Synthesized Sunsets

Kevin Kodama & Gordon Anderson
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Synthesized Sunsets is a podcast about speculative fiction and the future of popular culture. This podcast is tied to the magazine of the same name, so episodes will correspond to the current issue's theme. Your hosts are niche media enthusiasts Kevin and Gordon, who hope to put you on to some hidden gems and goofy ideas. Join us as we talk to members of the speculative fiction community and other future-forward thinkers! synthesizedsunsets.substack.com

  1. XXVIII: There Is No Antimemetics Division w/ qntm

    May 13

    XXVIII: There Is No Antimemetics Division w/ qntm

    This week’s guest is qntm: he is most well known as the author of There Is No Antimemetics Division, a sci-fi horror novel depicting humanity’s battles against malevolent entities which erase all memory of their presence. He also has written a number of other fantastic short pieces of speculative web fiction you can find on his website or short story collection Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories. In addition to the book itself we discuss how There Is No Antimemetics Division’s origins as a collection of tales on the collaborative fictional database SCP-Foundation, Kevin’s article on Antimemetics, and the future of fiction on or about the internet. Hope you enjoy listening! TIMESTAMPS: 0:12 - Introduction 1:01 - What is an antimeme? 5:24 - How did There Is No Antimemetics Division come to be? 7:54 - Antimemetics is a book where characters are forced to act without context 9:21 - Similarities between Antimemetics and a time travel story 11:12 - Writing characters who do not have a consistent memory and narrative 13:50 - Very little of what we sense is actually remembered 17:07 - Antimemetics had a lot of momentum 18:15 - Serialization forces you to make something happen in every chapter 18:58 - Does qntm view himself as a web fiction author? 22:48 - Writing a realistic portrayal of the internet 25:08 - When writing internet chatroom fiction don’t use the backspace key 26:08 - Maintaining old versions of stories 28:58 - It is instructive to have access to earlier versions of a work 29:45 - Discussing Kevin’s article “There Is No Antimemetics Division as a Reminder of the Internet’s Wild Potential” 30:12 - Fiction is less optimistic about the internet than it used to be 33:16 - There are less websites nowadays 35:58 - The internet is no longer opt-in 38:35 - Conclusion 39:47 - Start of Synthesized Sunsets Backstage 41:15 - Discussing Valuable Humans in Transit Collection 41:47 - These are stories that are clearly written on the internet 43:10 - Discussing “The Difference” 48:41 - “Cripes does anyone remember google people” 51:57 - Cool to read a story that successfully predicted the future 53:31 - Versioning stories complete with a list of dependencies 57:30 - Discussing Kevin’s recent article “The Brilliance & Excess of The Wandering Inn” 1:00:36 - The genre of The Wandering Inn is “long” 1:05:36 - When writing a story this long you already have reader buy-in to do whatever you want as an author 1:08:31 - The Wandering Inn tells big world spanning stories from the perspective of individuals This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit synthesizedsunsets.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 12m
  2. XXVII: Subcultural Scenes w/ Cairo Smith

    Mar 24

    XXVII: Subcultural Scenes w/ Cairo Smith

    This week’s guest is Cairo Smith: a prolific novelist and filmmaker who edits the literary magazine Futurist Letters here on Substack. We sat down to talk about his extremely online novel Scenebux and the extremely online subcultures that inspired it. We also talk about his novels Current Affairs and Komodo, as well as his short AI horror film Red Team. And we couldn’t resist talking about Vibecamp, which makes a brief cameo in Scenebux as “Edgelands”. Check out Cairo on Substack at Futurist Letters or at Askari Productions, where you can find out all about his upcoming projects. (This episode was recorded quite a long time ago, so we apologize if anything is out of date.) TIMESTAMPS 00:00:12 – Intro 00:02:20 – Reinventing old forms of media in the Internet age 00:04:51 – The novelty of seeing tech slop Twitter in a real novel 00:08:36 – Why indie fiction is able to be more up-to-the-minute than trad pub 00:10:30 – ALL THAT WE SEE OR SEEM and the irrealism of “realistic” fiction in 2026 00:14:10 – When should you take the L for the art? 00:17:46 – The excitement of independently coming to ideas at the same time as everybody else 00:21:27 – Scenebux and the vibes at Vibecamp 00:27:47 – Kevin’s anecdote about the “smell guy” 00:31:28 – The importance of subcultural preservation in literature 00:31:56 – Jargon as an antimemetic defense against subcultural dilution 00:32:38 – The short film Red Team by Cairo Smith 00:37:36 – The changing role of the writer across eras 00:42:17 – Will anything replace the Hollywood film? 00:46:06 – Conclusion and final recommendations 00:48:42 – Synthesized Sunsets Backstage begins 00:49:26 – Brief synopsis of Komodo and Current Affairs 00:52:35 – Komodo discussion 00:55:13 – Kevin’s thoughts on Scenebux 01:00:25 – What is Vibecamp? 01:01:40 – Gordon explains why being waterboarded is fun 01:08:56 – Kevin yaps about his upcoming novel 01:14:35 – Conclusion and final recommendations This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit synthesizedsunsets.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 16m

