SethH Hey there, everybody. Finishing off the year here with what I hope is a fun episode in which I'm going to emulate my favorite podcast, The Incomparable, and do a draft. So I've assembled a small group of people from the Nebulugo Book Club Discord server, which i feel like I'm starting to sound like a broken record about it because I think I've mentioned it on several of the last episodes that I've done. um So it's going to be a four person draft. I'm going to go last. And then there's three others who I will introduce in the order in which they will draft. The draft order determined in true incomparable fashion by random.org, which I'm given to understand that they bring the random to you and incomparable listeners will understand that and hear the jingle. SethH So, um, guys, as I introduce you, go ahead and tell us your discord handle for the other discordites who are listening at home. So let's go ahead and start with Dan. Dan Hi, I'm sdwoodchuck on the Nebulugo Discord. SethH Awesome. And then Emmanuel, you may recognize his voice. Emmanuel Hello, I'm Emmanuel Commander on the NibuLugo Discord. SethH Yes. And finally, Kaelin. Kalin a Yeah, my name is Kaelin and I'm also just Kaelin on the NebuliGo Discord server. SethH Excellent. Kalin Just kept my name there. SethH Yeah. I think let's go ahead and circle back at the end of the episode and we'll talk about you know things and things you want to plug and that kind of thing. Sound good? Okay, so for this draft, you know, some people decide to go with super specific stuff. And I decided let's stay as broad as possible. And I feel like I need to apologize in advance because when you have all of science fiction and fantasy to choose from, it's really kind of hard to narrow down to just a few things. But that is what we're doing here. We're going to be drafting science fiction and fantasy concepts. SethH So that's quite broad. And I had to do a lot of clarifying over email once I had assembled the crew here. Um, so we'll go around a few times, see how many rounds we get in. And, um, after everybody's pick, we can, we can do a little discussion if if other people want to comment on it. And, uh, at the end, we'll do a kind of a bring out your dead round. So if you've got stuff left on your list that you want to really, really briefly hit, then we can do that as well. SethH So what is a science fiction and fantasy concept? Yeah, we're going to find out. And, uh, let's see. I think the main idea is that each person is going to kind of name a concept in a broader form and then zoom down to something more specific. And the idea is to give reading or viewing recommendations for all of them. I think we're all from a book club, so those would probably end up being books. SethH So, uh, so let's kick it off with Dan. Dan All right, yeah, my first one is the idea of merged consciousness, specifically when you have two or more personalities occupying the same mind. um SethH Okay. Dan it's It's a popular one, in in especially in weird fiction. um but a lot of times it's one that you can't really get into without spoiling the work. So i my specific example is from ah Michael Swanwick's Vacuum Flowers, and I chose it because it's it is almost the central conceit of the work in a few different few different ways. SethH Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Dan The protagonist is a woman who is two different personalities, in one one person. She has the memories of one, but the actual drive of the other. Dan And as the story's progressing, she's kind of merging into a synthesis of the two. But she's also partnered up with a a man who's four separate personalities that are complementing each other. Dan the... Dan the not exactly the villain of the novel, but there is kind of an antagonist is also a much larger scale, um, merged, merged consciousness where the entire population of the planet earth has been cybernetically linked as one sort of hive mind. SethH Okay. I like it. That's very cool. And yeah, that's, that's one that I, I've definitely seen a lot of different implementations of that, where you have multiple beings merged into one consciousness. You're talking about two consciousness consciousnesses inside one person. Dan Yeah, in this case specifically, they like I said, there's ah there's other examples that I think are more prominent, but harder to to go into without spoiling the work. SethH Mm-hmm. SethH Mm-hmm. SethH Right. Right. All right. Sounds good. SethH Anything from the other two guys? Emmanuel Well, I think I know which title he meant when he said he would spoil the work. Dan Yeah. Emmanuel It's a recent Hugo winner. SethH Okay. SethH Oh, uh, yes. I think I know what you're talking about as well. Emmanuel Yes. SethH Okay. Kalin I mean, the only thing that comes to mind for me is there's there's a kind of potentially more popular trope of two two minds inhabiting one body. SethH Uh, Kalin I don't know if I've ever encounter or even encountered that, so I'm to have to follow you up on that riy that recommendation. SethH Yeah. Yeah. That's the whole purpose here, right? We're, we're, we're going to blow up people's TBR piles. Kalin Yeah. SethH So should be good. All right. Kalin As if I needed that. SethH Yeah, exactly. Emmanuel Yeah. SethH As if any of us needed that, right? Uh, you know, one of the fun things on the discord is just seeing what everybody's reading and I'm like, I can't possibly keep up with all of this. And, and like, I get a new reading recommendation every day there. SethH So. to say nothing of the the weekly group reads, right? Or the the monthly group reads. Yeah. all right, Emmanuel, you're up. Emmanuel So me, it's more of an approach to science fiction that I enjoy. I find that science fiction is great at exploring the perception of others. ah it SethH Hmm. Emmanuel Because science fiction as a genre externalizes our moral dilemmas and it lets it lets us look at ourselves through alien eyes. SethH Hmm. Emmanuel and And these works, they ask, what do we see when we meet the other? And in that that moment, what do we learn about ourselves? And I think science fiction does that better than any other genre. Kalin Thank you. Emmanuel The other is, i'm SethH Yeah. So you do you have a ah theme for your entire list? Emmanuel i have I have like a main theme and then a lot of smaller ones. SethH Okay, nice. Awesome. Emmanuel um And ah so it could be aliens, could be altered humans, it could be future societies, and or tools um that help us see our blind spots. SethH Mm-hmm. Emmanuel um So how we treat difference, it reveals our values, our fears, our capacity for empathy. And science fiction doesn't ask us to imagine better futures. It asks us to become better perceivers of the moment. And I'm thinking of works like The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin, Flowers for Argonne, also we could go into that, the Culture series of um i nn Banks, and more titles that have explored this question of the order in science fiction, which and all of them have their own approach, of course. But they all beg the same question, which I find is better explored, as I said, in science fiction than other genres. It used to be more in the tales, ah philosophical tales. That's something i studied back when I did literature. Emmanuel And I find that you don't get that in mysteries or crime novels or romance as much anyway as you do in science fiction and fantasy, especially science fiction. Kalin Thank you. Emmanuel And we can apply that to everyday is life, which I find fascinating. SethH So real quick, just time out. Is there one specific thing that you want to talk about for