Welcome to the third season of Synthesized Sunsets: a seasonal magazine about speculative fiction and the future of pop! This winter, the mag will get properly into full swing: we’ll be starting a regular update schedule (posts every Thursday and the occasional Monday), hosting trivia for paid subscribers, and writing original fiction.

This issue is all about purgatory. Think liminal spaces, the afterlife, and spaces outside of time. Liminality is a pet fascination for many Internet enthusiasts, and I am no exception. I like how liminality can be found in settings that are both ethereal and mundane: from the spectacle of the Bifrost to the creepiness of the Backrooms.

The art for this issue will be more centered around symbolism, albeit symbolism with a romantic touch. Symbolism turned away from the more realistic aspects of fine art, instead taking inspiration from metaphors, dreams, and the spirit world. It was an important stepping stone to surrealism, which would come a few years later.

One painting that fits the bill is Isle of the Dead by Arnold Böcklin. I love how it is able to create an environment that feels so completely disconnected from the rest of the world using familiar elements. But interestingly enough, most of Böcklin’s oeuvre does not resemble this most iconic painting of his. So in this issue, we are instead featuring Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach, a contemporary artist who was heavily inspired by Böcklin. He even painted his own version of Isle of the Dead, shown below:

Diefenbach was really into alternative social movements— championing veganism, polyamory, and pastoral utopian communes. He was also apparently known as the “kohlrabi apostle”. But the core focus of his painting was mysticism independent of organized religion. Most of his work features elements that are recognizably spiritual and yet resist attribution to any particular tradition. We hope that his paintings will inspire us (and you!) to imagine worlds outside of time and space.

The other artist I we are featuring is Léon Spilliaert, a delightfully creepy Symbolist who paints with striking black-and-white contrasts to create stark, dreamlike worlds. He painted in the 1800s, but I think his work looks as fresh ever in 2025:

Spilliaert was very invested in literature, becoming friends with Belgian writers like Maurice Maeterlinck and taking inspiration from authors like Edgar Allan Poe. His paintings scratch a similar itch for me as Caspar David Friedrich’s, with their lone figures and contemplative scenes. But of course, Spilliaert approaches things with a very different distinctive style. I hope you enjoy his paintings as much as I do!

If there’s one speculative fiction work that represents purgatory the most to me, it’s “Descending” by Thomas Disch. It’s a fantastic short story in the style of Kafka, where a man finds himself going down an escalator on his way back from the department store. And then another. And then another. And then another…

For more musings on this story and other purgatorial topics, you can check out our season intro on the podcast! Thanks for reading, and here’s to a great new season ahead!

EPISODE TIMESTAMPS:

0:28 - Why do an intro episode now?

1:42 - What can you expect to find in the magazine?

4:15 - Changes to the podcast moving forward

5:52 - What most defines your taste as a reader of speculative fiction?

6:00 - Gordon: Medieval High Fantasy (The Lord of the Rings), Hard Yet Imaginative Sci-Fi (Death's End), and Web Fiction (The Wandering Inn)

7:00 - Kevin: Sociological Speculative Fiction (Ursula K. Le Guin) and Speculative Short Stories (Ray Bradbury and Ted Chiang)

12:42 - Overlap in Gordon and Kevin’s tastes

15:46 - Our favorite ways to read books (paper v. eBooks v. audiobooks v. doomscrolling pdfs)

18:39 - What we are going for with purgatory as a theme

20:24 - Art for the purgatory issue of the magazine

21:14 - Introduction to Symbolist art

22:05 - Isle of the Dead by Arnold Böcklin

26:08 - Why Isle of the Dead reminds Kevin of Star Wars

29:20 - Why Isle of the Dead reminds Kevin of Pokémon

31:44 - Literary works that represent purgatory

31:57 - The Flower that Bloomed Nowhere by Lurina

37:11 - “Descending” by Thomas Disch

40:36 - Unfinished stairwells and other liminal spaces

45:26 - Conclusion and reminder that submissions are welcome!

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