In season one of Our Connected Culture we explore how late science fiction author Terry Bisson’s lifelong activism was central to how he imagined a better world in his 1988 novel Fire on the Mountain, using previously unreleased and archival audio of Bisson and as well as interviews with friends and comrades including Peter Coyote, Kim Stanley Robinson, Annalee Newitz, Paul Park, Mary Corey, John Kessel, Cory Doctorow, Jacob Weisman, Rina Weisman, and Karen Brenchley.

The episode features commentary from Kim Stanley Robinson, Annalee Newitz, Paul Park, John Kessel, Jacob Weisman, Rena Weisman, Karen Brenchley, Cory Doctorow, and Ramsey Kanaan talking about the role Terry played in creating progressive science fiction community. This is also the final book club episode for Fire on the Mountain, covering through the end of this an alternative history centering around a socialist utopia emerging in the U.S. South a hundred years after the success of the Harpers Ferry raid led by John Brown sets off a self-emancipating revolution.

We’re going to talk about Terry for two more weeks here at Our Connected Culture before closing up this season: Next week, we’ll be sharing audio of Terry narrating The Left Left Behind, Terry’s own contribution to the PM Press Outspoken Authors series he edited, that was shared with us by the publisher. (Thank you again to Ramsey and everyone else over there.)

Then at the end of the month will have one last episode of this season to go deeper on Tomorrowing, the collection of Locus columns we talked about briefly today and during our first episode.

We’re also going to keep our virtual book club going, so you can join us to talk about Tomorrowing in our Discord for a live discussion at 1pm eastern time on May 26th! Tomorrowing was released by Duke University Press and they have also graciously shared a discount code with us for this book club: use E24BSSON to save 30% off the book in their official store.

Link to the Discord and more information about our release schedule at midmountain.org/ourconnectedculture

We’ve also created a curated list of related works at bookshop.org/shop/MidMtn, (MidMountain is an affiliate of Bookshop.org and will get a small commission to support our work if you purchase from our links)

MidMountain is a cooperative production of MidMountain, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, arts collective, and project in constant growth that believes in the power of people to reclaim space and caring for your neighbors — no matter how far away they are. This episode written, reported, and edited by Andy "River" Peterson. Original audio for this episode produced by QRAWN and Big 22 4 Lyfe Productions.

You can support our work and get postcards of great art for as little as $5 a month by joining MidMountain by Mail. More info: midmountain.org/mail