  3. Mar 7

    XXVI: Jeopardy Retrospective w/ James Hirsh

    This week is a special episode with lawyer and sports podcast host James Hirsh who recently competed against Kevin Kodama on Jeopardy! We talked about their experience on the show and sports in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Hope you enjoy! TIMESTAMPS: 0:14 - Introduction 0:30 - Was the Jeopardy experience as expected 2:18 - Jeopardy was more fun than expected 4:02 - Anything especially nerve-wracking about Jeopardy 7:05 - Daily Double strategy 13:41 - Lack of sports in SFF 17:41 - Sports in SFF normally involve actual death 21:16 - Sports will have to reckon with continued advances in technology 27:13 - Sports need to be willing to change incrementally 27:40 - Conclusion and Recommendation of “1984 and Beyond” Playboy Magazine Interview (Unfortunately was unable to find this online but it appears in Playboy’s July 1963 issue) 29:35 - Start of Synthesized Sunsets Backstage 31:47 - Kevin got along well with Ken Jennings 34:06 - Lowbrow culture doesn’t really appear in SFF 35:27 - SFF stories, even futurist ones, don’t have modern economies 39:11 - Hockey does a great job of crafting a good watching experience through its rules 41:21 - MMA is more strategic than might be expected 45:26 - Recommendation of “Heretics” by GK Chesterton This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit synthesizedsunsets.substack.com/subscribe

    48 min
  4. XXV: Sci-Fi's Sense of Wonder w/ Lillian Wang Selonick

    Feb 20

    XXV: Sci-Fi's Sense of Wonder w/ Lillian Wang Selonick

    We were excited to have Lillian Wang Selonick back on the podcast as a repeat guest! We discuss her story published in Synthesized Sunsets “The Waters of Lethe”, her recent travels in Japan and Korea, the sense of wonder at the center of Sci-Fi, the evolution of the meaning of the word nerd, and more. Apologies for the really long delay between episodes. We have two more episodes recorded so the next few should come out in the next few weeks. In more exciting news, Kevin Kodama will be competing on Jeopardy this coming Wednesday February 25th, so check that out if you are interested. Hope you enjoy listening! TIMESTAMPS: 0:14 - Introduction 0:43 - Lillian’s recent trip to Korea and Japan 5:17 - It’s cool that for a character language your writing system doesn’t change over time 10:44 - Discussing Lillian’s story “The Waters of Lethe” 12:20 - Writing with a character voice very different from your own 18:35 - Researching the science for short stories 21:13 - Cixin Liu’s “Church of Sci-Fi” essay from “A View From the Stars” and the sense of wonder 25:41 - There is good Sci-Fi that doesn’t try to elicit this feeling 33:30 - Sci-Fi is more centered on this awe feeling in China 35:23 - Western translations try to add gravitas to Cixin Liu 38:03 - Sci-Fi movies like Interstellar and 2001 are good at creating this awe feeling 42:51 - Evolution of what it means to be a “nerd” 48:51 - Nerd culture used to have a high barrier to entry 53:19 - Being a nerd became way cooler in the early 2010s 55:38 - Prose can do things that video can’t 57:46 - Conclusion and Lillian’s story recommendation “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” by Jorge Luis Borges 59:54 - Start of Synthesized Sunsets Backstage 1:02:23 - People come of age much more gradually nowadays 1:10:31 - Rehashing the Church of Sci-Fi essay 1:11:45 - Cixin Liu gets the same criticisms in China with regards to characters 1:14:52 - The universe should be a protagonist in Sci-Fi 1:22:32 - There is an unrealized demand for Sci-Fi with this focus on a sense of wonder 1:29:56 - Discussing Kevin’s article “There Is No Antimemetics Division as a Reminder of the Internet’s Wild Potential” 1:32:05 - SCP Foundation and “There Is No Antimemetics Division” 1:37:54 - SCP Foundation was a cool thing you would run into from time to time 1:46:27 - “There Is No Antimemetics Division” will probably not funnel people towards web fiction 1:48:46 - Going on the internet is like looking up at the night sky 1:51:41 - The ol’ reddit switcheroo 1:55:57 - More Sci-fi writers used to be on the cutting edge of science 1:57:02 - Conclusion This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit synthesizedsunsets.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 58m

