Episode 177: Author Nathan Ballingrud and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

This week we chat with Nathan Ballingrud! He's the author of short fiction books such as Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell and North American Lake Monsters. His works have been adapted into feature films (Wounds) and a Hulu series (Monsterland). His debut novel The Strange is out in stores tomorrow and is a delicious mix of science fiction, fantasy and cosmic horror set on Mars. Fans of his short stories will definitely enjoy his debut novel. We chat about morally gray characters, the marketing terms for genre narratives, his relationship to horror and his life as a cook on oil rigs and barges. Then we bring it back to childhood and discover why Close Encounters of the Third Kind terrified him growing up. We talk about spectacle, Spielberg's ability to make Movies with a capital M and so much more.

You call follow Nathan on Twitter. You can buy his book anywhere you get books. More information can be found here.

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