your first pick? Emmanuel ah Well, um yeah, I could go with the dispossessed. i just I said I have this team and I have six books in that team that I could explore. SethH Okay. Okay. Yeah. So we're going to kind of go one at a time. Emmanuel Okay. SethH So, um so, okay. Emmanuel i could would I could go with the dispossessed. SethH Yeah. I'll lead you into that. Okay, so you you kind of gave a hint as to some of your picks. So you want to pick one for your first draft? Emmanuel Yes, sure. So I was thinking of The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, which is one of the classics. SethH Yes. Emmanuel Le Guin is ah one of the most famous science fiction author, both for her ideas and her prose. And the core idea here is that this mutual misunderstanding between worlds is a mirror um for, how can I put it, otherness. Emmanuel Because Le Guin wants to show us that we fear others, ah but it's a projection of our own fear. Emmanuel We should try to understand. We don't have to agree with everything, but we should try to understand the other instead of saying they're bad because they're different. It's very dumb. Emmanuel I'm dumbing it down, but as a core idea. And she explores how ideology distorts empathy. SethH Mm-hmm. Emmanuel She explores how language and culture and power dynamics play with our understanding of the other in a way that is, I find, really riveting. SethH Yeah. Well, in that one in particular, right, the the idea of even using a word like archists instead of anarchists, um because you just, there's some words you never hear the opposite of. Emmanuel Mm-hmm. Kalin Mm-hmm. SethH And and so to to to flip that around from the perspective of the anarchist was really interesting. Emmanuel And what is funny is that both societies, you have like this very capitalist society and this anarchist society, and they both see each other as barbarians, basically. So they're both wrong. SethH Yeah. Emmanuel And they're bound but by, you know, human limitations in a way. SethH Yeah. Emmanuel But what we call the human nature, what is basically a cultural setup. It doesn't have anything to do with biology. So we call it human nature, but it's not natural. SethH Yeah. Emmanuel It's really a setup. It's how we evolve as a society. And this book does a great job at making ah showing you how it could go wrong, but also how it could go right. SethH Yeah. OK, real quick before before we're go on, I was going to ask all of you if you had an opening statement, if you had something that introduced your list, then that was fine. But it's totally optional. So so Dan, if you have anything like that, um we we can record it now and I can put it back up at the top. SethH But if you don't know, no big deal. Dan ah Yeah, ah sure. I think for myself, I tend to lean toward the, more toward the weird in science fiction. And I think part of it is similar to what Emmanuel was saying few minutes ago, that um SethH Hmm. Dan when we, with science fiction, especially, you're looking out onto a different world, but you're also using that to see the difference in yourself. And I've cut out my saying that because I am kind of paraphrasing what he said, but SethH Hmm. SethH oh you're goingnna You're going to go first, though. Dan um yeah, that's that's why i'm I'm trying to find a way to to express that same idea without without after the fact stepping on its toes ahead of time, because that's yeah, but the reason I like the weird in science fiction is that it gives you a way to look the way you you would how do I put this? SethH Yeah, yeah. Understood. Yeah. Dan Sorry, I'm sorry ah SethH Don't worry about stepping on each other's toes. It's all right if we if we, you know, there's a little redundancy in it. Dan Okay. um But yeah, I like that it gives you a way to to look at your own reactions to things. to Think about the ways you perceive the world as different and strange. Kalin Amen. Dan And in a way, it's almost like brute forcing empathy. You're you're being put in a situation that is so foreign that SethH Hmm. Dan In order to to engage with the work at all, you have to set aside a lot of your biases, a lot of your your nature to sort of revulsion at things that are other. Dan And by doing that, you you expand what you are willing to accept. SethH Yeah. Cool. All right. And then your pick, which we've already got. Okay. Kalen, you're up next. Kalin Sure. Well, I would say, having kind of looked over my list, that i really approached this little project as thinking about specific hypotheticals or specific technologies that really have stuck with me after reading them, that really, um for one reason or another, SethH Mm-hmm. Kalin um are things that I keep coming back to when I think about the special role that science fiction has in imagining what could be different either about the human being or about human culture and society. Kalin um And so I think I have kind of a few different examples. My main examples are are related to those two things, like what's different about the human being and then and um more sociological, broad-based picks because that's the sort of science fiction I gravitate towards. SethH Cool. All right. So what's your first pick? Kalin Yeah. So my first pick, is um is i this the concept of human modification um and you know not necessarily thinking of it in terms of any sort of i transhumanist cyberpunk type thing, but just um how could technological breakthroughs change the way that humans Kalin practice medicine, for example, or practice Kalin basic bodily functions or cognitive behavior. And so one example i that I always think about is the story, um Ted Chiang's story, Liking What You See, a documentary, which features a central technological what-if called Kaliagnosia. Kalin um And this is a medical procedure, a non-invasive medical procedure that is introduced to society um that can when undertaken can eliminate the beauty bias m in someone's perception. SethH Mm-hmm. Kalin um So that when you are interacting with somebody, You are not relating to them depending on whether you perceive any sort of physical attraction, physical aesthetic perfection or disperfection. Kalin um And i when I was first reading this story, there was some deep-rooted part of me that just kind of went, I want this. Kalin i must have this and I've never had this sense of kind of personal envy for a technological breakthrough from a science fiction story. Kalin um because when i i had never really sat back and thought about it, but when I did, thanks to thanks to this story, i was like i would really appreciate being able to turn that part of my cognitive perception off and just go through the world being able to interact with people based on how they interact with people who they are as a person um rather than the way that my own brain gets warped by the aesthetics of the human face. Kalin And so whenever anybody, you know, asks me a question like, ah who, what, what, you know, if, if, if there's something from science fiction that you would want to adopt in your own life, I'm like, this, this one is one I go back to. Kalin Yeah. So that's my first pick. SethH That's really that's a really ah self-aware pick too, right? In terms of like, it says something positive about about your personality that you're like, yeah, limiting bias would be great. Dan Okay. SethH And and there's so many different kinds of it. Kalin Yeah. SethH Okay, um I guess it's my turn. So I'm going to go, i think the category for mine would probably be called galactic geography, if that makes sense, galactic structure, because I'm going to go with the zones of thought, best exemplified in Werner