Spectology: The Science Fiction Book Club Podcast

Today Adrian is joined by Will Frank, this year's Hugo Awards Administrator, to talk all things Hugos. We discuss why you might want to nominate and vote for the Hugos, how exactly to get membership to do so (anyone can do it!), the special Video Game award, and why recent events that might have turned some people off will hopefully not be repeated this year.  I was really happy Will came on, and found it really fascinating to learn about how the Hugos actually work behind the scene, and the people like Will who actually count votes and work hard to make the Hugos happen. I appreciate him taking some challenging questions from me about past Hugos and how things are improving. I also was really happy to learn about how to volunteer in the Hugos, something I hadn't considered as an option before but is open to everyone. This came about through Olav at the wonderful Hugo Book Club blog after hearing my In Conversation: How & Why to Vote for the Hugo Awards episode, so many thanks to them for putting this together.Finally, this is our first episode after a long hiatus! More are to come very soon, Matt is back in the recording studio and we'll be doing our podcast finale & wrap-up over the next month or so, along with some returning guests.  Links:Worldcon for general & historical Hugo information: http://www.worldcon.orgDisCon III for nominating & voting, and attending memberships: https://discon3.org Volunteering: https://discon3.org/get-involved/volunteer/ Memberships: https://discon3.org/membership/membership-information/  --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Soo.... we've had a hard time keeping to a regular schedule recently, so Matt, Bee, & I (Adrian) have been discussing what we want the podcast to look like in the future. In this episode, I just talk openly about those thoughts, our plan through the end of the year, and how the podcast might change come 2021. I may write up a longer thing later, but right now I just wanted to get this out in audio format & solicit feedback from everyone on what you might like to see & hear, and also ask for any notes you have for Matt which I can embarrass him on air with at some point before the end of the year.   --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Bee is back (although Estelle could not join us due to IRL events) to discuss Temi Oh's wonderful debut novel, Do You Dream of Terra-Two? (https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781534437401). With hints of Dark Eden, Semiosis, and Unkindness of Ghosts, this novel tackles the lives on a group of young people who are sent off to colonize a new world. It's probably the best book I've read this year, and one of the best we've read on this podcast. I do hope you enjoy us talking about belief, depression, building relationships, and why you're right not to trust adults in this episode. And please pick up & read this novel if you haven't yet, you won't regret it. (One note: we forgot the content warnings at the top, so be aware that there are frank discussions of depression, suicide, eating disorders, isolation, bullying, and more in this episode.)  --- Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon. As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast if we talk about your comment.  And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J our music.

This week Bee is joined by writer & artist Kathleen Jennings to talk about her book Flyaway. Flyaway is a fairy tale-influenced (or structured?) Australian Gothic novel (or novella?). Small town landscapes and linguistics, productive misinterpretations of fairy tales, Kurt Vonnegut, and what it's like to write a strict first-person novel with a slew of other voices in it are some of the topics discussed.   * Kathleen's website: https://www.kathleenjennings.com/    * Flyaway on Kindle: https://amzn.to/3n21V6Q * Flyaway on Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781250260499  --- Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon. As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast if we talk about your comment.  And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J our music.

This week, Adrian is joined by Somaiya Daud to discuss her new book, Court of Lions, the 2nd in the Mirage Duology (https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781250126450). Somaiya and Adrian discuss genre mash-ups, body doubles, court politics, the legacy of French colonialism on Moroccan culture, the lack of beautiful dresses in the newest Star Wars trilogy, and how our cats are handling quarantine. I had a wonderful time talking to her and am absolutely loving Mirage, the first book in this duology, so I hope you listen, pick up her books, and enjoy!   * Mirage on bookshop: https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781250126436  * Court of Lions on bookshop: https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781250126450 * The Mirage Duology on Kindle: https://amzn.to/3khFfxl  * A Phoenix First Must Burn: https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781984835659  * Somaiya on Twitter (https://twitter.com/somaiyadaud) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/somaiiiya/)   --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

This month Adrian is joined by Bee & Estelle to talk about Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by new British author Temi Oh (https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781534437401). Bee of course is from the Spectology podcast, where they run our Digital Book Tour. And Estelle runs the phenomenal Abolish Time zine on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abolish_time/ . You can also find an interview Bee did with Estelle at their blog: http://uninterpretative.blogspot.com/2019/09/talking-about-new-society-requires.html  Do You Dream of Terra-Two? tells the story of a group of teenagers who, in an alternate history where rocketry was developed earlier & for longer, are selected to go on a life-long mission to Terra-Two, an Earthlike planet found orbiting a nearby star. Bee & Estelle both call it one of their favorite novels ever, likening it to something by Butler or Le Guin.  I hope you enjoy the episode and the book! It was a pleasure recording with everyone. And we should have the post-read out towards the end of the month.    * Do You Dream of Terra-Two? on Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781534437401 * Do You Dream of Terra-Two? on Kindle: https://amzn.to/3jZBkVP * The Assets & Androids episode I mention: http://androidsandassets.ca/a-memory-called-canada/ * Bee's patreon: https://www.patreon.com/benladen * Estelle's patreon: https://www.patreon.com/abolishtime  * Abolish Time: https://www.instagram.com/abolish_time/    --- Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon. As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast if we talk about your comment.  And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J our music.

Lydia joins us again as we discuss The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull!    We absolutely loved this novel, which details the life of island inhabitants living under a passively repressive regime of extra-terrestrials, who are here on Earth for unspecified reasons. There is resistance, there are people who want to work with the aliens, there are people who don't care. Their lives each gets looked at in depth. It's a beautiful book and one worth reading, and we have a really fun conversation, which I hope you will enjoy too!   * The Lesson on bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781094081298* The Lesson on Amazon:  https://amzn.to/31gXsTN --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

This week we're joined by WM Akers to promote his new novel, Westside Saints (https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9780062854049). Bee and WM talk Westside Saints (and its predecessor, Westside), an alternate history detective novel about a woman who solves "tiny mysteries" until they get much bigger. They also talk about how tabletop RPG design reflects and influences novel writing, the uprising in Philadelphia (Lakay Nou has since been renamed Camp JTD and is still regularly facing evictions), the scope of sequels, and more.* Westside Saints on bookshop: https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9780062854049 * Westside Saints on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2CECqq0    --- Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon. As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast if we talk about your comment.  And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J our music.

