What Mad Universe?!?

S5E138 -Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Eight: You Walk Into A Tavern...!

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 13:00:00 -0000

Roll for initiative, listeners, because you're about to have an encounter with adventure! Yes, it's time to talk about the intersection of role-playing games, specifically the classic model Dungeons and Dragons, and literature, in the form of TSR's first big experiment in prose publishing, the Dragonlance trilogy. We're joined by guest Filbi Pott to talk about these surprisingly pivotal anchors of nerd culture.

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S5E137 -Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Seven: Project Arkham!

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:00:00 -0000

The Cthulhu Mythos, a concept that outlived (and was born after) the death of HP Lovecraft, is the subject of our latest episode--specifically Strange Eons, a loving tribute to Lovecraft's work by Robert Bloch, author of psycho and actual personal friend of Lovecraft's in his youth. Bloch's love for Lovecraft's work is beyond dispute, but at what point does playing in a deceased author's sandbox become self-indulgent?

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S5E133 -Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Six: For Generations Yet Voiceless!

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 14:00:00 -0000

As a wise man once said, we are all concerned about the future, because that is where we are going to spend the rest of our lives. Kim Stanley Robinson certainly is, and his magnum opus The Ministry For The Future tackles the biggest threat to the future: looming climate change, and the things that prevent us from tackling it (spoiler: it's capitalism). This near-future hard SF book takes a look at what might be done, at least in Robinson's mind; is it plausible or practical, or does he have the wrong idea? Either way, it's certain: future events such as these will affect you in the future.

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S5E132 -Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Five: The Well-Made Knight!

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 13:00:00 -0000

When times are dark and evil stalks the land, it means it's time for a knight in shining armour to ride to the rescue! What what happens when it's the 20th century and knights in armour are hard to come by? You build one, of course! The 1970s kid's adventure Sir MacHinery has a robot taking on the role of gallant saviour on a noble quest against the forces of darkness through a wacky misunderstanding, in a breezy romp that reflects where pop culture was at at the time.

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S5E10 -Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Four: Footnotes*!

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 13:00:00 -0000

In which we bring our look at the works of Terry Pratchett to a close...

*you see because Terry Pratchett famously utilizes footnotes for both jokes and to expand upon the lore.

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Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Three: Sympathy for the Devil!

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 12:00:00 -0000

Halloween is spooky season, and what's spookier than...THE DEVIL?!? Yes, Phil continues his journey through the interconnected universe of Anne Rice with a look at two of her most cosmic books, ones that eventually delve into theology and the problem of evil. A must-listen entry for Demon Lovers everywhere!

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Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Two: The Kingdom of the Sorceror!

Wed, 08 Oct 2025 12:00:00 -0000

The towering names of Weird Pulp Fiction: HP Lovecraft, Robert E Howard and...Clark Ashton Smith, the perpetual Larry to their Curly and Moe, ever overshadowed by his two contemporaries a century later. But Smith, of course, deserves a look on his own merits. In this episode we're joined by our friend Will "Filbi" Staples to talk about Smith's cycle of medieval fantasy stories set in the "witch-haunted" country of Averoigne.

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Chapter 132 Promo

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 12:00:00 -0000

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S5E131 -Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-One: The Grave of All Hope!

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 12:01:00 -0000

Well that's a grim title for a goofy episode...but it is part of our Discworld series, after all, and in particular it's our episode on the books Pratchett wrote about Death, the Grim Reaper, the End of Things. He's a nice guy when you get to know him, really! We're once again joined by James "Ing" English (Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/u3109397 ) to talk about the briiiiight siiiide of death (whistles)

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S5E130 -Chapter One Hundred and Thirty: The Power Of God In The Great Bear!

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 13:10:00 -0000

Sometimes a bear is just a bear. And sometimes the bear is the avatar of the ineffable divine, serving as a sign that it's time to reconquer your lost empire. The trick is knowing which is which. We attempt to solve this conundrum in the latest WMU?!? on Richard Adams' Shardik, a fantasy novel--or is it? About a bear who is a god--or is he? So many questions. Can we at least know if he pees in the woods?

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Chapter 130 Promo

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 12:00:00 -0000

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Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Nine: The 13th Witch!

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 12:00:00 -0000

The next in our new series on the supernatural universe of Anne Rice tackles the very strange Mayfair Witches series, where things get...uncomfortable. But hey--it is horror!

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S5E128 -Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Eight: The Demon-Haunted World!

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 12:00:00 -0000

The second episode we've done this season confirming a flat world is VERY different from Terry Pratchett, as we delve into the deserve-to-be-better known works of Tanith Lee, which are recently getting more attention for unfortunate reasons (she was a clear influence on a certain famed fantasy writer who's been accused of some troubling allegations, which we discuss in the episode). Lee's mythopoetic fables recall Lord Dunsany and form a fascinating mosaic centered around a devil...for whom you might emerge with a bit of sympathy?

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Chapter 128 Promo

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 12:00:00 -0000

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S5E127 -Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Seven: Hail to the Chief!

