Not long ago, everybody was arguing about whether characters need to be "relatable". We get to the bottom of a debate that still makes us intensely grouchy. Plus we talk to one of our favorite writers, C.L. Polk, about how to write excellent descriptions in your fiction -- and it turns out to be all about connecting to a character's POV.
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Episode 184: Spooky Season Books and Hellbenders
It's time to light a fire and curl up with a cup of cocoa and a terrifying book full of creepy shit -- or escaping from creepy shit. We've got recommendations for what to read this season! Plus, contributing host Bethany Brookshire tells us about Hellbenders, creatures who sound terrifying but are actually just little guys. She takes us down the rabbit hole of extermination campaigns to get rid of predators and pests, and why they don't always work out.
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Three Ways of Looking at Bruce Lee (with Jeff Chang)
Bruce Lee changed American pop culture forever, and his incredible legacy is more relevant than ever. But how did he go from child actor in Hong Kong to one of the most important action-movie stars of all time? To find out more, we talk to Jeff Chang, author of a new book called Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America. Plus contributing host Naseem Jamnia tells us everything science has learned about fungi recenlty — and explains why science fiction has a lot of catching up to do. Show notes: www.ouropinionsarecorrect.com/shownotes
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1:03:23
Encore Episode: Silicon Valley vs. Science Fiction: ChatGPT
For our summer vacation, we're re-upping the first in our "Silicon Valley vs. Science Fiction" series from 2023, about how Silicon Valley appropriates and misinterprets science fiction. Silicon Valley executives claim to be inspired by SF, but mostly they use it retroactively to justify their products, often missing the more complicated, nuanced ideas embedded in the original stories. In this episode, we tackled the hype cycle around A.I., which borrows liberally from the post-scarcity, post-human visions of Iain M. Banks in his Culture novels. It’s time for … the Culture vs. ChatGPT!
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Encore Episode: Obsessed with Battlestar Galactica
Charlie Jane and Annalee are on book tour(s), so we're re-upping one of our favorite episodes from 2023. At that time, we were celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the rebooted version of Battlestar Galactica. This show broke new ground in depicting realistic politics — and a nuanced view of a society of artificial people. How does it hold up? To find out, Charlie Jane went back and watched the entire series — here's what she found.
Explore the meaning of science fiction, and how it's relevant to real-life science and society. Your hosts are Annalee Newitz, a science journalist who writes science fiction, and Charlie Jane Anders, a science fiction writer who is obsessed with science. Every two weeks, we take deep dives into science fiction books, movies, television, and comics that will expand your mind -- and maybe change your life
Canada - english