The Subverse

  Arcx is all about literary inspiration. In this episode, we speak to doctor and speculative fiction writer Usman T. Malik. Usman’s work has been published extensively, and featured in platforms such as Strange Horizons, Tor.com, Black Static, and Nightmare.  In 2014, he became the first Pakistani to win the Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction for his work The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family. He also won a British Fantasy Award in 2016 for The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn. The story was also nominated for Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy awards. He has also received Locus award nominations for his stories In the Ruins of Mohenjo-Daro and The Fortune of Sparrows. In 2018, he received another Stoker nomination for Dead Lovers on Each Blade, Hung. In this episode, we discuss the importance of accurate history, authentic storytelling, the often missed nuances of desi stories, and the horror of everyday realities.  You can follow Usman on Twitter @usmantm Arcx is a series of the Subverse, the podcast of Dark ‘n’ Light, a digital space that chronicles the times we live in and reimagining futures with a focus on science, nature, social justice and culture. Follow us on social media @darknlightzine, or at darknlight.com for episode details and show notes.

Arcx is all about literary inspiration. In the sixth episode of this season, host Anjali Alappat talks to journalist, editor, and author Payal Dhar.  Payal Dhar primarily writes for middle grade and young adult audiences, and her extensive catalogue of work includes Satin: A Stitch in Time, Slightly Burnt, Hit for a Six, There's a Ghost in My PC, and It Has No Name. More recently, Payal has published two books in the Sands of Time series: The Prophecy and The Key. Payal’s work has also been featured in anthologies like Shockwave! and Other Cyber Stories, Year's Best Young Adult Speculative Fiction 2014, and Music of the Stars and other Love Stories. Payal also edited Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean, a collection of short stories by Indian and Australian writers. In this episode we chat about retelling and redefining stories, the difficulties of being the chosen one, found family and the dynamics of those relationships, and physics of world building. You can follow Payal on Instagram at @Payal.dhar Arcx is a series of the Subverse, the podcast of Dark ‘n’ Light, a digital space that chronicles the times we live in and reimagining futures with a focus on science, nature, social justice and culture. Follow us on social media @darknlightzine, or at darknlight.com for episode details and show notes.

Arcx is all about literary inspiration. In the fifth episode of this season, host Anjali Alappat speaks with Saad Z. Hossain, the author of the best-selling Djinn series, which includes Djinn City, The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, Kundo Wakes Up and Cyber Mage.  Saad's debut novel, Escape from Baghdad! was a finalist at the Grand Prix de L'imaginaire in 2018. The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday also received critical acclaim and was a finalist at the Locus Awards and the IGNYTE awards in 2020. Kundo Wakes Up, the sequel to The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, was published in 2022, and made it to the Locus list of Best Novellas for 2022. It was also longlisted for the British Science Fiction Association Awards that year.  In this episode, we discuss classic literature, writing for fun, the importance of a snarky protagonist, Jane Eyre vs. Jane Austen, A.I in developing countries, philosophy, broken people, and of course, djinn. You can follow Saad on Twitter @saadzhossain Authors, books and media referenced in this episode: The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye  Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Mansfield Park by Jane Austen Persuasion by Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas  Arcx is a series of the Subverse, the podcast of Dark ‘n’ Light, a digital space that chronicles the times we live in and reimagining futures with a focus on science, nature, social justice and culture. Follow us on social media @darknlightzine, or at darknlight.com for episode details and show notes.

Arcx is all about literary inspiration. In episode four, host Anjali Alappat chats with author and editor, Shweta Taneja. Shweta is best known for her urban fantasy Anantya Tantrist series, but has also received recognition for her work in children's books. Her non-fiction book—They Found What?/ They Made What?— was a national best-seller. She also recently published a new sci-fi novel for kids called Kungfu Aunty vs Garbage Monsters.  Additionally, Shweta’s short story, The Daughter That Bleeds, was nominated for the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire in France in 2020. She also won the Editor’s Choice Award for Best Asian Science Fiction (2018) in Singapore for the piece.  Her book They Made What? They Found What? Earned her the Publishing Next Award in 2021 and nominations for the Valley of Words Awards and the AutHer awards. She was also honoured with the Best Writer Award at ComicCon India in 2013 for her graphic novel, The Skull Rosary.  In this episode, we discuss world-building, dark humour, writing urban fantasy for an Indian audience, Tantrism, patriarchal power structures, and forging your own destiny,  You can follow Shweta on Twitter @shwetawrites Authors, books and media referenced in this episode: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams Going Postal by Terry Pratchett Buffy the Vampire Slayer Arcx is a series of the Subverse, the podcast of Dark ‘n’ Light, a digital space that chronicles the times we live in and reimagining futures with a focus on science, nature, social justice and culture. Follow us on social media @darknlightzine, or at darknlight.com for episode details and show notes.

