Defending Elysium & Firstborn - Episode 7

A Grain of Sanderson

Join us for our shortest episode yet! We delve into Sanderson's first works of science fiction, two interesting short stories about space and failure.
Next month we'll be reading all of Warbreaker.
Content warnings for this episode: abandonment, ableism, betrayal, bleeding, blindness, broken bones, bullying, child abuse, classism, conspiracies, cults, death, empire, existentialism, failure, fascism, gifted kid syndrome, gulags, homophobia, human sacrifice, human supremacy, imprisonment, insanity, imperialism, JK Rowling, maiming, mental illness, mind control, murder, Nazi Germany, Orson Scott Card, prisons, self harm, self hatred, stabbing, suicide/suicidal ideation, torture, transphobia, wounds and infection
Defending Elysium: https://www.brandonsanderson.com/defending-elysium/
Firstborn: https://reactormag.com/firstborn/
Opening Scene to Cowboy Bebop: https://youtu.be/Z-4ImAf6qYk
I totally blanked and missed the opportunity to talk about Jet as a disabled character in the episode, but alas, we record these in the morning and sometimes the brain misses the connection.
Darko Suvin's Estrangement and Cognition: http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/estrangement-and-cognition/ - I did an embarassingly bad job talking about one of the foundational texts of science fiction studies. If it's relevant again I'll do a better job talking about it, but for now I highly recommend reading it only to better understand some of the reasons a text feels like "science fiction".
If you're intersted in Star Wars or Grand Admiral Thrawn, I highly recommend A More Civilized Age, where Waypoint Radio Veterans Ali, Austin, Natalie, and Rob are going through Star Wars Rebels where he makes an appearance.
This show is created by Graham Gillman, Taylor Lane, and Jack McLaughlan.
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Our theme music is "goodnight kiss" by 2mello off the album midnight broadcasts. (https://2mello.net/)