Unknown Worlds of the Merril Collection: Recent Episodes
The Friends of Merril
In Unknown Worlds of the Merril Collection, host Oliver Brackenbury interviews special guests about notable history and new frontiers in the worlds of science fiction, fantasy and horror as found in Toronto's Merril Collection, the Western Hemisphere's largest publicly accessible archive of genre materials.
Produced by Chris Dickie. Interviews have been edited for length and content. Opinions are solely those of the speakers, representing neither the Toronto Public Library System nor the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation & Fantasy.
In his final episode as host of the podcast, Oliver chats with author Kim Stanley Robinson about Climate Fiction.KimStanleyRobinson.info
Merril Links
The Merril Collection!
Friends of Merril (Facebook & Twitter)
Oliver talks with Norman Perrin about folklore in general, and Norman's unique, privately owned, publicly accessible archive of folklore knowledge he’s run from his Toronto apartment since 1990. The Four Winds Storytellers Library on Facebook
Merril Links
The Merril Collection!
Friends of Merril (Facebook & Twitter)
Oliver talks with Scott Dorward about H.P. Lovecraft, how his legacy has been built on, and how writers might take things even further. The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, a Lovecraft & gaming podcast Scott co-hosts (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Discord) Scott’s Twitter
Merril Links
The Merril Collection!
Friends of Merril (Facebook & Twitter)
Oliver talks with the man behind Beguiling Comics, Peter Birkemoe, about graphic novels. The Beguiling (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) Little Island Comics
Merril Links
The Merril Collection!
Friends of Merril (Facebook & Twitter)
Oliver talks with author Gideon Marcus about alternate history speculative fiction. Gideon Marcus (Twitter) Galactic Journey (Twitter, Facebook)
Merril Links
The Merril Collection!
Friends of Merril (Facebook & Twitter)
Oliver discusses Norse mythology, and its influence on speculative fiction, with Senior Department Head of both the Merril and Osborne Collections, Sephora Henderson.
The Merril Collection!
Friends of Merril (Facebook & Twitter)
Oliver talks with author Gemma Files about haunted house stories. Gemma’s Website (Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads)
Merril Links
The Merril Collection!
Friends of Merril (Facebook & Twitter)
Oliver talks with Trever Quachri, head editor at Analog magazine, about scifi digest magazines.
Analog Magazine’s Website (Twitter, Facebook)
Merril Links
The Merril Collection!
Friends of Merril (Facebook & Twitter)
Oliver talks with Brain Murphy, author of Flame & Crimson: A history of Sword & Sorcery, about the mighty thewed fantasy sub-genre birthed by Robert E Howard when he created Conan the Barbarian.
The Silver Key, Brian’s Sword & Sorcery Blog Buy Flame & Crimson!
Merril Links
The Merril Collection!
Friends of Merril (Facebook & Twitter)
Host Oliver Brackenbury examines the evolution of Afrofuturism in speculative fiction with writer and educator Quentin VerCetty Lindsay.
Links to some of the things mentioned in this episode:
- BSAM
- Quentin VerCetty
- “Afrofuturism Rising: The Literary Prehistory of a Movement” by Isiah Lavender III
- “Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler
- “Black to the Future” essay by Mark Dery
- Samuel R. Delaney
- “The Famished Road” by Ben Okri
- Sun Ra
- June Jordan
- Nnedi Okorafor
- Nollywood
- “Brown Girl Begins” Dir by Sharon Lewis, based on the book “Brown Girl in the Ring” by Nalo Hopkins.
- “Kindred” by Octavia Butler
- See You Yesterday
- N.K. Jemisen
- “Black Leopard, Red Wolf” by Marlon James
- The Last Angel of History
- Crumbs
- “Dirty Computer” & “Archandroid” by Janelle Monae
- Sophia Stewart
- Black Kirby
- Umbrella Academy
- John Jenning's graphic novel adaptation of Parable of the Sower
- “How Long 'til Black Future Month?” by N.K. Jemisen
- “Cosmic Underground: Northside” by Quentin Vercetty
- “The Comet” by W.E.B. Dubois, and his essay on double consciousness.
Host Oliver Brackenbury explores the world of sci-fi/ fantasy bookshops with Chris Szego, former manager of Bakka Phoenix Books, the oldest extant science fiction bookstore in North America.
Links to some of the things mentioned in this episode:
- Bakka-Phoenex Bookstore
- The story of the LOTR Paperback Copyright Controversy
- “This Body's Not Big Enough for the Both of Us” & “Meddling Kids” by Edgar Cantero
- “The Lies of Locke Lamora” by Scott Lynch
- “Fly By Night” by Francis Hardinge
- Lois McMaster Bujold
- “The Quantum Magician” by Derek Künsken
York University's Professor Allan Weiss joins host Oliver Brackenbury for a discussion on the history of utopian and dystopian speculative fiction.