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 12:00:00 -0000

On this episode we confront another wildly unlikely Sci-Fi scenario: a fascist takeover of the United States! I mean, what a crazy idea! Author Sinclair Lewis knew it would never happen, that's why it's called It Can't Happen Here! But in these enlightened and stable times we live in, it's interesting to look back and see what people thought might happen on the eve of World War II. Come listen in before it's placed on the list of morally abhorrent materials and rightfully banned by our Glorious Leader!

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Chapter 127 Promo

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 12:11:00 -0000

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S5E126 -Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Six: Cruel and Unusual Geography!

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 12:00:00 -0000

The second episode of the new season of What Mad Universe?!? is another return to Terry Pratchett's Discworld. We're once again joined by James Reilly-English to focus on Rhincewind, the wizards of Unseen University, and Pratchett's logically illogical metaphysics of the Discworld itself.

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Chapter 126 Promo

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 12:09:00 -0000

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S5E125 -Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Five: The Savage Garden!

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 13:00:00 -0000

What Mad Universe?!? has returned from the grave! In this episode, we look at one of the lynchpins of modern pop culture--the interconnected horny goth supernatural universe of Anne Rice, the world that launched a thousand ships and may be the origin point for a huge chunk of internet culture! And yes, Philip's going to read every single book and report back to us in another of our patented ongoing multi-part serieses! In this one, we look at the foundational books, Interview With The Vampire and its direct sequels, in the shadow of the current, acclaimed TV adaptation. Do they suck? Well, yes, but in a good way, or a bad way?

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S4E124 -Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Four: The Century of the Anchovy!

Wed, 13 Nov 2024 14:00:00 -0000

Once again we come to a great historical turning point, acolytes of adventure, with the arrival of our fourth season finale! We're once again discussing Terry Pratchett with our friend James "Ing" Reilly-English, and this time it's the "Industrial Revolution" books about how technological and cultural change comes to the Discworld. At the center of it all: Moist Von Lipwig, con artist turned renaissance man, the guy who's destined to be a historical figure whether he wants to be or not. And with this epic discussion we will leave you once more for a few months, but please take care of yourselves, and remember: the future is what you make it...

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S4E123 -Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Three: The Gods And Man's Desire!

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 12:00:00 -0000

Episode Notes

Oh, for a simpler time, when men were men, women were women, and everyone had PTSD from World War One. We hearken back to that time with The Ship Of Ishtar, by A. Merritt, a pulp fantasy (exactly 100 years old this year!) that may have influenced the likes of Robert E. Howard and dabbles in philosophy and mythology, as well as revealing some weird dark subconscious strains in both the author and American society in the 1920s.

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S4E122 -Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Two: Land Under Wave!

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 12:00:00 -0000

Who needs that Harry Potter jerk?!? Terry Pratchett dipped his toe into the "YA series about a kid learning magic" pool a few years later in his Discworld series about teen witch Tiffany Aching. We're joined once again by pal Ing to dissect this series, which includes Pratchett's final novel.

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S4E121 -Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-One: Seeds of Destruction!

Wed, 04 Sep 2024 12:00:00 -0000

Pulp genre fiction has produced some monumental successes (from a financial POV), and today we're tackling probably the second-biggest after Stephen King: Michael Crichton. His career as a novelist of the Campbell "hard Sci-fi" school got started in properly in 1969 with the first novel released under his real name, The Andromeda Strain. We look at this particular book and the movie that adapted it in the latest episode, and examine when "hard SF" becomes a gloss over...something else.

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S4E120 -Chapter One Hundred and Twenty: Stand and Deliver!

Wed, 14 Aug 2024 12:00:00 -0000

Episode Notes

Historical adventures with swashbuckling, alternate identities, and criminals with a heart of gold seem to have been inescapable in early 20th century pulp, and Georgette Heyer's "The Masqueraders" is a fine example of the form. This one adds another common trope: cross-dressing!

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S4E119 -Chapter One Hundred and Nineteen: Red Moonrise!

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 21:05:00 -0000

We've talked before about how plainly world events have informed the subtext (and sometimes the regular-text) of classic SF, and The Moon Maid, a late-career offering from Edgar Rice Burroughs, proves that in spades. The politics that engulfed the world in the mid-1920s are on full display here in this seemingly escapist pulp fantasy, in which thinly-disguised Moon Communists invade America. Choose your side, citizen!

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S4E118 -Chapter One Hundred and Eighteen: The Wonder Children!

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 12:00:00 -0000

Continuing from last week's theme of "advanced mutants walk amongst us", we're looking at an entirely different take on a similar premise, one that's entirely more sympathetic to the supposedly non-human subjects. In Wilmar Shiras' "Children of the Atom", the super-intelligent kids are more benign...mostly. Though the perils of raising kids who might someday conquer the world comes with its own pitfalls. Is the answer psychology and superior educational practices? The future will tell...

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S4E117 -Chapter One Hundred and Seventeen: The Life of the Mind!