Today Bee is joined by Nick Mamatas, Bram Stoker award-winning editor & author of the just-re-released novel Move Under Ground. (https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9780486841861)Bee & Nick talk about writing modern Lovecraftian stories & his looming influence, the joy of reading referential stories, and typographic style as a carrier of meaning. The audio is a bit rough in this one, apologies! Nick was a pleasure to have on the pod though, and we're glad we were able to work through those audio issues. * Move Under Ground on Amazon* Move Under Ground on Bookshop --- Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon. As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast if we talk about your comment.  And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J our music.

We're back? We're back. Mostly.This month Matt is still out, and Adrian is joined by Lydia, a childhood friend of his from Homer, Alaska, to talk about the post-colonial alien invasion story The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull (https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781094081298).It's about life on the US Virgin Islands after an alien spaceship takes up home on St. Thomas, bringing both technology and violence with them. This episode was recorded nearly a month ago, and while we hadn't finished the book then, I can report from the future that it's super-great!    Lydia and I talk about life growing up in rural places, the history of European colonial rule & its ties to capitalism, and of course go on a few tangents along the way. We hope you enjoy! And please do pick up this book, it's short and effecting and probably unlike any other book you've read recently.   * The Lesson on bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781094081298* The Lesson on Amazon:  https://amzn.to/31gXsTN* A Brief History of the Corporation: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/06/08/a-brief-history-of-the-corporation-1600-to-2100/ --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Sometimes a book comes along that is both so unlike anything that came before it, but also so vital & perfectly voiced that once reading it, it's impossible to imagine a world where that book hasn't always existed. Nino Cipri's novella Finna (bookshop or ebook) is one such book. It's a story about life under late capitalism, about that eerie feeling you get whenever you get lost in one of those large Swedish furniture stores, about navigating awkward post-breakup feelings, and about labor. Bee interviews Nino about the book, their writing process, and labor organizing. It's a wonderful conversation, and I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I have.* Nino's twitter: https://twitter.com/ninocipri * Nino's newsletter, Cool Story, Bro * And their website: https://ninocipri.com  --- Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon. As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast if we talk about your comment.  And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J our music.

