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PODCAST

Red Horizons

Red Horizons is a podcast that explores leftist thought and revolutionary theory through the lens of science fiction. Hosted by Steve McPhail, each episode blends literary analysis with political philosophy, examining how speculative worlds can illuminate real-world struggles for justice, liberation, and ecological survival. From anarchist utopias to post-capitalist experiments, Red Horizons invites listeners to imagine—and build—radical futures.

society & culture science fiction

All Episodes

50:50

Episode 10 – The Forest Strikes Back: Colonialism,...

Red Horizons ·

2025/10/24

Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest begins with conquest and ends with a reckoning. Terran colonizers arrive on Athshe to strip its forests, enslaving its people in the name of progress. But when the Athsheans rise up, their fight is not just for survival but for the soul of a world that dreams.In this episode, we dive into Le Guin’s sharpest critique of empire: how domination reshapes both the oppressed and the oppressor. We explore how colonialism, ecological destruction, and moral

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36:49

Episode 9 – The Left Hand of Darkness: Gender,...

Red Horizons ·

2025/10/03

On Gethen, winter never ends. Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness imagines a world without fixed gender, where survival depends on loyalty and warmth shared across difference. But this isn’t just a story of ice and endurance. It’s a study of empire, misrecognition, and the walls we carry inside ourselves.In this episode, we follow Genly Ai and Estraven across the Gobrin Ice, and ask what solidarity looks like when categories collapse. We trace the failures of the envoy, the ethics of

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38:12

Episode 8 - The Wall and the World: Anarchism, Exile,...

Red Horizons ·

2025/09/19

The Dispossessed is Ursula K. Le Guin’s great anarchist novel. A story about walls, worlds, and what it means to live without masters. In this episode of Red Horizons, we explore Le Guin’s vision of an anarchist society on Anarres, the contradictions of freedom and scarcity, and the shadow cast by Urras, a world of wealth and hierarchy just across the sky. Through Shevek’s journey, we ask: what does it mean to build a world where solidarity replaces domination? And how do we fight to protect it when

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38:20

Episode 7 - The Stars Are Right: Reactionary Realism...

Red Horizons ·

2025/09/12

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle didn’t just write bestselling science fiction, they built survival fantasies for empire. The Mote in God’s Eye, Lucifer’s Hammer, and Footfall wrapped authoritarian order and militarized “realism” in the language of hard science fiction. In this episode, Red Horizons uncovers how their collaborations transformed fiction into ideology: collapse as stress test, violence as salvation, and continuity of government as the only future worth defending. These weren’t just

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149:39

The Mars Trilogy Ep1-4: Remastered & Compiled

Red Horizons ·

2025/09/05

I’ve gone back to the beginning. Episodes 1–3 of Red Horizons have been remastered to better match the audio quality of later episodes. No re-recordings — just hours of careful cleanup to polish some of those early rough edges. To celebrate, I’m releasing a special compilation: all four Mars arc episodes, fully remastered, in one extended release. It’s the definitive version of our deep dive into Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy. You can also find the individual remastered episodes (1, 2, and 3)

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41:07

Episode 6 – The Logic of Control: Cold War Futures...

Red Horizons ·

2025/08/29

In Larry Niven’s Known Space, freedom isn’t crushed by armies or tyrants — it’s quietly managed out of existence. At the center of this system is the ARM, the Amalgamated Regional Militia: a covert force that governs by suppressing risk, smoothing out instability, and keeping the future predictable. This episode explores how the ARM reflects Cold War paranoia and the rise of technocratic control — from predictive policing to algorithmic governance. We’ll trace how probability becomes policy, how

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42:26

Episode 5 – Terraforming the Human: Labor, Identity,...

Red Horizons ·

2025/08/22

Larry Niven’s Ringworld is one of science fiction’s grandest spectacles — a megastructure so vast it reshapes our sense of scale. But beneath its glittering surface lies a different kind of engineering: the redesign of humanity itself. In this episode, Red Horizons dives into Niven’s vision of optimized bodies and sorted identities, where technocracy and eugenics masquerade as progress. We explore how Ringworld’s future imagines labor, gender, race, and disability through the cold lens of “fitness”

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41:25

Episode 4 - Red Shadows: Blind Spots on the Martian...

Red Horizons ·

2025/08/15

In this episode of Red Horizons, we return to the domes, deserts, and dreams of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy—but this time with a critical lens. We explore how its vision of revolution, ecology, and post-capitalist society still carries the fingerprints of the present: old hierarchies, quiet exclusions, and the limits of utopian design. Every work of praise deserves its critique, and even Mars must face its shadows.

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36:01

Episode 3 - Blue Mars: The Long Road to Utopia

Red Horizons ·

2025/08/08

What happens after the revolution? In the final installment of our Mars Trilogy arc, we explore how Blue Mars grapples with memory, mourning, ecological crisis, and the possibilities of radical democracy. Utopia isn’t a destination—it’s a process.

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35:43

Episode 2 - Green Mars: Revolution on the Red Planet

Red Horizons ·

2025/08/01

As revolt simmers beneath the Martian soil, Green Mars reveals the long road to revolution—from hidden labor and cultural memory to full-scale insurgency and the uncertain aftermath. Drawing on thinkers like Silvia Federici, Cedric Robinson, Walter Rodney, and Amílcar Cabral, we explore how resistance is built, remembered, and remade.

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36:39

Episode 1 - Terraforming Capital: Red Mars and the...

Red Horizons ·

2025/07/24

In the first full episode of Red Horizons, we dive into Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars to explore how revolution begins—on Earth and on Mars. Through a leftist lens, we examine the social, political, and material conditions that lead to uprising on the Red Planet. From labor exploitation to ecological struggle, from the slow build of resistance to the explosive rupture of revolution, we trace the arc of collective action and ask: what does it take to ignite change? Referencing thinkers like Silvia

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3:35

Episode 0: Before the Dawn

Red Horizons ·

2025/07/23

Welcome to Red Horizons, where science fiction meets revolutionary critique. In this prologue, host Steve McPhail sets the stage for a podcast that digs into the politics of power, ideology, and resistance in speculative worlds. Get a preview of Season 1’s deep dives—from Martian revolutions to libertarian fantasies—and meet the radical thinkers who’ll help us read sci-fi through a leftist lens.

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