Vingy's series that includes a fire upon the deep and a deepness in the sky. And I just love this concept. the The idea is that the Milky Way galaxy is broken up into four kind of concentric sphere zones. Are they natural? Are they artificial? SethH Who knows? I'm not sure if we ever learn in the series. I haven't read all the books, so maybe we'll find that out. But... The idea is that the different zones have different physical laws that directly affect intelligence or artificial intelligence. And so um movement near the zone borders is very high stakes because you could accidentally fall into a lower zone and that would have consequences for your technology and your your own intelligence. Um, because the, the most primitive zone is the unthinking depths, which is near the galactic center, uh, where only minimal kind of forms of intelligence are even possible. So no machine intelligence of any kind, no higher biological intelligence either. Um, so in essence, like if you're, if you were in a spaceship, uh, a starship and it strayed into the unthinking depths, then, uh, SethH it would stop working, but you wouldn't be intelligent enough to notice. So, um, and a lot of more intelligent species would just die because the brain power that they would lose would, would cause them to, to cease to function. And then moving up from there is the slowness where earth evidently was this. There's no faster than light travel, no faster than light communication, nothing like a true artificial intelligence. Um, and then, SethH Up beyond that is the beyond, and that's where you have AI, you have faster than light travel, faster than light communication as well. And then above that and beyond that is the transcend where these only these super intelligent beings dwell. And I just love the whole concept of it, and especially the idea that the borders can sometimes move. And and so that has that has real stakes. So if you're um in the beyond, but down near the slowness, you need to make sure that you have backup drive systems in case your FTL goes offline because you go over the border. You might need hibernation pods to weather that journey back into the beyond. SethH um So yeah, really, really cool. And I don't know, yeah ill I'll ask you guys, because i I'm imagining that you're better read than I am. Is there anything like this in other fiction? Emmanuel Yes, ah in the culture series, INM Banks, because you have those AIs and there's a concept of subliming. SethH OK. Emmanuel ah Some AIs can evolve above a certain level and they busy they don't really become deity. They they're just go on another level. like they did They're not among us anymore. Emmanuel So it's kind of the same idea, except there is no slow zone. SethH Yeah. Emmanuel It's basically the the normal zone and then subliming. SethH Yeah. Emmanuel basically but it's in the same core idea if you will SethH Okay. I was just reminded in my own mind, my sister was telling me about a book that she read where Earth goes through phases where magic or science is predominant. And so so, like, if you're a powerful mage, when the switchover happens, all of a sudden you can't do magic anymore. SethH um Whereas if... Emmanuel i thought you were going to talk about and us election SethH Yeah. I don't know what book it was. I'll have to have to ask her if I can find out what the book was. I'll put it in the the show notes. So... Okay, that's one round done guys. Well done. SethH um So by the way, I think it's going well. So um we we will go ahead and head back up to the top and Dan, you're your next pick. Dan Excellent. Dan All right. Well, my next pick is going to be something that's, uh, much more of a, there, there is a broader trope to it that I think we're, we all recognize. And it is the, um, the imposter, the alien imposter, basically. SethH Hmm. Dan Um, the, the thing that is able to look and sound and behave like a human, but isn't. And, um, SethH Did you purposely say the thing right there? Dan I'm, I'm, I didn't, but that is a great example. But I'm, I'm kind of flipping it on its head by choosing a specific example that, that changes the dynamic a little bit. Dan And I'm specifically talking about Vale's hypothesis in Gene Wolfe's Fifth Head of Cerberus. SethH OK. Emmanuel Thank you. Dan And if, if you're unfamiliar with the book, Fifth Head of Cerberus is, it was originally a novella and then it was expanded into three sort of interlinked novellas. And they're, they're built around this, um, Dan a story that takes place on a colony world where the the official story is that the shape-shifting natives were all wiped out when humanity came. SethH Hmm. Hmm. Dan um But there's a an anthropologist named Dr. Vail who has hypothesized that actually the first the first colonists were murdered by thee by the shape-shifting natives and replaced. Dan and replaced so convincingly that they have forgotten themselves who they are. So that these, these imposters are integrated with society in a way that nobody can pick up on. SethH Hmm, that's really interesting. All right, go ahead. Dan And and and it it sounds like I am spoiling the actual plot of the book by pointing this out but you're actually introduced to the hypothesis early on. And it doesn't use it for a really simple sort of us versus them narrative. It kind of sets you up for that trap. Dan But really what it's doing is it's kind of introducing this as a way to, Dan to explore the gradients between us and them where the, what's making them so, so intimidating is that they have, Dan in a lot of ways taken on our own characteristics, but lost their own. um The more they are themselves, the less intimidating they are, but the more they are like us, that's scary, you know? Dan um And similarly, the notion that individuals can't be 100% sure, because if if the imitation is such that you forget who you are, the individuals can't be sure that they are human versus the Aboriginal aboriginal natives. SethH Nice. That, uh, Kalin And that that's a that's a trope that could, it doesn't necessarily need to be the alien imposter as well. It could be i ah form of human imposter. I think the the the kind of anxiety underpinning that kind of story is reinforcing the boundary between us and them. and I mean, the the a new release that comes to mind is the second most recent novella by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Kalin And I mean, he publishes frequently enough that i it might not even be the second most recent anymore. But a Saturation Point came out last year, which which focuses on i it's kind of like a climate SethH listen Dan Mm-hmm. Kalin a Kalin apocalypse story where you know to get into spoil spoilers a little bit in case you don't want to hear the the sort of ending resolution of this story but the um there's a an exclusion zone that the main characters go into and and fail to survive and they think that it's it's because of natural reasons, but it's actually because the experiments have been done there in genetic engineering, a group of humans that can tolerate um the radically altered climate zones that are that are kind of beginning to Emmanuel Thank you. Kalin colonize the temperate zones of of the globe. and And those people have planned a sort of takeover of the earth from homo sapiens and have infiltrated out into so into the society and can't be detected. And so there's that same similar sort of and you know imposter SethH Yeah. Kalin um anxiety SethH Yeah. I love that notion of like they're they're so deep into it that they don't even know anymore, right? they they don't the The line isn't there for them. Dan Yeah, and I think what really