Tag Archives: weird fiction

Supercontext: Welcome to Nightvale

This podcast started in 2012 as a fictional update from a strange, supernatural town. With guest Dave Moore, we discuss how this successful production is made while unpacking the utopian ideal it creates with a kind of drab mundanity.

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Supercontext: Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

This 2005 video game tried to capture the atmosphere and experience of H. P. Lovecraft’s mythos. It is now called a commercial failure and a cult classic. We discuss its unique, immersive gameplay, and its Lovecraftian approach to knowledge as a thing to fear.

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Supercontext: Providence by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows

This 2015 comic series is an attempt to tell “the ultimate H.P. Lovecraft” story, so we dive deep into the cold, clinical research process behind it. We also discuss this story’s relationship with sexual violence, racism, American mythology, capitalism and… comic book fandom.

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Supercontext: From Beyond

This 1986 horror film adapted an H.P. Lovecraft story into a transgressive “video nasty” about repressed sexuality. We learn about the production methods that brought its “pineal glands” to life, while discussing Lovecraft’s fear of sex in contrast with From Beyond’s smashing of taboos.

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Supercontext: Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff

This 2016 novel explores sci-fi and horror in the 1950s from the perspective of an African-American family already accustomed to prejudice and dread. We have an uncomfortable conversation about how it addresses H.P. Lovecraft’s racism and the question of whether a white author should tell stories about the black experience.

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Supercontext: Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer


The first book in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy focuses on humanity’s weird relationship with nature and how we react to the unknown. We look at how VanderMeer wrote the book, the unique publishing strategy behind it and his choice to strip the characters of their identities, while still representing an all female cast.

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Supercontext: China Miéville’s Kraken


China Miéville’s novel Kraken is a meandering fantasy comedy full of political themes and a love for weird monsters. How does this author manage to weave together so many themes and genre into one book? And why does he think J.R.R. Tolkien is a “wen on the arse of fantasy”?
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Supercontext: Laird Barron’s Swift To Chase


One of the best horror writers of our time is experimenting with genre and structure in his new “mosaic novel” collection of stories. How does Laird Barron bring together Alaska, dogs, cosmic horror and inevitable death to make a new kind of literature?

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