XVII: Imagining Alien Ecosystems w/ Adrian Tchaikovsky

This week we were joined by Adrian Tchaikovsky, a sci-fi and fantasy author most well known for writing the award-winning Children of Time series. His books often discuss the interactions between unique artificial and biological intelligences, and for this year’s Hugo awards he has two nominees for Best Novel in that space with Alien Clay and Service Model.We discuss Alien Clay, the allure of existing at the end of time, the differences between British and American Sci-fi, and the historical and biological inspirations for Adrian Tchaikovsky’s fiction. Thanks for listening!TIMESTAMPS:0:12 - Introduction1:48 - Alien Clay as a new perspective on evolution with more cooperation than competition4:03 - Autocratic regimes are desperate for an external moral or scientific justification for their actions5:38 - Politics as an outlet for our more sadistic impulses8:25 - Is having a rigidly defined sense of self an evolutionary or cultural?13:12 - Are the bacteria in your microbiome part of you?18:50 - Alien Clay as a more pro-science Annihilation25:56 - Writing novels should be seen as a collaborative rather than competitive ecosystem29:49 - What inspires you from history?35:18 - The tragedy of losing information40:22 - “One Day This Will All Be Yours” and the allure of existing at the end of time45:30 - People prefer imagining a barren planet that dies with us, then a vibrant one that outlasts us47:08 - Climate change does not hurt the Earth, it hurts those on the Earth including us50:24 - Changes in scientific understanding take a long time to proliferate through culture: dinosaurs are still depicted as scaly rather than feathered53:45 - The differences in American and British Sci-fi57:49 - Do you think in terms of genre when writing Sci-fi vs. Fantasy?1:00:40 - Elder Race and creating a narrative where neither the high-tech or low-tech characters are prepared for the monster1:04:05 - Conclusion and final recommendations upcoming release of Adrian Tchaikovsky's book “Shroud” and short story collection “Our Savage Heart” by Justina Robson1:04:52 - Start of Synthesized Sunsets Backstage1:07:32 - Reasoning not talking about Children of Time in the interview, but talking about it now1:11:09 - Children of Time would make a good prestige Sci-fi TV show1:15:05 - Kevin really likes “One Day This Will All Be Yours”1:18:35 - Discussing The Web Fiction Canon article1:20:08 - Web serial fantasy1:24:05 - Any form of serialized entertainment tends to generally start ok get better and then slowly get worse over a long time1:26:22 - Rational Fiction1:30:59 - /newwave/1:34:53 - Interactive Fiction1:35:51 - The line between interactive fiction and video games is blurry1:37:28 - 17776 and the potential for more parallax fiction1:40:08 - Conclusion 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