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 12:00:00 -0000

They're everywhere! They're better than you! They can tinker with your brain! They'll inherit the Earth! And trying to stop them makes you into a monster! It's a common assortment of tropes from SF, with a subtext touching on everything from a Freudian fear of your children to even darker, frequently racist conspiracy theories. Slan, by A. E. Van Vogt, seems to be ground zero for popularizing these ideas in Science Fiction, and today we're diving into it, so listen before it's mysteriously deleted from the timeline...

CW: Anti-Semitism, sexual assault, statutory rape and inappropriate relationships with minors, incest, mind control, and headgames.

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S4E116 -Chapter One Hundred and Sixteen: Where Everybody Knows Your Name!

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 12:00:00 -0000

Sometimes you just want to take a break from it all and find solace in some booze...and more importantly, good company. Of course, it doesn't help if your watering hole is constantly being invaded by aliens, vampires, talking dogs, and fairies...or does it? It certainly keeps things interesting. Spider Robinson's long-running Callahan's Place series, starting with Callahan's Crosstime Saloon in 1977, posits such a bar, and turns it into the kind of place you'd probably love to visit, even if you're not a raging Sci-Fi nerd. Come on in, friend, first drink's on the house!

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S4E115 -Chapter One Hundred and Fifteen: Whot's All This Then?

Wed, 08 May 2024 12:00:00 -0000

We're back for another look at Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, this time focusing on The Watch series. It's a social satire and police procedural in a fantasy setting, which means it has dragons, dwarves, trolls, and police who actually serve the public trust...you know, a fantasy.

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S4E114 -Chapter One Hundred and Fourteen: A Fool And His Money!

Wed, 24 Apr 2024 12:00:00 -0000

It's interesting to consider which characters fall into obscurity and which remain relevant. Johnston McCulley's most famous creation, Zorro, is of course still a household word. His other creations, Thubway Tham and The Crimson Clown, have been completely forgotten, even though they were nearly as popular in their day. Both thieves, albeit of two very different sorts, the two even met in the crossover novel Thubway Tham Meets the Crimson Clown, and it's that we're looking at today!

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S4E113 -Chapter One Hundred and Thirteen: Get a Life!

Wed, 03 Apr 2024 12:00:00 -0000

Fandom! The word sends chills up the spine of anyone who's spent any time in Fantasy and Science Fiction spaces...for a pretty wide variety of reasons. But what if fandom turns...to murder? Actually, that seems pretty plausible. Sharyn McCrumb explored this very idea in the murder mystery Bimbos of the Death Sun (published by TSR!) and we're joined in this episode by our pal Filbi to talk about it!

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S4E112 -Chapter One Hundred and Twelve: Sharna Pax and Get the Poal!

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 15:18:05 -0000

Langwitch, its syurly a confuzement! Whut wud Inlish luk liek inna thousand yeers? These are the questions asked by Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban, a post-apocalyptic meditation on culture, storytelling, religion, and language. It's a tricky read but a fulfilling one.

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S4E111 -Chapter One Hundred and Eleven: In Cold Blood!

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 13:00:00 -0000

This is the story of Edwardian-era European explorers traveling to the north pole in an airship, only to find a strange land unknown to mankind, and populated by an alien yet advanced race of intelligent non-human beings. The encounter holds up a mirror to western society, colonialism, and the dark side of human nature, and things go badly for the protagonists. It's such a perfect encapsulation of this "Vernean" subgenre, so self-aware about its tropes, and so much in sync with modern day critiques of classical adventure fiction, that you'd swear it was a modern-day pastiche, but no: the book is The People of the Pole, written in 1907 by Charles Derennes. It's a great lens through which to talk about classic "exploration" SF.

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S4E110 -Chapter One Hundred and Ten: Culture War!

Sat, 10 Feb 2024 20:05:00 -0000

In the best of all possible worlds, this podcast would always be on time...but we're not there yet, are we. You know what comes close, though? The Culture, the star-spanning utopia depicted in Iain M. Banks's novels such as Consider Phlebas and The Player of Games. In this episode, Philip and I take a dive into the possibilities of benevolent godlike AI, post-scarcity economies, stellar-level constructs and utopian societies, and ask...can we truly conceive of a better world?

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S4E109 -Chapter One Hundred and Nine: Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On!

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 13:00:00 -0000

This week, wayfarers, we go WAY back, to 1666, and the first European work of feminist Science Fiction--in fact, one of the first works of Science Fiction as we know it--Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World, a travelogue, pontification, and philosophical potboiler.

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S4E108 -Chapter One Hundred and Eight: The Maiden, The Mother, The Other One!

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 05:05:00 -0000

We aten't dead! In fact we're back in 2024 for a new chapter in a series...a series within a series, you might say...on Terry Pratchett's Discworld! In this one we're joined by pal Ing to talk about the Granny Weatherwax books and witchcraft vs. wizardry.

(Update: I'm really sorry, the wrong audio was uploaded for this. It should be fixed now.)

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Chapter One Hundred and Seven: The Harrowing of Hell!

