Synthesized Sunsets

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...

<p>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...