Indigenous Futurisms
From TV and film to novels and video games, the artistic movement of Indigenous Futurisms has been gaining momentum and breaking cultural...
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Episodes
Latest firstSongs in the Key of SF
Jeff Russo has composed music for sci-fi fantasy shows like Star Trek Discovery and Picard, The Umbrella Academy, Altered Carbon, For All...
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Generation VTube
There is a booming culture of VTubers – people who create content online, but their fans rarely see their real faces or know their names....
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Befriend The Reaper
One of the most common tropes in fantasy genres is personifying Death – turning this abstract and often terrifying concept into a character...
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Postcolonial Worlds
The stories we tell about the past can determine the way we understand the present. But what happens when we combine tales of magic and...
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Mentors: Balance of The Force
In part 2 of our mini-series on mentorships, we travel to a galaxy far, far away. Amy Richau (co-author of Star Wars; I am Your Father and...
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Mentors: Dynamic Duos
In the first of a two-part episode on mentors in fantasy genres, we look at the roles of superheroes and their protégées. Matt Fraction...
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Paper Girls on Bikes
When the artist Cliff Chiang co-created the comic book series Paper Girls, about four suburban kids in the ‘80s who get caught up in forces...
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Charting Strange New Worlds
It’s not often that I’m watching a TV show and I think, “I should ask the writers about that.” Luckily, I was in the same undergraduate...
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Guys and Dolls
I’ve long been fascinated by automatons – wind up mechanical beings that create the illusion of life. People have been making automatons...
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The Art of Piracy
Our Flag Means Death is a hilarious anachronistic pirate comedy on HBO Max. But the backstory of its main characters is surprisingly real....
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200 Imaginary Worlds
When I began this podcast in September 2014, I couldn’t imagine myself someday celebrating 200 episodes of Imaginary Worlds. It feels like...
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Mystery Science Theater Reopens
Mystery Science Theater 3000 or MST3K is back once again. The show was first created by Joel Hodgson, then a stand-up comedian who was...
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Snow Crashing Into The Metaverse
For the last 30 years, the real world has been catching up to Neal Stephenson’s vision of the future in his 1992 novel Snow Crash, which...
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De-Aging Well
There’s an old saying that everyone wants to live long, but no one wants to get old. The same can be applied to our favorite sci-fi fantasy...
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Neurodivergent Futures
One of the most common requests I've gotten over the years has been to do an episode about why so many autistic people are drawn towards...
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Nosferatu Live
100 years ago this month, the vampire film Nosferatu was released in Germany. Not long after, it was hit with a lawsuit – which the...
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A Nation Dreams of Itself
The Russian invasion of Ukraine shocked the world, but this conflict was foreshadowed in Ukrainian and Russian speculative fiction. I talk...
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Asian Futures Without Asians
It’s a future we’re all very familiar with. The rainy streets are full of neon dragons, noodle shops, and other Asian iconography mixed up...
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Beforeigners
In the sci-fi drama Beforeigners from HBO Nordic, Oslo is overrun with immigrants and refugees. But they haven’t come from other countries....
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