About this episode

The episode features Donald Wandrei's story 'The Red Brain' and explores his connections to H. P. Lovecraft and the history of science fiction.

On the last surviving star, a civilization that has mastered time, matter, and life itself faces a slow extinction they cannot stop. When a newly created mind claims victory over the unstoppable force consuming the universe, one decision will determine whether anything at all remains. The Red Brain by Donald Wandrei. That’s next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast. Author Donald Wandrei makes his debut on the podcast today. Born in 1908 in St. Paul, Minnesota, he built a reputation as a science fiction writer, poet, and editor—and, like many writers of his era, he shared a strong connection with H. P. Lovecraft. As a teenager, Wandrei hitchhiked from Minnesota to Rhode Island to meet Lovecraft in person. That journey led to his involvement in the Lovecraft Circle, alongside writers such as Frank Belknap Long and Clark Ashton Smith. Wandrei also played a crucial role behind the scenes. Without his intervention, The Call of Cthulhu might never have appeared in Weird Tales. He wrote directly to the magazine’s publisher, making it clear that if Lovecraft’s work wasn’t accepted, the author would take his stories elsewhere. In late 1937, after H. P. Lovecraft’s death, Donald Wandrei and August…

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