makes that what makes that stand out in in Fifth Head of Cerberus is that they are the natives. The humans are actually the invaders here. SethH Yeah. Dan So it's there's almost a sense of justice to it, but at the same time, it's it's written from the perspective of people who at least believe they're people. SethH right yeah i at a yeah a non-book uh kind of similar thing is the the battle reimagine battlestar galactica where you have certain of the the cylons that are sleeper agents they don't know that they're cylons and then when they discovered it that they are they're sort of institutionalized and and they're they're Dan And Dan Mm-hmm. Kalin move. SethH kind of rejecting their Cylon heritage. And then then you find out that there's a whole cycle of um of these things happening over and over. And it's, yeah, interesting stuff. SethH Okay, Emmanuel, your second pick. Emmanuel Yes, so I'm keeping the same broad theme, but in a completely different approach would be with Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. SethH Mm-hmm. Emmanuel And the main focus here would be on human dignity. And it touches on what Colin was talking about earlier, about what technology can bring to us as a species and how it could be powerful but also dangerous in some circumstances because, spoiler alert, ah the main character, Charlie, is an individual with intellectual disability and then he gets operated on and becomes basically a genius. Emmanuel And in both states, people treat him with cruelty, I find in that book, just in different ways. SethH Mm-hmm. Emmanuel And the the important lesson in that book is not about intelligence. It's really about how we assign value to people. and how we judge people. And if the intelligence of somebody changes how we treat them, what does it say about our ethics? What does it say about us? Emmanuel And, you know, dignity is not earned through abilities. It's earned through humanity. Just the fact that you are a human being is enough for you to have your dignity. You should not have to reach a it's truly an extraordinary work, in my opinion, is... Emmanuel It gives you the... in How can i put it? It tells the uncomfortable truth that at different moments in your life, you can become that other in front of the ah of somebody else's. And you will have to deal with that and you will be judged and you have to think about that whole process and that novel explores this in in a remarkable way with that just small twist at the beginning that you have a way of operating on somebody. And in this book... Emmanuel he is disabled then becomes a genius and then slowly becomes back what he was at the very beginning he becomes somebody with intellectual disability and it's heartbreaking in that novel but also very enlightening because you see how he perceives himself you see how others perceive him and it's done in a truly abundant way in that in that novel SethH Yeah. I've only ever read the novella. I haven't actually read the full novel. um So it's it's on my list to get to in the short term. SethH Okay, Kaylin, second pick. Kalin Sure. um Kalin So i'm going to continue with the kind of broader theme of human modification for this one, but focus more on the idea of unintended consequences of technology. SethH Hmm. Kalin um And my my reading pick to talk about the unintended consequences is a trilogy of i kind of space opera-y hard sci-fi called The Quantum Evolution by Derek Kunzkin, who's a Canadian author. Kalin um It starts with The the Quantum Magician. And this is a ah kind of Kalin far future spacefaring story in which humans have spread out through a few different wormhole discoveries from the solar system into other star systems. And in order to settle on different worlds, have engaged in some pretty far reaching human bioengineering and genetic engineering. and um But then there are other instances in which different sorts of power and political and academic Kalin interests come into play in terms of what bioengineering is actually undertaken. And there's this very fascinating and incredibly creepy society in this trilogy of novels, where i'm a certain group of um i I think the implication is that they're sort of libertarian capitalists who decide that they want to create themselves a permanent servant class. Kalin And so they want to maintain a kind of minority elite on top and a broader serving class through genetically engineering the serving class to be religiously devoted to them through a kind of pheromone um and i biological link process. And what ends up happening, this is not a spoiler because this is um Kalin ah sort of like a society that our characters interact with over the course of the stories, but but what ends up happening is the the the elite gods of this society end up creating such a powerful ah religious fervor in the serving class that the servants cannot abide any possibility that they will not be in control of when they have access to their deities. And there's there's a revolution that takes place. Kalin And essentially the the elite of this society are enslaved for the purposes of religious devotion and Dan Mm-hmm. Kalin um every time our characters, like the main characters of of these stories, have to interact with the um the the society or is called the puppets and they are just the creepiest people and I have never been able to forget how how creepy it felt to read them um and the way that they the way that they interact with others the way that they protect their society the way that they talk about the um the kind of god their their god people and the way that they keep them keep them contained and um it's a fantastic series uh and you know it's not the only case in which unintended consequences play out in in in terms of human development um the main character is a Kalin part of a quantum project, a quantum mathematics project, and essentially trying to develop a personality-free consciousness that is able to engage in mathematical theorizing. um and And initially, this this project's Kalin was sequestered in an academic study, but as soon as that broke out into deal you know these people interacting with human affairs, affairs of state, war, Kalin um and commerce and things like that, it suddenly Kalin at All of the basis, you know, the foundations of this society that had been created among these star systems was absolutely threatened by the ability of these quantum humans, essentially. um And yeah, I really... Kalin twists their ability to to predict what's going to happen. yeah i I highly recommend that the the series of The Quantum Magician. It's like a you know like up post-human space opera heist novel with a bunch of weird characters and weird societies. and yeah so I feel like I went on a little too long there, but i apologize. SethH Now you're good. Yeah. Kalin but that's yeah I wanted to explain why I picked that. SethH Yeah. Yeah. Dan I really like that idea as well, the the specifically the the self-made gods sort of becoming prisoners. That's a really satisfying kind of inversion of ah negative ah negative intent having negative consequences for the person like blowing up in their own face. Dan I think that's a very satisfying very satisfying way for that to play out. Emmanuel Mm-hmm. SethH that Emmanuel Same. tim SethH It reminded when you were first talking about it, Cailin, it reminded me of the the Vorta and the Jem'Hadar from Deep Space Nine, where they they have this religious understanding of the the founders, the shapeshifters. And that affects the way all the all the kind of politics works and not in the Dominion. But I'm going to try not to have a ah TV reference for every