Invaders From Planet 3 - Ep 44 - John Jantunen's Top 5

After a two-week hiatus, the bonus season of Invaders From Planet 3 is back! Miss me? Probably not — you were probably too busy 3-D printing your own custom-made set of The Starlost action figures. But we're back anyway!

This time, I've returned from the vaults deep beneath the Lair of bloginhood (still currently located in a fort made of old, half-used rolls of Christmas wrapping paper in your great-aunt Tilly's basement closet because social distancing lockdown rules prevent the Lair from shifting across space as it normally does) with a previously-unaired interview segment with author John Jantunen.

In this mini episode, John shares his Top 5 list of his favourite works of science fiction by other writers... well, all by one writer in this case! Bear in mind that it's been a couple of years since John and I had this chat, so his favourites might have changed.

In any case, be sure to contact your local bookstore or library to find out how you can get your hands on these stories. And be sure to ask for John's novels while you're at it.


To listen to Invaders From Planet 3, or to subscribe, visit Libsyn, iTunes, or your other favourite podcatching service. Be sure to rate and review us while you're there!


Let the Invasion begin!

Invaders From Planet 3 - Ep 18 - John Jantunen

We're joined by author John Jantunen in this episode. John starts off by telling us about his early influences, including David Gerrold's War Against the Chtorr series, Stephen King, old Hammer horror vampire films starring Peter Cushing, and post-apocalyptic movies like The Road Warrior, Escape from New York, A Boy and His Dog, The Quiet Earth, and Night of the Comet.

We also talk extensively about John's love for the works of Philip K Dick, especially Counter-Clock World; Valis; A Scanner Darkly; Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said; and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? He also discusses watching Bladerunner when it first hit the theatres, what it's like rewatching it now versus his experience as a kid, and how it compares with 'Androids. While John talks about how Dick's weird ideas and the fundamental desperation of his writing were the biggest influence on his own development as a writer, he also discusses the slippery slope of reading too much PKD.

And we go into detail about John's love of the post-apocalypse as subject matter, and specifically the question he continuously asked himself as a kid in the shadow of the Cold War in the 70s and 80s: what would a Canadian apocalypse look like? These thoughts fed into his eventual development of his short story "The Body Politic", and most especially his novel A Desolate Splendor, which we examine.

Our interview took place in December 2016 via a Skype connection between John's home in Guelph, Ontario, and my location in the Lair of bloginhood, located in a cave beneath a hill fort in Kent.

Look for John Jantunen's books in your nearest bookstore or online.

To listen to Invaders From Planet 3, or subscribe, visit Libsyn, iTunes, Stitcher, Overcast and Spotify. Be sure to rate and review the show while you're there!


Let the invasion begin!