Arcx is all about literary inspiration. In episode three, host Anjali Alappat talks to Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, science fiction author, data scientist, and researcher. Yudhanjaya is the author of The Slow Sad Suicide of Rohan Wijeratne, Numbercaste, The Inhuman Peace, The Inhuman Race, and The Salvage Crew.  More recently he was awarded the Gratiaen Prize for Literature for his yet-to-be published book The Wretched and the Damned. Yudhanjaya has been nominated for a Nebula award in 2022, and in 2021, he was featured in Forbes’ 30 under 30 list.  Yudhanjaya is also the co-founder of Watchdog, a fact-checking organisation created to counteract misinformation and propaganda in Sri Lanka.  In this episode, we discuss A.I, his non-traditional road to publication, how real life can be as absurd as fiction, colonialism, space economics, the horrors of reality TV, poetry, and the importance of forging connections.  You can follow Yudhanjaya on Twitter @yudhanjaya Read Yudhanjaya’s work: The Slow Sad Suicide of Rohan Wijeratne Numbercaste The Inhuman Race The Inhuman Peace The Salvage Crew  Omega Point The State Machine   Authors, Books and media referenced in this episode: The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett The Dark Tower series by Stephen King Dark Souls  BioShock System Shock Final Fantasy 7 Ulysses by Alfred Tennyson The Saint of Steel series by T. Kingfisher Arcx is a series of the Subverse, the podcast of Dark ‘n’ Light, a digital space that chronicles the times we live in and reimagining futures with a focus on science, nature, social justice and culture. Follow us on social media @darknlightzine, or at darknlight.com for episode details and show notes.

Arcx is all about literary inspiration. In Season 2, we continue our conversations with South Asian sci-fi, fantasy and speculative fiction writers, tracing their ideas from conception to execution. In the second episode of this season, Anjali Alappat speaks with author and editor Tashan Mehta. Her debut novel, The Liar’s Weave, is a wonderful mix of myth and magic, chronicling the exploits of a teenage boy in 1920s India who has tremendous power and poor judgement — a potent mix. We discuss relearning how to write, plurality in storytelling, astrology taken very seriously, the desire to shape your own destiny, the complexity of sibling relationships, and the power of lies. We also touch upon her soon-to-be released book, Mad Sisters of Esi, an epic story that includes god machines, a festival of madness, a museum of collective memory, a whale of Babel, and of course, sisters. Tashan's short stories have been featured in several anthologies including the Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction Volume 2 and Magical Women. Arcx is a series of the Subverse, the podcast of Dark ‘n’ Light, a digital space that chronicles the times we live in and reimagining futures with a focus on science, nature, social justice and culture. Follow us on social media @darknlightzine, or at darknlight.com for episode details and show notes.

Arcx is all about literary inspiration. In Season 2, we continue our conversations with South Asian sci-fi, fantasy and speculative fiction writers, tracing their ideas from conception to execution. In the first episode host Anjali Alappat chats with author, editor, lawyer and critic Gautam Bhatia. Gautam’s debut novel, The Wall (2020), and its sequel, The Horizon (2021), are filled with fascinating world building, complex characters, and fabulously convoluted plotlines. If you love twists and turns, beautiful prose, and some good old fashioned anti-establishment thinking, these are the books for you. Additionally, Gautam is part of the editorial team at Strange Horizons magazine, and his work with them has resulted in several award nominations. His writing has also featured in publications like Interzone Magazine, Mint, British Science Fiction Association Magazine, Scroll.in, The Caravan, and more. In this episode, we discuss how all fiction is political, unlikable protagonists, urban revolution, the foibles of human nature, betrayal, and origin myths. You can follow Gautam on Twitter @gautambhatia88 Arcx is a series of the Subverse, the podcast of Dark ‘n’ Light, a digital space that chronicles the times we live in and reimagining futures with a focus on science, nature, social justice and culture. Follow us on social media @darknlightzine, or at darknlight.com for episode details and show notes.

In this episode, The Subverse explores the progression in the use of metals and its impact on the trajectory of human evolution,the role of fire and its symbolism in understanding artefacts, art history, culture, and dance. Susan Mathews speaks with Prof. Sharada Srinivasan, a professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore, India, who studies archaeological artefacts and metallurgy.  Through the study of artefacts, we can better understand the history of technology and the progression of metals in civilization. This also helps inform the conservation of artefacts and get better insights into archaeology and art history. In her own work, she has made landmark contributions such as the analysis of bronzes in South India using lead isotopes to identify its metallurgical characterisations and studies on ancient mining and metallurgy in South India. We looked at the fire element in several ways. First, we explored the trajectory of human evolution and its intrinsic links to the increasing ability to master fire. The progressive use of metals and metallurgy was pivotal, and we find that presently no device or pursuit lacks an element of combustion technology. From the hearth to kilns and fiery furnaces, unknown forms and embellishments were forged for the good and for the bad. We spoke about some of these contradictions in the application of heat to metal and some of the gender divides that followed this fiery progression. Prof. Srinivasan brings up interesting illustrations of the ancient art of lost wax casting in India, the making of carnelian beads and the role of women in ceramics, such as Kota women from the Nilgiris. The conversation covered fire symbolism and cultural references in Vedic literature, Buddhist iconography, Tamil Sangam poetry and the Nataraja bronzes. Professor Sharada Srinivasan was elected as an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Archaeology in 2021. She received the Padmashri, India’s fourth highest civilian award, in 2019 and has made pioneering contributions to the study of archaeology and history of art from the perspective of engineering applications.  

