Daniel Harper

This one has been a long time coming, I’m afraid, mostly because A) I took an extra week to get the book read, B) one recorded, I took my sweet-ass time getting the damn thing edited and C) this fucking election has taken basically all of my intellectual and creative energy over the last few weeks. Thankfully on the last, the election is now over, and all is back to something like normality, right?

Christ.

Anyway, in this episode James is back and we’re chatting Frank Herbert’s Dune. I know there was some question about whether we’d be talking about the whole series or any of the ancillary material, but the original novel is more than enough I think for a single podcast episode. If James is up for returning to this universe in the future, we might do supplemental bits, but that’s not on the agenda anytime soon. 

Go give it a listen, if you like. If nothing else, an extended chat about the Great Houses of the Landsraad and the difficulties of resource allocation should completely distract us from the shitshow that 2016 has become. Or, you know, not. 

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I’m sorry I haven’t been producing more content lately, either in written or podcast form. I’ve got a new Consider the Ray Gun about 95% done, discussing Dune with James Murphy, and the next Searching For Fuchal has been recorded, although I haven’t even begun to edit yet. I’ve also got an upcoming Oi! Spaceman on The Space Museum, and it looks like 2017 is going to be the year I take a systematic look at Quentin Tarantino and other 90s-vintage indie filmmakers. 

Jack, Kit, and I had been planning to do a US election podcast for the last couple of weeks, and suffice it to say this is not the episode I was hoping to produce. This was recorded late Friday night, and I think all three of us consider this to be a bit of a rough conversation about the issues discussed here, rather than a nuanced and final opinion on them. We chat about whether Trump’s presidency will be truly fascist (probably not), how opinion polling failed, the meaning of the safety pin, systemic issues with late-stage capitalism, and my experiences in dipping into the Fash the Nation podcast. It’s rough, both in content and form, it’s meandering, and it’s nearly four hours long. I think it’s pretty obvious that we’ll all be writing about and discussing these issues for at least the next four-to-eight years, assuming our ability to do those things lasts that long. 

Here’s a direct download if that makes it easier. And if anyone has a good source for county-level election results going back several cycles (that are either free or very cheap) please let me know, as I’m working up a much more detailed look at the mechanics of the 2016 election. …

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Shana has officially unceremoniously kicked me off of the Firefly podcast, mostly because listening to me kvetch about sci-fi westerns and the American Confederacy is way more fun for me than for her, but thankfully for all listeners she’s replaced me with the wonderful Jessica from The Web of Queer, who will give the series the more sympathetic (or at least fannish) reading it (arguably) deserves. 

This episode introduces the podcast audience to Shana and Jessica’s history with the series, then dives into a nice discussion of the kinds of themes surrounding gender we’re going to be dealing with over the course of Firefly‘s run. Kaylee’s love for strawberries, Inara’s profession, and Captain Tightpants, er, tight pants are all subjects of discussion. Also, some spontaneous singing of the theme song?

This should be a monthly-ish addition to the Oi! Spaceman family, and don’t worry, one of these days when I have the energy to write again I will come back to an examination of the Confederacy within the sci-fi Western in essay form. Maybe this will force me to watch the new Westworld series? …

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I guess it’s time to fess up: I’ve been a bit remiss in posting content for the last few weeks. Life is hectic, work is stressful, and producing podcast content (let alone essays) is possibly a bit more time-consuming than it seems. 

That said, I’m trying to catch up this weekend, and if you’re a fan of fairly dark discussions of the realities of authoritarian, abusive parenting told through a comedic lens then you’re in luck, as Shana and I discuss Red Dwarf: Better Than Life on this week’s Searching for Fuchal. It’s a bit of a mess of an episode structurally, but gives us the best look to date at Rimmer’s psychology, the way we as people process grief, and the sins of the fathers being visited upon the sons. Also: the way Yvonne McGruder plays into Rimmer’s relationship patterns, some silliness involving the way the Cat uses utensils, and a non-ironic use of industrial alternative rock for the final song. (Sorry about that.) Obviously, this one has quite a bit of chat that may be disturbing for some listeners (including a reference to Fred Phelps’ abuse of his nine children), so I completely understand those who need to skip it. 

Tomorrow I hope to give you guys a podcast episode I’m not on, as Big Damn Shiny Heroes reboots and everyone gets the Firefly coverage they deserve, rather than that I’d like to provide. …

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Consider the Ray Gun is back, and this time I’m joined by Kit Power, who has had an increasing presence on the EP podcasts as of late, having appeared on Pex Lives, a previous Oi! Spaceman, and the most recent Shabcast. We’re discussing a book trilogy that meant a lot to him as a young man, John Christopher’s Tripods Trilogy, which are comprised of The White Mountains, The City of Lead and Gold, and The Pool of Fire. There was also a BBC production in the eighties of the first two books, which I haven’t seen but from which I stole the image you see to the right. Because that’s how I roll here.

