Speculative fiction presents authors with a truly dazzling array of environments for their settings. This week, we talk about some of those wonderlands and what value they add to the story. From the spooky forests of New England to the cratered surface of the moon, we discuss how environments can affect a story for good or ill. If that’s not enough for you, then fantastic environments are on the menu as well. We consider mushroom forests, undersea domes, and the strange prevalence of demonic hounds upon the moor.
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Great episode, great topic! I loved the variety of environments you talked about. Also the same kind of environment can have very different effects (pleasant forest versus spooky forest, wacky mushroom town versus creepy squishy glowy possibly parasitic mushrooms).
For underwater with low tech/magic, there’s actually a movie on netflix (at least I hope it’s on netflix where you are), called Jago, A Life Underwater. It’s a 48 minutes long documentary about this guy who free dives and swims and kinda walks underwater with only cheap plastic goggles as his gear, no aqualungs or anything. Very fascinating!
A spec fic story about this kind of diving is on strange horizons (can recommend strange horizons in general!), it’s called The Wreck at Goat’s Head by Alexandra Manglis. It’s such a great story, I love it so much, it has much depth and the descriptions of what free diving requires of and does to a body are so well done. Plus the personal and cultural significance and like, go read/listen:
http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/the-wreck-at-goats-head/
Oh and on another note, some prehistoric mushrooms were apparently as big as trees! Just weird collums with no hat.
The strands of the mycealium network are only a single cell thick though, no matter how big or small the fruiting body is. But how wide and deep do they spread? Are ocean floors full of fungi too?
Fascinating stuff :D