In this episode, Susan Mathews speaks with Dr. Bharat Jayram Venkat about the unequal distribution of the effects of heat. For this, we travel to 19th and early 20th century colonial India where heat is a persistent problem for the British empire and a burgeoning climate science is sutured to racial difference. These histories inform contemporary crises as knowledges of heat continue to evolve in an unequal world. Dr. Bharat Jayram Venkat is an associate professor at UCLA’s Institute for Society and Genetics with joint appointments in the Departments of History and Anthropology. His current work focuses on the experience of thermal inequality in contemporary India and the United States, the history of how heat has been studied and its effects over the long twentieth century. He is also director of the UCLA Heat Lab. With accelerating climate change, one of the fallouts is extreme heat. In this conversation, Dr. Venkat defined thermal inequality, which is not just the differential impact of heat, but the unequal distribution of heat effects. These effects are filtered or mediated by our environments, by our lives and by the social and political infrastructures that determine how vulnerable we are to heat. The UCLA Heat Lab employs interdisciplinary methods to study the experience of thermal inequality. We spoke in some detail about a journal article he wrote in 2022 on race and thermal sensation in late colonial India. We discussed ‘tropicality’, how central the problems posed by heat were and how various kinds of bodies were understood to be differentially affected by heat, producing both biological variation and pathology. Meteorology and racial ideology intersect in the late 19th and early 20th century and climate science is sutured to racial difference. The Subverse is the podcast of Dark ‘n’ Light, a digital space that chronicles the times we live in and reimagining futures with a focus on science, nature, social justice and culture. Follow us on social media @darknlightzine, or at  for episode details and show notes.

In this episode, Susan Mathews is in conversation with Prof. Robert Romanyshyn—an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute, and an author of eight books including Victor Frankenstein, the Monster and the Shadows of Technology: The Frankenstein Prophecies (Frankenstein Prophecies). Romanyshyn’s special area of concern is the psychology of technology, especially in terms of the climate crisis and impact of digital media on our social structures. Much of his life’s work has been devoted to understanding Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a gothic horror tale that, as he points out, has been prophetic in many ways. In his book Frankenstein Prophecies, he asks eight questions that uncover how Shelley’s classic work haunts our world. Combining Jungian theory, literary criticism, and mythology, he seeks answers to the query at the heart of this book: who is the monster? In keeping with the theme of fire in this podcast season, we spoke of the symbolism of fire—both ambiguous and double-edged. In Greek myth in particular, the symbolism of fire is bound up with the myth of Prometheus, one of many stories which explains how humankind came into possession of fire. We zoomed in on the fire related metaphors in Frankenstein (exemplified in the subtitle ‘The Modern Prometheus’, alluding to the Greek fire myth), and how many of these speak to our present ecological crises. There’s fire as lightning that struck down a tree early in the book; the use of electricity and galvanism; the digging up of the dead in cemeteries and charnel houses as analogous to the mining of fossil fuels; solar light versus moonlight; and the Monster running away to the Arctic north, promising to burn in a pyre after Victor Frankenstein’s death. We also discuss a different kind of fire, which is not just a burning down or a melting away or extraction of fossil fuels, but a counter-fire. Counter-fire as in the hope left in Pandora’s jar. In speaking of this fire, Romanyshyn also speaks of splendour of the simple, the extraordinary in the ordinary, the miracle in the mundane, fire as living spirit, and Natura Naturans, the Anima Mundi. Robert Romanyshyn has published essays in psychology, philosophy, literary and education journals, written a play about Frankenstein’s Monster, done radio and TV discussions as well as online interviews, webinars, podcasts and made a DVD movie of his trip to Antarctica. In addition, he has given keynote addresses at conferences, lectured at universities and professional societies, and conducted workshops in the U.S., Europe, Australia, South Africa, Canada, and New Zealand. Check out his website at https://robertromanyshyn.jigsy.com. For his courses, check out www.jungplatform.com . The Subverse is the podcast of Dark ‘n’ Light, a digital space that chronicles the times we live in and reimagining futures with a focus on science, nature, social justice and culture. Follow us on social media @darknlightzine, or at www.darknlight.com  for episode details and show notes.