one of these, but no promises. SethH I think I'm up next. Yep. Kalin Yeah. yep SethH Okay, so then my next one is, ah the the broad category is fantasy cosmology slash pantheons. And so I want to talk about World of the Five Gods from the Lois McMaster Bujold series that includes Paladin of Souls, The Curse of Chalion, and the Penric and Desdemona books. um I really, really enjoy the series. And... um in So the the idea is in this world, there are five gods and everybody knows they're real. SethH um They're known as the father, the mother, the daughter, the son, and the bastard. And the thing that I think is so intelligent about about the way Bujold draws this is that you know the the kind of orthodox people in this world are known as Quintarians, where where they acknowledge all five deities. SethH But there's a group that subscribes to what they call the quadrine heresy, in which the bastard is not honored as a deity, but seen as a demon. And as a religious person myself, I i think it's very astute to understand that religious people like almost nothing more than disagreeing with one another. Dan Hmm. SethH and And the idea that you could have a world where everybody agreed on the same thing from a theological perspective is is ridiculous. And so... um I'm surprised they even agree on the four. But I also really enjoy in the series that the the five gods don't intervene directly. SethH um Instead, they kind of influence people through visions, through dreams, to act on their behalf, with the possible exception of the bastard, because the bastard is kind of in charge of the demons, and the demons can help people do sorcery. SethH um they're They're not demons in the the kind of... Milton concept of of demons or the Judeo-Christian kind of concept of demons. They're chaos forces that kind of do what they want. um So the reading recommendations are kind of built into this one. There aren't that many books in the series. um In terms of the the main series in there, there's The Hallowed Hunt, The Curse of Chalion, and Paladin of Souls. And then the Pendrick and Desdemona series is a lot of fun. They're all novellas, I believe, at this point. And there's a lot of them. SethH um And so they're an easy way in. So I think that would be where I'd tell people to start if theyve they want to kind of dip their toes into it. But another fun thing about it is that the that each book in the in the series kind of dwells on one of the deities. SethH So I'm hoping that we eventually get another one. Emmanuel And one nice thing also is that visual is just a pleasure to read. So even if you're not a fantasy fan, which I'm not, I did read you some of those books and I really enjoyed them and because, you know, they're a gateway drug into fantasy, even if you don't like fantasy. Kalin Mm-hmm. SethH Yeah. SethH Right. Mm-hmm. SethH Yeah, yeah. but It's funny, when I talk about not loving fantasy, it's usually world building that I don't like, and cosmology is definitely part of world building. But that's an aspect that I've i've really started to enjoy, is the is a well-crafted cosmology. Dan Yeah, I think that, oh, sorry, i I was just going to say I agree with you that world building, when it feels SethH Oh, yeah, go ahead. Nope, go for it. Dan when it feels very sort of self-serving, gets to be kind of old, but when it really feels like it's in service to the story, when it's really building on the themes of the story, that's there's nothing like it. SethH Yeah. When Bujol really good with characters, right? And so everything is told from those clear character viewpoints and and that really helps. Dan Yes. Emmanuel It's an an exercise in good balance. It's not easy to do because as an author, I can imagine you want to explore the world that you've created. But if you're just standing there watching that world unfold and nothing happens in it, you're like, thank you. SethH Right. Emmanuel I appreciate that. But move on, please. And she does that. SethH Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Okay. Kalin I mean, one of the things, if if I can speak to the your pick, one of the things that I've really loved about that particular pantheon is how it doesn't SethH Yeah. Mm-hmm. Kalin it doesn't create necessarily easy or um straightforward allegiances for characters who are trying to navigate their own lives. you know And if I were to compare it to a series that i I love, The Wheel of Time, but always found that the cosmology there was a little bit simplistic and that there's a light one and a dark one, and it's very Kalin It's very straightforward who the heroes are going to be because the heroes are not going to be for the Dark One. um And you know even when I was younger and reading through those books, I always SethH Yeah. Kalin i i always struggled to to really get behind the idea that people would knowingly choose between such a simple dichotomy. And and so that the complexity of Bujold's um co of cosmology in that way was real, or a real delight to explore. SethH Yeah. Yeah. that's ah That's an excellent point. SethH All right. Back up to the top of the order. um Time check here. we're We're at like, I think we've been going about a half hour since we started recording. So um I think we can each get a a few more picks in. SethH So if ah if you are going to run out of picks, let me know. Dan Okay. SethH i i have I kind of wrote down a few things, a few notes on each one of my things, and then I have a list of stuff that I didn't, I'm like, I probably won't get to these. So I could i could go extemporary initially, but I'd rather not have to. SethH So, okay, back to the top. Dan Sure. Dan Okay. I'm going go with something just a little bit more whimsical this time. SethH Dan, you're up. Dan Um, um, the, SethH Okay. Dan If you want to take the general concept, I'm thinking more of like um supernatural temptation. and But the specific example is going to be the carousel in Ray but ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. SethH Oh, nice. Dan And if you've um if you' never read the novel, it is a it's very evocative of the fall of fall season it takes place in a small town small midwest town and a carnival is coming to town very late in the season um there's two boys who live in town named uh will and jim and they are they're they're at just that right age where they're not they're not adults yet but they they can smell it you know it's like it's right around the corner for them and they SethH Yes. SethH Mm-hmm. Dan They're eager for that change and they're just not there yet. And something about the carnival draws them in with that as the hook. And it it winds up being not just them, but the entire town drawn in. And it's the carousel specifically that is kind of the vortex that has grabbed the the town's imagination. And the the method that it works by is Dan is by touching on the fact that they everybody is not the age they want to be. The older citizens in town see in the carousel a way for them to become younger. SethH Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Dan And it it physically does this. If it's going one direction, it will take years off your life for every spin. um Whereas the two boys, they want to be older. And they yeah for them, it's it's a way for them to sort of cheat time and get ahead, to move ahead to the the age that they're anticipating. Dan oh But the carnival, Mr. Kruger and Mr. Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show, as you might suspect, is is is kind of evil. Emmanuel and try to eat. SethH Mm-hmm. Dan um SethH Mm-hmm. Dan And it's it uses the this desire, this temptation to to consume something from thee the patrons who choose to ride the the carousel. But they have to choose. Dan It's not something that they can just take you and force you to to ride it. the The customer has to to make that choice to step onto the carousel, to to to choose that shortcut. Dan And it it really works well in in tapping into what makes each character want that change. Dan And not necessarily for selfish reasons. Like Will's father is... um you're you're told from very early on that he had kids late in life. He's he's much older than his son, much yeah much further out of step than most fathers are with their children. And he's always thinking how much easier it would be, how much more of a connection he would have if he was just that little bit younger to be closer to his son's age. Dan And there's that temptation. there's the way that that There's the way that can happen, but it's also not the right way. And it's It is such an effective effective means of temptation for that novel that it just works really well to to grab the audience and and drive the point home. SethH Yeah. SethH Great pick. and And yeah, it Bradbury's prose, too. I mean, just the way he writes, like when you were talking about that, I was like, I feel like I can smell popcorn and licorice, you know? Dan Oh, yeah. Dan Exactly. i have the the same the same sensory response to certain pros with Bradbury. Yeah, the the false sense, the ozone in the air from lightning strikes. SethH Yeah. Dan i haven't I haven't been close to lightning in years, but I i have that that experience just encoded on my brain. SethH Yeah. SethH All right. um Emmanuel, I realized that we didn't totally follow up on on your Flowers for Algernon. We didn't really have any post discussion on that. So I wanted to make sure if anybody had anything they wanted to say about that, I can, you know, the magic of editing, nobody has to know that that we swung and missed on that. SethH I mean, it's totally okay for things to pass without much comment. If if somebody does a good enough job of describing it, then we would don't necessarily have to have to do it, so. Dan Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to me because it's Flowers for Algernon is probably the um the Nebula winner that is furthest back, that I've read furthest ago. Dan ah More than 25 years ago, I would have read it. And I have a memory of it that is is basically complete, but is also, um you know, a very young man's memory of that book. Dan So it's it's interesting to hear somebody talk about it from a a more mature but perspective than the one that I'm drawing from having read it so long ago. It's one that i have I've had marked as needing to be reread sometime in the near future. Dan i never seem to get around to it, but that's one reason why I probably should reread it. SethH Yeah, yeah. Well, and Emmanuel, too, and in that when you were talking about, you know, the kind of victimhood um and, you know, being the perpetrator and the victim, and you can, when you're reading something like, I think, Flowers for Algernon, you can see yourself in the characters and say, oh, I've said things like that. SethH I've done things like that, you know, and it it can really, i don't know from a... Kalin Thank you. SethH Christian-ese kind of thing. Oh, that's very convicting, right? That that I see that in myself. And that that book definitely brought some of those feelings out for me, um especially when when I thought to how I've treated people in the past who who were doingt me developmentally disabled um that or had and intellectual disabilities, you know, where I thought, you know, I could have been kinder. SethH So... and And I think that's kind of going to what you're saying, Dan. It's like reading at a certain age, you're going to pick more up on those things because you have more life behind you. Dan Absolutely, yeah. SethH Yeah. Okay. So Emmanuel, I think we're on to your, is it the second pick? Are we still on the second? Kalin Third no Emmanuel Third. SethH Third pick. Okay. Emmanuel Yeah. SethH Emmanuel, your third pick. Emmanuel So I'm going to go with a good old classic concept in science fiction, which is uplifting, ah which has been... SethH ah you You successfully sniped me, Emmanuel. Emmanuel Did I? Dan Me too, actually. SethH Yes. Emmanuel Well, it's it's not an original one, but it's an interesting one. And i see I look at from two different angles. And the book I chose to talk about it, not original either, is Star Tide Rising from David Brin, which is part of a series. Emmanuel And in that book, humans uplift dolphins. which I know threw you off, Seth, at the time. SethH yes Emmanuel um but um And at first I was kicked skeptical also, but I did enjoy that book very much because it asks the right questions, I find. um Basically, is uplifting other species an act of generosity, arrogance, or long-term exploitation? SethH Right. Right. Emmanuel Because it's it's quite complex because in in this series and in others also, uplifting creates a permanent debt. The uplifted species owes allegiance to the uplifter. Emmanuel And also intelligence does have a burden. It brings anxiety, obligation, hierarchy, and inside that the freedom is conditional, whereas before dolphins are totally free to be dolphins, you know, they don't have that burden to carry. SethH Yeah. Right. Emmanuel So in the context of such a species, is intelligence a gift or an imposition? compared to what they had before, the life that they had before. And it asks, you know, a few questions um ah where a consciousness like this is a liberation or it's a responsibility forced on others. And And I could ask all of you the question, do we have the right to make others like us just because we can? For those who watch more TV, you can think about Star Trek in the first directive, for example. you We can't interfere with people below a certain ah technical technological level. It's kind of the same concept, if you will. And also to me, as as you know, I'm a historian. Emmanuel ah It echoed with colonization. Because certainly colonizing powers saw themselves as uplifters. Dan Peace. Emmanuel They saw themselves as superior to the people that were colonizing. SethH Right. SethH Yeah, we're bringing civilization. Emmanuel Yeah, exactly. And they said today to these people, we're better than you, we're going to teach you and you're going to thank you for for it, which is total BS. They were in... SethH Right. mean Meanwhile, we're we're going to stamp out your languages and your religion. Yeah. Emmanuel We're going to do that and we're going exactly take your land and your riches. Kalin and take your land. Emmanuel And then you you you better be thankful for that. SethH Yeah. Emmanuel And it's something that touches me directly. You know, as you know, I'm French. We did that to a good chunk of the world. And ah and I still know people who think it was a good thing to do, you know that the the French did good. Dan Thank you. SethH Right. Emmanuel I'm like, no, they did that to enrich themselves. End of story. Maybe some people um in that context or in the sci-fi books think they're doing good, they do it you know earnestly, but in the end, it's exploitation, were however you turn it around. Emmanuel And I find that the concept of uplifting in science fiction is a good way to explore that, how we impose ourselves and our values upon others. Emmanuel That happens all the time. it's i mean, I'm French, but I live in Canada. you know The land and everything that has been taken away from native people. You're in the States. Emmanuel You you have exactly the same issue. And some people you can see