In This Episode
The Book Evangelists discuss The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders as part of reading and listening to the 5-star SF/FF audiobooks and books that we have recommended to each other recently. Lissa has been talking up this book constantly for six months and claims it is a climate change tidally-locked planet #hopepunk found family snuggling book.
"If you control our sleep, then you can own our dreams... And from there, it's easy to control our entire lives."

Set on a planet that has fully definitive, never-changing zones of day and night, with ensuing extreme climates of endless, frigid darkness and blinding, relentless light, humankind has somehow continued apace -- though the perils outside the built cities are rife with danger as much as the streets below.

But in a world where time means only what the ruling government proclaims, and the levels of light available are artificially imposed to great consequence, lost souls and disappeared bodies are shadow-bound and savage, and as common as grains of sand. And one such pariah, sacrificed to the night, but borne up by time and a mysterious bond with an enigmatic beast, will rise to take on the entire planet--before it can crumble beneath the weight of human existence.
description from the publisher
This blog post is spoiler-free. On the podcast, we discuss The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders in detail and our discussion in the podcast is filled with minor and major spoilers, so please read the book before you listen if you are into that kind of experience. We'll be here for you when you finish!
Quotes from The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/64654648-the-city-in-the-middle-of-the-night
"I like that the quotes that you read -- they're all conflictual -- this is not a book where you can rally around one particular quote. One particular quote is not going to be enough for us to rally around. We're going to have to re-examine our thinking over and over and over." - Lissa
Characters and Places
How does the world-building work? How are these places described? January, Xiophante, Argelo, The City in the Middle of the Night
Which characters do we like? Who scares us? Who is our favorite character? Who are we shipping together? Who do we worry about? Who surprised us? Sophie, Mouth, Bianca, Alyssa, Hernan, Barney, Crocodiles/Gelet
Science Fiction as Self-Help
This is a good self-help book for learning more about: Friendships, Love, Betrayal, Boundaries, Trust, and people using each other for good or using each other for bad. This book illustrates all of those things really, truly.
"People don't hurt each other enough in traditional romance novels to have the level of depth that this book has." - Lissa's endorsement for why reading The City in the Middle of the Night is better, post-divorce, than reading her typical stack of escapist romance novels
Subscribing to Their Newsletters
As all good readers know, when you really like the author's book, sometimes you might check out their website, their twitter, their podcast, their agent.....because those are all source of additional book news and recommendations!
Lissa's subscribed to DongWon Song's newsletter Publishing is Hard (and loves it!)
Lissa starting listening to Charlie Jane Anders podcast Our Opinions are Correct at least 10 days before it won the Hugo for Best Fancast and Marian had it queued up. #earlyadopters
Next episode: Marian is preparing to possibly write a cozy mystery. So, for next time, we will read an Agatha Christie novel, specifically Murder on the Orient Express.
Music Credit: The music used during transitions in our podcast is adapted from: Jazzy Sax, Guitar, and Organ at the club by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/58382 Ft: geoffpeters