Words To That Effect
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
The Greatest Matter: A Victorian Gothic Crime Tale
06 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is it, my brand new audiodrama, The Greatest Matter. There's murder and mystery, crime and conspiracy, gothic and ghosts - if you are a fan of Wo...
WTTE 2024 Update & Announcing: The Greatest Matter
21 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
So it's been a while! Here's a quick update of what's been going on over at WTTE HQ, including an announcement of my brand new audiodrama: The Greates...
WTTE Season 6 Update
01 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Unfortunately there aren't going to be any new episodes for a little while but have a listen to this short update letting you know what's going on at ...
60: Dungeons & Dragons
19 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dungeons & Dragons plays a huge part in fiction and popular culture more generally, but it is often overlooked or misunderstood. In this episode I gat...
59: Robin Hood
30 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From medieval ballads to the poetry of John Keats, stage productions to children’s songs, novels to comic books, silent movies to glorious technicol...
58: The Origins of the Gothic
31 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What does the word "Gothic" mean to you? Gothic cathedrals and castles? Gothic fiction? Teenage goths dressed in black? Horror and the supernatural? T...
A Word To That Effect: Serendipity (Bonus Ep)
22 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
 A Word To That Effect is a new series of bonus mini-episodes about a single word or phrase with a distinctly literary origin. This week: serendipity...
A Word To That Effect: Cliffhanger (Bonus Ep)
08 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A Word To That Effect is a new series of bonus mini-episodes about a single word or phrase with a distinctly literary origin. This week: cliffhanger! ...
57: The Sensation Novel
22 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sensation fiction was a hugely popular genre in the 1860s. The novels were sensationally popular, but they also caused a sensation, with their plots o...
56: Arthurian Romance
08 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Knights in shining armour, damsels in distress, castles, chivalry and courtly love, heroic quests, dragons. King Arthur, Camelot, Merlin, the Knight...
55: A History of Dragons
25 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dragons have been around for a very long time. They are one of the very few mythological creatures that have become absolutely central to popular ...
Season 6 Preview
18 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Words To That Effect is back! Find out what's coming up on Season 6, launching on Jan 25th Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoi...
54: Underwater Worlds
21 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
There is a complex and fascinating relationship between humans and the ocean, how people and cultures across the world know and understand the sea, wh...
53: Fiction & Food
11 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How do we use fiction in food? What does a character's choice of food reveal about them? Do you simply have to go and make a dish when it's described ...
52: Gothic Forests
30 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The forest is a place we have very mixed feelings about. Forests can be calm and peaceful, full of ancient and natural beauty. Until they’re not...
51: Desert Fictions
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How do we imagine and portray the desert? And what does it say about us and our relationship to each other and, crucially, to the planet we live on? ...
50: Arsene Lupin
09 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
 In 1905 in Paris, the publisher Pierre Laffite had an idea. His new journal Je Sais Tout had just launched and he was looking for an author who coul...
49: Robots
28 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Robots as high-tech labour-saving devices, and as usurpers of human jobs. Robots as distinctly Other and as dangerously indistinguishable from humans....
Announcement: WTTE & HeadStuff+
20 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A quick update episode on the new HeadStuff membership platform, HeadStuff+ Have a listen to find out more about what's on it and how you can join (a...
48: Fictions of Antarctica
22 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
 The continent of Antarctica was only discovered two centuries ago, even if it had long been theorized. It's a place shrouded in mystery with no huma...
47: Alternate History
08 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In one sense alternate history is a very specific kind of story - sometimes seen as a subgenre of science fiction, more often as a genre onto itself. ...
46: Weird Westerns
24 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In a way it’s maybe strange that the western is such a prominent genre. It's seemingly connected to a very specific time and place: the mid-to-late ...
45: Mashups, Remixes, and Frankenfiction
10 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Remix, mashup, sample, adaptation, parody, homage, knock-off. The lines between these, and so many other similar terms, are not always very clear. I...
Season 5 Preview
04 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
WTTE is back! Season 5 launches on Tuesday 10th November. Find out what's coming up this season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/...
44: Words Dunnit (WTTE + Shedunnit Live)
03 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Last year Caroline Crampton (of Shedunnit) and I teamed up to create a joint live show, called Words Dunnit: a 200-year history of detective fiction i...
43: Lost Books
11 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
There are countless great works of literature we have tantalizing glimpses of, works we know existed but are, as far as anyone can tell, lost to histo...
42: The Missing Link
26 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Sasquatch. Bigfoot. The Abominable Snowman. Yeti. The Yowie, the Yeren, the Almas Ape-men, cave men, wild men. The Missing Link. The idea of...
41: Romance Novels
11 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Mills and Boon to bodice rippers , Johanna Lindsey to Nora Robers (and a little bit of Fabio) Why read romance novels? Learn more about your ad choi...
40: Time Travel Tales
29 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Time travel fiction is a small subgenre of science fiction. Science fiction is a small subset of all the many genres and types of literature. Time mac...
39: Edgar Rice Burroughs
10 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Edgar Rice Burroughs is no longer a familiar name. Like many other authors, the fame of his greatest creation, in his case Tarzan, has long eclipsed h...
38: Children's Picture Books
26 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Unlike modernist poetry or Shakespearean drama, when it comes to children's literature, everyone has an opinion. Most of us are exposed to kids' books...
37: The Golden Age of Piracy
12 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Pirates have been around for a very long time. In fact, as far as the historical record seems to show, they have been around for as long as there have...
36: Blood, Death, and Varney the Vampire
29 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There is no pop culture monster more written about, more critiqued and analysed, more portrayed and adapted and reimagined, than the vampire. So ...
35: Jekyll & Hyde
15 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For most people today, the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde has been reduced to a fairly straightforward allegory of the potential dark side within us a...
Season 4 Preview
08 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Season 4 returns on Tuesday 15th October. Have a listen to what's in store! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
34: The Art of the Short Story
04 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There are the celebrated authors: Checkov, Joyce, Mansfield, Munro. There are the big questions: “What makes a truly great short story?” “Where ...
33: The Noun of Nouns (The Rise of Modern Fantasy)
21 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What do you think of, when you think of the genre of fantasy? Whether it’s fiction, TV, cinema, or games, are there certain elements you need...
32: Golden Age Detective Fiction
07 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
An English country estate. A detective pacing the room, explaining how they have solved the crime, revealing the solution to a puzzle and the clues wh...
31: Steampunk, Pt 2 (Even Greater London)
23 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
One way of thinking about steampunk is to divide it into two parts – the steam and the punk. The steam is the Victorian element: the fascinat...
30: Steampunk, Pt1 (Fetch Me My Fighting Trousers)
08 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Note: This episode is Part 1 of a double episode on steampunk. There are cultures, and subcultures, and sub, sub, sub cultures. There’s ...
29: Travels in Four-Dimensional Space
11 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We have no problem thinking mathematically about four-dimensional space. Where a 3-d cube has 8 vertices, a 4-d hypercube has 16 vertices. ...
28: Pulp Fiction (Amazing Stories of the Sisters of Tomorrow)
25 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
If you want to understand how we ended up with anything from Star Wars to Star Trek, Superman to Batman, intergalactic travel to microscopic worlds, p...
27: Post-Apocalyptic Fiction
11 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What would happen if humanity ceased to exist? Well, assuming, of course, that earth itself has not been destroyed in this hypothetical apocaly...
26: Unwrapping the Egyptian Mummy
28 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the 19th century, a very popular form of entertainment was the mummy unwrapping party. Yes, you could go to a private or public event at which an a...
25: Dinosaurs (Palaeontology to Pyjamas)
14 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1842 a Victorian anatomist looked at some unusual fossils and, noticing they had something in common, he decided we needed a word to describe these...
Season 3 Preview
10 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Words To That Effect is back! Season 3 kicks off next Monday, Jan 14th. In the meantime, have a listen to a preview of what's in store for the season....
24: WTTE Live at Liberty Hall
31 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Words To That Effect is back! Episode 24 is a recording of September's live show for the Dublin Podcast Festival. This episode is a story about a...
23: Adaptation (How Does a Book Become a Film?)
30 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The book is always better than the film. Or so they say. But there are obviously quite a few problems with this, as there tends to be with a...
Two Announcements and an Update
16 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
No episode this week unfortunately, but I do have two exciting announcements. Have a listen and find out! More at wttepodcast.com Learn more abo...
