

SFUltra
Sean McTiernan
Brainwashing myself into loving science fiction, one book at a time.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Mar 1, 2026 • 1h 29min
SFULTRA #39 - His Master's Voice - Stanislaw Lem
"So I think when I'm looking at you, I see you there. But I can't just explain what you are. I see you there and you could be photographed, but then after you'd been photographed, one still wouldn't know what your realism was. You'd have to find a technique by which you can give over all the pulsations of a realism of a person… I'm talking bollocks…" - Francis Bacon, The Brutality Of Fact

Jan 31, 2026 • 2h 20min
SFULTRA #38 - Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand - Samuel R. Delany
"If you can talk about it, why paint it?" - Francis Bacon

Nov 21, 2025 • 2h 45min
SFULTRA #37 - Red Hook Variations
Main works discussed: The Horror at Red Hook - H. P. Lovecraft The Ballad of Black Tom - Victor LaValle The Courtyard - Alan Moore Neonomicon - Alan Moore Providence - Alan Moore "So you think you know what terror is As it stares from the newspaper page Yeah of course you all know what horror is It's the rage of the age Well, intimidation doesn't have a focus It oozes from every pore Murder doesn't bother to whisper In this fucking town it roars" - The Badge Means You Suck, AK-47 "Old time, something come back again If you have a start, then you must have an end None of them ever could've test with the pen My pen's the equivalent to the leng" - Bad Like We, Wiley Featuring a guest appearance by non-euclidian, cacodaemoniacal podcast entity and academic Cameron Kunzleman, author of the recently published Everything Is Permitted and cohost of many podcasts on the Ranged Touch network including Just King Things and Shelved By Genre. Interlude by the great Evil Sword. patreon.com/sfultra

Sep 28, 2025 • 1h 8min
SFULTRA #36 - Vurt - Jeff Noon
"Tell me what you know about a man's affliction PC plod talk pure science fiction" - Cowboy Dave, Happy Mondays

Jul 25, 2025 • 6h 27min
Right Where You Are Sitting Now #2 - Routine Excercise
"You can't have feelings alone" - William Burroughs, Naked Lunch

Jul 5, 2025 • 3h 44min
Right Where You Are Sitting Now #1 - My Past, Like A Terrible River
Works covered: And The Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks Junky: The Definitve Text Of Junk Queer Yage Redux

Jun 13, 2025 • 1h 20min
SFULTRA #35 - Beasts - John Crowley
"The elementary unit of language — the statement — is the order-word. Rather than common sense, a faculty for the centralization of information, we must define an abominable faculty consisting in emitting, receiving, and transmitting order-words. Language is made not to be believed but to be obeyed, and to compel obedience...Words are not tools, but we give children language, pens, and notebooks as we give workers shovels and pickaxes. A rule of grammar is a power marker before it is a syntactical marker. The order does not refer to prior significations or to a prior organization of distinctive units. Quite the opposite. Information is only the strict minimum necessary for the emission, transmission, and observation of orders as commands...Language is not life; it gives life orders. Life does not speak; it listens and waits." - A Thousand Plateaus, Gilles Deleuze Felix Guattari I'm happy to welcome the Booktube's best critic and only tasteful video editor Matt Bookpilled back on the show. Matt's channel is one of the main inspirations behind SFUltra and his engaging, thoughtful approach to reading means his patreon is worth it and then some. Matt's channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Bookpilled Matt's patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Bookpilled

May 19, 2025 • 2h 3min
The Black Pool with Tim MacGabhann
To celebrate the release of his memoir The Black Pool on May 22nd, I spent 2 hours boring my close friend Tim MacGabhann into unconsciousness. Book launch details: 6pm, May 22nd in Hodges Figgis Dublin. Click here to read an extract that became the opening chapter: https://thedublinreview.com/article/the-black-pool/ Link to preorder or buy The Black Pool: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Black-Pool-by-Tim-MacGabhann/9781399728232

May 8, 2025 • 1h 29min
SFULTRA #34 - Holy Lacrimony - Michael DeForge
"You get under my skin I don't find it irritating, You always play to win but I won't need rehabilitating oh no" - Another Girl Another Planet, The Only Ones

Apr 26, 2025 • 10min
DUBLIN EVENT MAY 10th - Barbaric Genius Extended Cut Screening/ Director Q+A/ Vsevolod Plotkin Noise Set
Full details of the event are here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/event-dublin-may-127442825


