What Mad Universe?!?

The writings of H. P. Lovecraft are probably the most hashed-over territory imaginable within the spheres of genre fiction we discuss here at What Mad Universe?!?, but the writers who influenced him are, in some ways, more interesting to us. We already did a show, "All The Gods Save One!" about Lord Dunsany. Now we turn to The Yellow King, the creation of Robert W. Chambers, though owing a debt to Ambrose Bierce, and who's since been picked up and fleshed out by numerous others, even being informally folded into the Cthulhu mythos.

Other keywords: Cosmic horror, play, madness, metafiction, True Detective, Hastur, Carcosa, Hyades, Yellow Sign, Hali, Aldeberan

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Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

Other backing music: "Lost In Space" by JupiterWave on Looperman

We never like to go for the obvious stuff here on What Mad Universe?!?, so even though the latest episode is about J. R. R. Tolkien, we're focusing on one of his obscure stories, Farmer Giles of Ham. It's a story he told to his children which got revamped into something more sophisticated via his academic obsessions, and as such it contains his career in miniature.

Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

Additional Music: The Medieval Banquet by Shane Ivers - www.silvermansound.com (used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.)

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Phil's Patreon

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Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

As the 19th Century wound to a close, there was something in the air...or at least, people thought there soon would be. The idea of heavier-than-air flight and the potential military applications haunted SF decades before they became a reality; George Griffith's turn-of-the-century novel Angel of the Revolution imagined this technology falling into the hands of the good (?) guys and becoming the basis for a worldwide uprising in the midst of an apocalyptic war. The book also eerily foreshadowed an amazing number of real-world events that were still to come, including WWI and the Soviet revolution. In this episode we're joined once more by Jess Nevins to look at his novel, in which the Victorian era dreams uneasily of its own demise...

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

Phil's Patreon

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What Mad Universe on Facebook

Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

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

Phil's Patreon

Adam's Twitter

What Mad Universe on Facebook

Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

Of One Blood, by Pauline Hopkins, is a turn-of-the-century novel with all the fantastical genre trappings you could ask for: reincarnation, psychic projections, and a Biblical lost kingdom still thriving in the present. But this book is special: it's written by a black woman and deals specifically with the African-American experience. Jess Nevins joins us once again to look at this interesting signpost in cultural and genre history.

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

Phil's Patreon

Adam's Twitter

What Mad Universe on Facebook

Special thanks: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

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

Phil's Patreon

Adam's Twitter

What Mad Universe on Facebook

Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

Get your titanium spurs on and saddle-up your starships, buckaroos, 'cuz it's time to take our first dip into the wild wild world of space westerns! Seems like every generation has its own version of "cosmic cowboys", but there was a time when the genre was an outright cliche. We look at a book from this era, H. Beam Piper and J. Joseph McGuire's A PLANET FOR TEXANS, aka LONE STAR PLANET, which it turns out, isn't two genres mashed into one...it's three! Let's get this wagon train (to the stars) a movin'!

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

Phil's Patreon

Adam's Twitter

What Mad Universe on Facebook

Special Thanks: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

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

Adam's Patreon

Phil's Twitter

What Mad Universe on Facebook

Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

Since countries other than the US and the UK produce genre fiction too, this week we veer in a new direction to take a look at a famous work of Japanese Sci-Fi, "10 Billion Days & 100 Billion Nights", by Ryu Mitsuse. Could this book be a seminal influence on Japanese animation? To help us decide we've got guest star Ing--co-host of my other podcast, Destroy All Clickbait--who knows way more about that stuff than we do. Join us as two of mankind's greatest religious figures engage in a billion-year battle to the end of the universe!

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

Adam's Patreon

Phil's Twitter

What Mad Universe on Facebook

Special thanks to Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick