Imaginary Worlds

Nathan Sawaya is one of the best-known LEGO Master Builders – people who can recreate just about anything out of LEGO. While he's worked with major franchises like DC, creating life sized superheroes, he's also an artist who makes original sculptures out of LEGO, including human figures that seem to be grappling with existential angst. I talk with Nathan about how making these LEGO figures has bee...

The world of tabletop role-playing games is much broader than Dungeons & Dragons, and there’s been a boom of DIY tabletop RPGs in the last decade. But as new players are coming on to the scene, they’re asking new questions about what defines a game, and what might be problematic about classic tabletop RPGs. Game master Timm Woods explains how new game systems are embracing genre and storytelling d...

Many elements of modern horror movies and TV shows came from an unlikely source, a theater in Paris called The Grand Guignol. Beginning in the late 19th century, The Grand Guignol was inventing staples of the horror genre as they discovered how to scare audiences, and why people want to be scared. I talk with University of East Anglia professor and author Richard Hand and Wagner College professor...

Frank Herbert’s Dune has been hailed as a pioneer of environmental science fiction, where the Fremen on the planet of Arakkis, have had to adapt to extreme weather conditions through technology and culture. I talk with Ian Schoenherr, the son of illustrator John Schoenherr, about how his father and Frank Herbert bonded over their love of nature. Although Veronika Kratz explains that Frank Herbert...

Kasra Farahani has done concept art on a lot of big sci-fi fantasy films, and this year he took on his biggest job yet as the production designer for the Disney+ series Loki. Kasra’s sets became fan favorites, especially the way he depicted the sprawling intergalactic bureaucracy of the Time Variance Authority, or TVA. I talk with Kasra about how he got started in the industry, what design princip...

Video games are an inherently visual medium that traditionally haven’t been very accessible to blind people. But there are plenty of blind players who enjoy games and want to lower the barriers to entry. I talk with blind accessibility advocates Liam Erven, Brandon Cole and Aaron Baker about how sound design can guide blind players through virtual worlds. In Aaron’s case, he designs audio games fo...

Queer representation in children’s cartoons has never been better, but the road to get here has been fraught. I talk with podcaster Dawn H and journalist Sara Century about how the first type of queer representation they saw in cartoons came from Sailor Moon – or at least a highly edited and strangely dubbed English-language version that tried to scrub away all the queer content, somewhat unsucces...

An entire subgenre of samurai films, shows, manga, anime and games can be traced back to one person – a real life samurai named Miyamoto Musashi. He was not the first samurai to achieve fame, but his remarkable career of undefeated duals, and his unconventional style of fighting cemented Musashi’s legacy in the popular imagination for centuries. Chie Kutsuwada and Sean Michael Wilson discuss their...

If you’ve ever searched for my podcast, you probably came across a show with a similar title: Imaginary Advice. I quickly became a fan of Imaginary Advice because the host Ross Sutherland walks the line between fiction and reality, often playing a fictional version of himself doing slightly fantastical things. I talked with Ross about his creative process, and we hear an edited selection of his mi...

Every year, I like to play a full-length version of an interview from a previous episode where a lot of great material ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor. In 2019, I interviewed the comic book creators Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner about their three-year run on the Harley Quinn comic book series because the way they reinvented the character influenced her live action movie appearanc...

In superhero stories, the public is usually there to be saved by the heroes or killed by the villains. But as a journalist, I always wonder if these people are well informed enough about the threats to their lives, and who is protecting them. I talk with Maya Phillips of The New York Times, James Queally of The Los Angeles Times, and freelance reporter Sean Kelly about a range of fictional journal...

Is it possible that we are living in an imaginary world? That is the premise of many science fiction stories, but some scientists have begun to wonder whether it’s not a fantasy. Perhaps what we think of as reality is a computer simulation and we’re basically just advanced versions of The Sims and don’t know it. I talk with video games entrepreneur Rizwan Virk about what advanced civilization migh...

Sci-fi and fantasy genres have come a long way from their pulp fiction and Saturday matinee origins to become respectable genres. But sometimes you just want to see something awesome, weird or shocking. That’s where genre films can deliver -- even if the movie isn’t good. I talk with five listeners about their favorite guilty pleasure films. Also, Lou Hare of the podcast Guilty Pleasures breaks do...