For our fourth Digital Book Tour episode, Adrian is joined by Serje Jones, whose new book The Fortress (https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781645660026) has been published by our friends at Erewhon books. Serje & Adrian discuss restorative justice, writing trans-inclusive feminist science fiction, and feeling emotions in the body instead of in the mind. She also performs two readings from the book. As a personal asside, I think this is the best novel I've read so far this year, and I really hope folks enjoy this episode & pick up the book. It's a startling, difficult, and radical look at another possible world.  Description from Erewhon:   Jonathon Bridge has a corner office in a top-tier software firm, tailored suits, and an impeccable pedigree. He has a fascinating wife, Adalia; a child on the way; and a string of pretty young interns as lovers on the side. He’s a man who’s going places. His world is our world: the same chaos and sprawl, haves and have-nots, men and women, skyscrapers and billboards. But it also exists alongside a vast, self-sustaining city-state called The Fortress where the indigenous inhabitants—the Vaik, a society run and populated exclusively by women—live in isolation. When Adalia discovers his indiscretions and the ugly sexual violence pervading his firm, she agrees to continue their fractured marriage only on the condition that Jonathan voluntarily offers himself to The Fortress as a supplicant and stay there for a year. Jonathon’s arrival at The Fortress begins with a recitation of the conditions of his stay: He is forbidden to ask questions, to raise his hand in anger, and to refuse sex. Jonathon is utterly unprepared for what will happen to him over the course of the year—not only to his body, but to his mind and his heart. This absorbing, confronting, and moving novel asks questions about consent, power, love, and fulfillment. It asks what it takes for a man to change, and whether change is possible without a radical reversal of the conditions that seem normal. Content notice: The Fortress contains references to objectification of and violence against women, pedophilia, sexual assault, submission, and toxic masculinity.     --- Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon. (They didn't do this interview, but have several already recorded & others in the making.) As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment.  And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Hey all, a few things: 1. This is really late. Sorry about that! It's because of: 2. The audio quality is really bad. Matt's computer essentially crashed during recording, so we had to use the back-up recording which was also screwed up by the whole situation. So it's bad, and I've done my best to make it listenable. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this episode were we talk about Zen Cho's The True Queen. It's a wonderful little book about sisterhood, magical academies, scary fairies, and issues of race & gender in Regency era England. Please enjoy the episode! We'll be taking June off of more books to publish a few bonus episodes & book tour episodes, and then be back with a new book in July.Oh and also check out Gin Jenny on twitter, the Reading the End blog, podcast, & patreon. Really please do follow them & listen to the podcast, it's the best general book pod around.   --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Bee is joined by Melissa Caruso, author of the Sword & Fire trilogy, and the upcoming Obsidian Tower, available June 2nd.  One woman will either save an entire continent or completely destroy it in a captivating epic fantasy bursting with intrigue and ambition, questioned loyalties, and broken magic. Bee & Melissa discuss her new book, role playing & LARPing, writing buildings as characters, how the book's map was made, and as always Melissa offers a few short readings from the book.  The Obsidian Tower is out June 2nd, and Melissa is on twitter at @melisscaru. --- Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon. As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment.  And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Bee is joined this time by Veronica Roth, bestselling author of the Divergent series, to discuss her new adult novel, Chosen Ones. Chosen Ones takes place after a group of people has saved the world from the Dark One. After the Dark One fell, the world went back to normal . . . for everyone but them. After all, what do you do when you're the most famous people on Earth, your only education was in magical destruction, and your purpose in life is now fulfilled? Veronica and Bee chat about researching sonar & MK Ultra, how to write characters with PTSD, and what their respective Animal Crossing islands are looking like. Veronica does a few short readings from the book, which includes found articles & textbooks from the world the character live in.Chosen Ones is out now. Links: * Chosen Ones on ebook * Chosen Ones hardcover at bookshop.org --- Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon. As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment.  And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Once again we're joined by Seth Heasley of the Hugo's There podcast (https://hugospodcast.com) to talk about science fiction films! This time, we're talking about our favorite SF movies we think are underrated in some way. Maybe they bombed at the box office, maybe critics hated them, or maybe they have just been forgotten and deserve another viewing.  What did we pick? You'll have to listen to find out! But it was a load of fun to have Seth back on, and you should check out his podcast (the episodes where Adrian or Matt guested are good places to start).    --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Adrian + Matt are joined once again by our favorite podcast duo, Gin Jenny & Whiskey Jenny from the Reading the End blog & podcast. They've selected Zen Cho's Malaysian-inspired novel of magical Regency England, The True Queen. This episode is extreme Chaotic Good energy. We barely talk about the book, and do our best to talk about historical fantasy, colonialism in fantasy, and other relevant themes. But let's be real, we're all over the map. Call it quarantine brain. Mostly we talk about which birds are trash birds, Gin Jenny's entente with the spiders, which is the best Pixar movie, traumatic childhood movies, and literally just whatever comes to our minds at the time. Again, strong Chaos vibes. But it was one of the most fun episodes we've ever recorded & re-listening to edit it was an absolute treat, so I hope you enjoy it & we will be back with the Jennys in a few weeks to actually talk about this book, which so far is absolutely amazing & you should definitely check it out. Only one non-book link (again, buy the book! https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9780425283417), which is the board game Wingspan that Whiskey Jenny mentions. Oh and also check out Gin Jenny on twitter, the Reading the End blog, podcast, & patreon. Really please do follow them & listen to the podcast, it's the best general book pod around.   --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Welcome to our inaugural Digital Book Tour, featuring Laura Lam, author of Goldilocks. Five women steal a space ship to save a human race beset upon by climate change, even while society doesn't believe they should be able to work due to their gender. Our host Bee interviews Laura about genre conventions, found family, what to do when your novel becomes unexpectedly relevant, and eating algae. Laura also does a few short readings from the upcoming book. Goldilocks is available for pre-order now, and will be released on May 5th.  Links: * Goldilocks on bookshop.org  * Laura's Instragram, featuring live events w/ Laura * Laura's patreon, featuring writing about crafts, writing, & more   --- Make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon. As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment.  And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Hi everyone! We're excited to announce a project we've been working on to help tide everyone through the lockdown. Friend of the podcast & former guest Bee is joining us to interview SF authors with new books out. They will be bonus episodes happening on the main feed, but in addition to the regular book club & conversational bonus episodes that we do. Our first one, a conversation between Bee & Laura Lam, author of the upcoming novel Goldilocks, comes out tomorrow. From there, we'll have these out irregularly, sometimes on Tuesdays & sometimes on Thursdays if we have another regular episode scheduled that week. We've got some great authors scheduled, and are looking forward to talking to them.  We hope you enjoy these! And make sure to follow Bee at their twitter & patreon, where they have all the sourdough content you could ask for.  --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Julia Rios of the This is Why We're Like This podcast is back for our post-read discussion of Aliette de Bodard's wonderful space murder mystery novella, The Tea Master & the Detective (https://amzn.to/3aD8cOU). In this episode we discuss power structures within & outside of large organizations like unions or monasteries, the friendship between the main characters, and doing worldbuilding with non-Western cultures. It's a fun conversation, and we were so happy to have Julia on the podcast! If you haven't picked up this novella, I highly recommend the book as a nice corrective to our current crazy times.   Also, a quick note on scheduling: We've had to be a bit nimble this last month as both Matt & I adjusted to new life situations. It also turns out I published the pre-read a week early because I wasn't paying attention to the dates. So this episode is coming out on a highly unusual Friday. We'll have another bonus episode next Tuesday, and we have multiple bonus & book club episodes w/ special guests already recorded & ready to go for next month. So expect regular, frequent content from us after this, and thanks for sticking with us while the world got turned upside down!    --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

A quick bonus episode this week, with Matt & Adrian discussing their favorite Aliens in science fiction and beyond. We revisit some books we've read for the pod, talk about some classics, and hit on a few under-represented gems. We hope you like it!  A bit late, sorry about that! Quarantine time is weird. I'll try to get around to listing everything we talk about later but I want to get this out first: if there's anything in particular you'd like to get a link to, let me know at @spectologypod on twitter & I'll get it to you. We'll be back next week with our post-read of The Tea Master & The Detective with Julia Rios!  --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

This month we're joined by special guest Julia Rios! Julia is a Hugo-award winning Editor & Podcaster, host of the This Is Why We're Like This podcast (which Matt has been a guest on!), and can be found at @OMGJulia on twitter. She edited the Machina Serial Box series, and her fiction has been featured in the Mexicanx anthology A Larger Reality.  We're reading The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard (https://amzn.to/2Jqepmr), a Homesian mystery story told by a space ship. It's a lovely, warm, cozy, and short book at a time when all those things feel in short supply. And of course, it's about some big issues that we'll talk about in the post-read. This episode, we discussed what makes a mystery story, the different sub-genres of detective fiction, and how much we like ships with personalities.  We hope you enjoy the episode & pick up the book!    --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

