Postcards from a Dying World

2022 was a good reading year for me including SF magazines which are book-length (so not cheating) I read 100 books. I admit I didn’t finish Uncle Steve’s Fairy Tale, I had to read hundreds of unpublished Treatments and outlines for research, but only one of those was actually published at one time and doesn’t count. The amount that Goodreads counted was 25,499 pages. I did a bonus video doing a t...

Hey, 2022 was weird but a good year for movies. In years past I would  always post my top ten films and five honorable mentions on my blog this time of year. Now I have a podcast.  These are my favorite movies and my tastes can be different.   Joining me on the show with his list is my buddy and regular Star Trek and Star Wars commentator Issa Diao. He owns an AMC movie pass and see...

David Gerrold is the legendary screenwriter and novelist who is most famous for inventing Tribbles and writing much of the series bible of Star Trek The Next Generation. More importantly, he is the Hugo and Nebula award-winning author of The Martian Child, The Man Who Folded Himself, and the War Against the Chtorr series of books. His most recent novel Hella was one of my favorite reads of 2021. I...

Special bonus episode of postcards... after years of teasing it my  Dickheads Podcast co-host Anthony Trevino and I are stoked to announce  the release of our novel Nightmare City with Grand Mal press. This is a  cross-genre of Horror, Science Fiction, and Crime. A dark urban fantasy,  Nightmare City is a wild introduction to a bizarre future.    This panel discussion...

Welcome to the second Star Wars roundtable. Two hours of Star Wars  nerd-out this time talking about Andor Season one!   Joining me are three old friends Musician and filmmaker Issa Diao is a  veteran of the Trek panels, Ryan J. Downey is a rock and entertainment  journalist who joined us for The Strange New Worlds Panel, and joining us for the first is Dawud Khuluq who does an...

Welcome to this really fun episode of Postcards. Being the nerd that I am after every season of Star Trek I have gathered a panel to discuss the season. I had not been doing that with Star Wars and decided I needed to fix that. In this episode, we catch up with the Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Tales of the Jedi. We will do a full episode about Andor next time. Joining me are three old fr...

After every season of Star Trek, I gather a panel of nerds together and  we talk about the highs and lows of the season that just ended. This time we talk about the third season of Star Trek Lower Decks. Returning  for our 6th episode breaking down a completed season of Trek. Joining me are vocal Star Trek fan Sara Lynn Michener, and Musician and filmmaker  Issa Diao. 2 Plus hours o...

*Note new my new novel Nightmare City (co-written w/ Anthony Trevino out soon!* Welcome to a special bonus Top Ten list. Halloween 2022 is coming up and  I thought we should talk about ten horror fiction novels (ok two short stories and a bunch of novels) I would like to see made as movies. There  are some exciting adaptations coming up with Paul Tremblay’s Cabin at  the End of the...

The first of a couple of top-ten video bonus episodes I am going to do from time to time...  December 8th 2021 I published an article on Tor.com  called “Beyond Dune  and Foundation: Golden Age and New Wave SF Classics That Should Be  Adapted Right Now.” It has 72 comments and if I am being honest it is  likely the thing I have written that has been most widely read. That...

For the fifth and final episode of the 1930s Science Fiction podcast, we  end on another SF-horror crossover the classic novella by H.P.  Lovecraft At the Mountains of Madness. While this remains one of the complicated horror master’s enduring classics. Written in 1931 the story was rejected by Weird Tales based on the length in 1936 it was published in three issues of Astounding magazin...

Part 4 of the 1930s Science Fiction series… Read it from Astounding August 1938 p. 60: https://archive.org/details/as_1938_08/page/n3/mode/2up In August of 1938 Astounding magazine ran a short story by the magazine’s own editor John W. Campbell under the pen-name Don A. Stuart. While the story was purchased by the magazine’s former editor this story Who Goes There would go on to become one of the...

In July 1938 Astounding magazine under the editorship of John W. Campbell published a story for the first by future Grand master Clifford D. Simak. This story Rule-18 was not a classic, nor was it considered one of the great SF writer's better stories. OK, so why the hell are we covering it on this series devoted to classic SF stories classics of the 30s? The impact of this story is an interesting...

