Alienating the Audience

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die is a scrappy sci-fi story about time travel, causality, and whether humanity can be trusted with knowledge of its own future. Henrique Cout

The Friendly Hivemind of Pluribus

"Pluribus is the Borg Collective, but polite and friendly." So says Brian Brushwood, who rejoins the show to discuss Vince Gilligan's latest program, starring Rhea Seehor

This is How the World Ends: Apocalypse in Science Fiction

Science fiction tackles the end of the world again and again, sometimes hopefully and sometimes utterly devoid of it. Josh Jennings joins in this expensive episode to dis

"Scream" meets "The Truman Show": The Cabin in the Woods

In the film "Cabin in the Woods" the grizzly deaths of several archetypical characters are stage-managed by office workers in order to quench the bloodlust of ancient, pa

Let's Argue About the Prime Directive

The Prime Directive orders Starfleet officers to refrain from interfering in pre-warprdrive civilizations. It is a doctrine of cultural non-interference... But is it actu

The Last Starfighter

In "The Last Starfighter" (1984) a young man has his sword-in-the-stone moment playing an arcade game which propels him into heroic intergalactic adventure. Brett Weaver

Women Can Electrocute You

In Naomi Alderman's "The Power" women all over the planet suddenly develop the ability to shoot electrical shocks, to the point of lethality. The natural order is entir

Time Loops

Getting thrown back to the same place in time, repeatedly, with little you can do about it has become an awesome sub genre in scifi. From Groundhog Day, to The Endless, w

Holy Space Capitalism of the Feringi

Star Trek's Feringi are intergalactic traders, merchants, entrepreneurs, and feckless shysters. How did they get to be space capitalists when the Federation outgrew the c

Cheating with a Sexbot

In "Subservience" Megan Fox plays a robot servant who goes off the rails, seduces her owner, and tries to kill his wife. Henrique Couto joins to discuss the ethical impli

"Alien" is Dudes Afraid of Getting Knocked Up

Fresh after seeing "Alien: Romulus," Dickie Lynch and Heaton discuss Ripley Scott's "Alien" franchise: the creepy aesthetics of H. R. Geiger, the deepest fears of the mov

A Canticle for Leibowitz

It's three centuries after the apocalypse, and a small Catholic monastery in the desert is collecting and safeguarding whatever pre-calamite artifacts it can, to preserve

A. I. As Monkeypaw Slaves

How has A. I. been portrayed through history in science fiction, and what's it going to look like as it keeps getting better? Stone Lynch and J. C. Campbell join to discu

A Clockwork Orange's Secret Extra Chapter

Anthony Burgess wrote his dystopian novel "A Clockwork Orange" in 1962, but two different versions appeared on either side of the Atlantic. The American version stops at

Faster Than Light Travel in Sci-Fi

The universe is really, really big. Like huge. Really really really huge. Prompting science fiction to come up with workarounds so everyone isn't stuck on the same boring

Stay Your Age Right Now Forever

Drew Magary's book "The Postmortal" explores a scenario in which a vaccine is made for aging. Whatever age you take it at, you are paused there indefinitely. How does tha

All The Gods Suck, Except "Circe"

Madeline Miller's "Circe" novelizes the mysterious character from the Odyssey who turns men into swine, but also helps Odysseus get home. The book shows the feckless, nar

"1984" According to Julia

George Orwell died way back in 1950, and his estate has never allowed anyone to canonically (or legally) contribute to the immense worldbuilding of "1984"... Until now.

The Zen of Robots

Season Finale! In which we talk about how to use sci-fi robots for helpful psychological thought experiments. Support the show! www.patreon.com/alienating ATA Survey:

Much Ado About Garak

Star Trek Deep Space Nine's Elim Garak is a simple, unassuming character. But also a spymaster. Why is he so beguiling, and what's his character arc? Andrew Young joins t