It was an honour and a pleasure to be invited recently onto Joanna Penn's podcast
The Creative Penn. We talked about games, comics, books, publishing, story worlds, and how writers can use AI tools in their work. One word of warning:
Jo has 810 episodes in the back catalogue, and with her justifiable reputation as a visionary who is often years ahead of her time, you might feel compelled to listen to the whole lot. And as well as being a podcaster, entrepreneur and commentator on the publishing industry, Jo is an award-winning author with several successful series to her name, so be sure to check out
her books too.
This is great timing. I've just come off the end of a marine science GCSE so I'm done with audiobooks on marine science. Most of my old go to podcasts are not gripping me any more. This is doing just nicely.
ReplyDeleteI've been looking for new podcasts myself, Stuart. The Good Friends of Jackson Elias isn't the same since Paul left, HPLHS's Voluminous podcast is still sadly missed after 2 years, The Rest is History is more fiction than fact, and even the ever-reliable In Our Time is doing too much obscure history for my tastes. Any recommendations would be very welcome.
DeleteFor history, I can recommend Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. It is hardcore in every sense - he focuses on some intense periods of time and his episodes are about 4 hours long.
DeleteFor science fiction and futurism, I listen to Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur. I also listen to the New Scientist podcasts and Guardian science podcast for science news.
For game design, I listen to Mark Rosewater's Drive to work podcast.
I listen to Shrink Rap Radio and Psychology in Seattle for psychology.
I listen to Jordan Harbinger for random interest, Grumpy Old Geeks for tech news with a grumpy spin and The Saucer Life to learn about UFO stories from a historian who tries hard not to snark at them.
I used to listen to Freakonomics and 99% Invisible. I don't know if they are still around. I also used to listen to I Should Be Writing by Mu Lafferty and The Future and You from Stephen Euin Cobb.
I think I did give Dan Carlin's podcast a go some time back but found it a little too frenetic. (No doubt Americans find British podcasts rather sedate.) I'll give it another try. On YouTube I enjoy PBS Space Time, Gabriel Torch, Mahesh on FloatHeadPhysics, Matthew Berman for AI news, Anton Petrov, Sabine Hossenfelder as long as she's sticking to physics not AI or neuroscience, and (for a change of pace) Moviewise.
DeleteThanks for sharing this, Dave. Like you, I am massively missing "Voluminous". The best substitute I've found is to buy one of the collected volumes of HPL's correspondence and try and summon Andrew Leman's voice for your internal monologue whilst reading it! But it's not the same - a true shame.
ReplyDeletePerhaps this could be the time for you to fill the gap with a podcast yourself. I'll happily sign up to that club! Let's call it: "Whispers from Jewelspider Wood"...
For my Lovecraft hit, John, I recently read S.T. Joshi's HPL biog I Am Providence. It's about 1500 pages so pretty much everything you could want to know about Lovecraft's life and work, and very reasonably priced if you get the Kindle version. But I still missed Andrew Leman's voice.
DeleteI keep nagging Jamie to do a podcast. He'd be very good at it and he's worked with or for almost everybody in the UK gamebook scene of the 1980s. But it's like coaxing HAL 9000 to open those pod bay doors.
I hope you can get him to reconsider! PS on the subject of great pods to listen to, and mellifluous transatlantic tones, you could try driving into the BBC archive of Alistair Cooke's Letter from America: highly relevant travels in time & space!
DeleteThat's a great idea, John. Alistair Cooke's broadcasts were my father's favourite back when "podcasts" came over the radio, so catching up on them now will continue a family tradition.
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