22: Book Clubs: Revolution and Politics
02 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The Rick O'Shea Bookclub is Ireland's largest bookclub. It has 17,000 members and is growing fast. Book clubs have never been more popular. But where ...
21: The Invention of Time
18 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Time, as we understand it today, was only really invented in the Victorian era. We take it for granted today that our phones and watches and othe...
20: Domestic Noir
04 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Why Are There So Many Crime Thrillers With 'Girl' in the Title? Gone Girl, The Girl on the Train, Luckiest Girl Alive, Final Girls... There's no ...
19: Climate Change Fiction (Utopia, Pt2)
21 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This week's episode continues on from the last episode. So, if you haven't listened to that, head on over to Episode 18 first. From the history of uto...
18: What Is Utopia? (Utopia, Pt 1)
07 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This is a story of three journeys, by three people, in three very different times. But each of the journeys ends in the same area in the west of Irela...
17: The 10% Brain Myth
26 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Do we use only 10% of our brain capacity? (Hint: No) “It is estimated that most human beings only use 10% of the brain’s capacity. Imagine if...
16: Transhumanism, Fiction, and Immortality
12 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This is an episode about who we are as humans. And, more importantly, where we are going. About a future in which technology and biology have merged i...
15: The Scarlet Pimpernel & Baroness Orczy
26 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The Scarlet Pimpernel is a character now long disconnected from his origins in a 1903 novel. The Pimpernel is a mysterious Englishman who uses elabora...
14: Weird Fiction & HP Lovecraft
12 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The American writer H.P. Lovecraft wrote weird fiction. His work is both weird, in the conventional sense of the word, and Weird, in a more specific s...
Season 2 Preview
06 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
A preview of what's to come on Season 2 of Words To That Effect. There will be utopias, immortality, secret superhero identities, weird fiction and lo...
13: The Ghost Stories of MR James
18 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
This week’s episode is a Christmas Special. It’s a collaboration with the disturbingly good horror podcast, Down Below The Reservoir. The result i...
12: The Horrifically Complicated History of Zombies
27 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
 Whether we like it or not, the zombies are coming for us all. Films, books, computer games, comics and TV shows. From historical and mythical zombie...
11: Cesare Lombroso & The Born Criminal
13 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Cesare Lombroso was an Italian doctor and psychiatrist and he was one of the first people to really consider “criminality” a subject worthy of sci...
10: The Endless Influence of Robinson Crusoe
30 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Robinson Crusoe’s influence has been so powerful that this single work of literature has spawned an entire genre: the Robinsonade. This is the name ...
9: Imaginary Countries and the Ruritanian Romance
16 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Writers make up imaginary countries all the time, and for a variety of reasons. It’s relatively straightforward to slip in a familiar-sounding name ...
8: A Lawyer, an Author, and a Murderer
02 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
 The case of William Edward Hickman went to trial in Los Angeles in 1928. The accused was charged with the gruesome murder of a 12-year-old girl, and...
7: Overpopulation from Malthus to Manila
18 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
A baby girl was born in a hospital in the Philippines, on 30th October, 2011. However, unlike all the other children born that day, the arrival of Dan...
6: Neurasthenia, Cowboys, and Feminists
04 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In 1881 an American neurologist named George Miller Beard published a hugely influential book: American Nervousness. In it, he laid out the symptoms, ...
5: Canals on Mars
20 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
For as long as humans have been looking at the night sky, the planet Mars has fascinated us. But while astronomers had charted the movements of the pl...
4: What is Popular Literature?
06 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
What is popular literature? Walk into most bookshops and you will find fiction categories like “Crime”, “Science Fiction”, and “Horror”. Y...
3: Irish Science Fiction
20 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
What is Irish Science Fiction? Ireland is not, it is fair to say, the first country that springs to mind when you think “science fiction”. When al...
2: Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, and Spiritualism
10 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Sherlock Holmes is the most rational and scientific detective of them all. So why did his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, passionately believe in ghosts...
1: Invasion Fiction, William Le Queux, and Fake News
25 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
What is invasion fiction? Who was the mysterious William Le Queux? Why did a group of famous British authors secretly meet at the outbreak of World Wa...
Introduction
22 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
An Introduction and a Preview. Welcome to Words To That Effect, a new podcast that tells stories of the fiction that shapes popular culture. This i...