S4E111 -Chapter One Hundred and Eleven: In Cold Blood!

What Mad Universe?!?

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This is the story of Edwardian-era European explorers traveling to the north pole in an airship, only to find a strange land unknown to mankind, and populated by an alien yet advanced race of intelligent non-human beings. The encounter holds up a mirror to western society, colonialism, and the dark side of human nature, and things go badly for the protagonists. It's such a perfect encapsulation of this "Vernean" subgenre, so self-aware about its tropes, and so much in sync with modern day critiques of classical adventure fiction, that you'd swear it was a modern-day pastiche, but no: the book is The People of the Pole, written in 1907 by Charles Derennes. It's a great lens through which to talk about classic "exploration" SF.

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Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross

Theme song by Jack Feerick

Additional music: "In the Hall Of The Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg

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