This is a somewhat personal & sometimes somber episode, recorded while the world was changing rapidly around us due to the global COVID-19 outbreak. We do our best to discuss the novel, Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson, although neither of us were able to finish it due to external world circumstances. It is by far our shortest post-read ever. We forgot to do content warnings. We have really frank discussions of grief, death, isolation, and loneliness. There is a brief mention of suicide.  While this was recorded, Adrian was in quarantine due to having had extended contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case. I'm happy to report that the quarantine is up and I've been fortunate enough to suffer no symptoms, and my friend who was sick is on the mend. But it the fear and uncertainty of those circumstances color the whole episode. We hope that this episode brings some light into your life at the moment. We'll be back next month with a warm, cozy, escapist book & a guest we've been excited to feature. We'll also be publishing some extra episodes on the feed while social distancing, more information to come on those soon.  Please stay safe, stay healthy, and remember that your health affects not only yourself, but also those around you.  --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Last week, anticipating this week's shutdown of major US cities, Matt & Adrian sat down to talk about the ways we're working through our own social distancing boredom for a special edition of "things we like". What are some of the best movies, games, and other activities to spend doing when going outside has become difficult or even dangerous? Check out this episode to find out, and of course a list of most of what we mentioned is below. And finally, please do take this seriously! If you're not already removing yourself from public spaces and gatherings, do so. Wash your hands, wear a mask if that's recommended & available in your locality, and be aware not just of your own health, but of how you might affect the health of those around you. And if you're bored, hit us up on Twitter at @spectology, we'll likely have an increased schedule of podcasting for a while, and might even do a few live online events if enough people want to hang out and chat about science fiction books!  Things we like: * 7 Wonders Duel (iOS / Android) * Code Names Duet * Tabletop Simulator * Technology Connections Juke Box * Shenzhen I/O  * The Nand Game * nand2tetris * Armadillo Run (not ball) * Little Women * The Incredibles (also on Disney+) * rifftrax * Blank Check Patreon * DuoLingo Podcasts * Easy Languages youtube channels * The History of Ancient Egypt lectures * Assassin’s Creed Black Flag * Minecraft * Diablo III --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

This March, Spectology brings you a discussion on the little-known but largely influential novel by David Markson, Wittgenstein's Mistress (https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781564782113). Written from the perspective of the last woman on Earth, it's a sad and clever novel about loss, the Western cannon, the meaning of art, and the importance of other people in creating our identies.  In this episode, we discuss the philosophy underlying the novel. Who is Wittgenstein, and how do his ideas about the philosophy of language underly the project of this novel? How do Bertrand Russel, Kurt Gödel, & Søren Kierkegaard fit into this puzzle? And what other novelists have been influenced by Markson? It's a discussion worthy of Adrian's 2nd annual "self-indulgent pick", and we hope you'll enjoy being along for the ride. One note: this novel isn't available on ebook or audio book. It's still in print in paperback, so if possible please try finding it at a local book store! Baring that, it's available through Amazon, or the new bookshop.org online sellers: https://bookshop.org/a/1159/9781564782113 Also, here is the interview with Markson we reference several times: http://www.bookslut.com/features/2005_07_005963.php  --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! To find links to all the books we've read, check us out on Bookshop. Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

We've finally done it! Sorry for the late episode, a few real life considerations got in the way of editing. We're joined again by Ben Roswell (@roswellwrites on twitter & roswellian.itch.io) to discuss Catie Disabato's postmodern novel of celebrity & architectural cults, The Ghost Network (https://amzn.to/2VtAhVc).  We all had a lot of thoughts on this book, and for any given one two of us agreed and a third didn't, in various combinations, like a big fun podcast triangle! It was a lovely conversation, about a great book to discuss with others. Stuff we mentioned: * Fight Truck: https://pantamalion.itch.io/fight-truck * Trash Theory on FKA Twigs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oXADE5bzZI * Roxane Gay on Janelle Monáe: https://www.thecut.com/2020/02/janelle-monae-afrofuture.html * Lady Gaga Isn't Done Shape-Shifting Yet by Rachel Symes: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/03/magazine/lady-gaga-movie-star-is-born.html * The Wikipedia page on Selena (cw domestic violence): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selena  --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Matt & Adrian sit down for a chat looking back at 2019—which books ended up being our favorites, which episodes did we like, and how did we do in terms of diversity of authors, genres, and guests? A big thanks to everyone who has stuck with us for two years now! Or who have just begun listening—we hope you'll stick around. In addition, we were asked by a listener on Twitter (@spectologypod) to talk a bit about our favorite fantasy books, so we do that at the end. Here's a list of everything we mention (amazon links are affiliates): * Bear Daughter by Judith Berman (now back in print!) * The Steerswoman series by Rosemary Kirstein * The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie * Finna by Nino Cipri  * The Deep by Rivers Solomon * The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley * The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip * The Dying Earth (now published as Marizan the Magician) by Jack Vance  * The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolf * Lord Dunsany * Arthur Machen * The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers * The Cradle series by Will Wight * Jade City by Fonda Lee * The Tensorate series by JY Yang * Monkey (an abridged translation of Journey to the West) by Arthur Whaley * The Worm of Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison  * The Ghormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake * The Nightland by William Hope Hodgson --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

