Join us on October 30 at 2 P.M. ET for a conversation with writer Douglas J. Penick and Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, on Penick’s new book, The Oceans of Cruelty: Twenty-Five Tales of a Corpse Spirit.

The thrilling recreation of the 11th-century Sanskrit collection the Vetala Panchavimshati traces the plight of a king and vetala, or corpse spirit, who are both trying to escape bondage—a fate attainable only if the king answers a series of riddles posed by the corpse spirit. The story’s set up alone is gripping, and the twenty-five tales, which begin “in a time now at the edge of memory,” bring to life the irresistible, enduring power of storytelling and the universal quest for freedom.