I had never heard of the trilogy before Kit recommended them, so I’ve included a brief synopsis of what you need to know at the beginning of the podcast episode. We have a wide-ranging conversation, covering not just structural details of the trilogy and the nature of the shithead protagonist Will, but also the meaning of religion in people’s lives, the horrors of chattel slavery and the Haitian Revolution, and of course there’s a brief Adric mention. …

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Is “Victorianism” a word? I suppose it is now.

Apologies to all of you who were expecting a brilliant post from Phil this morning, but instead you get the latest episode of Oi! Spaceman, in which we return to the Seventh Doctor and Ace and chat about Ghost Light. Since I didn’t trust myself with such an auspicious story, I invited Jack along for the discussion, and he and Shana had a wonderfully brilliant conversation that kind of went in circles from time to time. Steampunk comes up at least twice independently, as does more than the requisite quantity of Moffat-hate. 

Overall it’s a fun conversation among friends about Victorian value systems, imperialism, Social Darwinism and eugenics, and racist portrayals. If that sounds a bit dark, know also we chat for some time about Ace/Gwendoline shipping, and queerness as a response to stultifying social restriction. Also, you know, the Great Chain of Being for anyone interested in that sort of thing.

Content Warning: Around thirty minutes in, the issue of rape comes up, partly in reference to the Doctor/Ace professor/student relationship, and partly in reference to 90s cyberpunk. (Yeah, it was an odd conversation.) It’s a bit out of the blue, and I wouldn’t want anyone to be exposed to that who didn’t expect to be, so please take it under advisement. 

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Because apparently it’s podcast week here at Eruditorum Press, and creating new podcast threads is more fun for me than watching Firefly again, today I’m going to introduce yet another new podcast as part of the Oi! Spaceman family. This one is called Consider the Ray Gun, and it’s ostensibly going to be about reading old science fiction books, but since it’s an Eruditorum Press thing it’ll likely go wildly off topic in an episode or two. 

For the inaugural episode, I’m joined by Pex Lives’ own James Murphy to chat about Stranger in a Strange Land, a book that I grew up with and meant a lot to my teenage years, but which James had never encountered. We chat about the counterculture, period sexism and racism, Hugh Hefner wannabees, Heinlein’s political evolution, and whether American science fiction authors live more colorful lives than British fantasy authors. Among many other topics. It’s a fun listen, I think, although of course I’m biased. …

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In what is as close to a hot take as Oi! Spaceman is ever likely to get, this week we actually covered a still-in-theaters film, rather than a sixty-five year old piece of film noir history. Shana was still out of town (but she’ll be back next week), so I was joined by friend of the show Jessica from The Web of Queer (which is a show more people should know about, so go click that link) to discuss the Paul Feig re-imagining of Ghostbusters. The film is largely just a pleasing bit of comedy and eye candy, so Jessica and I mostly just had a fun conversation about the things the film does regarding representation of women, queer characters, and queer characters who happen to be women. Also, I make a firm anti-Nazi stance and swoon over Kate McKinnon. 

Over on They Must Be Destroyed on Sight, we’re still doing sex comedies for another couple of weeks. This time we looked at one of the worst films of the genre, Summer Job (1989) and Bikini Drive-In (1995), which is one of Lee’s favorites. I also happened to do a bit of research on one of the films we covered last week, and explore some information about the song we went out on in that episode. 

And in case you missed it Friday, Jane and I had a casual conversation about Steven Moffat, Series Six, and feminism that is already one of our most-listened-to episodes. Jack described it as “the audio equivalent of relaxing into a huge comfy armchair with a steaming mug of cocoa,” which I think is a compliment. Hopefully Jane will come back and school us all on our rabid Moffat hate sometime in the near future. 

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I was supposed to write an essay for you guys this week, hypothetically on de-normalizing the nuclear family, but I sort of fell into the RNC k-hole for a couple of days and found myself much less productive while staring into the gaping maw of that Nuremberg Rally/reality show blend as put on by some third-rate high school AV Club. That’s the official version I’m presenting to the public, at least. 

Anyway, Shana was out of town this week so I didn’t get the chance to record anything with her, but when Jane co-hosted a couple of weeks back on The Time Monster, she and I had a couple of hours of chatting casually after the end of the official recording. Because I have a Nixon-like paranoia about keeping all my interpersonal conversations on public record, I had a tape, and with her permission (and some edits) I’ve decided to share that with you this week. 

Please note, neither of us prepared ahead of time to discuss these topics and so we both feel this doesn’t quite get at the core of some issues, but I think Jane’s going to come back on sometime soon and set Shana and myself straight on this whole Moffat issue. Until then, enjoy the chat while I go back to not-so-silently observing the rise of open fascism in America. …

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