The Science in The Fiction

Robert J. Sawyer returns to the show to discuss 'The Quintaglio Ascension', a trilogy composed of ‘Far-Seer’, ‘Fossil Hunter’ and ‘Foreigner’.  We talk about his early writing in the 90’s, which indulged his love and passion for paleontology. This trilogy recapitulates the history of science with the stories of Galileo, Darwin and Freud.  Each of these figures delivered blows to t...

This is the second half of our conversation with Micaiah Johnson continued from our last episode about necropolitics in Ned Beauman's 'Venomous Lumpsucker'.  Micaiah is the author of the Ashtown duology, ‘The Space Between Worlds’ and ‘Those Beyond the Wall’, and we spoke to her about these books in episode 49, loosely on the topic of the Multiverse but more about the social and political aspects of a f...

We welcome Micaiah Johnson back to the show, this time in her role as a PhD specialist on the topic of Necropolitics, which we tackled in our last episode on 'Venomous Lumpsucker' by Ned Beauman.  This episode is the first half of our conversation, where Micaiah introduces us to the topic of Necropolitics and its origins from Foucault to Mbembe.  She discusses how it pertains to Ned's book in terms of harmful practices of...

Ned Beauman is the author of 'Venomous Lumpsucker', a biting satire which examines the environmental and social consequences of capitalism run amok, and the dangerous absurdities that can result from using free-market mechanisms to solve the environmental problems we face today.  We talk about the political and economic choices and mechanisms that determine which species are preserved and which species go extinct - hence 'necr...

Marty speaks with biochemist and astrobiologist William Bains on the topic of Dark Ecology, as a final chapter to our 4 previous episodes on this topic with Chris Beckett (Ep 56), Julius Csotonyi (Ep 57-58) and Adrian Tchaikovsky (Ep 59).  Dr. Bains is the author of “The Cosmic Zoo: Complex Life on Many Worlds”, and has earned degrees from the universities of Oxford, Warwick and Stanford, and has held positions at ...

Marty speaks to Nicholas Keating Casborro about the hard-scrabble, dystopian world portrayed in his book 'Vitalerium: Descent into the Void'.  This is a far future space opera where faster than light travel is made possible by the exotic substance that serves as the title of the book, where humans have spread across multiple planets, where the politics are cynical, street life is vicious, human life disposable, and corruption ...

Chris Kulp is a professional physicist and science fiction author, who has won the Mike Resnick award for his first published story ‘What Would You Pay for a Second Chance’.  We talk about his second novel ‘Lost Origins’, a space opera where Earth is regarded as a myth by a galactic civilization peopled by humans and androids. Our conversation goes from a sci-fi story about artificial intelligence to on...

Adrian Tchaikovsky is a bestselling British author whose work has taken the science fiction world by storm since his seminal sci-fi novel Children of Time, which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2016.  Its sequel Children of Ruin won the equally prestigious British Science Fiction Association or BSFA award in 2019, and after the publication of the third book in the series Children of Memory, those books won the Hugo Award for...

This is the second part of Marty's conversation with Julius Csotonyi about dark ecology in relation to the dark rogue world of Chris Beckett’s book 'Dark Eden'.  We discuss the extraordinary existence of anoxygenic autotrophic bacteria that are capable of photosynthesis in the dark of the ocean floor!  Julius describes the ecology of thermal vents and geothermal energy as it stems from a hot planetary core, and we s...

Julius Csotonyi is a thermal vent biologist with expertise on organisms that thrive on geothermal energy in the dark depths of the ocean where there is almost no light from the sun.  He is also someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about  ‘speculative biology’, imagining various exotic possibilities for the existence of life in extreme conditions that are very different from those we are used to on the ...

Holly and Marty speak with Chris Beckett about his Dark Eden trilogy, comprised of Dark Eden – which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2012, and was followed by Mother of Eden in 2015 and Daughter of Eden in 2016. Dark Eden has been described as “a superior piece of the theologically nuanced science fiction”, and is also a story about the development of human culture, religion and civilization.  It stands out...

Holly and Marty get together with their friend Susan MacKinnon to discuss the science fiction of Ursula K. LeGuin, literary icon of speculative fiction.  We talk about her Hugo and Nebula winning books "The Left Hand of Darkness" and "The Dispossessed", which are among the most celebrated classics in science fiction. The first was a pioneering book about the impact of gender on civilization, describing an ambisexual society.&n...

This is part 2 of Marty's conversation with Douglas Phillips about his 'Quantum' Series of hard science fiction novels.  In our last episode we talked about 'Quantum Space', and this time we discuss the next two books in the series, 'Quantum Void' and 'Quantum Time'. As before, today’s exchange focusses on the unifying theme of extra dimensions, in both space and time, and Douglas’ exploration of speculative ideas ...

This is one of those episodes that exemplifies what we try to do here on this show, going deep on some very big science ideas, and then going off the deep end to expand those ideas into the realm of fiction and making them even bigger! Marty has the great pleasure of speaking with Douglas Phillips, who has turned his wide range of scientific experience into the kinds of stories he’s always wanted to read​.  Douglas has m...

This is a rather special episode, and something of a delightful experiment.  Barron Wenham is on of the smartest and most well-informed 10-year-olds you are ever likely to encounter - especially on the subjects of particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology.  As an exercise in exploring big ideas, mind-blowing science and science fictional creative invention, Marty sat down with him to discuss the birth of the universe, ...

Marty speaks with Dr. Henry Erlich, whose research career gave him a front seat to the development of DNA sequencing technology from its infancy in the 80’s, to the development of forensic applications in the criminal justice system in the 90’s and through to it’s maturity in Next Generation Sequencing methods now used to study evolutionary biology and the deep history of human and hominid evolution. His book is c...

Marty talks to Alan Smale, a professional astronomer and author of hard science fiction, alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy, and horror. We talk to him about his most recent book 'Hot Moon' - an alternate history set in 1979 where the USSR won the space race to land the first man on the moon, changing the balance of power during the cold war and accelerating the space race to push both the Americans and the Soviets to h...

Holly and Marty speak with science fiction author Micaiah Johnson about her absolutely incredible 'Ashtown' duology.  This isn't really an episode about the Multiverse so much as it is about the deeply human and social themes in Micaiah's books, whose writing is laden with literary pearls and deeply human insights about complex characters, social and economic structures, and the interplay between science and spirituality. She ...

Marty and Holly speak for a second time with Mike Carey in the first installment on our new topic: The Multiverse.  Mike has written comics for many big titles in both the DC and Marvel universes, and has also written 19 books including his most recent 'The Pandominion' duology which is comprised of 'Infinity Gate' and 'Echo of Worlds'.  The idea of parallel universes arises from an interpretations of quantum mechanics wh...