Show Notes
Genre fiction is full of strong, independent women, badass heroines, brave Final Girls, and virginal princesses. Frankly, we’re getting a little sick of it? For our season finale, with us to discuss difficult women is the queen of messy, complicated, and antiheroic female protagonists herself, the legendary Silvia Moreno-Garcia! Show Notes Silvia's website Silvia's Instagram and Threads Signal To Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (find out why Rachel is correct and all of the Goodreads reviewers are wrong) Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Countess by Susan Palumbo Unknown Number: The High School Catfish
Rachel’s Problematic Faves Bellis Coldwine (The Scar by China Miéville) Baru Cormorant (The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickson) Essun (The Broken Earth by N.K. Jemisin) Catra (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power by Nate Stevenson)
David’s Problematic Faves Morgan Le Fay (Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory) Cersei Lannister (A Song Of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin) Jadis (The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis)
Silvia’s Problematic Faves Eleanor and Theodora (The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson) Constance and Merricat (We Have Always Lived In the Castle by Shirley Jackson) Everything by Tanith Lee Rebecca and Rachel (Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier) Emma Bovary (Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert)
Are they genre? Nah, but we still love them Cass Neary novels by Elizabeth Hand Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov Washington Square by Henry James Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
More from Wizards & Spaceships
Happy Halloween! There's no shortage of horrors, but the best one is the horror found in forces that are so large, so abstract, or upsetting that to engage with them directly would drive you insane. With us to discuss cosmic horror are Devinder Thiara and Jesse Scoble, co-creators of a new comic, Dead Money. Show notes: https://jdstudios.art/ Devinder on Facebook Jesse on Bluesky Jesse’s Substack Moby Dick illustration with the eye
It’s the 20th anniversary of Blindsight! David and Rachel sit down in Rachel’s living room with marine biologist, critically acclaimed author, and enemy-of-the-state Peter Watts to drink two bottles of wine and talk about theories of consciousness, cigar-shaped harbour seals, the climate collapse, and why dystopian sci-fi authors are in fact childishly optimistic. Additional audio engineering by Rick Innis. Show Notes: Rifters The Collapse Is Coming. Will Humanity Adapt? The Sheep Look Up, John Brunner The Limits To Growth Philosophical Zombie Consciousness and its function, David M. Rosenthal Michael Timothy Bennett Erik Hoel Mirror Test The Hidden Spring Arthur Jafa
The podcast is part of the oral tradition, and joining us to talk about ancient epics, living texts in dead languages, Babylonian Pride parades, and how all of this relates to sci-fi, fantasy, and horror is writer, translator, and cultural historian Sophus Helle. Show notes: Sophus’ website Electronic Babylonian Library Babylonian Myths, Sophus Helle Critical Antiquities, including Human: Babylonian Reflections on Labour, Sophus Helle Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, J.R.R. Tolkien Beowulf: A New Translation, Maria Dahvana Headley The Complete Mahabharata (online) The Mahabharata (Penguin Classics) Ovid's Metamorphoses: A New Translation, C. Luke Soucy Query, Zilla Novikov The Ur-Pisode: The Queer Heart of the Epic of Gilgamesh, ft. Julian Gunn
A contract with one of the five big publishing companies means placement in bookstores and libraries, reviews in major publications, award nominations, and a huge advance—even a chance to get on the bestsellers list. But is this actually the case? Joining us to talk about how the sausage gets made is Jeremy Szal, author of the Common Trilogy. Show Notes:Jeremy’s website Follow him on:Bluesky Instagram TikTok “Everything is random in publishing. Success is random. Bestsellers are random. So that is why we are the Random House!” Are there more libraries or McDonald’s? Author (and professional chef) Rohan O’Duill trying out one of the recipes from the Sad Bastard Cookbook
So you've trashed the world. An EMP or a nuclear bomb or a plague of zombies have taken out civic infrastructure—now it's your chance to show off your survival skills. Fortunately, there's an incredible resurgence of Indigenous post-apocalyptic fiction that offers alternative visions to surviving collapse. In this episode, we talk to author, educator in Plant Medicine & Midwifery, and hippy prepper Daphne Singingtree about how to survive and thrive after the end. We're nominated for an Aurora Award for Best Fan-Related Work! Check out the ballot (and consider casting a vote for us) at the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association.