huge metropolis like Ba Sing Se when you have earthbending. I’d be sorry if setting this story in what looks like pre-war Shanghai made the world seem more familiar and less independently fascinating.

Because I have a particular fondness for fairy tale retellings, and occasionally, a girl’s got to watch television that she doesn’t analyze to death, I’ve been keeping up with both Grimm and Once Upon a Time. Both could be loosely described as fairy tale procedurals. In Grimm, a cop finds out that he’s descended from a long line of fairy-tale creature-fighters, and begins taking out the worst of them with the help of his policing skills and a werewolf who repairs clocks for a living and does pilates in his spare time. In Once Upon a Time, Emma, a bail bondswoman who gave her son up for adoption as an infant, has her life turned upside down when the boy tracks her down and asks her to move to Storybrook. There, Emma becomes the town sheriff, working to solve a number of mysteries caused, unbeknownst to her and the rest of the town’s residents except the mayor, by the fact that all of the citizens are exiled from fairy tales by the Mayor’s — really the Evil Queen’s — curse.

I think there are two reasons Once Upon a Time is working better than Grimm for me. First, the serialization in Once is much stronger than it is in Grimm. In the latter show, Nick is supposed to be part of this long tradition of monster-hunters, enmeshed in a struggle with some sort of monster organization. But the show hasn’t done very much to advance or make meaningful that narrative except to give Nick a van full of evil-vanquishing goodies. Monsters show up, are defeated, and disappear without giving us a sense of the larger world around us.

In Once, by contrast, the episodes are part of a contiguous fairy tale about the rise of a great evil. Every case teaches something about what happened to the characters in the past that contributes to our understanding of where they were when we met them — and our sense of where they’ll go. The interlocking stories feel considered, rather than slapped together. And the fairy tale characters are reconsidered in ways that feel thoughtful and intelligent: Snow White is a forest-dwelling badass after her exile from her cushy castle life; Rumplestiltskin is a grieving father; and Midas is basically a central bank, controlling the economies of entire kingdoms.

Second, I think the re-envisioning of the detective role is more interesting in Once Upon a Time than in Grimm. Nick is basically your standard white-boy detective with a black partner for balance and some extra equipment. It’s true that it’s not totally unusual for blonde white women to be cops either. But Emma’s operating in a world that feels different because it’s largely ruled by women on Once. Women hold the mayor and sheriff’s office. The most notable teacher in town is a woman, as is the proprietor of the local watering hold. There are, of course, men in Storybrook, ranging from the therapist to the newspaper editor. But Rumplestiltskin is the most powerful man in town by a good measure, and he tends to exert power outside the traditional channels rather than holding official office. The show doesn’t hammer it in obsessively, but it is nice to spend time in an environment where the normal assumptions about who controls things are flipped.

Novelist Jim C. Hines writes, among other things, fantasy interpretations of fairy tale princess stories. And when his readers started asking questions about the way women are posed on the covers of his — and other — novels, he did something rather extraordinary. He didn’t just illustrate men in similar poses. He tried to hold them himself, and found that they didn’t just ludicrous. They were painful. I’m not going to include an image here because you really should click through, look at all of them, and read about the specific discomfort he experienced in each one.

Now, obviously covers are usually pictures of characters in action, rather than posing for formal portraits. So it’s not as if these characters are forced to stay in these positions for long periods of time. But if even getting into them requires the body to move in illogical and uncomfortable ways, that says a handful about the cost, and lack of naturalness of producing images that are supposed to be coded as sexy. If images like these are supposed to be what we find attractive, then maybe what we find attractive isn’t really human.

The bridge is yours.

-Tim Tebow: powered by elves.

-Poor, sad Ben Stein.

-Teaching Fight Club.

-I am also pretty excited about these sci-fi and fantasy movies.

-Branding AIDS.

-I just really love listening to Jay-Z rap about how much he loves the women in his family:

The bridge is yours.

-Is anyone actually excited about the American Psycho remake?

-Gorgeous designs for Katniss’s introductory gown in The Hunger Games.

-This is not news, but Robyn continues to be just so great.

-Will 2012 be the year of the dude movie?

-Karen O. Trent Reznor. You’re welcome:

I’m intrigued, if not entirely convinced, by some of the arguments Erik Kain explores here about whether fantasy is an inherently Christian genre. He quotes D.G. Meyers on C.S. Lewis, who writes that:

Lewis said in a 1947 essay that “To construct plausible and moving ‘other worlds’ you must draw upon the only real ‘other world’ we know, that of the spirit.” No statement about the genre has ever been more definitive. The bedrock premise of fantasy, which cannot be waived without voiding the genre, is the existence of a spirit realm. Lewis’s Narnia, Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Rowling’s “wizarding world,” parallel universes of all kind are imaginative reconstructions of Christianity’s first principle: namely, that the “kingdom of heaven” is the only true world.

I’m not sure I agree with the premise that fantasy depends on the idea of another world. Certainly there’s some fantasy that depends on escaping entirely to a parallel universe, whether it’s accessible at the back of a wardrobe or through a competitive, Ivy League-style entrance exams process. But another world is hardly a Christian concept: Islam has highly developed and debated visions of limbo, judgment, hell, and heaven.

And there’s also fantasy based on the idea that we simply don’t know everything about the world that we live in, that there is power that we can access here and now if we know where to look for it and are determined enough to exercise it, all of which give us plenty of hooks in Jewish and Islamic tradition. In the former, take the legend of the golem, the idea that by very hard work and access to esoteric knowledge, rabbis were able to summon protectors for the Jewish people from the earth. There’s also a strong tradition of Jewish mysticism and Messianism, which suggests a permeable boundary between realms and regimes. Judaism has a demonic tradition that includes creatures like Dubbyks and Mazikeen, just as Islam has Jinns, Ifrits, and angels. Christians aren’t the only ones to have fairy realms or ghosts. And in Judaism, the Reconstructionist drive toward human transcendence and elimination of oppression is a framework for an epic quest that can take place in the here and now.

I think the point is more that, as a modification of how Erik puts it, that the fantasy that we see on the American market is “not founded in Christian themes so much as it is rooted in distinctly Anglo-Saxon mythology. And not just the mythology of the Medieval, feudalistic period, but the pre-Christian myths of the faerie-folk as well.” That we see certain things on the market doesn’t mean that fantasy is limited to those things, or inherently grows out to those things. It just means that we’re reliant on old patterns. I don’t think Neil Gaiman’s American Gods is perfect, but it is a rich illustration of the possibilities of Egyptian gods of death, of pre-Christian totem spirits, of Ifrits on the streets of New York for fantasy even if it doesn’t fulfill all of that promise itself.

The bridge is yours.

-Awesome women in fantasy.

-Lieutenant Uhura, space program champion.

-Odd Future gets an Adult Swim show.

-Who owns modern mythological figures?

-Say what you will about Mel Gibson, the man is persistent.