XI: South Asian Speculative Fiction w/ Gautam Bhatia

This week we talked to Gautam Bhatia, the coordinating editor of speculative fiction magazine Strange Horizons and an advocate for South Asian speculative fiction right here on Substack (Words for Worlds). We discussed his latest novel The Sentence, the state of South Asian science fiction, and the tension between movements on the periphery of science fiction and its mainstream institutions. Oh, and fanfiction.This season will bring a second segment to the show: Synthesized Sunsets Backstage. In this more casual segment, Gordon and myself will unpack the main part of the episode and also discuss the most recent Synthesized Sunsets article. In this episode, we will discuss the article ‘17776’ by Jon Bois and the Slow Cancellation of the Future.Thanks for listening!The audio in this episode was edited more aggressively than usual, so please let us know if this was too much or just right. We apologize for any volume issues, as we had a bit of trouble with peaking and normalizing across the different tracks. We are still experimenting with ways to stabilize the audio quality, but you can expect it to keep getting better in future episodes!TIMESTAMPS00:00:37 - Gautam's latest novel The Sentence00:04:21 - Moral luck and Greek v. Shakespearean tragedy00:08:24 - The importance of hero / martyr figures and villains00:10:43 - Parallels to The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin00:12:07 - Limits of post-scarcity narratives00:15:00 - South Asian ideas in spec fic00:17:17 - Is New Delhi more similar to London than the neighboring village?00:18:57 - Ideas of "one-ness" in Cixin Liu's Three-Body Problem00:19:59 - You may not find the ideological diversity you seek in English-language works00:21:42 - How do you strike a balance between Western and native influence in a budding science fiction scene outside?00:23:16 - The gap between sci-fi audiences and sci-fi institutions00:26:01 - Is web fiction the new pulp?00:27:11 - Gautam's Wheel of Time fanfiction on Dragonmount.com00:31:09 - Surviving as a semiprozine in 202500:33:49 - Where to find science fiction criticism (Strange Horizons)00:35:39 - Conclusion and Gautam’s final recommendations* “Thousandth Night” by Alastair Reynolds* “Rat and Finch Are Friends” by Innocent Chizaram Ilo00:36:26 - Synthesized Sunsets Backstage starts00:38:12 - Disruptive reanimations of political figures feat. MLK00:40:55 - Article discussion starts ('17776' and the Slow Cancellation of the Future)00:44:18 - Mark Fisher and the slow cancellation of the future00:45:37 - COVID and non-consensual Internet usage00:47:57 - In the 2010s, technology felt like it was moving in a direction00:51:48 - 17776 by Jon Bois00:52:35 - Would you want to live in 17776 society?00:54:49 - Is there anything you would do in 17776 society to preserve your will to live?00:55:29 - The one guy in 17776 who edges his experience of literally all media00:58:15 - "Zima Blue" by Alastair Reynolds01:00:18 - Finding novelty in strange purpose01:01:26 - Conclusion and Kevin’s final recommendations* “After the God Has Moved On” by Kate Elliott This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit synthesizedsunsets.substack.com/subscribe