Fri, 22 Dec 2023 13:00:00 -0000

'Tis darkening days, fair ones, and as we approach the end of the year of our lord 2023, What Mad Universe?!? has been, we confess, erratic of late. But take heed! We return with a look at an obscure but excellent fantasy series from the early 20th century, the Neustrian Cycle by Leslile Barringer. Is it a lost tome, or the wellspring for much later fantasy stories? Harken unto us and all shall be revealed!

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Chapter 107 Promo

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 00:08:15 -0000

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S4E106 -Chapter One Hundred and Six: The Soldier of Light!

Wed, 06 Dec 2023 22:22:43 -0000

As we all know by now, the WWII period saw the blossoming of ASTOUNDING magazine, which set the pace for the so-called "Golden Age" of Science Fiction, launching the careers of storied names such as Asimov and Heinlein. They also hosted a short series of satirical space westerns about a near-immortal doctor and his staunch companion, the Ole Doc Methuselah stories, penned by an obscure writer named L. Ron Hubbard. I wonder what happened to that guy.

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S4E105 -Episode One Hundred and Five: The Cyclone Country!

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 13:00:00 -0000

Swashbuckling adventures in far-flung lands to the east! Geopolitical intrigue! The manly code of the warrior! Dan Tyler Moore's The Terrible Game taps into several veins of pulp action that span several eras...as well as being the source material for one later, hilariously bad movie.

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S4E104 -Chapter One Hundred and Four: Knower of the Many Worlds!

Wed, 25 Oct 2023 12:00:00 -0000

As Philip points out, if we had a nickel for every time we talked about a book where Buddha fights Jesus in a Sci-Fi setting, we'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice, right? The subject this time is Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny, and the subject is actually Hinduism more than those other religions, as far-future space colonists use technology to turn themselves into gods. Then Jack Kirby helps them free hostages from Iran, or something? Just listen to the episode, I swear it makes sense. (I am on drugs)

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S4E103 -Chapter One Hundred and Three: Life on Mars!

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 23:58:25 -0000

Sorry about the long delay there, folks, some real world chaos combined with a LOT of pages that had to be read for this episode led to an unplanned couple of week's break. We're back now, looking at Kim Stanley Robinsons' seminal trilogy, Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars, one of the most in-depth hard SF stories of the past few decades. But it's not just a dry scientific hypothetical, it's also an exploration of cultural evolution and political upheaval, in ways that the tech-heads who claim they're going to colonize Mars soon could stand to pay more attention to...

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S4E102 -Chapter One Hundred and Two: One Thing After Another!

Wed, 13 Sep 2023 12:00:00 -0000

We've talked about John W Campbell as an editor on this show a few times, which isn't surprising since he oversaw an entire era of 20th century SF. Now we dive in directly to his own best known writing, the novella Who Goes There?, the basis for John Carpenter's The Thing (as well as the 50s movie The Thing From Another World), and talk more about how Campbell really did have a massive impact on our culture, in ways we're still recovering from...

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S4E101 -Chapter One Hundred and One: Second Star To The Right, and Straight On Until Morning!

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 05:00:00 -0000

The newest What Mad Universe?!? looks at one of the earliest progenitors of the space opera, a 19th century French obscurity that delves deeply into world-building, poetry, and, unfortunately, racism. It's STAR, OR, PSI CASSOPEIA by C. I. DeFontenay. We read it before it was cool!

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S4E100 -Chapter One Hundred: Empire of Bronze!

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 12:00:00 -0000

One hundred episodes! I'm not sure we ever believed it would happen, but it has, thanks to you, acolytes of adventure! A heartfelt tip of our space helmets to all of you, and we hope you enjoy this special 100th episode spectacular! And what better subject for this illustrious episode than a book that touches on both one of the most archetypal and influential pulp characters, AND the later mythological addition that created the basis for decades of nerdy recontextualizations! Yes, it's Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life by Philip Jose Farmer, after the original series of novels by "Kenneth Robeson" (i.e. Lester Dent, et al), part of the infamous Wold Newton mythos. It's an episode so huge, nothing will ever be the same!

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S4E99 -Chapter Ninety-Nine: The Boy Who Bought Old Earth!

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 12:00:00 -0000

Cordwainer Smith isn't one of the more well-known names in Science Fiction, but his influence seems to have extended pretty far into the works of better known writers. In this episode we take a look at his Instrumentality series, one of the first examples of a SF writer crafting a recurring universe for his stories, and his bizarre novel Norstrilia. It tackles the true gravest threat facing Earth in the future: rich Australians!

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S4E98 -Chapter Ninety-EIght: To Catch a Thief!

Wed, 12 Jul 2023 12:00:00 -0000

Apologies for the week delay (due to vacation). We're just a couple of no-goodniks, I guess, like the subject of this episode, about the galaxy's greatest criminal, Slippery Jim DeGriz, a guy so good at crime they put him in charge of catching all the other criminals. We explore the satirical (and long-running) romp that is the Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison.

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S4E97 -Chapter Ninety-Seven: The Means Of Production!

