Māori Science Fiction and Being Joyously Weird w/ Sascha Stronach
Spirits
Multitude
4.8 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 29 June 2022
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week we’re joined by author Sascha Stronach to talk about his debut novel, The Dawnhounds. We chat about spreading Māori science fiction, mushroom cities, and being joyously weird.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of pandemic, politics, colonization, colorism, racism, violence, mold/decay, sewage, and climate change.
Guest
Sascha Stronach (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Huirapa Rūnaka ki Puketeraki) is a speculative fiction author based out of Wellington, New Zealand. His debut novel The Dawnhounds is equal parts Perdido Street Station and Discworld; Tamsyn Muir called it "a wonderful queer noir fever dream". You can order The Dawnhounds now! Follow him on Twitter @understatesman
Housekeeping
- Live Show: Join us on July 15th in-person in NYC OR stream the show live!
- Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends Under One Roof by Ali Hazelwood!
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
- Call to Action: Check out NEXT STOP: An audio sitcom that explores the turbulent time of your mid-to-late 20s when everyone is changing around you -- and you worry that you might not catch up. Season 1 is out now! Search for NEXT STOP in your podcast app or go to nextstopshow.com
Sponsors
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Find Us Online
If you like Spirits, help us grow by spreading the word! Follow us @SpiritsPodcast on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Goodreads. You can support us on Patreon (http://patreon.com/spiritspodcast) to unlock bonus Your Urban Legends episodes, director’s commentaries, custom recipe cards, and so much more. We also have lists of our book recommendations and previous guests’ books at http://spiritspodcast.com/books.
Transcripts are available at http://spiritspodcast.com/episodes. To buy merch, hear us on other podcasts, contact us, find our mailing address, or download our press kit, head on over to http://spiritspodcast.com.
About Us
Spirits was created by Julia Schifini, Amanda McLoughlin and Eric Schneider. We are founding members of Multitude, an independent podcast collective and production studio. Our music is "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, Julia here. A quick announcement before we get started. Spirits is doing a live show in New York City on July 15th. We'll be in person at caveat and live streamed online so you can see us either in person or on your computer. Tickets are available now at Spiritspodcast.com slash live or you can click the link in the description. We hope to see you there. And now, |
| 0:21.9 | let's get to the episode. |
| 0:29.2 | Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boosy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week, |
| 0:33.7 | we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda. And I'm Julia. |
| 0:38.2 | And this is episode 290 with our fabulous guest, Sasha Stronick. |
| 0:42.8 | Sasha, welcome to the show. |
| 0:44.0 | Hi, lovely to be here. |
| 0:45.4 | We're so happy to have you. |
| 0:47.0 | I have been carrying around the arc of your book just like for the past two weeks being like, |
| 0:51.9 | yes, it's time. |
| 0:52.8 | We're going to read. And I'm so excited |
| 0:54.6 | that our listeners can right now go and buy the book, which is extremely exciting. So, |
| 0:59.9 | Sasha, to kind of get us started off, can you give us a sort of brief summary or a little |
| 1:06.4 | teaser of the book to get our audience excited to go break out their wallets and purchase it. |
| 1:11.2 | Oh, good dear. I'm the worst at describing my own books. In a sort of fungal 1910s city, |
| 1:19.8 | a cop must solve her own murder in order to prevent a bioterrorist attack. And it's very gay. |
| 1:26.5 | It's about gay mushroom warlocks fighting the |
| 1:30.5 | cops. Every word that just came out of your mouth is like, yes, Sasha, why wouldn't anyone want to |
| 1:35.7 | buy this book? I don't understand. So it's like a random word generator made a book just for Julia. |
| 1:40.9 | It's so good. Truly. I was like, oh, this one's about mushroom. Oh, it's about so much more |
| 1:44.7 | than mushrooms. Yes, excellent. I want to start with kind of the journey of this book because I know |
| 1:51.3 | it has been quite a journey in writing this and then self-publishing and now releasing a like, |
... |
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