  5. 11/27/2025

    XXIV: AI and Our Collective Dreams w/ Ken Liu

    This week’s guest is author, lawyer, and engineer Ken Liu— a man of many talents. You may know him for his collections The Paper Menagerie and The Hidden Girl, his fantasy quartet The Dandelion Dynasty, inspiring the show Pantheon, or perhaps even translating The Three-Body Problem. His recent novel All That We See or Seem is a near-future thriller about a beloved AI ‘dream artist’ who disappears without a trace, as well as the hacker trying to find her. It is the first of several planned ‘Julia Z novels’. In this episode, we discussed Liu’s inspiration for this new novel, his concept of ‘silkpunk’ in the context of The Dandelion Dynasty, and the uncertain future of art in the age of AI. You can find more information about him on his website kenliu.name or right here on Substack at The Lion's Teeth. Enjoy! TIMESTAMPS 00:00:12 – Intro 00:00:56 – Ken Liu’s new thriller All That We See or Seem 00:02:22 – “Dreamweaving” and why using AI feels like a dream 00:09:26 – Why did LLMs not make it into literature earlier? 00:18:13 – Writing near-future SF and “Real Artists” 00:27:36 – AI as a copying machine of the “desired original” 00:34:02 – Compensating artists in the age of AI 00:41:53 – Silkpunk and The Dandelion Dynasty 00:49:05 – Tax policy and cultural technology 00:56:23 – “All life is an experiment” 00:00:57 – Conclusion and final recommendations 01:02:51 – Synthesized Sunsets Backstage begins 01:05:17 – Ken Liu is unusually optimistic about AI art 01:12:22 – How will idiolects of AI and humans feed off each other? 01:18:03 – The Dandelion Dynasty as an experiment in exposition 01:23:45 – The character of Mata Zyndu and writing morality out of time 01:26:06 – The Paper Menagerie and The Hidden Girl are really different 01:27:44 – “Byzantine Empathy” by Ken Liu 01:30:29 – Ken Liu on the irrealism of fiction that avoids technology 01:33:03 – New season / reopening for submissions 01:35:03 – Conclusion and final recommendations This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit synthesizedsunsets.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 36m
  6. Summer 2025 Season Finale w/ Trevor Waldorf and Dylan O'Neal

