NASA history book – “The Space-Age Presidency of John F. Kennedy” (University of New Mexico Press, 2019) – John Bisney interview

John Bisney has worked as a reporter, on news radio, in public relations and is a NASA enthusiast. We talked about the latest book he has co-authored “The Space’Age presidency of John F. Kennedy” which is a photographic history of NASA’s work during JFK’s presidency.

0:41 – John talks about how he got into studying and writing on this subject.

7:13 – John talks briefly about NASA illustration art.

7:46 – John talks about how they lay out the book.

11:01 – John talks about doing research at the Kennedy library.

13:12 – John talks about his favorite photos in the collection. He touches on Alan Shepherd in the White House Rose Garden.

15:02 – John talks about how he chose the pictures they used.

17:41 – John talks about the companies that worked on the space program.

21:59 – John talks about other important people found in the photos.

23:21 – John talks about interesting people who also show up in the pictures.

36:32 – John talks about video of JFK’s travels.

43:13 – The other co-author of the book has a website Retrospaceimages.com

 

Links of interest

https://unmpress.com/books/space-age-presidency-john-f-kennedy/9780826358097

https://retrospaceimages.com/

 

For more of “The Art and Design of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Mystery and Horror” please follow me on Facebook at crisalvarezwlc, on youtube at Cris Alvarez and on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi

 

Guests: John Bisney

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: science, NASA, gemini, apollo, cape canaveral, jfk, space program,

LBJ, congress, john glenn, white house, spaceship

Supernatural studies history book – “The Spectral Arctic” (UCL Press, 2018) – Shane McCorristine interview

Dr. Shane McCorristine received his Ph.D. in history and now teaches at Newcastle University. His focus is on the “night side” of human experience. This means the study of social attitudes towards death, dreams, ghosts, hallucinations, and so on. We spoke about his latest book on how ideas of the supernatural and ghosts were applied to 19th century British polar expeditions.

1:19 – Shane talks about how he got into studying this subject. He was into polar fiction.

2:45 – Shane talks about how he’s laid the book out.

6:00 – Shane talks about the Shackleton expedition and the fourth presence.

11:05 – Shane talks about the public’s mystical perceptions of the arctic.

12:45 – Shane talks about ideas that the Arctic had gateways to the center of the Earth or to other dimensions or lands.

14:10 – Shane compares the supernatural to religious ideas.

17:20 – Shane talks about naval superstitions and their usefulness in maritime operations.

20:09 – Shane talks about ways in which the Inuits were represented in the media.

23:00 Shane talks about how strange it was for the Inuits to see Europeans in the Arctic.

32:00 – Shane talks about how the supernatural is created by society.

34:18 – Shane talks about the resources he used to do his research.

38:07 – Shane talks about a Dickens’ play titled the Frozen Deep about a lost polar expedition.

41:18 – Shane talks about some of the archives he used for his research.

44:45 – Shane most enjoyed being able to provide the female perspective on polar expeditions and what they meant.

51:30 – Shane conjectured how Europeans might react if Inuits showed up on their shores as explorers.

54:30 – Shane says Arctic and Antarctic exploration should not be conflated.

1:05:23 – Shane can be found at shanemccorristine.net. The book is available for free on pdf.

 

Links of interest

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/the-spectral-arctic

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/S/bo34163665.html

https://www.shanemccorristine.net/

 

For more of “The Art and Design of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Mystery and Horror” please follow me on Facebook at crisalvarezwlc, on youtube at Cris Alvarez and on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi

 

Guests: Shane McCorristine

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: ghosts, spirits, Satan, Franklin, Shackleton, arctic, middle ages, supernatural, Vikings, Greenland, polar, Greeks, Inuit, Aurora Aborealis, Royal Geographic Society, Charles Dickens, seances, shaman, clairvoyance, Charlotte Bronte, Arthur Conan Doyle

 

Videogame Avaria discussion and gameplay – Andrew Linde interview

 

Andrew Linde worked in the music industry until he decided to commit himself full-time to indie game development. He’s been working on Avaria for a few years now and we talked about the game and its development at Super Magfest 2019.

Apologies for the static during some of the interview but the game hall was pretty loud.

11:12 The game can be found on discord.gg/avaria.

11:11:26 – Andrew talks me through game play.

13:53 – Magfest game area ambient sound begins (due to interview technical glitch) (podcast version only)

17:43 – Magfest ambient sound ends and the interview continues. (podcast version only)

 

Links of interest

https://discordapp.com/invite/avaria

https://store.steampowered.com/app/816560/AVARIAvs/

https://avaria.world/

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/digitalman0/avariavs-the-first-competitive-pvp-jrpg-style-vide

For more of “The Art and Design of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Mystery and Horror” please follow me on Facebook at crisalvarezwlc, on youtube at Cris Alvarez and on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi

Guests: Andrew Linde

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: science fiction, fantasy, videogames, turn based, fighter