Hard Science Fiction with Arula Ratnakar
If This Goes On (Don't Panic): Science Fiction, Fantasy & Progressive Politics
Release Date: 11/26/2025
Bailey's Books: Sword, Sorcery, Science, Astronauts, AIs, Horrors, & Hurricanes
If This Goes On (Don't Panic): Science Fiction, Fantasy & Progressive Politics
In this episode Alan reviews (books linked below): published by Brackenbury Books 2024 The Walls of Shira Yulun by Dariel R.A. Quiogue Waste Flowers by Bryn Hammond by Todd Medema published by Atmosphere Press 2025 by Allen Stroud published by Flame Tree Press 2024 by Alastair Miles published by Shadow Dragon Press 2025 by Justin Holley published by Flame Tree Press 2025
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Hard Science Fiction with Arula Ratnakar
If This Goes On (Don't Panic): Science Fiction, Fantasy & Progressive Politics
In this episode, Alan and Diane talk to writer and neuroscientist Arula Ratnakar. They discuss Phillip K. Dick, computational neursocience, hard science fiction, science and math communication, preceptions of reality, the neuroscience of neurodiversity, psychedelics, being neurodiverse in a neurotypical world, AI, Clarkesworld, evolving in public, and much more. You can find most of her fiction here:
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Magic Can't Save Us with Josh Denslow
If This Goes On (Don't Panic): Science Fiction, Fantasy & Progressive Politics
In this episode, Alan talks to author and musician Josh Denslow. They discuss writing dialogue and movie scripts, music's influence on his writing, Marlon James, the break down of walls between speculative fiction and Literature, suprheros and comics, the importance of exploring new forms of art, Josh's novel Super Normal, living outside the US, extreme politics and family, humor in fiction, listening to music, their mutual struggle to have "favorite" bands, and Josh's new collection Magic Can't Save Us: Eighteen Tales of Likely Failure.
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Hope in Horror: Like An Infection
If This Goes On (Don't Panic): Science Fiction, Fantasy & Progressive Politics
This time Paul Jessup tackles the politics of zombies in the classic Night of the Living Dead, as well as modern Train to Busan. He also discusses why hope is not naive and, as always, how horror can provide us with hope. Be sure to check out his new book .
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Solarpunk: Electric Vehicles and Batteries with Todd Medema and Navarre Bartz
If This Goes On (Don't Panic): Science Fiction, Fantasy & Progressive Politics
Alan and a couple of engineers from the the Solapunk community, Navarre Bartz and Todd Medema, discuss everything you want to know about electric vehichles, battery technology, EVs that are not Tesla, and charging stations. Todd also discusses his new book, How to Surf a Hurricane, and how he got involved with Solapunk, and much more! You can find How to here:
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The Sentence with Gautam Bhatia
If This Goes On (Don't Panic): Science Fiction, Fantasy & Progressive Politics
In this episode, Alan and Diane talk to scholar, laywer, and author Gautam Bhatia. They discuss Bhatia's book The Sentence, The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, Anarchism, the Paris Commune of 1871, the Mondragon Cooperative, publishing in India, the views on genre in India, the sequal to The Sentence, and much more. As discussed in the episode you can find the article Forest and Factory here: https://endnotes.org.uk/posts/forest-and-factory
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Speculative Whiteness Part 2: Alt-Right Nerd with Dr. Jordan S. Carroll
If This Goes On (Don't Panic): Science Fiction, Fantasy & Progressive Politics
In the second part of our column about the alt-right and Speculative Fiction fandom, we discuss the right wing and fandom. Alan and Jordan discuss why nerds/geeks are easy pickings for the alt-right, neurodiversity, eugenics, how the right wing uses fandom, Sad Puppies, Robert Heinlien, and much more.
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Justice in Fiction with Malka Older
If This Goes On (Don't Panic): Science Fiction, Fantasy & Progressive Politics
In this episode, Alan and Cat talk to writer, aid worker, and sociologist Malka Older. They discuss new installments of The Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti, developing characters over the course of multiple books, exploring different forms of governance, writing mysteries, neurodiversity, Sherlock Holmes, Global Voices, justice in fiction, and much more.
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Bailey's Books: Left Field Books
If This Goes On (Don't Panic): Science Fiction, Fantasy & Progressive Politics
In this episode Alan reviews (books linked below): by Christina Jurado, Translated by Sue Burke, published by Apex Books 2025 by Maria Vetrano, published by Regalo Press 2024 by Nuzo Onoh, published by Titan Books 2024 by Allen Stroud published by Flame Tree Press 2024 by Allen Stroud published by Flame Tree Press 2024
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Horror and Solarpunk: How different are they? with Susan Kaye Quinn, Maurice Broaddus, and Paul Jessup
If This Goes On (Don't Panic): Science Fiction, Fantasy & Progressive Politics
In this mash-up column, Paul Jessup, of Fear is the Fire That Lights the Heart, and our own Alan Bailey along with guests Maurice Broaddus, and Susan Kaye Quinn explore the differences and simularities between the genre of horror and the subgenre of Solarpunk and come to some very surprising conclusions. We discuss community, resiliance, Weird fiction, anger and anxiety as inspiration, libraries, and the creation of possibilities. Throughout the episode they reference the following article: Reading Weird Fiction in an Age of Facism:
info_outlineIn this episode, Alan and Diane talk to writer and neuroscientist Arula Ratnakar. They discuss Phillip K. Dick, computational neursocience, hard science fiction, science and math communication, preceptions of reality, the neuroscience of neurodiversity, psychedelics, being neurodiverse in a neurotypical world, AI, Clarkesworld, evolving in public, and much more.
You can find most of her fiction here: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/?s=arula+ratnakar