The Sidereal Time-Bomb: Alien Munitions, Cosmic Peril, and a 1943 Misfire. When a forgotten 1943 pulp collides with a modern cosmic mystery, the sparks are… explosive. This week’s Rocketeer Podcast packs is a double whammy. In this episode I debut…
Leigh Brackett Speaks: Classic Pulp Writing Lessons for Contemporary Creators. This week on the Rocketeer Podcast Leigh Brackett—pulp legend, science-fantasy pioneer, and one of the sharpest writing minds of her era—sure knew how to make words fly. In 1944, she…
Happy thanksgiving to my American friends! I needed to catch up on a few things and this seemed a good day to do it.
This week on the Rocketeer Podcast, I dive into the final adventure of Bertram Atkey’s time-wandering hero, Hobart Honey. In “Return, O Captain!” Mr. Honey is dragged back to the eighteenth-century. He becomes Jonah van Hoyden, a cardsharp bound for…
This week on Rocketeer Podcast #83: Non-Euclidean Minds: Kuttner & Moore on Ascension and Enlightenment…. Seriously, that is the topic. The subject of one of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore’s most popular stories, according to sci-fi fan polls during…
The Spiral of Time: Reincarnation and the Still Point of Eternity This week’s Rocketeer Podcast (no. 82!) investigates reincarnation as a sort of time travel. Not the sort that uses a machine but the kind that relies on consciousness as…
Lilith Lorraine imagined a future where society could be perfected — but only if individuals temporarily surrendered their free will. In this week’s Rocketeer Podcast I’m talking about Lorraine’s chapbook, “The Brain of the Planet” from 1929. It’s a visionary…
Inktober! It’s one of those constructed ways to encourage people to be more creative—something I mightily applaud. As you know, I illustrate my own books, including the covers. In keeping with pulp magazine tradition, my interior book illustrations are in…
Astounding vs Amazing: The Great Divide in 1940s Science Fiction. One magazine built the future. The other imagined the impossible. In the 1940s, Astounding Science Fiction and Amazing Stories stood on opposite sides of science fiction’s crossroads. Campbell built the “Age…
This week on the Rocketeer Podcast: No Man’s World: When Earth Became a Cosmic Chessboard. Henry Kuttner’s “No Man’s World” (1940) This obscure Henry Kuttner story features cigar-shaped and cube-like space ships, interdimensional travel, and war using all of Earth…
