‘In the grim darkness of the far future…’ This month, we try and take on the Warhammer universe by reading the Eisenhorn Trilogy, by Dan Abnett. Does knowledge require being tempted by what you are studying? Is the rule of awesome a good enough setting for a universe? And where are the women? Join us as we discuss Eisenhorn, the Warhammer universe …

‘It was a bright cold morning in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen…’ After much pressure, and the election of Donald Trump, we finally get round to covering 1984 by George Orwell. How does the book hold up today? Do we use the word Orwellian too much? And is there something distinctively English about Orwell’s writing? It’s a book that h…

“I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are.” This month, we revisit our childhood memories of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. What is a daemon? How can animals have wheels? Join us as we discuss its…

The Babylon Project was a dream given form… It’s a new year, and carrying through on a resolution that we’ve had since we started the podcast, we got together to discuss Babylon 5. Join us as we discuss handwaving in sci-fi, the necessity of ambition, and how it holds up. https://ia902703.us.archive.org/29/items/socialsciencetalks/Bab_5.mp3 Contrib…

So long, and thanks for all the fish! As we wind down for Christmas, we crank up the improbability drive to a level where it produces, fully formed, and episode on the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Join us as Charlotte has to continue her quest to find a happy science fiction novel, Danielle contemplates her place in the universe, and we drop f…

“We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories.” Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, is a landmark work of speculative fiction that deals directly with questions of women’s agency in a fervently religious socie…

Following the 50th Anniversary and the recent film Star Trek: Beyond, we sit down at Social Sci-Fi towers to discuss what we love and hate about the Star Trek franchise. Does Star Trek today present the same humanistic ideas as Gene Roddenberry did back in the day? Join us as we discuss the best captain, space racism and the gendered nature of nava…

“The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called “spannungsbogen” — which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.” For our 24th episode, join us as we discuss Frank Herbert’s Dune; a key touchstone for science fiction, from sandworms to psychoactive drugs and ecology. What is…

It’s conference season once again, and Matthew got the long train to Edinburgh in order to talk to Professor Penny Fielding about spies and genre fiction. It’s a great follow up to our past episode on Agent Carter, so if you haven’t heard that yet – check it out! https://ia902703.us.archive.org/29/items/socialsciencetalks/PennyFielding.mp3 Contribu…

After a film night at Social Science Towers, Alex, Matt, Jess and Bleddyn discuss the beginning of the large-scale disaster film, Independence Day. Join us as we discuss 90s pop culture, how to judge the quality of an explosion and whether it really is the Jeff Goldblumiest film ever made. https://ia802703.us.archive.org/29/items/socialsciencetalks…

“We did not ask if he had seen any monsters, for monsters have ceased to be news. There is never any shortage of horrible creatures who prey on human beings, snatch away their food, or devour whole populations; but examples of wise social planning are not so easy to find.” 500 Years after it was first published, Utopia remains an important example …

“Word spread because word will spread. Stories and secrets fight, stories win, shed new secrets, which new stories fight, and on.” This month we discuss Embassytown, by China Miéville. Set in a far outpost of the Empire of Bremen, Embassytown exists in an ecosystem governed by the enigmatic Hosts, who can only say what is. However, changes in the s…

What would you do if your actions would change the course of history? Lydia, Charlotte, Sorana and Jess take the spotlight on the podcast this month in this episode, recorded for International Womens’ Day. They discuss Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time, a classic of feminist science fiction which centres on the actions of Connie, whose confr…

Common misconception that; that fun is relaxing. If it is, you’re not doing it right. Would you like to play a game? This month, we read the Player of Games, by Iain M. Banks, and follow one of the Culture’s Master-game-players to a gaming competition that has little, if any, relationship to play. On the way we discuss our relationship to games, ho…

We are all susceptible to the pull of viral ideas. Like mass hysteria. Or a tune that gets into your head that you keep humming all day until you spread it to someone else. Jokes. Urban legends. Crackpot religions. Marxism. No matter how smart we get, there is always this deep irrational part that makes us potential hosts for self-replicating infor…