Wed, 21 Jun 2023 12:00:00 -0000

Greetings, comrades, and glory to the utopian future glimpsed in our scientifically perfected podcast! Today we tighten our focus onto a subject we've touched on a few times: communism, that spectre that's been haunting Science Fiction almost since the beginning, and the way it intersects with the real-world Soviet Union, in the form of Francis Spufford's Red Plenty. It's an alternate-reality story about a nation that attempted to make science fiction of a sort a reality as well. But the Revolution eats its children...

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S4E96 -Chapter Ninety-Six: The Gospel of The Third Dimension!

Wed, 07 Jun 2023 12:00:00 -0000

Here on What Mad Universe?!? we like to examine a subject from all angles, but this week we might be accused of flattening a complex topic. We're looking at Flatland, a 19th century oddity that's resonated with nerds for over a century with its consideration of some big ideas implied by math and science. Try not to damage your brain too badly!

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S4E95 -Chapter Ninety-Five: The Void Which Binds!

Wed, 24 May 2023 12:00:00 -0000

Season Four is here, acolytes of Adventure! We start things off with an epic saga of an episode on the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons, featuring special guest star Andre Gordon. It's a sweeping four-book space opera about quests, artificial intelligence, time travel, god and iconic robots with a lot of pointy bits, and appropriately enough it's a special bonus-length edition!

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Minisode 3: She-Devil With a Sword!

Wed, 19 Apr 2023 12:00:00 -0000

This final episode was available to our Patreon sponsors last year, we've now made it available to everyone! We look at the origins of Red Sonja (or Sonya), a character who was created by Robert E. Howard...or was she? It's a little more complicated than that, as it turns out!

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Minisode 2: Killing Machine From The Future!

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 12:00:00 -0000

We're still on hiatus until May, but we're going to be making these minisodes we made as Patreon bonus content available one at a time until then! Enjoy!

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Minisode 1: The Black Vampyre!

Wed, 15 Feb 2023 13:00:00 -0000

We're still on hiatus until May, but we're going to be making these minisodes we made as Patreon bonus content available one at a time until then! Enjoy!

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S3E94 -Chapter Ninety-Four: The Queen of the Underworld!

Wed, 04 Jan 2023 13:00:00 -0000

And so the season of What Mad Universe?!? comes to a close...the storm rages outside, the suspects have been brought together in the parlor, and we prepare to name the killer. Was it...our special guest Ing?!? Probably not, but he'll join us for a wide ranging conversation about Edogawa Rampo's novel The Black Lizard, starring the Japanese Sherlock Holmes, Akechi Kogoro, and Japanese pop culture and detective fiction more broadly!

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S3E93 -Chapter Ninety-Three: The Never-Ending Battle!

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 13:00:00 -0000

War. War never changes. Everything else changes, though, especially when the war is being waged across millions of light-years, and, thanks to the relativistic effects of near-lightspeed travel, you're aging only a year or so while the rest of the galaxy jumps forward by centuries. This existential conundrum is pursued in The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman, one of the pillars of military Sci-Fi and a reminder that the absurdities of war are only going to get more absurd as we get further into the future...

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A brief delay

Wed, 14 Dec 2022 20:23:44 -0000

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S3E92 -Chapter Ninety-Two: The Language Of The Spear!

Wed, 30 Nov 2022 13:00:00 -0000

Episode Notes

Notes go here

A slayer...a reaver...Dark haired...sullen eyed...gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth...hey, who are we talking about here? Not who you're thinking of! It's Imaro, by Charles Saunders, a response from an African-American writer to the works of fantasy writers like Robert E Howard. Saunders loved the brutal action and fantasy of REH and hated the unvarnished racism in his stories, and as a result created the genre of "sword and soul", with a secondary-world fantasy Africa and a black version of Conan. It's a worthy successor to Howard's pulp fantasy, and a rip-roaring good time!

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S3E91 -Chapter Ninety-One: A Bite Of The Magic Mushroom!

Wed, 16 Nov 2022 13:00:00 -0000

A deteriorating, violent world struck by a pandemic...humanity isolated from each other and unable to form social bonds...a rogue government agency accruing power to oppress the citizenry...but enough about current events! Ha ha! The latest episode of What Mad Universe?!? looks at Margaret St. Clair's The Sign of the Labrys, a genuinely strange but highly prescient and influential book about post-apocalyptic witchcraft. Lots of bonus commentary on Joseph Campbell and magickal rituals!

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S3E90 -Chapter Ninety: The Conquering Frequency!

Wed, 02 Nov 2022 12:00:00 -0000

Radio! It's the most high-tech of high-tech gadgets, the wave of the future, the word on everyone's lips! At least it was in 1924, when it provided just the gimmick for a series of planetary romances by a polymath scientist and politician writing under the name Ralph Milne Farley. Radio can do EVERYTHING in these books, starting with transporting a hero to Venus for swashbuckling science-adventures, and eventually enabling communication with a race of intelligent insects. Truly, man's greatest breakthrough!

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S3E89 -Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Invisible War!

