Starz
This week Ars Technica’s podcast Decrypted explores the action-packed third episode of American Gods, where we meet a jinn from the ancient city of Uran (located today in Oman), a disgruntled traveling salesman, and an ancient Egyptian death god. And that’s just the part where Mr. Wednesday isn’t up to one of his more intricate cons. Yes, this podcast contains spoilers.
My guest this week is award-winning fantasy author and critic Amal El-Mohtar, whose story “Seasons of Glass and Iron” is up for a Nebula Award and a Locus Award this year. Amal gives us some linguistic context for the scene in the cab (yeah, the Arabic isn’t exactly right), and she sheds light on some of the tropes about Middle Eastern characters in this episode.