In this second episode of the 1930s podcast series, I have dug into the vault to re-package a classic Dickheads podcast episode from our first season in 2018 when we were gathering in the studio.  In this episode, we cover 'Alas, All Thinking' by Harry Bates most famous for writing the story that inspired the Day the Earth Stood Still. Originally published in the June 1935 issue of Astounding...

In November 1933 Weird Tales featured the first published science fiction of Catherine L. Moore, who wrote under the name CL Moore. This story Shambleau features a very cosmic horror style vampire and space rogue decades before Han Solo became a thing. This story has the elegant purple prose that Lovecraft was known for while at the same time featuring themes that would be considered lurid today....

In episode 87 I welcome one of my favorite writers to the show! Sarah Pinborough is a New York Times bestselling and Sunday Times Number one and Internationally bestselling author who is published in over 25 territories worldwide. Having published more than 27 novels across various genres, her recent books including Behind Her Eyes that was a viral sensation on Netflix in January 2021. Her most re...

Returning to the pod is the great Alma Katsu who is here to talk about  the novel she was writing and teased in her last appearance on the show.  The Fervor is a supernatural historical horror about the Japanese  internment camps during WW 2.    Alma Katsu’s books have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly,  Booklist, and Library Journal, been featured in th...

On this special episode Of Postcards, I am stoked to welcome Writer, Producer, and director Brannon Braga. His first job in Hollywood was writing for Star Trek the Next Generation before being the showrunner of Voyager and Enterprise. He also wrote two films in the Star Trek franchise. In all, he had his name on more than 150 hours of Star Trek. A three-time Emmy nominee Braga is currently working...

Very excited to welcome fellow Hoosier Maurice Broaddus. He is the author of one of my favorite reads of the year - the first of a Afrofuturist space opera trilogy the Sweep of Stars . Maurice Broaddus is a community organizer and teacher, his work has appeared in magazines like Lightspeed Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Asimov’s, Magazine of F&SF, and Uncanny Magazine, with some of his sto...

Tim Lebbon is a British horror, science fiction and dark fantasy writer. The author of close to 50 novels ranging from The Silence to several media tie-ins franchises.  Lebbon's short story ″Reconstructing Amy″ won the Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction in 2001, his novel Dusk won the 2007 August Derleth Award from the British Fantasy Society for best novel of the year. His novelization of t...

In this episode of PostcardsPh. D. I talk with Joachim Boaz the History Ph. D behind the prolific book review website Science Fiction Ruminations with nearly 500 detailed and thoughtful reviews of vintage science fiction novels, novellas, and short stories. This is a friendly nerd-out, we start with how Boaz got into SF, and why he reviews it. Then we talk about our favorite classic authors and th...

After every season of Star Trek, I gather a panel of nerds together and we talk about the highs and lows of the season that just ended. This time we talk about the first fantastic season of Star Trek Strange New Worlds. Returning for our 5th episode breaking down a completed season of Trek. Joining me are vocal Star Trek fan Sara Lynn Michener, Musician, and filmmaker Issa Diao and Podcaster, Musi...

In this episode, we talk about one of the most thought-provoking and controversial horror novels of the year with the author Gretchen  Felker-Martin. Manhunt is a brutal extreme horror novel as advertised.  The cover certainly should be warning enough. This novel has zero fucks  to give to any pearl-clutchers. That said it is also a character-driven story about a gender-specific apo...

I am excited to be joined by Bev Vincent author and Stephen King expert on the show. Leading up to the forthcoming publication of Stephen King: A  Complete Exploration of his Work, Life, and Influences I thought it was a good time to chat with Bev.  Bev Vincent is the author of The Dark Tower Companion, The Road to the  Dark Tower, the Bram Stoker Award-nominated companion to Stephe...

After every season of Star Trek, I gather a panel of nerds together and we talk about the highs and lows of the season that just ended. This time we talk about the second eventful season of Picard. Returning for our fourth season breakdown are, vocal Star Trek fan Sara Lynn Michener, Musician and filmmaker Issa Diao. Listen to Sara slowly and patiently try to convince Issa and I that were wrong to...

Lisa Morton is an important and beloved figure in the horror community, besides being the president of the Horror Writer’s Association for many years she is one of the world’s most knowledgeable Halloween experts. A pretty cool thing to be an expert in if you ask me. Those two things already make her cool, but ad to that she has written a book about the films of ace Hong Kong director Tusi Hark an...