List of authors referenced on Friends at the Table

The following is a list of real-world authors whose works have been referred to in an episode of Friends at the Table or who have been specifically highlighted by a cast member as a touchstone/point of inspiration for the podcast.

Jorge Luis Borges

In Twilight Mirage, the Divine Memorious is named after the short story "Funes the Memorious", whose titular character is cursed with perfect memory after an accident.

Sangfielle is described as "cosmic horror by way of Borges instead of Lovecraft" at the beginning of the season. Later in the season, the painting Duvall hopes to acquire is titled "Remembering the Zahir" as an homage to Borges's story "The Zahir", about an object which creates an obsession that will come to crowd out the afflicted person's experience of reality.

Octavia Butler

In Twilight Mirage, Dre references Butler's Xenogenesis books (also known as Lilith's Brood), referring to the way in which the gene-trading aliens called Oankali have an obsession or hunger toward the human capacity for cancer.

Robert W. Chambers

Chambers's The King in Yellow (a collection featuring several short stories connected by the common element of a forbidden play called The King in Yellow that obsesses and perhaps dooms those who read it) was mentioned by Art as part of the "season seven reading list" that he went through in preparation for Sangfielle.

Philip K. Dick

In an episode of Sangfielle, Keith compares the shift in title between Roadside Picnic and its adaptation Stalker to the way Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was given the title Blade Runner when adapted to film.

Charles Dickens

Dickens is mentioned during the Drawing Maps episode in which Austin and Jack discuss character and setting concepts related to Pickman and the Shape in preparation for Sangfielle.

Dave Eggers

In the COUNTER/Weight world generation episode, the players discuss the idea of a fully networked society with "voting being as casual and popular as Buzzfeed quizzes", which reminds Dre of Dave Eggers' The Circle.

William Gibson

In the COUNTER/Weight world generation episode, Austin refers to the fact that cyberpunk author William Gibson dislikes Shadowrun for featuring magic. Later on, when transferring characters to The Sprawl, the character Molly Millions from Gibson's Sprawl trilogy is referred to as an archetypal character emblematic of the Killer, the playbook for a character who "uses bleeding edge technology to commit violence".

During a scene of the Tales from the Loop in Bluff City's second season, Austin describes an overcast wintry sky as having "taken on the character of static—not to bite William Gibson too much here". This refers to the opening sentence of Gibson's novel Neuromancer: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

Frank Herbert

In the COUNTER/Weight world generation episode, Nick mentions Dune as an example of a science fiction story where characters have superhuman abilities akin to magic but explained through concepts such as advanced genetic technology.

Robert Jordan

Early in Sangfielle, Austin mentions learning the word "balefire" for a type of signal fire but not wanting to use it in anything because it had already been used in the popular Wheel of Time series.

Stephen King

During Sangfielle's game of The Ground Itself, King is referenced when the players discuss the idea of a group of young people getting together to recognize and fight a curse that the older generation cannot discuss. Keith later references (though not by name) King's book Duma Key when discussing examples of mystical or cursed paintings.

Victor LaValle

LaValle's The Ballad of Black Tom (a reworking of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Horror at Red Hook" from the perspective of a black protagonist) was mentioned by Art as part of the "season seven reading list" that he went through in preparation for Sangfielle. Austin previously discussed this novella at length on an episode of Waypoints.

Ursula K. Le Guin

“

We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings.”

– Ursula K. Le Guin, 2014 National Book Awards speech

Le Guin was an inspiration for some of the questions of utopianism in Twilight Mirage, with Austin tweeting one interview quote about decentering conflict in storytelling from her beforehand (while TM was still being referred to as 'Season 6') and quoting her National Book Awards speech during its premiere episode.

Ann Leckie

During the Road to PARTIZAN's game of For the Queen, Austin mentions that he has been reading Leckie's Imperial Radch series and says it is good at having tense scenes before fights. Austin also recommends PARTIZAN for fans of the series during the Sports are Just Numerology bonus episode.

H.P. Lovecraft

Sangfielle is described as "cosmic horror by way of Borges instead of Lovecraft" at the beginning of the season. Keith also describes the Junk Mage class in Heart as coming "out of nowhere" with Lovecraft-style cosmic horror aspects in a number of its major abilities, which he often had to reflavor to fit with Lyke and Sangfielle.

George R.R. Martin

Austin mentions Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series during a bit about the game Deadly Premonition in an episode of Autumn in Hieron.

Arkady Martine

Austin recommends PARTIZAN for fans of Martine's A Memory Called Empire in the Sports are Just Numerology bonus episode.

Herman Melville

Melville's novel Moby-Dick is mentioned during the Drawing Maps episode in which Austin and Jack discuss character and setting concepts related to Pickman and the Shape in preparation for Sangfielle.

Mike Mignola

Mignola's Hellboy and Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham were mentioned by Art as part of the "season seven reading list" that he went through in preparation for Sangfielle.

Alan Moore

Art mentioned starting some Alan Moore comics based on the work of H.P. Lovecraft in preparation for Sangfielle but bouncing off them.

Terry Pratchett

In an episode of Autumn in Hieron, while discussing how Lem's musical pattern magic may change depending on the environment it is being performed in, Jack contrasts it to Pratchett's more absurd style of fantasy, saying "It still sounds like a violin [...] this isn't like a Terry Pratchett thing where all of a sudden you're on a airplane." Later in the same season, Austin compares a story Nick tells about a previous D&D campaign he ran to Pratchett, to which Nick agrees, "all of my fantasy stuff is basically just really just Discworld."

Matt Ruff

Ruff's Lovecraft Country and its TV adaptation were mentioned by Art as part of the "season seven reading list" that he went through in preparation for Sangfielle.

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

The Strugatsky brothers' book Roadside Picnic is mentioned several times as a touchstone near the beginning of Sangfielle.

J.R.R. Tolkien

During Autumn in Hieron worldbuilding, it was established that pre-Erasure Hieron once resembled Tolkien-style traditional fantasy. Tolkien continues to show up as a reference for fantasy tropes which the podcast tries to complicate, subvert, or move through in search of what parts are salvageable. Players also discuss pipeweed and joke about getting sued by the Tolkien estate for saying "hobbit".

Jeff VanderMeer

During an episode of Twilight Mirage, Austin mentions that VanderMeer's book Annihilation has been an influence both on The Wound from that season as well as The Buoy and the strata and laminae in Winter in Hieron.

Annihilation is mentioned again as a touchstone in the first episode of Sangfielle. A move that Duvall takes later on in the season is called Annihilation, presumably as a reference to the book and/or its film adaptation.

Oscar Wilde

While brainstorming ideas for mystical or cursed paintings in Sangfielle, Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray is mentioned as something Austin doesn't want to replicate. Dorian Gray does, nevertheless, return later as a point of comparison for one of several miscellaneous exhibits in a gallery Duvall visits in Sapodilla while looking for information on his chosen painting.

Gene Wolfe

While playing A Visit to San Sibilia, Austin twice refers to Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun, first mentioning its use of "alcalde" as a term for a magistrate (Book of the New Sun frequently uses terms that are archaic or obscure in modern English, ostensibly as means of "translating" concepts from its far-future setting that have not been invented yet) and later referring to the final scene of The Shadow of the Torturer, which takes place amidst the chaos of a crowd passing through the gates of a massive wall, as a comparison for a commotion outside the walls of Concentus.