Thu, 20 Oct 2022 14:40:00 -0000

What Mad Universe?!? has been suffering some setbacks behind the scenes lately, brethren. Is it just bad luck, or could it be...Satan?!? Given that our latest episode tackles a staple of supernatural Christian fiction, all about the secret spiritual war between angels and demons going on all around us, maybe there are POWERFUL FORCES that don't want you to hear it. Or maybe that's just paranoid delusion, which sadly is also a staple of fundamentalist culture. This week we look at This Present Darkness, by Frank E. Peretti, and hold on to your hats for a controversial episode looking at the rise of politically-charged right-wing evangelical culture in the last 40 years...

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S3E88 -Chapter Eighty-Eight: Pax Aeronautica!

Wed, 05 Oct 2022 12:00:00 -0000

Apologies for being away--Adam suffered a personal loss and then got hit by Covid. Clearly, this is the episode the universe doesn't want you to hear. But maybe another universe does? We'll find out when we look at Michael Moorcock's alternate-universe trilogy about the reality-displaced Oswald Bastable. These books are an even earlier bedrock of the steampunk genre, even if that wasn't the word they used for it, and serve as a century-later compliment to the Victorian novel Angel of the Revolution, which we looked at in this episode. What Mad Universe indeed...

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Episode 88 Promo

Wed, 21 Sep 2022 12:00:00 -0000

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S3E87 -Chapter Eighty-Seven: The Once And Future King!

Wed, 07 Sep 2022 21:12:13 -0000

In times of trouble, a podcast arises, reborn: that's us, and we're here to talk about K. W. Jeter's very odd novel Morlock Night, which really does have a claim to being the first novel to use the Steampunk moniker (but not necessarily the first Steampunk novel--it's complicated).

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S3E86 -Chapter Eighty-Six: The Lady of the Flame!

Wed, 24 Aug 2022 12:00:00 -0000

Gird your loins, acolytes of adventure, for a new What Mad Universe?!? that explores the origins of the classic fiery sword-maiden of pulp fame. C. L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry might be the first example of the trope...but as ever, it's a bit complicated. Fear not, we'll hash it out!

You might also want to check out this bonus minisode we did on a similar topic, referenced in this episode: https://www.patreon.com/posts/what-mad-3-she-55896277

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S3E85 -Chapter Eighty-Five: Electric Dreams!

Wed, 10 Aug 2022 12:00:00 -0000

It's new! It's improved! It's the latest sensation! 4 out of 5 dentists agree, What Mad Universe?!? is the podcast that puts spring in your step, makes your whites whiter, and firms, lifts and separates! Our latest episode features guest Andre Gordon as we talk about UBIK, by Philip K. Dick, and try to figure out if it's about god, reality, or product placement, or possibly all three.

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Chapter 85 Promo

Wed, 03 Aug 2022 15:14:43 -0000

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S3E84 -Chapter Eighty-Four: Out With The Old!

Wed, 20 Jul 2022 12:00:00 -0000

Our newest episode looks at The Fixed Period by Anthony Trollope, a 19th century work of SF by a writer who's not known for SF. It posits a future society where, once someone has gotten too old to be productive, they're shipped off to a farm upstate, where they can relax and enjoy their leisure time. For one year. Then they're executed. What a crazy concept! Fortunately here in the real world we would never place such an emphasis on productivity over human lives!

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S3E83 -Chapter Eighty-Three: The Twelve Hours Of The Night!

Wed, 06 Jul 2022 12:00:00 -0000

Continuing our look at the origins of Steampunk, a genre that proves to be a lot harder to nail down than you might suspect, we move on to Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates. This is a historical fantasy, not SF, and it's technically not set in the Victorian era either. So why is it a pivotal steampunk novel? Well...

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S3E82 -Chapter Eighty-Two: The Pride of Bear Creek!

Wed, 22 Jun 2022 12:00:00 -0000

What Mad Universe?!? takes another trip to the backwoods, and the writings of Robert E. Howard, with a look at the Breckenridge Elkins stories, a series of comical tales about a Hillbilly Hercules and the misadventures his lack of a brain stumbles him into.

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S3E81 -Chapter Eighty-One: A World Of Shadows!

Wed, 08 Jun 2022 12:00:00 -0000

After being delayed by a week (sorry), What Mad Universe?!? re-enters the elusive faerie realms for another link in the chain between classical and modern fantasy. This time it's George MacDonald's Phantastes, a book that inspired a great deal of twentieth century fantasy, and inspires a winding discussion of theology and the evolution of the fantastical in literature.

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A Slight Delay...

Thu, 02 Jun 2022 00:30:00 -0000

Apologies.

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S3E80 -Chapter Eighty: Earth's Mightiest Mortal!

Wed, 18 May 2022 12:00:00 -0000

As long as there have been superheroes, people have been making fun of them, but the deconstructionist satires of superheroes really kicked into gear in the 80s. A precursor to stuff like Watchmen and Squadron Supreme, though, wasn't a comic at all--it was a novel, SUPERFOLKS! by Robert Mayer. In riffing on superheroes and their place in pop culture in the alienated post-Watergate US, it was a weird, silly, exuberant, and often tasteless--just like superhero comics themselves.

