Atoz

Hello! New listener here. Greatly enjoyed your perspectives of Foundation, which I read in my formative years and hold much affection for. As does, apparently, Paul Krugman, who cites the novel as inspiring his interest in economics. I will certainly concede that the premise of psychohistory is f

Excellent review! Reynolds is one of my faves. For short stories, I think his best are mostly in the Revelation Space universe (most of them can be found in the collection Galactic North); he has a Best of too. Great novellas include: Diamond Dogs (chilling); The Six Directions of Space (I recall it

Another good episode! Thank you for talking about Dulce et Decorum Est. It was perfect for this episode. Other thoughts: I thought John's father's rant was more Malthusian then Hobbesian, since he seemed to be portraying giving aid to social inferiors as a social, if not moral, evil. Heinlein ha

I just finished listening to the 'Foundation: Season One' Atoz episode. The brief remarks, towards the end of the episode, about the role of microfilm in the original novels, and their absence from the television series, made me recall the troubled history of the format. In a funny sort of way, som

Really enjoyed Glenn's great overview of Robert E. Howard's only Conan novel. I pretty much agree with the good and bad points raised. The discussion of the Grail/Fisher King/Wasteland inspirations was really interesting - not something I'd ever considered from Howard's work before. On the subject

I enjoyed this book. It's not as deep or intricate as some of Stephenson's books that I've read, like Cryptonomicon* and Anathem. I'd compare it favorably with Michael Crichton's best stuff**. Possible explanation for its brevity and looseness from his website: "Zodiac: Written over a time span o

A few of my thoughts from reading this, before listening to the podcast. I love the setting. The shipboard life feels real, with the whole class separation and the slowly degrading nature of the ship and on-board equipment. The planet, Antioch, is a great ghost town mystery, until the mystery is

Thank you guys for the Numenera episode. It remains one of my favorite games of all time. I thought there might be some interest in "The Signal". It's an in-character Numenera podcast that provides some world building and adventure hooks. http://numenerathesignal.blogspot.com/

Your recent podcast on Dragons of Autumn Twilight reminded me of the many high fantasy novels my friends and I read in the in 1980's, when we were very into D&D. A similar set of titles that might be of interest are the Deryni series by Katherine Kurtz. It's got a bunch of stuff Glenn should love:

Let's accept that Robert Heinlein's politics were all over the place, starting left-leaning and getting more conservative over time. (The irony of the Libertarian who popularized TANSTAAFL having depended on his government pension has been noted by many people.) Perhaps you will get to this in the

I first read Starship Troopers in fifth grade from our classroom library, back in the late 70's. I liked it so many times that my teacher let me keep the copy, which I had for a long time (40-ish years), until it got water damaged in my shed. Pretty sure it was the edition (or at least cover art)

I have not read a lot of Philip K. Dick. I've mostly been exposed to his work by movie adaptations like Total Recall, Minority Report, and Blade Runner. This novel fits in well with those, thematically. There are a lot of questions about whose reality is real. I did really enjoy this novel, whic

I noticed several "triads" in this novel, one in each section, which I think is Asimov speaking to us about the importance of relationships and also a structural choice. Foremost is the Odeen - Dua - Tritt triad in the paraverse, obviously. But, there was also the broken relationship between Halla

I have not read this book but I loved this episode for just a couple of reasons (forgive my "as usual" half-formed thoughts....I don't re-read and revise these posts and I usually write on this forum after a long workday and a couple gin and tonics). First, I just want to echo one of the theme

I enjoyed this podcast while standing in JFK airport, waiting for my luggage. A bit of Gotham there, I suppose. I'm not a comic book reader much anymore, though I was in the late 70's to early 90's, but never a Batman reader. I read this collection from my library's e-book collection. It was c

I'm so excited for this book discussion. I introduced myself to Ian Tregillis's work with this book with a random encounter in my library and it just amazed me. Tregillis is one of my favorite authors now. This series (The Milkweed Triptych) and the Alchemy Wars trilogy are just so good: inventi

Good episode guys! There were places where I was screaming at my phone, but you frequently looped back and made the points that I would have made. If it’s not clear, me screaming is good – it means you were making me think. Nice, thought provoking episode. A few things: First, there are a number of

Regarding your discussion of the Foundation TV show: any book as old as Foundation will have a number of problematic ideas. There were a number of places where I think the show made bad decisions because it was struggling with how to adapt these for a modern mass audience. To keep this post to a man

Really enjoyed this one - it's a fun departure from reading fiction while still discussing character and setting. I've not heard of this game, but I've been out of playing RPGs since the 90's. I'm inclined to buy it, just for the setting details. The setting for this RPG sounds really fun. The D

Looking forward to this one by Madeline Miller soon. My hold on the copy at my library just got filled. I really enjoyed Circe when I read it a few months ago. I just have to finish Harrow The Ninth and Mexican Gothic first.

Great podcast about this story. If I have read this it was so long ago I don’t remember any of it. Your points about this books structure and place in Star Trek cannon have really increased my interest in reading this. The post scarcity society that is posited by Star Trek is the most interesting c