Prometheus Unbound Podcast: Libertarians Talking About Science Fiction and Fantasy
17 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 11 years ago -The Prometheus Unbound Podcast is the audio counterpart of the Prometheus Unbound webzine, a libertarian review of speculative fiction and literature. It features news; commentary; interviews with your favorite authors, editors, and libertarian scholars; audio reviews; listener feedback; and special segments like Book of the Month, Today’s Tomorrows Writing Prompt, and Fiction Forecasts. Join us as we talk about books, movies, and television shows in the science fiction and fantasy genres.
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Episodes
PUP003 | Interview with Jeffrey Tucker
March 27, 2013 12:05 - 1 hour - 73.4 MBIn episode three of the Prometheus Unbound Podcast, Matthew and I have a fantastic interview with the wonderful Jeffrey Tucker, editor of Laissez Faire Books. It's a long one, about an hour and fifteen minutes, and we knew you'd be eager to listen to Jeffrey, so we wasted no time with chit-chat and got right down to business. We covered a number of topics ranging from LFB, intellectual property, and Jeffrey's favorite fiction. We started off by asking Jeffrey Tucker what it's been like worki...
PUP002 | Libertarian Speculative Fiction
March 24, 2013 18:01 - 1 hour - 76.1 MBIn episode two of the Prometheus Unbound Podcast, Matthew and Geoffrey discuss libertarian speculative fiction and introduce the Book of the Month, Today's Tomorrows Writing Prompt, and Fiction Forecasts segments of the show. We break the ice with some brief chit-chat about what we've been reading before seguing into our discussion of libertarian spec fic. The Book of the Month is Coyote by Allen Steele. In Today's Tomorrows Writing Prompt, we turn a speculative eye on the very real possibil...
PUP001 | Interview with Stephan Kinsella
January 24, 2013 16:57 - 1 hour - 59.7 MBFor those who don’t already know him, Stephan Kinsella is a patent attorney and prominent libertarian legal scholar. He is best known for his opposition to intellectual property. We invited Stephan on the show to discuss the problems of intellectual property and piracy in the Digital Age. But first we had to ask him about his love of science fiction and fantasy. We got him to mention some of his favorite authors and books (see below for a list), and we even talked about the Hobbit movie for ...
PUP000 | The Prometheus Unbound Podcast Promo
January 15, 2013 10:17 - 2 minutes - 2.92 MBMatthew and I recorded a brief promotional spot for the Prometheus Unbound Podcast. It includes part of the intro and outro that you will soon become familiar with as well as information about what listeners can expect from the podcast.
THE LIBERTARIAN TRADITION PODCAST | Ayn Rand and the Early Libertarian Movement
January 14, 2013 23:56 - 20 minutes - 7.16 MBIn this January 12, 2010 episode of the Libertarian Tradition podcast series, part of the Mises Institute's online media library, Jeff Riggenbach discusses the important role played by novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand in the early libertarian movement. In light of then recently released books on Ayn Rand — Jennifer Burns's Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right and Anne C. Heller's Ayn Rand and the World She Made — Riggenbach discusses Rand's role in the early libertarian mo...
THE LIBERTARIAN TRADITION PODCAST | A History of Ayn Rand
January 14, 2013 21:00 - 19 minutes - 6.84 MBIn this January 6, 2010 episode of the Libertarian Tradition podcast series, part of the Mises Institute's online media library, Jeff Riggenbach takes us on a biographical tour of the life of libertarian novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand. In light of then recently released books on Ayn Rand — Jennifer Burns's Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right and Anne C. Heller's Ayn Rand and the World She Made — Riggenbach goes on to chronicle Rand's early life in Soviet Russia, how she...
THE LIBERTARIAN TRADITION PODCAST | Yevgeny Zamyatin: Libertarian Novelist
December 28, 2012 21:25 - 19 minutes - 6.98 MBYevgeny Zamyatin was born in rural Russia on February 20, 1884. He died just a little more than 53 years later, in exile, in Paris, on March 10, 1937. His only novel was not widely read during his brief life, nor is it widely read today. It’s become one of those classics people would rather acknowledge as classics than actually sit down to read. But it has exercised an immense influence, especially in the English-speaking world, thanks to writers like George Orwell, who did read it, and write...
THE LIBERTARIAN TRADITION PODCAST | J.R.R. Tolkien as Libertarian
December 17, 2012 07:41 - 17 minutes - 5.98 MBIn this episode of the Libertarian Tradition podcast series, part of the Mises Institute's online media library, Jeff Riggenbach makes the case that the author of The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien, can be counted as a libertarian. Riggenbach argues that The Lord of the Rings is "both an allegory of the inevitable fate that waits for all attempts to defeat evil power by power and an allegory of power exerted for domination." The story is a dramatization of Lord Acton's famous dictum that ...