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S3E79 -Chapter Seventy-Nine: Giants In The Earth!

Wed, 04 May 2022 12:00:00 -0000

Of all the books we've looked at for the podcast, The Shaver Mysteries, by Richard Sharpe Shaver (with an assist by editor Ray Palmer), may be one of the most influential...for all the wrong reasons. A sensation when first published, Shaver's bizarre stories fed into conspiracy theories about flying saucers, ancient civilizations and subterranean terrors that are still with us today. They're also...really, really bad.

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S3E78 -Chapter Seventy-Eight: The Wings Of The Warrior!

Wed, 20 Apr 2022 12:00:00 -0000

Episode Notes

Today What Mad Universe?!? takes a trip to Hollywood--and to a movie that never quite existed, Merian C. Cooper's "The War Eagles". A lavish fantasy pulp adventure from the producer and special effects team of "King Kong", this movie almost got made, and might have changed fantasy adventure films forever, but for a quirk of history (well, if you consider World War II a quirk). Eventually released as a novelization much later, the script remains one of cinema's great might-have-beens.

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S3E77 -Chapter Seventy-Seven: The Golden Apples of the West!

Wed, 06 Apr 2022 12:00:00 -0000

As we plunge into the history of genre, we're starting to see that the 1920s were a remarkable and important time for fantasy literature, and today's subject, Lud-In-The-Mist by Hope Mirrlees, sits right at the crux of this important paradigm shift. This episode sees a wide-ranging discussion about not just the trends in fantasy in the early 20th century but also folklore and mythology more broadly.

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S3E76 -Chapter Seventy-Six: The Legend Of Flint's Trove!

Wed, 23 Mar 2022 12:00:00 -0000

EDIT: Sorry about the mix-up! The wrong audio was uploaded this morning. It's been corrected now.

In this episode we're hoisting the mizzen mast and swabbing the poop deck to take a look at that staple of adventure stories, the world of piracy--specifically through the lens of Porto Bello Gold, a largely-forgotten pirate novel that happens to be an authorized sequel to the bedrock of pirate fiction, Treasure Island. Turn back now, land lubbers, lest yer ears be assailed by a barrage of salty sea-dog speech...

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S3E75 -Chapter Seventy-Five: The Darkening Lands!

Wed, 09 Mar 2022 16:25:00 -0000

All things must die...and that includes the planet Earth. In the vastly distant future, under a swollen red sun, mankind still struggles and strives against each other in a world vastly different than ours, yet also alike. The "Dying Earth" subgenre--which is subtly different from the post-apocalyptic genre--has been around for over a century, but the books that give it its name came along in the 1950s in a series of fix-up novels by Jack Vance. This week we're peering into that dark and brutal future to examine this seminal work that joins together several eras of fantasy and SF.

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S3E74 -Chapter Seventy-Four: The Pyramids of Venus!

Wed, 23 Feb 2022 13:00:00 -0000

As far as satire goes, there's being of the moment, and there's being way ahead of your time. The short 19th-century comedic SF novel To Venus In Five Seconds ends up parodying a bunch of tropes, from ancient astronauts to technobabble, at a time long before you would have assumed they'd sunk in to pop culture, and on this episode we're diving into it (for longer than five seconds)

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S3E73 -Chapter Seventy-Three: The Queen Of Engines!

Wed, 09 Feb 2022 14:00:00 -0000

Clank Clank, Cheerio, old tops, and welcome to the first of our shows this season delving into the fraught sub-subgenre of steampunk! Anachronism is involved, of course, as this first work officially dubbed "steampunk" is actually a lot later than many other works that were retroactively incorporated into the genre, but it really draws into focus the politics and cultural values that surround it...and that most other steampunk works pointedly ignore.

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Chapter 73 Promo

Wed, 02 Feb 2022 22:41:47 -0000

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S3E8 -Chapter Seventy-Two: The Prince of Dandies!

Wed, 26 Jan 2022 13:00:00 -0000

Od's Fish! What Mad Universe?!? welcomes people of the better sort to a fancy episode analyzing the Scarlet Pimpernel, that dashing dandy who saves the wealthy and powerful from the guillotine while looking his best doing it! Have your invite ready and wear your most stylish clothes, or prepare to be jibed mercilessly!

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Chapter 72 Promo

Wed, 19 Jan 2022 22:50:49 -0000

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S3E71 -Chapter Seventy-One: The Stars Are Not For Man!

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 13:00:00 -0000

Say hello once again to the devil you know, on this first What Mad Universe?!? of 2022. Here we're looking at Arthur C. Clarke's book Childhood's End, one of the heavy hitters of post-WWII Sci-Fi and a massive influence on everything going forward. We're also joined by special guest Andrew Hickey of the History of Rock Music in 500 Songs podcast.

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Episode 71 Promo

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 13:00:00 -0000

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S3E70 -Chapter Seventy: Tuned To A Dead Channel!