New month, new book, new guest! This week we welcome Ben Roswell (@roswellwrites on Twitter) to discuss The Ghost Network by Catie Disabato (https://amzn.to/2uXSeA2). The novel takes the form of a fictitious non-fiction book about the disappearance of a young pop star & her entourage who tries to find her amongst hidden underground spaces in Chicago.  In this episode, we discuss other experimental narratives, from role-playing games to postmodern novels like House of Leaves or Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Works mentioned (as always, links at spectology.com if they don't show up for you, and all Amazon links are affliates): * Ben's Itch.io, where you can find his games mentioned * Ben's new serialized fantasy novel * Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Suzanna Clarke  * House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski * Fire on the Velvet Horizon by Patrick Stuart & Scrap Princess * Hardboiled Wonderland & the End of the World by Haruki Murakami  * Rupetta by N.A. Sulway (also episodes 9.1 & 9.2 of this podcast) * Fight Truck (the unplayable? LARP) * Especially Heinous: 272 Views of Law & Order SVU by Carmen Maria Machado * Ben's essay on Jeff VanderMeer's blog   If I missed anything, tweet @spectologypod and I'll drum up the link for you. --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Well, we've finally found a book we disagree on! While Matt loved A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine (https://amzn.to/2GrJJzC), Adrian was more cool on it. In this episode we discuss our disagreements, which largely come down to matters of taste in the aesthetics of stories we enjoy. We also get at some of the tough questions about empire & cultural hegemony posed by the book, and discuss wether we think the book fully explored these issues. We also talk plenty about the historical worldbuilding & other elements that we both enjoyed. It's a different episode than most, in that we disagreed, it's actually the second time we recorded the post-read (we weren't happy with the way the first session came out), and we recored in person together in Adrian's NYC apartment.  There's a long list of other books / media we talk about at the end of the episode and I've tried to capture them all here. As always, links at spectology.com if they don't show up in your podcatcher, and any Amazon links are affiliates. * East Goes West by Kang Younghill * 1587: A Year of No Significance by Ray Huang * Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay * Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner * Foreigner by CJ Cherryh * Treason by the Book by Jonathan Spence * Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott * An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon (episodes 20.1 & 20.2) * Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee (episodes 6.1 & 6.2) * Byzantophilia in the Letters of Grigor Magistros? by AnnaLinden Weller  --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Really short bonus/emergency episode today. Adrian is on his own and off-script, giving you the insider scoop on how to nominate & vote in the Hugo Awards, as well as why you might want to. Short answer: go to https://members.conzealand.nz/memberships and sign up for the "Supporting Membership". This will allow you to vote on the 2020 Hugo Awards, and nominate works for the 2021 Hugo Awards next year. For more general information, check out the Hugos website http://www.thehugoawards.org/i-want-to-vote/ which offers evergreen information on how to sign up for a membership any given year (it changes). This is something I'm passionate about, but if it's not your scene that's OK! But I hope you'll give me the chance to make the case that voting in the Hugo Awards is worthwhile. We'll be back next week with our regular programing, in this case the Memory Called Empire post-read. --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

It's the future baby! 2020 arrives with a bang as we discuss Arkady Martine's Byzantine-flavored space opera political thriller, A Memory Called Empire (https://amzn.to/2RdH5Ct). The story follows a young woman from an independent mining station who must travel to the central world of the Empire which surrounds it and act as ambassador. This comes as a recommendation from several readers & friends of the podcast. In this episode, we discuss several historical figures who served analogous roles to that of the main character. The first, Grigor Magistros, is the subject of an [academic article written by Martine under the name AnnaLinden Weller. We also talk about S. W. Laden La, Tisquantum, and Kang Younghill, and Gendün Chöphel. Not sure who these fascinating historical cultural emissaries were? Listen to find out! Other works mentioned: * Byzantophilia in the Letters of Grigor Magistros? by AnnaLinden Weller (no longer paywalled thanks to the author!) * East Goes West by Younghill Kang * A Man of the Frontier: SW Laden La by Nicholas & Deki Rhodes  * 1491 by Charles Mann (where the Tisquantum story as we tell it comes from) * Grains of Gold: Tales of a Cosmopolitan Traveler by Gendün Chöphel (Links in the shownotes at spectology.com if they don't show up in your podcatcher. Any Amazon links are affiliates.) --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Happy New Year, Spectologists! Late in 2019, Matt sat down with Chen Qiufan / Stanley Chan, the author of Waste Tide, to discuss the book, the process of translating & editing it for an American audience, the importance of prose in genre fiction, how science fiction & startup culture interact in China, some of his favorite upcoming authors, and much much more.  The conversation took place in English, although the conversation took place while Stanley was calling from the Hong Kong airport between flights so the audio is a bit more rough than usual. However, the conversation they had should more than make up for that. If you enjoy this interview, make sure to check out our episodes on Stanley's book (18.1 & 18.2), as well as our discussion of the mentioned Ning Ken essay on the Ultra Unreal. You can find many of Stanley's stories at Clarkesworld, and follow Clarkesworld generally for many other translated Chinese SF stories.  --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

For our final book in our "classics" series, we read Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, a novel by Samuel R. Delany (https://amzn.to/2tTUHL5). This episode we're joined by Bee Gabriel (@benladen on twitter & patreon.com/benladen), an old friend of the podcast & one of Adrian's favorite cultural critics.  This novel was an absolute joy to read & to talk about. Our discussion ranges the gamut, and our recording session went an hour over schedule because we all had so much we wanted to talk about! How gendered language affects the way we look at the world & self-identify. The ethics of eating meat. The ethics of cross-class romantic relationships. How fucking good a writer Delany is. And what is exactly a Cultural Fugue?  Some links to things mentioned (as always, links at spectology.com if they don't show up in you podcatcher):  * Bee's patreon cooking & cultural criticism blog  * Bee's public blog, Uninterpretative  * The Playdate pop-up gaming event  * Bee's music & yearly compilations  * Kids These Days by Malcolm Harris (briefly referred to as "Malcolm's book")  * Gay New York by George Chauncey    Thanks so much to everyone who has been involved with Spectology for another great year! We'll be back in 2020 with more books, guests, interviews, bonus episodes, etc.. We've had a great time & hope everyone else has too. --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.  