I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee. I have also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that. This month, we disc…

It’s been a rough month here at Social Science Towers, and we were unable to record a new episode. Luckily for you, we have an interview with friend of the podcast Georg Loefflmann instead. We found Georg walking around a hotel in Sicily, and managed to coax him into chatting a little about Man in the High Castle by Phillip K. Dick, which has recen…

“No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrut…

Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon. That’s always been the difference between us, Daniel. Today, we deal with Watchmen, because Matt had the bright idea of doing a graphic novel on an audio-only podcast. We talk over whether we consider the characters heroes, inevitability in the story, and whether Dr. Manhattan is God. Also Able …

It’s conference season, and we dispatched our one-man-army Matt to interview a series of scholars studying science fiction at the British International Studies Association 2015 conference in London. This time it’s Dr. Georg Loefflmann, on the Pentagon vs. Aliens. https://ia902703.us.archive.org/29/items/socialsciencetalks/Georg_Lofflman_Pentagon.mp…

I have thus endeavoured to preserve the truth of the elementary principles of human nature, while I have not scrupled to innovate upon their combinations. Today we discuss Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, quite possibly the first work of science fiction. Beginning with its importance to science fiction, we work through many of …

Even if this is something that isn’t saying ‘this is how you need to change your thinking about international politics’, it gives you a place to stand to begin to ask those questions. It’s conference season, and we dispatched our one-man-army Matt to interview a series of scholars studying science fiction at the British International Studies Associ…

Come on you apes, do you want to live forever? Continuing his march through the hostile environment of BISA 2015, Matt tracks down Malte Riemann, Senior Lecturer at Sandhurst to discuss Heinlein’s 1959 novel Starship Troopers. Uncertain of how to tackle such a conversation, he calls in an orbital drop-pod containing Alex, and together they work thr…

The biggest power a superhero has is to go beyond their society. It’s conference season, and we dispatched our one-man-army Matt to interview a series of scholars studying science fiction at the British International Studies Association 2015 conference in London. We’ll be putting up the results as a series of interviews at weekly intervals for the …

We talk Agent Carter today, a recent TV spin-off of Captain America that has made waves for making feminist science fiction possible in a commercial setting. Spies, explosions and fabulous hats combine as Peggie Carter saves the world repeatedly while struggling to overcome the glass ceiling in espionage. What happens when science fiction is set in…

In this episode, the discussion from Social SciFi Towers turns to Max Brooks’ World War Z, as well as Dan Drezner’s Theories of International Politics and Zombies. Why is it that zombies are so popular? And what use do they have in our teaching? We first consider Drezner’s approach to the zombie apocalypse, and examine the way in which he uses zomb…

The Social Science Talks team discusses Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? today, as well as the film adaptation, Blade Runner. While the film is well known for setting the vocabulary for cyberpunk dystopias in film, the book, by Phillip K. Dick, is an insightful and compelling interrogation of the thin line that marks us as human. Covering issue…

“Students will say ‘I don’t know whether I’m reading a novel or a piece of theory.’ And I’ll say ‘Exactly, that’s the point.” We caught Patrick Thaddeus Jackson as he visited the UK, and had the opportunity to ask him a few questions about his take on the place of science fiction in International Relations, and social science more generally. Having…

In this episode, we discuss Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. What would society look like if we considered order the highest value to strive for? Treading the line between utopia and dystopia, Huxley developed a world in which people were mass-produced to high tolerances, everyone was content with their life of synthetic drugs and casual sex, and…

In this episode, we talk about The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin. In laying out two societies, one anarchist and poor, the other capitalist and opulent, Le Guin’s novel broke across genre boundaries, attracting readers far broader than science fiction normally attracts. Putting forward questions of social organisation, gender and science at th…

Today we’re discussing Neuromancer by William Gibson. Published in 1984, the novel follows the activities of the hacker Case and his associates as they work for a shell company run by a rogue AI. As one of the foundational works of cyberpunk and transhumanist fiction, the novel blends the real and virtual worlds, and questions if the distinction be…