Our Opinions Are Correct

Sometimes, a story is set in a place that isn't just a location. It's a character. How do places come alive? We discuss hauntings, homelands, and what it means to write a landscape that is more than backdrop. Joining us is Jesscia Johns, author of Bad Cree, to talk about how place figures into her novel about a monster who stalks Treaty 8 territory in Alberta, Canada. Show notes: www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/shownotes

Star Trek is back in a big way: we've had three live-action TV shows and two animated shows recently, with more stuff on the way. But what does Star Trek mean to us now? And what do we want from Star Trek today? To get deeper into these questions, we did a mind meld with Lower Decks creator Mike McMahan.

Show notes: www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/shownotes

Summer is almost here, and there's no shortage of amazing books, movies and TV shows to read by the pool. (Or wherever you consume your entertainment. We don't judge.) How can you make sense of all these options? We have you covered. Here's our totally correct guide to all the best science fiction and fantasy to check out!

Show notes: www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/shownotes

Ten years ago, Silicon Valley promised us smart houses that would light rooms as we walked into them, turn on the music, and do our shopping. And it never happened. We talk about how the smart home has its roots in Charlie Chaplin movies, sewing machines, and home economics classes. Guest Jacqui Cheng, former editor-in-chief of gadget guide Wirecutter, joins us to us to discuss the culture of smart home electronics.

Show notes: www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/shownotes

Games are packed with astounding worldbuilding, and Dungeons & Dragons is perhaps the worldbuildiest of all. We take a deep dive into the game’s transformation from from a Satanic threat in the 1980s, to a wholesome, cozy world that has inspired a swashbuckling new movie and adorable novels like Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes. And then we’re going to talk about worldbuilding in Charlie Jane’s Unstoppable trilogy. The third and final book, Promises Stronger than Darkness, came out this month!

Show notes: www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/shownotes

When tech whizkids are caught behaving badly, they're just being "brilliant jerks." And the figure of the charismatic-but-bratty genius inventor is everywhere these days. We look at how the isolated, tormented mad scientist in science fiction evolved into the sexy asshole that everyone wants to be. And we talk to Christopher Cantwell, co-creator of Halt and Catch Fire and recently writer of the Iron Man comic, about how Tony Stark has changed.

Show notes: www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/shownotes

If you haven't read any short stories in a while, it's a great time to get back into them. A ton of truly excellent books of short speculative fiction came out recently, and wondrous new tales are appearing in magazines all the time. We talk about some of our favorite new books of short stories — and we offer some tips for writing some short fiction yourself.

Works mentioned:

All the Hometowns You Can't Stay Away From by Izzy Wasserstein

Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, ed. Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Zelda Knight 

New Suns 2, ed. Nisi Shawl

White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link

Falling in Love With Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson

Drinking From Graveyard Wells by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu

Lost Places by Sarah Pinsker

Evil Flowers by Gunnhild Øyehaug

The Wishing Pool by Tananarive Due

Never Too Old to Save the World: A Midlife Calling Anthology, edited by Alana Joli Abbott and Addie J. King 

Sunday Morning Transport

Escape Pod Podcast

Starship Sofa Podcast

Asimov's Science Fiction 

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

Analog Science Fiction

Lightspeed Magazine

Uncanny Magazine

Strange Horizons

Tor.com

Clarkesworld Magazine

NIghtmare Magazine

Show notes: www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/shownotes

Everybody obsesses about A.I., nanotech, space travel and robots. But the technologies nobody pays much attention to could have an equally significant impact on our world. Like artificial wombs, smart toilets, new forms of public transportation, and new cleaning machines.

Show notes: https://www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/shownotes/2019/12/5/episode-46-four-technologies-that-nobody-realizes-will-change-the-future

We're going to ask a few very small questions in this episode, like how to build a planet from scratch -- and then, how to build governments on that planet. What makes an imaginary world feel believable? Annalee explains what they did to research their new novel The Terraformers (coming out 1/31). Expect some gritty details about worldbuilding, moose romance, public transit, and making sure that every revolution has a core of joy.

Show notes: www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/shownotes

Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy supercharged the genre of epic fantasy, giving rise to countless stories of heroic quests in settings that looked like Medieval Europe. How do we expand the map of heroic fantasy so it includes everybody who was marginalized, or left out completely, in those tales? Plus we talk to Tolkien scholar Helen Young about the racist backlash against the new TV show Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

Fears of nuclear war are in the news again. We revisit a 2019 episode about how science fiction has dealt with atomic weapons, and how twenty-first century writers will represent the dangers of nuclear war. 

Shownotes: https://www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/shownotes/2019/2/28/episode-26-the-bomb-is-back

Floods. Sea level rise. Superstorms. Droughts. All over the planet, people are being hit by disasters caused by too much water or not enough, and it's only going to get worse. We talk about why science fiction has been focused on water disasters for over a century, from Princess of Mars to Dune and Mad Max: Fury Road. We're also joined by flood geologist Kyle House, who tells us about ancient floods -- and the recent one that inundated his neighborhood in Arizona.

Show notes: www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/shownotes