Starship Alexandria

Author: Emma Newman and Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Sci-fi and Fantasy podcast from the best of futures! In this future, humanity has solved its problems and is now sending spaceships from Earth, not in a desperate attempt to escape the apocalypse but because we can do so in a spirit of hope and exploration. As a part of the Starship Alexandria Project, the far-future analogues of 21st century authors Emma Newman and Adrian Tchaikovsky have been tasked to make recommendations from the ship's vast library of creative works based on the preferences of our 21st century counterparts. Each of us will take it in turns to nominate a book, film or similar work, and the other will play judge and give the thumbs up or thumbs down to be recommended across the fleet.
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Language: en-gb

Genres: Arts, Books, Visual Arts

Contact email: Get it

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Episode 8 - Mythago Wood
Episode 8
Sunday, 9 November, 2025

For our eighth episode of Starship Alexandria, Adrian puts forward the novel Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock, for Emma to consider. Our caveat from the episode: "If you have not read this book yet, go and read the book and then listen to this episode, because it really does benefit from not knowing what's going to happen." Other talking points: Pronunciation blues God bless Wikipedia Adrian shoehorns insects into absolutely everything Readability as an overlooked virtue Exploring the challenging female hero/love interest archetype Was it an homage? Sense of the numinous Cornwall is a State of Mind The internal document as narrative device Media Mentions: Diana Wynne Jones, author Split Worlds series of novels, Emma Newman Oppenheimer, movie dir. Christopher Nolan Our next regular episode will look at the movie Godzilla Minus One directed by Takashi Yamazaki. However, we are taking a different turn for December and, instead of a single large episode, we will have an Advent Calendar, with one short episode every day where Emma and Adrian will discuss their favourite TV series. Meanwhile, the patron's episode will be our Q&A session. Adrian's music recommendation: Duran Duran's Ordinary World https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqIACCH20JU&list=RDFqIACCH20JU&start_radio=1 Emma's latest book: The Vengeance https://geni.us/thevengeance Adrian's most recent book: Starseer's Ruin https://www.warhammer.com/en-GB/shop/hb-starseers-ruin-eng-2025?srsltid=AfmBOor2S_A__evSPhVQRyFurB0Lf7CIMsVMoqxmB28ig0JRS8itagr0 Follow us at: Emma: @emmanewman@bsky.social and www.enewman.co.uk Adrian: @aptshadow.bsky.social and www.adriantchaikovsky.com