Episode 52 - Tanner F. Boyle - The Fortean Influence on Science Fiction

Some Other Sphere

My guest for this episode is author Tanner F. Boyle, who joined me to talk about his book The Fortean Influence on Science Fiction.

Charles Fort is an enigmatic character – part researcher, part writer, part philosopher. In the early twentieth century he extensively catalogued any reference he could find made to anomalous phenomena, which he would later go on to write about in a series of books, the most famous of which is The Book of the Damned. His writing includes ideas that would go on to be extensively explored in both science fiction and paranormal research – things such as Cryptids, UFOs, poltergeists, strange disappearances, ancient mysteries and unusual natural occurrences.

Tanner’s book examines the work and ideas of Charles Fort, their influence on science fiction, and the writers and editors who included and popularised them in their work, as well as the challenges faced by doing that.

Charles Fort is a hero of mine here at Sphere HQ – without him, the podcast might not exist, so it was great to be able to record an episode about him.

Tanner can be found on Twitter (@TannerFBoyle1) and you can get a hold of his book from McFarland Books.

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The Some Other Sphere theme is from Purple Planet Music - 'Hubbub', by Chris Martyn/Geoff Harvey.