Synthesized Sunsets

This week’s guest is qntm: he is most well known as the author of There Is No Antimemetics Division , a sci-fi horror novel depicting humanity’s battles against malevolent entities which erase all memory of their presence. He also has written a number of other fantastic short pieces of speculative web fiction you can find on his website or short story collection Valuable Humans in Transit and Othe...

This week’s guest is Cairo Smith : a prolific novelist and filmmaker who edits the literary magazine Futurist Letters here on Substack. We sat down to talk about his extremely online novel Scenebux and the extremely online subcultures that inspired it. We also talk about his novels Current Affairs and Komodo , as well as his short AI horror film Red Team . And we couldn’t resist talking about Vibe...

This week is a special episode with lawyer and sports podcast host James Hirsh who recently competed against Kevin Kodama on Jeopardy! We talked about their experience on the show and sports in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Hope you enjoy! TIMESTAMPS: 0:14 - Introduction 0:30 - Was the Jeopardy experience as expected 2:18 - Jeopardy was more fun than expected 4:02 - Anything especially nerve-wracki...

We were excited to have Lillian Wang Selonick back on the podcast as a repeat guest! We discuss her story published in Synthesized Sunsets “ The Waters of Lethe ”, her recent travels in Japan and Korea, the sense of wonder at the center of Sci-Fi, the evolution of the meaning of the word nerd, and more. Apologies for the really long delay between episodes. We have two more episodes recorded so the...

This week’s guest is author, lawyer, and engineer Ken Liu — a man of many talents. You may know him for his collections The Paper Menagerie and The Hidden Girl , his fantasy quartet The Dandelion Dynasty , inspiring the show Pantheon , or perhaps even translating The Three-Body Problem . His recent novel All That We See or Seem is a near-future thriller about a beloved AI ‘dream artist’ who disapp...

We brought back friends of the podcast Dylan O’Neal and Trevor Waldorf for more of a book club style informal conversation discussing some books and stories with a bit of a loose Halloween theme as we recorded this episode a few days before Halloween. We discussed the novel “ Something Wicked This Way Comes ” by Ray Bradbury, and short stories “ All Summer in a Day ,” also by Bradbury, “Mountain”...

This week we talked to Dylan O’Neal , author of the first short story submission accepted by Synthesized Sunsets, Snowlight . In addition to the story, we discussed what got him into writing, how to write compelling children in stories, lucid dreaming, Game of Thrones, and the book he is working on currently, “Orange Sky, Dark Sun”. Similar to the last couple episodes this one was recorded a long...

This week on the podcast we had on Xueting Christine Ni , an independent researcher of Chinese culture who is most famous for her collections Sinopticon and Sinophagia (which focus on Chinese science fiction and Chinese horror, respectively), as well as her nonfiction writings on Chinese mythology. We spent a bit of time talking about the stories in those two collections, as well as the wide world...

We were super excited to talk to science fiction writer and fellow Substacker Lillian Wang Selonick . We discuss some topics from her essays on the value of Worldbuilding, the adoption of sci-fi tropes in literary books, what is meant by the term speculative fiction, Death’s End, Philip K. Dick, and more. Apologies for the long delay between episodes. We recorded this episode about three weeks ago...

Today marks exactly one year since the first post on Synthesized Sunsets . To celebrate the occasion, Gordon and Kevin take a look back at how it all began. We also discuss Kevin’s recent article, “Shunrō Oshikawa, ChatGPT, and the Birth of the "Pre-Translator"” , as well as its follow-up post and the ways in which AI translation might (or might not) pave the way for a utopian multilingual Interne...

This week we spoke with long time Science Fiction reviewer and anthologist Rich Horton . We talked about his experience in the early internet sci-fi community on Usenet, his career in sci-fi criticism at Tangent and Locus, his work creating sci-fi/fantasy best of the year anthologies, our thoughts on the current slate of Hugo Award nominees, and more. We hope you enjoy! TIMESTAMPS: 0:14 - Introduc...

The week we were joined by prolific author of rational fiction Alexander Wales. We of course discuss his works, particularly Worth the Candle , This Used to be About Dungeons , and The Metropolitan Man , but also talk about time travel, writing under a pseudonym, crafting believable characters, and more. Thanks for Listening! TIMESTAMPS: 0:12 - Introduction 0:55 - What are the characteristics of R...