Wed, 22 Dec 2021 13:00:00 -0000

Plug in, log on, and tune out the noise of today's internet as we take a trip back to the early 80s to examine the foundational text of cyberpunk, William Gibson's Neuromancer, with special guest and Gibson expert Costa Koutsoutis!

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S3E69 -Chapter Sixty-Nine: Nice!

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 13:00:00 -0000

Well, you knew it was coming, Acolytes of Adventure: the inevitable sixty-ninth episode, which we knew we had to make about something sexy, because we're extremely immature. So immature that we decided to break from our usual format and tackle something that's not only very recent but may barely count as stories at all: the collected works of internet erotic writer and Hugo-nominated author Chuck Tingle and his fascination with dinosaur and cryptid porn. It's profoundly dumb. But is it also so dumb that it's profound?

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S3E68 -Chapter Sixty-Eight: The Political Animal!

Wed, 24 Nov 2021 13:00:00 -0000

A world...where ape rules man? Well, one ape, anyway. And actually he's more of a Bigfoot. And he becomes the Prime Minister of England. Yes, it's the extremely odd Dwala, by George Calderon, the missing link between political satire and monkey business!

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S3E67 -Chapter Sixty-Seven: Defenders of the Light!

Wed, 10 Nov 2021 13:00:00 -0000

In a galaxy wracked with crime, only one thing stands between civilization and chaos: a bunch of wise-cracking, genocidal, extremely sexist space cops with magic jewelry! They are the thin shiny line, and they know what's best for the universe, because shut up, they just do.

This week we take a look at perhaps the baseline for all post-war space opera, the cheesy but occasionally charming Lensmen series by E. E. "Doc" Smith. They're loose cannons, dammit, but they get results!

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S3E66 -Chapter Sixty-Six: The Child Of Isis!

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 12:00:00 -0000

Happy Halloweeeeeeeeen, attendants of the arcane, and welcome to a spooky new What Mad Universe?!? looking at The Beetle! You know, the smash hit horror novel of 1897? The one that outsold any other fly-by-night horror novels that year, such as (pulls out name at random) "Dracula", by Bram Stoker? Well, the cruel hand of mortality comes for us all, even the most popular stories, I guess!

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Episode 66 Promo

Wed, 13 Oct 2021 22:15:12 -0000

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Chapter Sixty-Five: Space Odysseys!

Wed, 06 Oct 2021 12:00:00 -0000

We're back and madder than ever, acolytes of adventure! Behold our extra-length season three premiere, in which we take a spin across the centuries and around the solar system, checking out stories of exploration from the whimsical satire of Voltaire to the supposedly 'hard' Sci-Fi of Arthur C. Clarke, and in the process look at how science fiction has evolved in parallel with the Enlightenment...

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Episode 65 Promo

Wed, 29 Sep 2021 23:24:12 -0000

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Minisode 3

Wed, 08 Sep 2021 12:00:00 -0000

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Minisode 1

Wed, 25 Aug 2021 12:00:00 -0000

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Season 3 Preview: Onward to Yesterday!

Wed, 18 Aug 2021 12:00:00 -0000

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S2E64 -Chapter Sixty-Four: The Demon's Quest!

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 12:00:00 -0000

Everything comes round again once more, and to everything there is a season...and ours is at an end. For the epic finale of Season Two, we're tackling the seminal 1922 fantasy novel The Worm Ouroboros, a tale of epic quests, Shakespearean intrigue, flowery language, and the planet Mercury for some reason.

We want to give a big thank you to our listeners and supporters for two great seasons, and here's hoping #3 is just as much fun! We'll see you in the fall!

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S2E63 -Chapter Sixty-Three: Westward With A Vengeance!

Wed, 09 Jun 2021 12:00:00 -0000

As we near the end of the trail for season 2, WMU?!? takes a look away from the fantastical towards another pulp genre: the American western. Emma Ghent Curtis's The Administratrix tells a wild story of 19th century politics, feminism...and eventually, revenge. A cowboy novel written by someone who actually lived in the time and place most western writers have to imagine for themselves, it's a fascinating historical milestone.

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Episode 63 Promo

Sat, 05 Jun 2021 20:32:01 -0000

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Chapter Sixty-Two: The Human Contradiction!

Wed, 26 May 2021 12:00:00 -0000

The more things change, the more they stay the same...unless you've been genetically altered by aliens, I guess. In this episode we look at the Xenogenesis trilogy, better known these days as Lilith's Brood, by Octavia E. Butler, and gain a unique perspective on colonialism, consent and disability. Or maybe it's just the classiest Hentai ever written.

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Episode 62 Promo

Sat, 22 May 2021 18:52:43 -0000

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S2E61 -Chapter Sixty-One: The Sword of Deliverance!

Thu, 13 May 2021 00:50:19 -0000

Attention, sinners, the lord's justice is upon you today in the form of the dour puritan adventurer, Solomon Kane. Created by Robert E. Howard of Conan and Kull fame, Kane sails the seas and plunges deep into the jungle in his wanderings, sometimes guided by curiosity, sometimes by vengeance. Warning: we talk about racism a LOT in this one...

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