What Mad Universe?!?

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Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

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We've already taken a few trips to the red planet here on What Mad Universe?!? and we find it a different place every time. Now we get a particularly multifaceted look at Mars as we delve into the seminal SF classic The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury. Is it a novel? A short story collection? Or both? Life on Mars seems to be different things to different people...

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Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

Music: ["Long White Cloud" by Krakatoa}(https://freemusicarchive.org/music/krackatoa/Long_White_Cloud/Krackatoa_-_Long_White_Cloud)

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As we lurch towards Halloween here at What Mad Universe?!?, we descend into the vaults to examine a historical mystery: the 1901 novel Powers of Darkness, which just so happens to be the Icelandic translation of Dracula. Except it isn't. In 2014 it was discovered that this book was in fact significantly different from the English text, adding subplots and characters and even a new, intriguing motivation for the vampire count. Is it an early draft of Stoker's? A rogue translator? Something else? We pack our shovels and journey to distant, exotic lands in order to dig up the truth in this latest episode! (Check out our Patreons for the bonus-length episode featuring a discussion of Turkish Dracula, in cast you needed yet another Dracula...)

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Phil's Patreon

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Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

(c) 2020 Adam Prosser and Philip Rice. Music (c) its respective creators.

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We've talked a lot about Frankenstein already here on What Mad Universe?!?--not surprising, as by some lights it's the first SF novel. One of those lights was Brian Aldiss, British New Wave SF writer, who decided to write an elaborate bit of self-insert fanfic involving time-traveling to meet Mary Shelley and do battle with the monster at the end of the universe. It's also set in 2020 as all reality is breaking down. Uh, no comment...

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Phil's Patreon

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Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

(c) 2020 Adam Prosser and Philip Rice. Music (c) its respective creators.

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

We're edging into spooky season, acolytes of adventure, so now begins a run of installments looking at the weird and chilling (and obscure, in every sense of the word)! This week it's the awkwardly translated duology (really, one book that was bafflingly published in two installments) The Bloody Doll and A Machine To Kill, by Gaston Leroux, the author of The Phantom of the Opera. A wind up mechanical robot with a murderer's brain apparently isn't enough, so Leroux also threw in a vampire cult, because why not?

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Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

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In this episode we're joined once again by Andrew hickey to take a look at A Canticle For Liebowitz by Walter Miller Jr., one the seminal post-nuclear apocalypse epics and a deep dive into the big questions of faith vs. science. It's been the subject of a lot of discussion so I hope we can provide some new insight. But if not, it's not the end of the world...

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Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

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Roll up, roll up, ladies and gentlemen and various configurations thereof, to see the spectacular show that is The Circus of Dr. Lao! It's the subject of the latest What Mad Universe?!? and its influenced everyone from Ray Bradbury to Roald Dahl. Dare you enter the tent of mystery and witness the wonders within?

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Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

Additional music: "Calliope" By Alexander on Orange Free Sounds

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Support us on Patreon and listen to the show a week early!

Phil's Patreon

What Mad Universe?!? on Twitter

What Mad Universe on Facebook

Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

A very creepy evening to you all, my children, and welcome to the creepy castle for another installment of What Mad Universe?!? This time we're looking at The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, the originator of the gothic novel and, thus, most of the enduring horror and supernatural tropes of the last 250 years. Grab a candlabra, descend the spiral staircase to the cellar, and don't mind the dancing skeletons...

Support us on Patreon and listen to the show a week early!

Phil's Patreon

What Mad Universe?!? on Twitter

What Mad Universe on Facebook

Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Support us on Patreon and listen to the show a week early!

Phil's Patreon

What Mad Universe?!? on Twitter

What Mad Universe on Facebook

Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.