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

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Episode 10 - A Sword of Bronze and Ashes
Episode 10
Monday, 9 February, 2026

For our February 2026 episode of Starship Alexandria, Adrian puts forward the novel A Sword of Bronze and Ashes by Anna Smith Spark for Emma to consider. Other talking points: Potato Guys Getting old as a female fantasy hero Marriage and long term relationships in fantasy fiction Amazing prose styles Being brought up by buccas in a tin mine Levelling up as a reader Media Mentions: The work of Haruki Murakami The work of KJ Parker (particularly the Scavenger trilogy) Legend, novel by David Gemmell The Conan stories by Robert E Howard The Discworld books by Sir Terry Pratchett Planetfall, novel by Emma Newman Excalibur, movie dir. John Boorman This marks the end of season 1 of Starship Alexandria! Season 2 will commence in March with a look at Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man. (For the curious, the seasons are mostly to do with our bulk recording of the regular episodes in advance.) Adrian's music recommendation: '39 by Queen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE8kGMfXaFU&list=RDkE8kGMfXaFU&start_radio=1 Emma's latest writing is a short story included in the Creative Futures (Beyond and Within) anthology: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/creative-futures-allen-stroud/7847161 Adrian's most recent book: Starseer's Ruin https://www.blacklibrary.com/all-products/ebook-starseers-ruin-eng-2025.html Follow us at: Emma: @emmanewman@bsky.social and www.enewman.co.uk Adrian: @aptshadow.bsky.social and www.adriantchaikovsky.com