167 episodes
What Mad Universe?!? Adam Prosser and Philip Rice
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Action! Excitement! Horror! Romance! Thrills and Chills! Swords and Sorcery! Rockets and Rayguns!
Hosts Adam Prosser and Philip Rice take a journey through the history of SF, Fantasy, horror, and pulp fiction.
Every 2 weeks one of us, alternating back and forth, selects a book or book series from the late 18th century up to the present to look back on, discuss, and examine. Some of them have left an indelible mark on pop culture; some of them are forgotten echoes of what might have been...all of them are weird and fascinating.
(If you like our work, please support us on Patreon! Adam is at https://patreon.com/user?u=404623 and Phil is at https://www.patreon.com/Spearhafoc .
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Chapter One Hundred and Fourteen: A Fool And His Money!
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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Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross
Additional music: "Undercover Spy Agent" by David Fesliyan
Theme song by Jack Feerick
(c) 2024 Adam Prosser and Philip Rice. Music (c) its respective creators.
Used under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution 3.0 International License. -
Chapter One Hundred and Thirteen: Get a Life!
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!
Support us on Patreon and listen to the show a week early!
Adam's Patreon
Phil's Patreon
What Mad Universe?!? on Bluesky
What Mad Universe?!? on Twitter
Philip's Bluesky
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Adam's Bluesky
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What Mad Universe on Facebook
What Mad Universe on Instagram
What Mad Universe RSS Feed
Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross
Theme song by Jack Feerick
Additional Music: "Rhythmic Comedy" by Alayan10
(c) 2024 Adam Prosser and Philip Rice. Music (c) its respective creators.
Used under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution 3.0 International License.
Used under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution 3.0 International License.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
(c) 2024 Adam Prosser and Philip Rice. Music (c) its respective creators. -
Chapter One Hundred and Twelve: Sharna Pax and Get the Poal!
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.
Support us on Patreon and listen to the show a week early!
Adam's Patreon
Phil's Patreon
What Mad Universe?!? on Bluesky
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Philip's Bluesky
Philip's Twitter
Adam's Bluesky
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What Mad Universe on Facebook
What Mad Universe on Instagram
What Mad Universe RSS Feed
Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross
Theme song by Jack Feerick
Additional music: "War and Peace" by Jamie Evans
(c) 2024 Adam Prosser and Philip Rice. Music (c) its respective creators.
Used under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution 3.0 International License. -
Chapter One Hundred and Eleven: In Cold Blood!
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.
Support us on Patreon and listen to the show a week early!
Adam's Patreon
Phil's Patreon
What Mad Universe?!? on Bluesky
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What Mad Universe on Facebook
What Mad Universe on Instagram
What Mad Universe RSS Feed
Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross
Theme song by Jack Feerick
Additional music: "In the Hall Of The Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg
(c) 2023 Adam Prosser and Philip Rice. Music (c) its respective creators.
Used under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution 3.0 International License. -
Chapter One Hundred and Ten: Culture War!
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?
Support us on Patreon and listen to the show a week early!
Adam's Patreon
Phil's Patreon
What Mad Universe?!? on Bluesky
What Mad Universe?!? on Twitter
Philip's Bluesky
Philip's Twitter
Adam's Bluesky
Adam's Twitter
What Mad Universe on Facebook
What Mad Universe on Instagram
What Mad Universe RSS Feed
Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross
Theme song by Jack Feerick
(c) 2023 Adam Prosser and Philip Rice. Music (c) its respective creators.
Used under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution 3.0 International License. -
Chapter One Hundred and Nine: Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On!
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.
Adam's Patreon
Phil's Patreon
What Mad Universe?!? on Bluesky
What Mad Universe?!? on Twitter
Philip's Bluesky
Philip's Twitter
Adam's Bluesky
Adam's Twitter
What Mad Universe on Facebook
What Mad Universe on Instagram
What Mad Universe RSS Feed
Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross
Theme song by Jack Feerick
Additional music: "The Sorceror's Apprentice" by Paul Dukas
(c) 2023 Adam Prosser and Philip Rice. Music (c) its respective creators.
Used under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution 3.0 International License.