THE LIBERTARIAN TRADITION PODCAST | Robert A. Heinlein
August 14, 2012 05:28 - 20 minutes - 6.09 MBIn this episode of the Libertarian Tradition podcast series, part of the Mises Institute's online media library, Jeff Riggenbach discusses the life of Robert Anson Heinlein (1907–1988), author of The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and many other wonderful novels and short stories, and addresses the question of whether Heinlein was a libertarian.
THE LIBERTARIAN TRADITION PODCAST | Revisit Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451
June 15, 2012 16:37 - 15 minutes - 4.68 MBIn light of Ray Bradbury's recent passing, it may be apropos to revisit an old episode of Jeff Riggenbach's Libertarian Tradition podcast from 2010 in which he discusses why we should revisit Bradbury's Fahrenheit 45. You can also read the transcript below: Ray Bradbury celebrated his 90th birthday this past Sunday. He was born August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois, a medium-sized town of around 20,000 people about midway between Chicago and Milwaukee on the western shore of Lake Michigan.
THE LIBERTARIAN TRADITION PODCAST | Robert Bidinotto’s Hunter and Objectivist Subculture
August 28, 2011 20:07 - 24 minutes - 8.48 MBIn a recent addition to the Libertarian Tradition podcast series, part of the Mises Institute's online media library, Jeff Riggenbach uses Objectivist as a launchpad to discuss Objectivist subculture and fear. You can also read the transcript below: In a recent conversation with a younger libertarian, I heard something that I found somewhat surprising and somewhat disturbing at the same time. But later, on reflection, I realized that what I had heard should not have surprised me, however much...
THE LIBERTARIAN TRADITION PODCAST | Robert Anton Wilson
August 15, 2011 18:24 - 27 minutes - 9.68 MBIn a recent addition to the Libertarian Tradition podcast series, part of the Mises Institute's online media library, Jeff Riggenbach discusses the life of Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007), author of the Illuminatus! trilogy. You can also read the transcript below: Robert Anton Wilson was born January 18, 1932 in Brooklyn.
THE LIBERTARIAN TRADITION PODCAST | C.M. Kornbluth and The Syndic
June 18, 2011 17:52 - 17 minutes - 5.97 MBIn a recent addition to The Libertarian Tradition podcast series, part of the Mises Institute's online media library, Jeff Riggenbach discusses the brief life of C.M. Kornbluth (1923–1958) and his novel The Syndic.
THE LIBERTARIAN TRADITION PODCAST | The Ambiguous Utopias of Ursula K. Le Guin and Samuel R. Delany
April 17, 2011 13:00 - 17 minutes - 6.15 MBIn a recent addition to The Libertarian Tradition podcast series, part of the Mises Institute's online media library, Jeff Riggenbach discusses The Ambiguous Utopias of Ursula K. Le Guin and Samuel R. Delany.
THE LIBERTARIAN TRADITION PODCAST | Friedrich Hayek and American Science Fiction
April 14, 2011 18:00 - 16 minutes - 5.92 MBIn a recent addition to The Libertarian Tradition podcast series, part of the Mises Institute's online media library, Jeff Riggenbach discusses Friedrich Hayek and American Science Fiction. You can also read the transcript, which was later published as a Mises Daily article. In the podcast, Riggenbach discusses the dramatization of Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek's ideas in William Gibson's novel Pattern Recognition and Alfred Bester's short story "Time is the Traitor.
THE LIBERTARIAN TRADITION PODCAST | Libertarian Science Fiction II
April 14, 2011 11:30 - 20 minutes - 7.06 MBWhen I wasn't paying attention Jeff Riggenbach did two more audio podcasts on libertarianism and science fiction in his series for the Mises Institute, The Libertarian Tradition. Here is one, a followup on the previous podcast on libertarian science fiction. You can also read the transcript, which was later published as a Mises Daily article: "Some Further Notes on Libertarian Science Fiction.
THE LIBERTARIAN TRADITION PODCAST | Libertarian Science Fiction
February 01, 2011 20:24 - 20 minutes - 7.12 MBIn a new addition to the Mises Institute's online media library today, part of The Libertarian Tradition podcast series, Jeff Riggenbach discusses libertarian science fiction. Riggenbach discusses the role of science fiction in keeping individualism alive, the phenomenon of all the best known libertarian novels being science fiction novels, Eric S. Raymond's "A Political History of SF" in which Raymond argues that science fiction has a natural affinity with libertarianism, and the importance ...