Our Episodes
Sex! Pregnancy! Birth! Representations of reproduction
In this episode, we discuss all things reproduction. That's right: sex, pregnancy, birth – the whole shebang around creating new life and what it means to a woman's position, as represented in genre fiction. We (supposedly) have a biological drive to propagate our...
Choose your own Bandersnatch
While we were all winding down from Christmas, Charlie Brooker and the Black Mirror gang were getting ready to mess with our minds yet again. December 28th saw the release of the one-off interactive Netflix special 'Bandersnatch' to mixed reviews. But no one can deny...
Seasonal scares
The holiday season comes with all kinds of traditions. From special desserts to the annual family bust-up. Whether you like a feel-good story at this time of year or something a little more spine-tingling, there's magic enough for everyone. In this episode, Charlotte...
Writing comics with Leah Moore
I had the undeniable pleasure of chatting to UK comics writer Leah Moore. From growing up with comics royalty to a career spanning two decades, Leah has written for existing franchises, adapted novels to comics, and created original new properties. And perhaps most...
Layers and landscapes with Aliya Whiteley
What is speculative fiction and what can it offer the world? Aliya Whiteley's work has been described as "stark, poetic and forthright", and certainly not easily classified. We talk to her about how established ideas of gender can be challenged, the questions she...
Unravelling mysteries (Live from FantasyCon 2018)
Alternate episode title: Magic goat sword (it will make sense if you listen!) If you're planning a murder, always have a koala with you! Works of fiction are rarely confined to a single genre, especially when it comes to speculative fiction. There are sci-fi westerns,...
John Gwynne on traditional fantasy tropes
We spend a lot of time on this podcast talking about how authors are subverting or downright overturning classic SFF tropes. But there are still merits of entrenched tropes, after all, tropes became such because they were enjoyable and worked, so people reused them....
Writing (female) characters
Writing better female characters is covered in a lot of writing advice. Many of these pieces will preface their comments with sarcastic comments like ‘Women are people too, duh’. This sort of statement, I think, should make the topic a moot point – not how to write...
Disposable characters
Redshirts. No sooner are they introduced than they are killed. The tension rises, there are beads of sweat on Kirk’s brow… now the audience knows the peril is real. These stock, disposable characters exist in a story solely for the purpose of being disposed of –...