    11/18/2025

    Summer 2025 Season Finale w/ Trevor Waldorf and Dylan O'Neal

    We brought back friends of the podcast Dylan O’Neal and Trevor Waldorf for more of a book club style informal conversation discussing some books and stories with a bit of a loose Halloween theme as we recorded this episode a few days before Halloween. We discussed the novel “Something Wicked This Way Comes” by Ray Bradbury, and short stories “All Summer in a Day,” also by Bradbury, “Mountain” and “Cannonball” by Cixin Liu, as well as “Mono no Aware” by Ken Liu. In the backstage portion of the podcast, we discuss Kevin’s article Cixin Liu’s Paracosmal Worlds as well as Gordon’s review of the Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer. We hope you enjoy listening! TIMESTAMPS: 0:12 - Introduction 2:02 - Discussing “All Summer In a Day” by Ray Bradbury 7:34 - Lots of media for children is written for adults 13:29 - Writing humanity as a character 17:00 - The ridiculous situation in which Kevin attempted to read “Something Wicked This Way Comes” 22:37 - Children’s horror is scarier than adult horror 25:25 - Monster House and other scary children’s movies 29:51 - Scary kids movies are supposed to be disorienting and strange 32:19 - Something Wicked This Way Comes is a better coming of age novel than a horror one 37:15 - Circus/Carnival Experiences 42:45 - There are less alternative lifestyles nowadays 47:09 - Kids used to do way more crazy s**t 48:54 - Cixin Liu writes stories that are childishly awesome 51:15 - Discussing “Cannonball” by Cixin Liu 58:31 - Cixin Liu is marketed in a very serious way that clashes with his fiction 1:03:24 - Discussing “Mountain” by Cixin Liu 1:05:26 - Cixin Liu crafts characters who have a single purpose 1:07:21 - Discussing “Mono no Aware” by Ken Liu 1:13:11 - Conclusion short story recommendation of “The Last Rung on the Ladder” by Stephen King and Dylan’s upcoming novel “Orange Sky, Dark Sun” 1:16:00 - Start of Synthesized Sunsets Backstage 1:16:20 - Getting an outsider’s perspective on Cixin Liu stories 1:18:05 - The swimming up the mountain scene in “Mountain” is awesome 1:25:18 - Discussing Kevin’s article, Cixin Liu’s Paracosmal Worlds 1:33:25 - Discussing Gordon’s Review of the Terra Ignota Series by Ada Palmer 1:38:18 - Some thoughts on Terra Ignota that eventually lead to this essay 1:41:44 - Too Like The Lightning is very difficult to follow 1:44:59 - Really difficult to make all 3 of really interesting speculative ideas, really interesting prose, and understandable 1:46:00 - The Dandelion Dynasty sort of solves this by not having many speculative ideas in the first book, then dumping more on you in future books when it is easier to follow 1:49:49 - Conclusion and Short Fiction Recommendation “Five Stages of Grief after the Alien Invasion” by Caroline M. Yoachim This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit synthesizedsunsets.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 53m

  7. 10/13/2025

    XXIII: Writing Realistic Children w/ Dylan O'Neal

    This week we talked to Dylan O’Neal, author of the first short story submission accepted by Synthesized Sunsets, Snowlight. In addition to the story, we discussed what got him into writing, how to write compelling children in stories, lucid dreaming, Game of Thrones, and the book he is working on currently, “Orange Sky, Dark Sun”. Similar to the last couple episodes this one was recorded a long time ago, but in the backstage portion was recorded more recently we discussed Kevin’s recent article in Republic of Letters, “Ah, The Nerdish Joys Of Quizbowl.” We hope you enjoy! TIMESTAMPS: 0:12 - Introduction 0:52 - How did you get into writing? 4:40 - Everyone reads in elementary school 7:17 - After a certain amount of reading you will probably feel compelled to write 8:26 - What is the starting point for your writing? 13:31 - Discussing Dylan’s story “Snowlight” 17:31 - Kids are often not believable in fiction 22:27 - Kids often don’t think about what they are capable of doing 27:20 - Lucid dreaming 32:42 - How do you create a dreamlike register? 36:06 - Many of Dylan’s favorite authors are Sci-fi adjacent (Kurt Vonnegut, George Saunders, George R.R. Martin, Stephen King) 37:45 - Do you see yourself as or becoming a sci-fi author? 40:06 - It’s hard to make phone usage seem beautiful 42:37 - Kurt Vonnegut and “Shapes of Stories” 45:26 - Stories with pretty much any shape can work well if executed well 50:08 - It’s hard for short stories to compete with other more attention grabbing forms of short media 53:29 - Screenwriting 57:03 - It’s tough to read a lot if you do not read primarily for entertainment 1:00:33 - A Song of Ice and Fire improves reading other fantasy series by raising the stakes 1:01:35 - Game of Thrones was the first fantasy book to really successfully break from the Lord of the Rings mold 1:04:38 - Dylan pitches his upcoming book “Orange Sky, Dark Sun” 1:10:11 - Conclusion and Short Story Recommendations: “The Man in the Black Suit” by Stephen King, “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury, “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, and “Two Talented Bastids” by Stephen King. 1:11:45 - Start of Synthesized Sunsets Backstage 1:12:13 - It’s cool to have a compulsion to write 1:15:15 - Children are often far more one-dimensional in stories 1:16:34 - Kids have agency 1:17:48 - Discussing Kevin’s Quizbowl article for Republic of Letters “Ah, The Nerdish Joys Of Quizbowl” 1:19:03 - Quizbowl is standardized academic trivia 1:21:54 - Quizbowl is mechanism for turning abstract knowledge into usable knowledge 1:26:33 - Gordon reads Kevin an example Quizbowl tossup 1:30:04 - What did the process of grinding for Quizbowl in high school look like for Kevin? 1:34:22 - Quizbowl is really good for learning history 1:35:49 - Math classes teach you application not just knowledge 1:37:31 - Quizbowl is an experience which burns knowledge into your mind 1:38:24 - Knowledge feels more real if you are able to apply it 1:40:25 - Conclusion and Short Story Recommendation “Call Girl” by Tang Fei This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit synthesizedsunsets.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 42m

