To celebrate the publishing of my Martian Sherlock Holmes short story, “The Lords of the World,” this is a re-release of a conversation I had with Simon Roy and Memo Kosemen back in 2013. Today we’ve ganged up to talk about worldbuilding and to, you know, build a world.
It all goes back to a conversation I had with Memo back in 2009 and the wild speculation that resulted. Actually it goes back to a book called War of the Worlds, but nobody’s heard of that, I’m sure.
Themes discussed include:
The Balkans
The former Soviet Union
The Caucasus
The British Empire’s ethnic division funtimes
Proxies in the Cold War
Crazy Nationalist Mythology
Religious Martians who make pilgrimage to Mount Olympus or the Head Rock. You know the one I’m talking about.
The War Nerd on post-colonial Africa
Planet of Adventure! By Jack Vance.
Fallen Stars
And what conversation about post-colonial oppression would be complete without Slobodan Milošević and Robert Mugabe?