exactly ah and so people acknowledge that and some don't. SethH Yeah. Dan I'm in Hawaii. SethH Yeah. Emmanuel And i recall when I was listening to your podcast, Seth, you mentioned at some point a colleague of yours that did not understood why you read fiction. He just read make mechanical stuff or technical stuff and never fiction. And I like to think in science fiction, if just a small parenthesis, science fiction is a great tool for that. Reading nonfiction is great ah to work and to do a lot of things, but it doesn't teach you how to think. Emmanuel Reading fiction trains your brain how to think, how to react, how to understand, because it's good to have a lot of data and But if you don't know how to process it with intelligence and insight, it's useless. Emmanuel You're big you're becoming becoming a human chat GPT if you do that. SethH yeah Emmanuel Chat GPT can't ah understand feelings. It can't understand morality. It will just you know grab it and yank it back at you, which is what somebody that just read nonfiction would do. SethH Yeah, agreed. Emmanuel and reading those concepts, learning about them in science fiction, understanding all that uplifting um is made of is, I think, really rewarding for the reader. SethH Yeah, it's interesting that that you know people might not have expected to find Uplift on my list, given that I was not a huge fan of of those books. um But the concept alone is is's fantastic. And so so even if I bounced off the books a little bit, I still think that the the concept is brilliant. and And he hangs a lot of ah philosophy and and and other your know themes on it as well. Emmanuel the next book in the series oh sorry Kalin i sat to but then I was just going to ask Seth if he had the same example for that pick. Like, was it the David Brind novels? SethH it It was. Yeah. I did note down that there there are, I'm reading the the latest Old Man's War novel and there's Uplift there as well, which is which is interesting. SethH But yeah, do do you have another one, Kaylin? Dan I am... Kalin Well, the more the more um contemporary uplift novels that I would by kind of go to as like this... This ah is that the 21st century standard, are the is Children of Time, the Adrian Tchaikovsky novels and and its sequels. SethH Right. Right. Kalin But it doesn't I don't think it approaches the same questions, or at least in the same way as what Emmanuel is describing of the David Brin ones, which I haven't yet read, to my great shame. SethH Yeah. Hmm. Dan Yeah, I agree. In in fact, I think that Tchaikovsky's kind of flips that dynamic as well. Again, kind of kind of touching on spoilers, but in a big way, it's, you know, we uplift these other species, but in the end, they wind up being better at some things than we are. And they they uplift us in turn to get us, to have us be more cooperative than we we are normally capable of. SethH That's a series that I need to get to. I started reading children of time a while back and and I got, I don't know, 20% into it or so, maybe just 10%. And other stuff got in the way and I'm like, I really want to get back to that. SethH So I'm just going to have to do it on audio just so I can i can run through it. But yeah, good pick. Emmanuel ah no need to yeah And no need to be a Kalin Savor that one. Dan It's funny. Kalin Savor it. question SethH Yeah, yeah, and and I was, like and I knew I just don't have the time to enjoy this the way I need to. So, yeah, one of these times i'll'll I'll build myself a backlog so I can get some extra reading cycles. So this is part of it, so thanks, guys. Emmanuel and then no need to be ashamed of anything. I haven't read any Tchivkowski yet. So, you know, we all have our demons, our books that we must get to at some point. SethH yeah SethH Yeah, yeah. Kalin Yeah. SethH Yep. Dan I was, SethH I did meet him at Worldcon in 2024, which was very cool. Kalin It's true. Dan I mentioned that you sniped me as well. I was going to use both Bryn and Tchaikovsky as an example, but of kind of a tangential example where in my my case, it was going to be examples of cases where humanity isn't really top dog. Dan I think in a lot of science fiction, we are, we at least position ourselves as the the dominant force. And sometimes we come into opposition with with things bigger than us, but it's rare that we're in cooperation with other species and not as the you know, the figurehead, the leader. Dan And both of those are cases where humanity has a a significant presence, but we're not necessarily the, we're not the king of the hill. SethH Yeah. Yeah. all right. Kaelin, I think you're up. Kalin Yeah. Okay. so my third one is SethH a Kalin is looking at um the way that science fiction can explore different ways of organizing polities or societies, different forms of social organization. And I don't have like a Kalin a two-word summary for that concept. But i when I was thinking about it, I was thinking of the Ursula Gwyn speech, the National Book Award speech that's been quote quoted significantly since she she gave it. and In particular, one of the lines where she says that hard times are coming when we'll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now. SethH Mm-hmm. Kalin And um Emmanuel brought up the the dispossessed, which is one of the classic examples of looking at two different potentially polar opposite societies and and visions for how humans can organize themselves. Kalin um But more contemporarily, the one that I really wanted to to highlight as something that just blew me away was the i'm Terra Ignata series by Ada Palmer, which starts with Two Like the Lightning. Dan Mm-hmm. Kalin um Because it is a a book that really dives into the idea of exploring a plausible future evolution of our political organization at a global level and based on a you know advances in technology that trivialize the our ability to travel across the globe. Kalin And so she you know she hypothesizes about assuming that geography is not destiny, um what is the social, the kind of the social unit of organization at a that that would replace the idea of a nation state, um you know ah as a nation state of people that come together to form a government because by accident, all the people surrounding each other and in those that area forms a country, a nation. Kalin And um so in this future history that she develops, um After technological advances, after global conflict and and political reforms that follow that, the concept of hives are are kind of evolved and developed, which are these these non-geographical nations that have voluntary citizenship. Kalin And that idea of voluntary citizenship really fascinated me. Kalin The idea that, you know, and Hive is a strange name for it, but it's almost like a more complex and a more sophisticated in my biased opinion version of like grouping people by values and by, know, Kalin by inclination the way that, say, like the Harry Potter sorting hat and sorting you know the Harry Potter houses would do. And so you have diff these different hives, and there are seven existing hives at this point in history where her story begins. And there's, for example, the Mitsubishi hive, which is quite ah like a corporate corporatist com commercial hive. There's the Masonic Empire, which is a throwback to um people who want to live in autocracy and have ah an emperor and draws a lot from Roman history and there's the humanists, which apparently is our like ah a combination of ah an Olympic hive, an athletic hive and a pop culture hive that forms humanist hive that leads to Kalin that that valorizes individual human achievement. And there's you know and and so this idea that