The Fandom Menace

The Rise of Skywalker has completed the Star Wars sequel trilogy and we are finally ready to share our thoughts with you.

We discuss the most recent installment in the Star Wars franchise with our good friend, Justin (you might know him from his previous appearance). The movie, while it looks and feels traditionally Star Wars, suffers from a serious lack of imagination. JJ Abrams spends more time providing fan-service than a satisfying conclusion.

Remembrance of Podcast’s Past

We talk about Death’s End the 2010 novel from Cixin Liu. Translated into English in 2016 by Ken Liu, it was short-listed for the Hugo Award for Best Novel and winner of the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.

This is a big book with lots of big ideas. It excels where it thinks up new scientific ideas. It stumbles when it strays into talking about social issues, which it often does.

Science Fiction for Sustainability, In Conversation with Cory Doctorow

We were excited to have Cory Doctorow as a guest. We spoke with Cory in mid-December about his recent collection, Radicalized, and his 2017 novel, Walkaway.

We discuss the role of economics in science fiction and the opportunity for science fiction to present scenarios for a sustainable future. 

In Conversation with Karl Schroeder

In early October Androids and Assets had the pleasure of speaking with author, Karl Schroeder.

Karl is the author of many books and short stories. The most recent is Stealing Worlds an excellent near-future novel full of incredible ideas and a fun action-y, mystery-ish story. It’s available from Tor Books and is well worth reading.

We spoke to Karl about economics and capitalism and the future. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Green 9/11

This week we’re joined by local comedian, Mav. We talk about Mav’s recent show Last Days on Krypton. A comedy based around the climate crisis and collective action as the only real, lasting solution to this crisis.

Mav talks about committing a Green 9/11, which we understand to be the collective uprising of working people to overthrow capitalism. In a non-violent way, of course.

During the episode, Mav encourages us to listen to the show, What’s Left. In particular the episode on the Green New Deal, it can be found here.

Hot Takes Me Away

Get yer hot takes

We did a couple of short, hot takes. Or at least lukewarm takes. We were going to do one on Black Panther and then remembered we did an entire episode on it.

Tell us we’re wrong, we dare you. Tell us your hot takes. We can fight about it.

Context Providers

We talk with Rick Harp, host of Media Indigena, about indigenous cultures, particularly those in the place now called Canada, the Hugo Awards, colonialism, The Walking Dead, and economic development of indigenous peoples the world over.

This podcast was recorded some time ago. We apologize if any of the information it contains is out-of-date.

Errata

In this episode we discuss the following materials. Please check them out, and support these amazing content(text) creators: 

Media Indigena Round Table at mediaindigena.com

Metis In Space – an excellent podcast that is unapologetically indigenous, unabashedly female & unblinkingly nerdy.

Kim Tallbear – Native American DNA Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science.

Rebecca Roanhorse – Author ofTrial of Lightning and Your Authentic Ingenious Experience.

Cherie Dimaline – Author of The Marrow Thieves.

Cutcha Risling Baldy – Why I Teach The Walking Dead in my Native Studies Classes.

Clearing the Plains – James Daschuk

Indigenous Comiccon – An international collection of events