Disco Elysium has been called one of the best role-playing video games of all time. It's won a slew of awards and it’s a worldwide best-seller -- which is odd because the game wasn’t put out by a big studio. It was made by a group of friends in Estonia who had very little experience making video games. And this detective game is just as much about politics and the existential nature of reality as...

When Andy Weir wrote “The Martian,” he self-published the chapters to his website -- never expecting the story to become a best-selling book, or an Oscar-nominated Hollywood movie. His new novel, “Project Hail Mary,” is generating a lot of excitement, and he's already sold the movie rights. We talk about why he sometimes misses his old life as a cubicle dwelling engineer, the pressure of not being...

Illusions that mask the true nature of reality. Meditating to gain control over your mind and body. Sending your consciousness to other bodies. These are both tenants of Buddhism and science fiction. Professor Jim Clarke says the overlap is no accident, Buddhism has been influencing sci-fi fantasy creators for over a century. Novelists Ramez Naam and Yudhanjaya Wijeratne talk about how they incorp...

Becky Chambers’ latest novel, “The Galaxy and The Ground Within,” is the final book in her Wayfarer series, which is about aliens, humans and AI trying to make their way through the galaxy and find common ground. Some of the characters in her books may seem fantastical and strange, but the conversations between them often revolve around familiar issues like identity, gender, family structure, and...

Sun Ra claimed to be an extraterrestrial being from Saturn who could teleport you to other planets with his music. That may or may not have been true, but he certainly was the leader of one of the most influential jazz ensembles of the 20th century, and he’s often called the father of Afrofuturism. I talk with artist Cauleen Smith and writer John Corbett about Sun Ra’s creative journey, and why he...

One year into this pandemic, it’s been a struggle to feel a connection with other people digitally. That’s why I was inspired to hear an episode from the show Science Friday about a community that refused to disband their virtual world. As reporter Daniel Peterschmidt explains to me, the staff of Science Friday had set up a virtual outpost in Second Life when it was a trendy thing to do in the mid...

The 1982 movie Tron may seem outdated and even hokey today, but the film was more groundbreaking and prophetic than many people realize. I talk with Tron’s director Steven Lisberger about the challenge of making a movie about computers without the help of computers. Media scholars Lars Schmeink and Sherryl Vint discuss the influence of Tron on our understanding of virtual worlds and our place in c...

The story of the brothers Grimm and how they came to publish a book of fairy tales has become something of a folk legend in itself. The conventional wisdom is that the Grimms collected their tales from village peasants, and the brothers always embraced the darkest elements of the tales. But as fairy tale scholars Jack Zipes and Ruth Bottigheimer explain, the real story of how the Grimms came acros...

In the 1950s and ‘60s, the vibrating sound of the Theremin instrument was synonymous with sci-fi movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still or horror shows like Dark Shadows to the point where the Theremin became a genre cliché. But a new generation of experimental pop musicians like Dorit Chrysler and Miles Brown (of the band Night Terrors) are using the Theremin to create otherworldly sonic lands...

Betty Boop is a beloved cultural icon, but she was controversial in her heyday. I talk with Mark Fleischer – grandson of Betty Boop’s co-creator Max Fleischer – and Mark’s wife Susan Wilking Horan about how the character was created and why she still endures. I also talk with film critic Marya Gates and Professor Thomas Doherty about how the Hays Code, which censored Betty Boop, had a profound imp...

The myth of Camelot runs deep in our culture. For over a thousand years, storytellers have felt compelled to tell the tale of King Arthur and add their own spin on the mythical legend. But we live in pretty cynical times where the idea of a wise and noble king feels like just as much of a fantasy as a boy pulling a magical sword from a stone. So why does the character of Arthur still endure? I tal...

Every year, I like to play a full-length interview with a previous guest who had so much more to say than what I could fit into a particular topic. Last summer, I did an episode called Making Up Creatures where I talked with the creature designer Neill Gorton, who is best known for working on the reboot of Doctor Who and the BBC series Being Human. I talked with Neill about how he approached redes...