This week we hosted Regina Kanyu Wang , an award-winning writer and editor of Chinese science fiction. In 2022, she co-edited The Way Spring Arrives , a pioneering collection of stories from Chinese female and non-binary authors. We were super excited to have someone from the scene help us develop our thoughts about Chinese science fiction, which eventually turned into Kevin’s article “Golden Age...

This week we were joined by Adrian Tchaikovsky, a sci-fi and fantasy author most well known for writing the award-winning Children of Time series. His books often discuss the interactions between unique artificial and biological intelligences, and for this year’s Hugo awards he has two nominees for Best Novel in that space with Alien Clay and Service Model . We discuss Alien Clay, the allure of ex...

This week we hosted Naomi Kanakia , a literary critic who writes about the health of the prestige publishing ecosystem and the value of reading the Great Books on her Substack Woman of Letters . She is also an accomplished speculative fiction author, with stories published in major outlets like Clarkesworld and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction . Our discussion focused on the short story...

Welcome to the fourth season of Synthesized Sunsets : a seasonal magazine about speculative fiction and the future of pop! This spring, the mag will shift in direction yet again. The biggest change will be a renewed focus on fiction. Both of us will be trying to get published in mainstream SFF magazines this year, and we hope to use the more futurist articles in the magazine as inspiration for fut...

This week we got together with friend of the pod Merrick and friend of the friend of the pod to discuss Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive . Along the way we had some pretty interesting speculation about the future of algorithms, AI writing, and open-source software. I personally think that this was the most interesting episode we have ever done content-wise, so I would encourage you to gi...

This week just Kevin (no Gordon) talked with internet theorist, writer, and owner of Kevin’s favorite twitter account Visakan Veerasamy . We talk about Visa’s work in building a worldwide social network of friendly ambitious nerds, Sci-Fi’s themes and ideas being stuck in the past, and some current uses of LLM’s. Thanks for listening! EPISODE TIMESTAMPS : 0:12 - Introduction and discussion of Visa...

This week we talked to Butterfree , an Icelandic author of several works of speculative Pokémon fanfiction and the longtime webmaster of Kevin’s favorite Pokémon website The Cave of Dragonflies . We also discussed Morphic , a fanfic about Pokémon-human hybrids that Butterfree wrote as an edgy teen, as well as what is was like to grow up in the heyday of Pokémon fansites. And, of course, the MARQUE...

This week we talked with author, comic book writer, and fellow Chicagoland native Daryl Gregory. We discussed his upcoming novel “ When We Were Real ”, which takes place on a cross-country tour place seven years after the world was revealed to be a simulation. We also cover a variety of other topics including superheroes, sports teams, and sinus congestion. In our backstage segment we go more in d...

This week we talked to Gautam Bhatia , the coordinating editor of speculative fiction magazine Strange Horizons and an advocate for South Asian speculative fiction right here on Substack ( Words for Worlds ). We discussed his latest novel The Sentence , the state of South Asian science fiction, and the tension between movements on the periphery of science fiction and its mainstream institutions. O...

Welcome to the third season of Synthesized Sunsets : a seasonal magazine about speculative fiction and the future of pop! This winter, the mag will get properly into full swing: we’ll be starting a regular update schedule (posts every Thursday and the occasional Monday), hosting trivia for paid subscribers, and writing original fiction. This issue is all about purgatory . Think liminal spaces, the...

This week we talked to fellow fantasy Substacker Clifford Stumme ( Past the Dragon ) about his essay “The 8 Eras of Fantasy Literature” and how fantasy can enrich our lives beyond simple hedonistic entertainment. We also talk a lot about Ursula K. Le Guin, especially her novel The Beginning Place . And we poke some fun at both anime and romantasy (but hey, Gordon gave Fourth Wing three stars). Che...

This week we were joined by Rashida Smith who is the program director of Clarion West as well an author of Romantasy novels under the pen name Jasmine Silvera. We discuss the integration of romance and fantasy as genres, her experience as a student at Clarion West taught by Octavia Butler, and the allure of small strange towns. We hope you enjoy! EPISODE TIMESTAMPS: 0:29 - How did you create your...

This week we sat down with our friend Henry Hale, who made the case for his favorite science fiction novel: Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun . Along the way, we talked about which sci-fi will be remembered, why some fantasy worlds feel “dense”, what gives Catholic its enduring power, and the disintegration of the self. Check it out! For further context, check out Kevin’s recent article: Gene W...