A doozy of a book, and one where we start off the episode not agreeing on how we liked it! Charlotte Geater (@tambourine on twitter and creator of wonderful bot-based poetry) joins us again after her Rupetta episodes last December to discuss the 1960s underground classic, Ice by Anna Kavan (https://amzn.to/2PRGTth). We discuss death, addiction, patriarchy, experimental fiction, and whether there are any easy allegories in this novel (answer: no). Adrian comes to terms with not having enjoyed reading the novel—but being glad he read it.  This is a very brutal book, and if you're going to read it you might want to check out our content warnings at the 12m27s mark.  Charlotte recommended a number of stories, books, and novels to go along with Ice. Links to them all are collected below. Go to Spectology.com if the links don't show up on your podcatcher. * Excerpt of Sofia Samatar's novella, Fallow * Descriptions of Jane Gaskell's unfortunately out of print novels * Ann Quin's recently republished first novel, Berg * "The Debutant", a story by Leonora Carrington * Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry by BS Johnson * Sylvia Townsend Warner's The Kingdoms of Elfin * Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson * The Weird Tales podcast reads Lord Dunsany --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.  

Seth Heasley of the Hugos There podcast (https://hugospodcast.com) joins us to discuss Arthur C. Clarke's 1950s classic, Childhood's End (https://amzn.to/2srqLWa). This is a short book about big ideas, asking what would happen if aliens came to Earth and instituted a generations-long paternalistic program to get us ready for our next stage of evolution.  We discuss the book's major influence on science fiction, from Vinge, Niven, & Stephenson, to anime like Akira, to The Three-Body Problem. We dig deep into the books politics around colonialism. And we ask what it would be like to live through a society that has everything it could want, but knows that it's no longer in charge of its own destiny. Here's a short list of other things we discussed on the episode. Links at spectology.com if they don't show up in your podcatcher. * Jo Walton on Childhood's End  * Adrian on Hugos There discussing The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin  * All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace  * Tobias Buckell's story The Very Last Curator of What Little Remains of the Western World (patreon pay wall) --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Welcome to a very special pre-read episode. This December, Matt, Adrian, and a series of guests are reading 3 separate works of "classic" SF and talking about them & what makes them a "classic". The works will be: * Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke (https://amzn.to/35WGICa)  * Ice by Anna Kavan (https://amzn.to/33CEfes)  * Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany (https://amzn.to/2RdBTAk)  Each book (& author) has had an large influence on modern SF, and we'll talk about that in those respective episodes over the course of this month. In this episode, we dive deep into our own history of reading SF, with an eye towards the golden age. How did we get into SF, which authors did we first find that spoke to us, how did we find new authors & books, and why was so-called "classic" SF such an outsized influence on two kids growing up in the 90s and 00s? In addition, we have a discussion on the problematic nature of a lot of these books and authors. Is it still worth reading something you like knowing what we know now about the books & the people behind them? How might different people have different answers to that question? How do we, specifically, choose books to read for this podcast? It's a difficult but hopefully enlightening conversation.  We'll be off the 2nd week of December, and then back the final 3 Tuesdays of the month with a separate episode on each of these books.  --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

[A note: the content warnings at the beginning also apply to the episode as a whole. We talk about a lot of it in depth in a way that might be uncomfortable for some listeners. This episode is probably even less appropriate for younger children than normal due to that.] We're back having read An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon (https://amzn.to/2OMpWie), and here to talk about it in depth!  We have a pretty far-ranging conversation about the ideas in the book, from how to be a friend and ally, to when violent revolution is necessary, to discussing the large social structures of the ship & the real world. We don't disagree about much, but we manage to argue a lot anyway! And towards the end we get to answering some of the existential questions we asked of ourselves in the post-read. Stick around for the end to hear about what we're doing in December & early 2020 as well. Other works mentioned: * Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes * Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (episodes) * Semiosis by Sue Burke (episodes) * Dark Eden by Chris Beckett (episodes) * Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle (episodes) * Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead  --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Join us as we reflect on a few of the novels we've read for the podcast so far, and imagine what they might look like as on-screen adaptations. Matt & Adrian play executive producers, coming up with concepts for the adaptations & directors, writers, and actors who might work on them.  Time stamps for each: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (Matt): 2m33s The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle (Adrian): 13m05s Player of Games (a Culture novel) by Iain M. Banks (Matt): 25m26s Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee (Adrian): 31m19s This was a fun & somewhat silly episode, we hope you enjoy! If you have your own fancasting for these or any other books we've read, let us know by tweeting @spectologypod or emailing us at spectologypod@gmail.com, we'd love to hear them.   --- If you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

In what ends up being a surprisingly introspective episode of Spectology, we introduce our new book: An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon (https://amzn.to/2O0rXHa). It is a very good book about life amongst the lower classes on board a generation ship. You and should buy it and read it. Much of this episode is spent questioning whether reading fiction can actually teach us things (where "us" = readers with privilege), or whether the emotions that fiction can induce are used as a stand-in for actually doing work. Answers are not found.We also do book facts and talk about science fiction. We discuss different types of dystopian fiction & how genre tropes can be used or misused. But I'm not going to lie this one is weirdly pensive & self-reflective, even for us.  --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Coming at you in person, Matt & Adrian sat down in the same room to record an episode about Colson Whitehead's post-apocalyptic literary novel, Zone One (https://amzn.to/2MR1hZT). We loved this book, and had in particular have a lot to say about its relationship to other apocalyptic literary fiction, the ways the novel discusses, analogizes, and interacts with depression & PTSD, and New York City in literature and reality. Other works mentioned: * Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead * White Noise by Don DeLillo * Cosmopolis, dir. by David Cronenberg * 10:04 by Ben Lerner * California by Edan Lepucki * Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson * Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel * The New & Improved Romie Futch by Julia Elliott  (Links in the shownotes at spectology.com if they don't show up in your podcatcher. All amazon links are affiliates.) --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Buh-buh-buh-bonus!  Matt & Adrian return for another "things we like", where we talk about things we like outside of the books we're reading on the pod. Links are below, listen to the ep. to hear more about each one! If the links don't show up, they'll be on spectology.com.   Adrian's things: - Otherworld Adventure LARP - Gemini Man in 120fps (here's a podcast about it) - Schitt's Creek (on Netflix)   Matt's things: - This War of Mine (on Steam) - RAQIA (song "Library of Babel" is playing in the episode) - Quanta Magazine (https://www.quantamagazine.org)   --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

