Podcast #5- BikeCon & Wiscon

In Episode 5, we recount some of our thoughts ad adventures cycling to Madison for Wiscon 41.

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Find out more about Wiscon!

Bikecon was formed out of Think Galactic--though we're hoping to have more members next year.

Big thanks to Amal El-Mohtar and C.S.E. Cooney for graciously allowing us to use some recording of their works.

Our music is provided by Pelafina. Check them out on Facebook and Bandcamp!

Hope you like the show! Questions, comments? Sound off in the comments, or drop us a line at positronchicago@gmail.com.

Podcast #4- The Hugo Novels

Our new podcast is live, just in time for us to load our bikes up and head to Wiscon! This episode, we talk about some more science fiction & fantasy theater in Chicago, then launch into a brief discussion of all 6 Hugo novels on the 2017 shortlist.

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• 0- Introduction & What We've Been Reading (Hugo Nominations & C.J. Cherryh's Rimrunners)
• 4:00- Upcoming Events
• 6:18- What we're looking forward to at Wiscon & BikeCon
• 10:55- Theatrical Discussion: Lifeline's A Wrinkle in Time, Edge of Orion's Illyria, and a bit more discussion of New Millennium's The Incredible Hank and Otherworld's The Rogue Aviator
• 16:27- Hugo overview & voting mechanics
• 20:51- Novel discussion!
• Ada Palmer's Too Like The Lightning
• N.K. Jemisin's The Obelisk Gate
• Cixin Liu's Death's End
• Charlie Jane Ander's All the Birds in the Sky
• Becky Chamber's A Closed and Common Orbit
• Yoon Ha Lee's Ninefox Gambit
• 43:51- Overall Hugo thoughts
• 53:52- Credits

(Extended show notes after we return from Wiscon!)

Thanks to our events reader this episode, Chelsea Fiddyment from Unreal.

Our music is provided by Pelafina. Check them out on Facebook and Bandcamp!

Hope you like the show! Questions, comments? Sound off in the comments, or drop us a line at positronchicago@gmail.com.

Podcast #3- VanderMeer and the Weird

Okay! Our third episode is live. Michael & I have a long conversation inspired by Jeff VanderMeer's new novel Borne, as well as The Southern Reach, and we attempt to dig into the concept of The Weird (and the New Weird) in fiction.

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• 0- Introductions & what we've been reading & thinking about
• 9:48- Brief Hugo excitement
• 12:08- Upcoming Events
• 13:20- General Vandermeer Thoughts
• 21:33- The Weird!
• 31:21- Our thoughts on VanderMeer's talks at DePaul & Volumes
• 34:15- We Return to the Weird
• 45:18- The New Weird
• 52:45- Slightly more focused thoughts on the Southern Reach Trilogy
• 1:07:35- Borne! We Likes it.
• 1:17:10- Credits

(We'll put some extended show notes here later.)

Also, we are probably making a blood-pact to never do an episode this long again.

You might want to check our notes from Jeff VanderMeer's talks at DePaul and Volumes.

Our events-reader this episode is Dr. Jacob Matthews from the Chicago Nerds  book-club. You can find lots of meeting notes from CNSC on Positron.

Our music is provided by Pelafina. Check them out on Facebook and Bandcamp!

Hope you like the show! Questions, comments? Sound off in the comments, or drop us a line at positronchicago@gmail.com.

Podcast #2- American Gods w/ While Reading and Walking's Leah von Essen

Happy to announce that our second podcast is live! We're joined by Leah von Essen from While Reading and Walking to talk about Neil Gaiman's American Gods, the television adaptation of which is premiering soon.

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• 0- Introductions
• 2:42- Upcoming Events
• 4:42- Main Discussion
• 18:13- Thoughts on other Gaiman works & adaptations
• 25:14- "Hard Question" about belief & religion
• 32:25- Questions about Sandman & other gods appearing in American Gods
• 35:44- What else have you been reading?
• 38:08- Credits

Be sure to check out Leah's site, While Reading and Walking. You can also catch her on Book Riot, and I highly recommend following her on Twitter: @reading_while. Leah also mentions some reading projects like Read Diverse Books.

Besides American Gods, we reference many other works by Gaiman. Non-Gaiman references include:

• Fiction by Jorge Luis Borges
• Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
• Binti and other works by Nnedi Okorafor
• The collection The Djinn Falls in Love, which includes stories by Gaiman, Okorafor, and many more.

Our events-reader this episode is Mary Auber from the Weird & Wonderful club, which meets at City Lit Books. You can find lots of meeting notes from Weird & Wonderful on Positron.

Our music is provided by Pelafina. Check them out on Facebook and Bandcamp!

Hope you like the show! Questions, comments? Sound off in the comments, or drop us a line at positronchicago@gmail.com.

Positron Podcast #1!

Hey Positron readers!

As part of the ineluctable expansion of the noösphere, we're starting a podcast, and the first episode is live!


Download the podcast directly (MP3)

This episode, we talk about:

• Some Upcoming Events
• Otherworld Theatre's A Princess of Mars (which we also just wrote a review of)
• What we've been reading: Matt Kindt's comix and Mark Fisher's The Weird and the Eerie
•  Most of our discussion focuses on Ada Palmer's Too Like the Lightning and Seven Surrenders.
• We mention Palmer's recent talk with David Perry in Hyde Park. Check out the Seminary Co-op & 57th St. Books if you haven't already, they have lots of great events.
• We mention the Chicago Review of Books' guide to non-Amazon local bookstores.
• Huge thanks to Pelafina for providing music! Check out their Facebook for upcoming shows, and Pelafina.Bandcamp.com to listen.

Comments? Questions? Drop us a comment below, or email positronchicago@gmail.com.

Thanks for listening! This is our first podcast, so I know we have lots to learn and improve on, but I hope you enjoy!