Links to some of the things mentioned in this episode:
- Allan Weiss (http://www.yorku.ca/aweiss/)
- Thomas More's “Utopia”
- Platos “The Republic”
- H.G. Wells “The Time Machine”
- “The Machine Stops” by E. M. Forster
- “Hard Times” by Dickens
- Problem Novels
- “We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin
- “Moon of the Crusted Snow” by Waubgeshig Rice
- Drew Hayden Taylor
- Neal Stephenson's “The Hieroglyph Project”
- MIT Twelve Tomorrows Series
- Nalo Hopkinson
- The Mutopian Manifesto
- “A Modern Utopia” and “The Sleeper Awakes” by H.G. Wells
- “Herland” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- Protopia
- “Other Covenants: Alternate Histories of the Jewish People” by Mark Shainblum & Andrea D. Lobel
Toronto-born speculative writer Cory Doctorow talks with host Oliver Brackenbury about Canadian sci-fi, his mentors in the genre, and his current experiences as an ex-pat author living in America.
Links to some of the things mentioned in this episode:
- Cory Doctorow
- BoingBoing
- Harold and the Purple Crayon
- Judith Merril
- Bakka-Phoenix Books
- Futurian House
- Prisoners of Gravity
- Tim O' Reilly & Web 2.0
- Tor.com
- “Tolerable Levels of Violence” by Robert G Collins
- Charles De Lint
- License Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond Anthology
- Madeline Ashby
- “Stealing Worlds” by Karl Schroeder
- “Radicalized” by Cory Doctorow
- “Posey the Monster Slayer”
- “Little Brother Omnibus”
- “Attack Surface”
- “The Lost Cause” Opening chapter posted by Cory.
Neil Mechem, co-founder of Toronto's Fantastic Pulp Show takes host Oliver Brackenbury on a journey into the world of classic pulp magazines – a major source of inspiration for modern horror, science fiction, fantasy, comics, film & TV, and more!
Links to some of the things mentioned in this episode:
- Too many titles mentioned to list, but we encourage you to check out the Merril Collection...
- George Rozen's The Shadow Covers
- Galactic Central
Host Oliver Brackenbury explores the world of role playing games and the Appendix N reading list that inspired them with master gamer and commentator Jeff Goad.
Links to some of the things mentioned in this episode:
- Spellburn
- Appendix N
- Cleave-Land Podcast
- The Appendix N Reading List
- Dungeon Crawl Classic
- Call of Cthulhu
- Monster Hearts RPG
- Vampire: The Masquerade
- Wizards of the Coast
- Mechwarrior
- Shadowrun
- Beyond the Wall
- A great, free booklet on what OSR gaming is
- Traveller
- B/X Basic D&D Set / Moldvay
- Legends of the Flame Princess
- Dungeon World
- Dungeons & Drag Queens
- Gencon & Garycon
- Goodman Games Forum
- D&D Gamefinder Forum
- Jack Vance's The Dying Earth Series
- “Imaro” by Charles Saunders
- Critical Role w/ Matt Mercer
- Adventure Zone Podcast
Host Oliver Brackenbury discusses queer sci-fi with Nebula Award-winning author Kelly Robson.
Links to some of the things mentioned in this episode:
- Kelly Robinson
- Barrel Racing
- The Ozark Trilogy by Suzette Haden Elgin
- Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge PIercy
- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin
- “The Female Man” by Joanna Russ
- James Tiptree
- Connie Willis
- “No Enemy but Time”, “The City and the Signets”, and “Brittle Innings” by Michael Bishop (Author)
- The Coode Street Podcast
- Gary K. Wolfe Scifi Best of the Decade
- “Docile” by K.M. Szpara
- Samuel Delaney
- “Gideon the Ninth” by Tamsyn Muir
- “Game Changer” by L.X. Beckett
- “So You Want to be a Honeypot”, a short story by Kelly Robson
- “Alias Space and Other Stories” by Kelly Robson is her upcoming collection of short stories
In this episode, host Oliver Brackenbury wanders the stacks of the Merril Collection with Services Specialist Annette Mocek and learns how acclaimed sci-fi writer Judith Merril transformed a small "Spaced Out Library" into one of the world's largest collections of genre fiction.
Links to some of the things mentioned in this episode:
- The Merril Collection!
- Friends of Merril (Facebook & Twitter)
- Merril Collection at 50: Stories from the Spaced Out Library
- The Works of Cyril Judd, Judith's Nom De Plume
- Shadow on the Hearth by Judith Merril
- Pulp artist Virgil Finley
- The Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books
- Friends of the Osborne Collection
- Lillian H. Smith Library
- Academic Conference on Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy
- Phyllis Gotlieb
-
The Little Green Man
- Sept 1954 issue of Astounding
- Martians Go Home by Frederick Brown
- Frank Kelly Freas
A tiny trailer for Unknown Worlds of the Merril Collection, where host Oliver Brackenbury interviews special guests about notable history and new frontiers in the worlds of science fiction, fantasy and horror as found in Toronto's Merril Collection, the Western Hemisphere's largest publicly accessible archive of genre materials.
Produced by Chris Dickie. Interviews have been edited for length and content.