What Mad Universe?!?

Ten-Hut, about face, and other such military jazz! This latest episode of What Mad Universe?!? takes a martial bent as we delve into the seminal SF novel Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein, loved and loathed in equal measure and a major political flashpoint as well as a key intersection point for post-WWII SF. Also they made a movie you might have heard of. Guest Andrew Hickey helps us find a more nuanced take on a book, and an author, that inspires extremes of opinion...

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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.

It's time once again to take a look at spinoff novelizations, and this time we're joined by Trekspert Dylan Roth to look at the era before the movies, before the Next Generation, when Star Trek was a ragtag multimedia conglomeration held together by fan obsession. The franchise took all kinds of strange and non-canonical turns in those dark days, and one of the biggest ones was The Final Reflection, a novel by celebrated SF author John M. Ford that paints a very different view of Star Trek and particularly the Klingon empire, one that diverged from the eventual path Trek took but nevertheless provided a guiding light for years afterwards. As the Vulcans say, Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations...

This is an edited version of a much longer show, available for Patreon subscribers. Support us on Patreon and listen to the show a week early!

We're also now on the Greenlit Podcast network! Check out all their shows at greenlitpodcasts.com

Adam'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.

Are we living at the end of history? Not according to Olaf Stapledon, who conceived of 2 billion years of future history to come in his book Last and First Men. When we talk about the sweeping sprawl of all that could yet be, this is what we're talking about!

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

Additional music: "Lost In Space" by JupiterWave on Looperman

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

We're all bugging out a bit as the quarantine stretches on, so here's a Kafkaesque new What Mad Universe on Spiridon The Mute, an obscure, bizarre story by a "protege" (it's complicated) of Jules Verne. If you've ever wondered if a giant ant could become a successful surgeon, now's your chance to find out! Also, why were you wondering that. Are you ill.

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

Phil's Patreon

What Mad Universe?!? on Twitter

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Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

This week's What Mad Universe?!? is so bizarre it BROKE REALITY ITSELF!!! (As in, it wasn't ready early for Patreon subscribers. Subscribe at the links below, though, and you'll hear the complete and unexpurgated full-length version of the show, the one the Nova Mob doesn't want you to hear!)

At any rate, this week we tackle a subject that I've been dying to delve into for a while but that I knew would be a bit of an odd fit: William S. Burroughs "Nova Trilogy" of cut-up books. Aggressively experimental, seemingly nonsensical, lacking anything resembling a traditional plot or story, these books have nevertheless had a real impact on pop culture and especially, oddly enough, the realm of SF and genre fiction, as we explore in this episode. Brace yourselves for some sex, drugs, and alien bugs...

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

Bonus music: https://www.looperman.com/loops/detail/157912/jasmine-base-120bpm-classical-bass-synth-loop

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Because the internet is clearly starved for more Star Wars content (#starwars), this latest chapter of What Mad Universe is about Star Wars! It's the center of the pop cultural solar system, but orbiting around the red giant that is the movies are dozens of tie-in novels, comics, video games, TV shows and all kinds of other spinoffs. Some of these have managed to make their own dent in the popular consciousness, and some of them have been forgotten, or even deliberately stricken from the record. It all started with Splinter Of The Mind's Eye, a 1978 novel by Alan Dean Foster, ground zero for the Star Wars expanded universe, and a fascinating look at a parallel pop cultural reality. In this episode we're joined by Starwarsologist and friend of the show Will Staples to take a deep delve into all the minor detritus found circling that galaxy far, far away.

Note: this publicly-available episode has been seriously edited; the original version ran over half an hour longer and featured a discussion on the Star Wars Holiday Special and confusion over whether Princess Leia ever uses a lightsaber. Support either of us on Patreon and you can hear the whole thing, plus listen to the show a week early every time!

Phil's Patreon

What Mad Universe?!? on Twitter

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Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

It's a space western! It's a cosmic horror tale! It's a combination space western/cosmic horror tale! The Northwest Smith series by C. L. Moore, one of American pulp's most prominent female authors, is almost too many genres combined into one, and that's BEFORE the fantasy swordmaiden shows up for a crossover! Somehow, though, it works, and we'll delve into them in this installment.

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

Adam's Patreon

What Mad Universe?!? on Twitter

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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.

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.