Sorry for the late episode this week! Real-life travel has made editing & publishing more difficult than expected. The episode's editing might be a bit rough around the edges for that as well. However, we have a really fun episode discussing Colson Whitehead's novel Zone One, a litfic novel about a man clearing zombies out of Manhattan after the apocalypse. We discuss the history of zombie movies & books, lightly touch on the problematic cultural history of zombies (which you can hear more about in our episodes with Mendez Hodes), and spend a lot of time discussing what makes a B movie. It was a really fun episode to record, and we hope you enjoy it, outtakes and all. --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

We're back for our post-read discussion of Waste Tide by Stanley Chan / Chen Qiufan! (https://amzn.to/2njvSFr) We had mixed but ultimately positive feelings about this book. It's been a great experience to read and talk about—rarely does a book present such a breadth of topics for us to cover. Matt read it in Chinese while Adrian read it in English, so we discuss the mechanics of the translation in depth, as well as how even small changes can have large effects on the over-all tone of the book.  However, it've also a book that deals with very dark subject matters, and handles some of those elements better than others. Heed our content warnings on this one. We discuss the problematic elements explored by the book in depth.  Some related works & links (if the links don't show up, they will be available in the show notes at spectology.com ) Non-fiction books about living in China: * The Corpse Walker by Liao Yiwu (https://amzn.to/2o7yBSl) * Factory Girls by Leslie T. Chang (https://amzn.to/2msDvci) * China Candid, edited by Sang Ye (https://amzn.to/2myPgy4) Three links about Guiyu, the real-life inspiration behind Silicon Isle.  * https://www.greenpeace.org/eastasia/campaigns/toxics/problems/e-waste/guiyu/ * https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2112226/chinas-most-notorious-e-waste-dumping-ground-now-cleaner-poorer * https://www.revealnews.org/article/looks-are-deceiving-in-chinese-town-that-was-us-e-waste-dumping-site/ Notice the date published & publisher for each of the above when reading, these are not without agenda.  Yaz Minsky on Cyberpunk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ8S1CV3JwA   Hedy Lamarr: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr  --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

For today's episode, Matt & Adrian read an essay about Chinese Science Fiction by Chinese SF author Ning Ken, and talk about it. The essay, published as "Modern China is So Crazy It Needs a New Literary Genre" on LitHub (https://lithub.com/modern-china-is-so-crazy-it-needs-a-new-literary-genre/), outlines a subgenre of SF that (supposedly) doesn't exist in English, and discusses why it's so important in China. We take the conversation far afield pretty quickly, asking what makes a genre, whether Ultra Unreal works exist in English, how relevant these works actually are in Chinese SF, and who ultimately gets to define genre. Adrian rants a little about one particular author who annoys him online when he talks about genre, and Matt has very reasoned and smart things to say about whether it's even a good idea to argue about genre in the first place. As always, the essay is an interesting one, and we hope you'll read it in addition to listening to us argue about it. In addition, here are some other related works to the conversation: - Follow-up essay by Josh Feola & Michael Pettis- "Folding Beijing" by Hao Jingfang- Waste Tide by Chen Qiufan (see also the 18.x episodes of this podcast)- The New & Improved Romie Futch by Julia Elliott (see also our 4.x episodes)- Sorry to Bother You, dir. Boots Riley- "Welcome to the Future Nauseous" by Venkatesh Rao As always, links at spectology.com if they don't show up in your podcatcher. We'll be back next week (Oct 1st) for our Waste Tide post-read, then October 8th we'll have the post-read for our horror-themed October novel. --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

It's finally happening! We're diving fully into one of Matt's areas of expertise, Chinese Literature. This month we're reading Waste Tide (https://amzn.to/2N4K80g), the first novel by Chinese science fiction author Chen Qiufan (known as Stanley Chan in English), translated by Ken Liu.  The book is new to both of us, so in addition to the usual bookfacts, this episode starts with a short introduction to the sociolinguistics of the Chinese language. From there we learn about the history of modern Chinese literature w/ a focus on how speculative fiction has been received over the last century, from the earliest Chinese translations of Jules Verne to the modern resurgence of SF & Fantasy movies coming out of China, and how that relates to other literary & political movements.  Some of the works we discuss include: * Invisible Planets, edited & translated by Ken Liu * Chen Qiufan's stories at Clarkesworld (includes audio versions) * Clarkesworld Podcast * "Flower of Shazui" (set in the same world as Waste Tide)  * The Paper Menagerie & Other Stories by Ken Liu * The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu (Links in the shownotes at spectology.com if they don't show up in your podcatcher) --- As always, we'd love to hear from you! Chat with us on twitter at @spectologypod, send us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submit the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

We've finished The Killing Moon by NK Jemisin (https://amzn.to/2L9Wdh0), and have a lot to say about it as usual!  The book forced us to ask a lot of hard questions about the moral weight of actions of all of the main characters. We spend some time in a discussion on sympathetic villains and the importance of passing judgement on actions even while being sympathetic to motivations. We also discuss our own history with dreams, lucid dreaming, waking dreaming, and meditation.  Also the moon! Related & discussed links (available at spectology.com if they don't show up in your podcatcher): * Waking Life by Richard Linklater * The Dreamblood Duology by NK Jemisin (both books in 1) * The Red Book by Carl Jung * Tinariwen, desert folk/blues music from Northern Africa * The Ego Tunnel by Thomas Metzinger * Perplexities of Consciousness by Eric Schwitzgebel ("do you dream in color" studies) * Mike Boyd (learning channel on youtube) --- We'd love to hear from you, either by chatting with us on twitter at @spectologypod, sending us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submitting the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.  