  8. 09/16/2025

    XXII: Sinopticon and the World of Wǎngwén w/ Xueting Christine Ni

    This week on the podcast we had on Xueting Christine Ni, an independent researcher of Chinese culture who is most famous for her collections Sinopticon and Sinophagia (which focus on Chinese science fiction and Chinese horror, respectively), as well as her nonfiction writings on Chinese mythology. We spent a bit of time talking about the stories in those two collections, as well as the wide world of Chinese web fiction (wǎngwén) and the implications that it has for China and the rest of the world. This episode was recorded quite a long time ago, but the timing nicely coincides with Kevin’s last article “How 'Chinese Goodreads' Illuminates Forgotten Sci-Fi Classics”. We were very glad to hear Xueting’s unique perspective, who has spent quite a bit of time in both China and the UK, experiencing the fiction and life of both cultures. This episode was edited to be relatively light on spoilers in case people are interested in reading Sinopticon or Sinophagia afterwards— which we would highly recommend! Thanks for listening! TIMESTAMPS 00:00:12 – Episode Start 00:00:49 – Is Chinese speculative fiction more stratified than Western web fiction? 00:02:57 – Xueting's original entrypoint into wǎngwén (Chinese web fiction) 00:05:02 – What is the 'mission statement' of Sinopticon? 00:07:03 – “The Fall of Adam” by Wang Jinkang and getting stories past the publisher 00:10:32 – 2023 WorldCon in Chengdu and a Reddit thread about the nominees that reveals cultural gaps in science fiction 00:14:48 – “The Great Migration” by Ma Boyong and notes about translation 00:17:54 – Xueting talks about her elite translator notes in Sinopticon and Sinophagia 00:26:44 – “The Waking Dream” by Fan Zhou 00:31:28 – “Net Novels and the She-Era” by Xueting Christine Ni 00:35:52 – Understanding the scale of the Chinese web novel economy 00:44:17 – What a Western web fiction market might look like and Seven Seas Entertainment 00:47:47 – Xueting and Gordon talk about how the insular web fiction community enables certain kinds of playful experimentation with recurring elements 00:51:55 – Conclusion and final recommendations 00:52:43 – Xueting asks Kevin and Gordon about wuxia 00:55:26 – Synthesized Sunsets Backstage begins 00:57:08 – Talking to curators v. authors about their work 00:58:53 – “Flower of the Other Shore” by A Que 01:01:35 – “The Tide of Moon City” by Regina Kanyu Wang 01:03:58 – Kevin goes on a long side tangent about hating unnecessary frame stories 01:07:48 – Kevin’s article “How 'Chinese Goodreads' Illuminates Forgotten Sci-Fi Classics” 01:12:27 – Kevin’s initial “wrong” conclusions about Chinese science fiction 01:15:19 – Why “The Martian” was so popular 01:16:21 – Kevin talks about meeting Chinese science fiction fans 01:18:39 – Is Cixin Liu that popular in China? 01:21:08 – The popularity of Japanese mystery fiction in China 01:23:00 – Curators are to authors as original contexts are to foreign contexts? 01:25:35 – Conclusion and final recommendations This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit synthesizedsunsets.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 27m
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About

Synthesized Sunsets is a podcast about speculative fiction and the future of popular culture. This podcast is tied to the magazine of the same name, so episodes will correspond to the current issue's theme. Your hosts are niche media enthusiasts Kevin and Gordon, who hope to put you on to some hidden gems and goofy ideas. Join us as we talk to members of the speculative fiction community and other future-forward thinkers! synthesizedsunsets.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Kevin Kodama & Gordon Anderson
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    32
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Kevin
  • Show Website
    Synthesized Sunsets