Alan Smale on Lunar Warfare in 'Hot Moon'

Alan Smale on Lunar Warfare in 'Hot Moon'

Author: Marty Kurylowicz and Holly Carson February 27, 2025 Duration: 1:04:46
Marty talks to Alan Smale, a professional astronomer and author of hard science fiction, alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy, and horror. We talk to him about his most recent book 'Hot Moon' - an alternate history set in 1979 where the USSR won the space race to land the first man on the moon, changing the balance of power during the cold war and accelerating the space race to push both the Americans and the Soviets to have permanent moon bases, orbiting space stations, and manned ...

Ever wonder how close that far-future technology in your favorite novel really is, or what a biologist thinks about the alien ecosystems a writer dreams up? That’s the space where The Science in The Fiction lives. Hosted by Marty Kurylowicz and Holly Carson, this series bridges two worlds that often talk past each other. Each episode begins with a conversation with a science fiction author, pulling apart the big ideas and speculative concepts woven into their work. Then, they bring a scientist or expert into the studio to examine those same ideas through the lens of current research and theory. The real magic happens when these perspectives collide, creating a genuine dialogue. You’ll hear a physicist geek out over warp drive mechanics with an author who just wrote about them, or an ethicist debate artificial consciousness with the novelist who imagined it. It’s not just about fact-checking fiction; it’s about using narrative to ask better questions and using science to deepen our sense of wonder. This podcast operates on a simple, powerful belief: that science fiction can make science more compelling and accessible, and that solid science can, in turn, inspire more thoughtful and visionary stories. If you’ve ever finished a brilliant sci-fi book and immediately fallen down a research rabbit hole, this show feels built for you. Tune in for conversations that are as insightful about human creativity as they are about quantum mechanics or xenobiology, all designed to fuel your curiosity.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 65

The Science in The Fiction
Podcast Episodes
David Brin on First Contact in 'Existence' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:04:12
We speak with David Brin, science fiction icon, scientist, futurist and civilizational optimist. We discuss his particular view of first contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, as portrayed in his 2012 novel 'Existen…
Avi Loeb on First Contact in 'Extraterrestrial' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:07:55
Marty and Holly speak with Professor Avi Loeb from the Harvard Astronomy department, and he is one of the most generous, gregarious, kind and thoughtful people we’ve ever spoken with. Not only that, he embodies the spiri…
David Curtin on Dark Matter in 'Sunfall' (Part 2) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:20
This is the second part of our interview with Dr. David Curtin, Canada Research Chair in Theoretical Particle Physics at the University of Toronto. In response to the kind of dark matter model found in Jim Al-Khalili's s…
David Curtin on Dark Matter in 'Sunfall' (Part 1) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:40
Dr. David Curtin is the Canada Research Chair in Theoretical Particle Physics at the University of Toronto, and specializes in exotic theories of dark matter that describe a "dark sector" which may include complex dark m…
Jim Al-Khalili on Dark Matter in 'Sunfall' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:18
Our theme in the next two episodes is dark matter, the kind of far-out science that is stranger than fiction and presents realms of possibility that are both more plausible and more interesting than parallel worlds or ex…
Edward M. Lerner on Planetary Protection in 'Life and Death on Mars' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:19
In this episode we return to the theme of Planetary Protection, continuing the conversation we started in episodes 19 and 20 where we discussed the return of samples from Asteroid Bennu to Earth in NASA’s recent OSIRIS R…