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Referenced as Joseph Campbell being 'a great writer on mythology and the idea of universal hero' who George Lucas claimed inspired Star Wars. No specific title mentioned but this is Campbell's most famous work on the hero's journey.

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Described as a novelization of Star Wars that was 'ghostwritten for George Lucas by a sort of pulp science fiction writer called Alan Dean Foster.' The hosts discuss how the novelization contained more backstory about the Old Republic than the film.

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Referenced multiple times as the influential historical work that inspired science fiction. Mentioned that Gibbon 'moved in circles where people were dissing luxury and dissing ambition and corruption' and his famous quote about the fall of Rome being 'the greatest, perhaps, and most awful scene in the history of mankind.'

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Described as 'massively, massively influential series of novels' that was 'directly inspired by Gibbon.' Part of a trilogy discussed as modeling the decline of a galactic empire on the fall of Rome.

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Mentioned as the second book in Asimov's Foundation trilogy, where 'Harry Seldon's reading of history turns out to go wrong' with the emergence of the Mule character.

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Listed as the third novel in Asimov's Foundation trilogy that was inspired by Gibbon's work on the fall of Rome.

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Described as 'another equally celebrated work of science fiction' written 'in the 60s by a guy called Frank Herbert.' Discussed as having themes paralleling Islamic history and the fall of the Roman Empire.

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Referenced as 'the most celebrated recent franchise' with overt Roman echoes, set in a future North America with gladiatorial combat themes. The capital is called 'Capitol' and the country 'Panem' (from 'bread and circuses').