Monday Jun 27, 2022
Alternate Histories
Unknown Worlds of the Merril Collection
In Unknown Worlds of the Merril Collection, host Stephen Geraghty interviews special guests about notable history and new frontiers in the worlds of science fiction, fantasy and horror as found in Toronto's Merril Collection, the Western Hemisphere's largest publicly accessible archive of genre materials.
Produced by Janet Mowat. Interviews have been edited for length and content. Opinions are solely those of the speakers, representing neither the Toronto Public Library System nor the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation & Fantasy.
Listen on:
Episodes
Episodes
Monday Jun 13, 2022
Monday Jun 13, 2022
Oliver discusses Norse mythology, and its influence on speculative fiction, with Senior Department Head of both the Merril and Osborne Collections, Sephora Henderson.
The Merril Collection!
Friends of Merril (Facebook & Twitter)
Monday May 30, 2022
Monday May 30, 2022
Oliver talks with author Gemma Files about haunted house stories.Gemma’s Website (Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads)
Merril Links
The Merril Collection!
Friends of Merril (Facebook & Twitter)
Monday May 16, 2022
Monday May 16, 2022
Oliver talks with Trever Quachri, head editor at Analog magazine, about scifi digest magazines.
Analog Magazine’s Website (Twitter, Facebook)
Merril Links
The Merril Collection!
Friends of Merril (Facebook & Twitter)
Monday May 02, 2022
Monday May 02, 2022
Oliver talks with Brain Murphy, author of Flame & Crimson: A history of Sword & Sorcery, about the mighty thewed fantasy sub-genre birthed by Robert E Howard when he created Conan the Barbarian.The Silver Key, Brian’s Sword & Sorcery BlogBuy Flame & Crimson!Merril Links
The Merril Collection!
Friends of Merril (Facebook & Twitter)
Monday Mar 29, 2021
Monday Mar 29, 2021
Host Oliver Brackenbury examines the evolution of Afrofuturism in speculative fiction with writer and educator Quentin VerCetty Lindsay.
Links to some of the things mentioned in this episode:
BSAM
Quentin VerCetty
“Afrofuturism Rising: The Literary Prehistory of a Movement” by Isiah Lavender III
“Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler
“Black to the Future” essay by Mark Dery
Samuel R. Delaney
“The Famished Road” by Ben Okri
Sun Ra
June Jordan
Nnedi Okorafor
Nollywood
“Brown Girl Begins” Dir by Sharon Lewis, based on the book “Brown Girl in the Ring” by Nalo Hopkins.
“Kindred” by Octavia Butler
See You Yesterday
N.K. Jemisen
“Black Leopard, Red Wolf” by Marlon James
The Last Angel of History
Crumbs
“Dirty Computer” & “Archandroid” by Janelle Monae
Sophia Stewart
Black Kirby
Umbrella Academy
John Jenning's graphic novel adaptation of Parable of the Sower
“How Long 'til Black Future Month?” by N.K. Jemisen
“Cosmic Underground: Northside” by Quentin Vercetty
“The Comet” by W.E.B. Dubois, and his essay on double consciousness.
Monday Mar 22, 2021
Monday Mar 22, 2021
Host Oliver Brackenbury explores the world of sci-fi/ fantasy bookshops with Chris Szego, former manager of Bakka Phoenix Books, the oldest extant science fiction bookstore in North America.
Links to some of the things mentioned in this episode:
Bakka-Phoenex Bookstore
The story of the LOTR Paperback Copyright Controversy
“This Body's Not Big Enough for the Both of Us” & “Meddling Kids” by Edgar Cantero
“The Lies of Locke Lamora” by Scott Lynch
“Fly By Night” by Francis Hardinge
Lois McMaster Bujold
“The Quantum Magician” by Derek Künsken
Monday Mar 15, 2021
Monday Mar 15, 2021
York University's Professor Allan Weiss joins host Oliver Brackenbury for a discussion on the history of utopian and dystopian speculative fiction.
Links to some of the things mentioned in this episode:
Allan Weiss (http://www.yorku.ca/aweiss/)
Thomas More's “Utopia”
Platos “The Republic”
H.G. Wells “The Time Machine”
“The Machine Stops” by E. M. Forster
“Hard Times” by Dickens
Problem Novels
“We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin
“Moon of the Crusted Snow” by Waubgeshig Rice
Drew Hayden Taylor
Neal Stephenson's “The Hieroglyph Project”
MIT Twelve Tomorrows Series
Nalo Hopkinson
The Mutopian Manifesto
“A Modern Utopia” and “The Sleeper Awakes” by H.G. Wells
“Herland” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Protopia
“Other Covenants: Alternate Histories of the Jewish People” by Mark Shainblum & Andrea D. Lobel
Monday Mar 08, 2021
Monday Mar 08, 2021
Toronto-born speculative writer Cory Doctorow talks with host Oliver Brackenbury about Canadian sci-fi, his mentors in the genre, and his current experiences as an ex-pat author living in America.
Links to some of the things mentioned in this episode:
Cory Doctorow
BoingBoing
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Judith Merril
Bakka-Phoenix Books
Futurian House
Prisoners of Gravity
Tim O' Reilly & Web 2.0
Tor.com
“Tolerable Levels of Violence” by Robert G Collins
Charles De Lint
License Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond Anthology
Madeline Ashby
“Stealing Worlds” by Karl Schroeder
“Radicalized” by Cory Doctorow
“Posey the Monster Slayer”
“Little Brother Omnibus”
“Attack Surface”
“The Lost Cause” Opening chapter posted by Cory.