My Book Has Been Published! I am extremely excited to say that my book has just been published with Gylphi Press! The Science and Fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs looks at the American pulp fiction writer Edgar Rice Burroughs – most famous for creating Tarzan and, if you’re into classic read more…
Episode 22 – Book Clubs: Revolution & Politics (and Wine & Cheese)
Book Clubs: Literary Salons to Online Communities The Rick O’Shea Bookclub is Ireland’s largest bookclub. It has 17,000 members and is growing fast. Book clubs have never been more popular. But where did they begin, and what role have they played in literary history? Well, quite a large one, it read more…
Episode 21: The Invention of Time
Time in the Victorian Era Time, as we understand it today, was only really invented in the Victorian era. We take it for granted today that our phones and watches and other devices are accurate to the second. That time zones are clear and fixed – when it’s 3pm in read more…
Episode 20: Domestic Noir
Why Are There So Many Crime Thrillers With ‘Girl’ in the Title? Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train, Luckiest Girl Alive, Final Girls… There’s no shortage of crime novels with ‘girl’ in the title since the huge success of Gillian Flynn’s 2012 thriller Gone Girl. But what do these read more…
Episode 19: Utopia, Pt 2 (Climate Change Fiction)
This week’s episode continues on from the last episode. So, if you haven’t listened to that, head on over to Episode 18 first. From the history of utopia in the last episode, we move to the future of the planet and the climate change fiction that addresses it. Creating read more…
Episode 18: What is utopia?
Utopian Literature & Utopian Journeys This is a story of three journeys, by three people, in three very different times. But each of the journeys ends in the same area in the west of Ireland. And each journey is founded on a search for a more perfect world, a search read more…
8 Independent Irish Podcasts To Check Out
Irish Podcasts As an Irish podcaster, and someone who listens to a lot of podcasts generally, I’ve been trying to get a better sense of what’s out there in the Irish podcasting scene. Podcast listening, like the consumption of so much popular culture, can become somewhat overwhelmingly American after a read more…
Episode 17: The 10% Brain Myth, from Self-Help to Pulp Fiction to Hollywood
Do we use only 10% of our brain capacity? (Hint: No) “It is estimated that most human beings only use 10% of the brain’s capacity. Imagine if we could access more of our cerebral capacity?” This is the central question of the 2014 Scarlett Johannson film, Lucy. And it is read more…
Episode 16: Transhumanism, Fiction, and Immortality
Technology, the future, and transhumanism This is an episode about who we are as humans. And, more importantly, where we are going. About a future in which technology and biology have merged in ways that are in equal part fascinating and terrifying. A future of unparalleled technological ingenuity, but one read more…
Episode 15: The Scarlet Pimpernel & Baroness Orczy
The Scarlet Pimpernel The Scarlet Pimpernel is a character now long disconnected from his origins in a 1903 novel. The Pimpernel is a mysterious Englishman who uses elaborate disguises to heroically rescue French aristocrats from the guillotine during the French Revolution. Naming himself after a small red flower, the enigmatic read more…
Episode 14: H.P. Lovecraft & Weird Fiction
H.P. Lovecraft’s Weird Fiction The American writer H.P. Lovecraft wrote weird fiction. His work is both weird, in the conventional sense of the word, and Weird, in a very specific sense. His tales are not typical horror stories, but instead invoke a type of cosmic terror, a slow realization read more…
Season 2 Preview
Words To That Effect Season 2: Monday February 12th, 2018 I’ve been working hard for the last 2 months to get a brand new season of Words To That Effect ready to go. If you’re stopping by for the first time – great! All the episodes of Season 1 read more…
Notes on a Selection of Fictional Countries [Article]
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to invent a new country. In the 18th and 19th centuries there were still places unknown to European society – “blank spaces on the earth”, as Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness once put it. New, unheard of countries were begging to be discovered, mapped, read more…
The Influence of Thomas Malthus [Article]
Malthus is one of those cardinal figures in intellectual history who state definitely for all time, things apparent enough after their formulation, but never effectively conceded before [. . .] Probably no more shattering book than the Essay on Population has ever been, or ever will be, written’ – H.G. read more…
Music To That Effect: A Spotify Playlist For Season 1
A number of seriously good Irish musicians were kind enough to allow me to use their music on Season 1 of Words To That Effect, including: Come On Live Long Robert John Ardiff The Jimmy Cake Overhead The Albatross 3epkano Nouveaunoise Philip Coleman (whose music is not on Spotify but read more…