Magical Thinking

Magical Thinking

Hocus Pocus. Abracadabra. Those words imply that magic is silly because it can solve problems far too easily. Fantasy novelists strive to avoid those types of situations when they design magic systems from scratch. Patrick Rothfuss (author of The Kingkiller Chronicle) explains how most magic systems can be divided into two camps: poetic magic and scientific magic. Tor critic Martin Cahill appreciates Rothfuss's work because he weaves both types of magic into his stories. And psychology professor Carol Nemeroff reveals why our brains are hardwired to believe in magical thinking. **This is part 3 in a 6 part series on magic and fantasy.**Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episoder(304)

Gathering the Magic

Gathering the Magic

At its core, Magic: The Gathering is a card game and your goal is to knock your opponent down to zero points. But Magic: The Gathering also has a deep mythology about an infinite number of parallel wo...

14 Jun 201828min

The First Three Lives of Catherine Webb

The First Three Lives of Catherine Webb

You may know her as Claire North, author of the best-selling novel "The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August." You might also know her as Kate Griffin, author of the urban fantasy series about modern d...

31 Mai 201838min

The Westworld Experience

The Westworld Experience

To promote season 2 of Westworld, HBO recreated the fictional Wild West town from the TV show just outside Austin at the SXSW festival, and they hired actors to play androids who think they're living ...

17 Mai 201835min

Jack Kirby's Marvels

Jack Kirby's Marvels

Avengers: Infinity War brought together characters from across the Marvel universe, but many of them already shared a common bond -- their creator Jack Kirby. While Kirby is best known for his intense...

3 Mai 201833min

Living in Space

Living in Space

People have fantasized for ages about what it would be like to live in space -- whether it's living on the moon or Mars or on a space station. And if Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos achieve their goals with S...

19 Apr 201834min

Visions of Philip K. Dick

Visions of Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick is best known for his fiction that have been adapted to movies and TV shows like Blade Runner, Minority Report and Man in the High Castle. He wrote about multiple realities and fantasti...

5 Apr 201829min

Stuck in the Uncanny Valley

Stuck in the Uncanny Valley

The holy grail for many animators is to create digital humans that can pass for the real thing -- in other words to cross the "uncanny valley." The problem is that the closer they get to realism, the ...

22 Mar 201829min

Remembering Ursula K. Le Guin

Remembering Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin was a master storyteller who was best known for her "thought experiments" -- like what if there were a planet in which the inhabitants had no fixed gender? Or what if a man's dreams ...

8 Mar 201827min

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