Hey folks! Short description bc it's already very late & I'm trying to get this out. I may update this later w/ more info, check spectology.com in the next day or two if you'd like more links to all the other books we mention.  The book this month is The Killing Moon by NK Jemisin! It's a great book, potentially my favorite of hers. https://amzn.to/31DKqyr Matt & I spend a very long time talking about worldbuilding, different ways of doing it, books we love that do it well, etc.. It's quite the pre-read. Also, we're having some technical difficulties due to travel, so the sound is listenable but not to our usual standards. We should be better next episode, & back to normal next month. The connected short story I mentioned ("The Narcomancer") is available as a podcast here: http://podcastle.org/2010/01/05/podcastle-85-giant-episode-the-narcomancer/ NK Jemisin's worldbuilding presentation is available here: http://nkjemisin.com/2015/08/worldbuilding-101/ And finally, her patreon is: https://www.patreon.com/nkjemisin --- We'd love to hear from you, either by chatting with us on twitter at @spectologypod, sending us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submitting the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.  

This is the first in a new series of episodes we're calling "Critical Conversations", where we take a critical work & discuss it in-depth. This time, Matt & Adrian discuss the article "Critics: Endgame" by Soraya Roberts & published in Longreads (https://longreads.com/2019/05/03/critics-endgame/). Roberts asks what the purpose of pop culture criticism is in 2019, when fascism is ascendant and global warming is killing the planet, particularly criticism that is itself fandom. It's a critical essay which is critical of criticism, which ends up being a vital way for us to being talking about what we do on the podcast. Is it all too meta? Maybe! But it's the kind of thing we love talking about, so maybe you'll enjoy hearing us talk about it (and if not, we'll have a new pre-read next week so stay tuned for that). A few of the resources we mention in the episode:  * "Stay in your lane" originator: https://twitter.com/prisonculture  * Matt's current favorite critic: http://andrewbatson.com & his twitter: https://twitter.com/andrewbatson  * Adrian's current favorite critic: https://uninterpretative.blogspot.com & their twitter: https://twitter.com/Benladen & their patreon: https://www.patreon.com/benladen/overview. * Another critical work about art vs. criticism we touch on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kaTDKDaj2M & his twitter: https://twitter.com/ShadowTodd 

Through journeys and struggles, with the power of friendship, we did it! We recorded another episode, this time talking about Max Gladstone's latest solo novel, Empress of Forever (https://amzn.to/2ykpSOU).  We both really enjoyed this book, and were really happy to get to read a novel by a previous guest. We start the episode off with Matt explaining the ways in which the book is & is not a science fictional adaptation of the Chinese epic novel Journey to the West, and then spend a lot of time discussing redemption and forgiveness and how those two things work in this novel, and how they should work in an ideal world. Also, Orn! This was a fun book to read & fun episode to record (even if Adrian was a little loopy & feverish), so we hope you enjoy it. Some of the works mentioned in the episode (links at spectology.com if they don't show up here): * Monkey: Folk Novel of China trans. by Arthur Whaley (Matt's recommended translation of Journey to the West) * Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny * Contact by Carl Sagan * Our previous episodes on Ten Billion Days & 100 Billion Nights, Semiosis, Brown Girl in the Ring, Ninefox Gambit, Binti, & "The Star"  --- We'd love to hear from you, either by chatting with us on twitter at @spectologypod, sending us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submitting the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.

[This episode comes with a content warning for discussions of depression, suicide, and drug overdose. It's all relevant to the works & part of a good-natured conversation, but we wanted to mention that up front.] This is an ongoing series we do every few months, going over some of the pop culture stuff we've liked recently. Some of it is SF adjacent, some of it isn't, but it's all good and enjoyable! As always, if the links below don't show up in your podcatcher, they're all in the show notes spectology.com.  Matt's things: - Yazmin Lacey, song playing in background is "90 Degrees" from the album "When the Sun Dips 90 Degrees", buy it its so good - Haiku by Basho, 17th Century Japanese Poet: http://oaks.nvg.org/basho.html  - The last one is hard to explain, you'll just have to listen for the story   Adrian's things: - Neon Genesis Evangelion, an anime from the 90s that was recently re-released on Netflix - "Gen Z Music": artists mentioned include Lil Nas X, Billie Eilish, Lil Peep, & Wicca Phase Springs Eternal  - Indian(-ish), a cookbook by Priya Krishna, shout out to the Saag Feta & Aloo Gobi recipes --- We'd love to hear from you, either by chatting with us on twitter at @spectologypod, sending us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.  

What goes around comes around on the wheel of karma, so this month Matt & Adrian talking about the new novel from past guest Max Gladstone, Empress of Forever (https://amzn.to/2Jl9X94)!  We discuss a number of books, movies, TV shows, and RPGs in the general space opera subgenre. Here are some of the most relevant. If the links don't show up in your podcatcher, they will be available on the show notes at spectology.com.  - Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone - This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max - Journey to the West - Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny - Ten Billion Days & 100 Billion Nights by Ryu Mitsuse (see our 10.1 & 10.2 episodes) - Iain M Banks (see our 1.1 & 1.2 episodes on his Use of Weapons) - Gnomon by Nick Harkaway (see our 5.1 & 5.2 episodes w/ Max as a guest) - The New Space Opera & TNSO2, ed. Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan- Sufficiently Advanced (RPG) - Ghibli Fest 2019 (particularly Princess Mononoke) - Neon Genesis Evangelion (on Netflix)  --- We'd love to hear from you (tell us your definition of space opera!), either by chatting with us on twitter at @spectologypod, sending us an email at spectologypod@gmail.com, or submitting the episode to r/printSF on reddit. We'll reply, and shout you out in the next podcast when we talk about your comment. And if you like the episode, subscribe at spectology.com or whever you listen to podcasts, and share it with your friends! Many thanks to Dubby J and Noah Bradley for doing our music and art.