you know one of the things that I i found interesting about it is how how it didn't inherently rely on um existing forms of political organization for to to kind of map a plausible future society. Kalin and SethH Mm-hmm. Kalin um it really it it really felt like so like it gave me so many new ideas to think about. and um i mean She draws a lot on her history as a historian, as a writer, and you know in a way that the the prose style is is sort of written Dan Thank you. Kalin as if it were an 18th century. um Kalin i you know It has like a lot of eighteenth century philosophy, enlightenment philosophy built into the story. SethH Nice. Kalin um And yeah, it's it's it's not a perfect you know future representation of a global system, but it's by far the most far ranging one that I've encountered. Kalin from the 20th or the 21st century and encourage people to to give it a shot if they're interested in that style of kind of sociologically oriented science sci-fi. Dan I also really liked, the Terry, not a series a lot. SethH Wait, wait, wait, stop. don't Don't start with what I was saying. Just just launch right in. Dan And, um, Especially i I enjoyed the way that she extrapolates beyond just the, like she has the really neat idea and then she extrapolates it both into the positive and the negative. Dan oh Where we have this society that's built on not being geographically locked, but she also goes on to imagine what does a war look like when there's no borders? SethH Hmm. Dan you know When it's literally neighbor versus neighbor, but not not with an easily identifying marker. SethH nice Kalin I will say that I haven't finished the series yet, so my comments are just based on the first two books, but I'm sure that it's it remains just as interesting when you get to that part of the of the narrative. Emmanuel And. Dan Well, i'm I'm looking forward to your comments when you do, because I i really liked i like the series better as a whole than I liked the smaller parts of it. Emmanuel And the center is. SethH Hmm. Hmm. Emmanuel It's interesting you were saying it's written by a historian because as you were talking about it, I just had vibes from you know everything I learned about the French Revolution, that mentality that they wanted their message and what they were doing to be universal, not just for France, it was for all of humanity. Emmanuel And this concept, which is very 18th century, that if you find those core values, it could apply to anyone. Dan so Emmanuel ah is not often seen in in literature after that time period, but it's interesting to see it make a comeback into science fiction so that people can learn about it. Kalin Yeah, I mean, I i will admit to like that my personal worldview, I'm pretty skeptical of the idea that we can move past a groundedness in locality um and local community. But it was fascinating as a thought experiment. SethH All right, I'm up. So i I really doubt anybody else has this on their list. um The broad category, definitely, because it's the idea of time travelers meeting other versions of themselves. SethH And that's been, you know, think like the the diner scene from Looper, right? Where you have the two two people from, one person from different parts of their lives having a conversation. Specifically, what I'm talking about here is what's called called the convention, which is in a book called Man in the Empty Suit by Sean Farrell. Dan Thank you. SethH And but I'm going to try and tread somewhat lightly on spoilers. There's there's one major thing that's on the the inside flap, so you'll you'll know it before you read the book, probably. But um if you like a twisty time travel tale, the man in the empty suit is right up your alley. So it's essentially a birthday party for all versions of this time traveler. They meet every year at this one place and how and in space and time. SethH So there's he's there with younger and older versions of himself. There are strict convention rules. I'll mention a couple of them before I finish here, um just to kind of avoid messing anything up. They have rules. But the main character is 39 years old, and the inciting incident for the book is that at the convention, his 40-year-old self is murdered. Dan Thank SethH And so it becomes kind of a, how how could this happen? Because there are older versions of himself still at the party as well. um and And so it goes in, it it's it's not like a hard science fiction thing where it's really going to break down exactly how that works with the timeline. SethH But it makes an interesting... thing to think about, about what would you say to yourself, right? And of course, that's why you have to have the rules. um I love the idea of all versions of the character showing up at this abandoned hotel in New York in the late 21st century. the The rules, like there's a mysterious rule, it says, stay below the third floor. SethH like Why? I don't know. And then there's there's more obvious ones like, try not to ruin the fun for the youngsters. And another one, gambling makes no sense in the past tense. So no card games at at this. Because, yeah. I'll keep it brief. um I do think it's, you know, it wasn't a an incredible book or anything, but um but I really enjoyed it. and And especially just that part of it. um Because it was ah it was an interesting spin on the time travelers meeting themselves and and what happens in that case. SethH Okay, um we're back up to the top. i think I think this will probably be the last full pick that everybody gets. So if you if you need to prioritize stuff, pick your next favorite one. And and then then I think we'll wrap it up. Dan All right, I'm going to go with an old standby, and that is psychic powers. SethH Okay, Dan, you're up. Dan That's the general. i'll I'll bring it into a more specific, but it's something that we don't see in science fiction as much now as we used to. I think there was a a stretch early on in sci-fi when it was a really popular idea. Dan think John W. Campbell was a big proponent of it, and then we also had like L. Ron Hubbard with his Dianetics and all that. and it's it it For a while, it was it was considered part of part of science, but it's since very much fallen out of favor scientifically and seems to have fallen out of science fiction somewhat. SethH Yes. Dan But we still have a lot of classic examples. um Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man is a a great one. And then you also have, of course, Dune and Star Wars. I'm going to go with going to go with a TV example so so that you're not hanging your own self out to dry with all TV examples. Dan oh I'm going with a TV example that maybe is less common among American sci-fi fans, and that's from Mobile Suit Gundam, the anime series, ah which has new types, which are a kind of psychic empath that in in the fiction, it's theorized to result as a and SethH All right. Dan an evolution from living in space. So people who are primed with this mutation when exposed to life in space develop this kind of psychic empathy with each other. Dan And there's the hope. It's presented as a possible way to avoid war. oh And the Gundam mythos is very much built around a... It's kind of military sci-fi, but Dan regretful military sci-fi it's it's not exactly anti-war but it's very much leaning that direction and with mobile suit gundam the new types are initially seen as a way to maybe move past it like this is a generation we need to protect so that we can move past this but of course the bad actors will instead try to abuse it and that you, as as this timeline moves forward, there are greater dangers and greater weapons that are exploiting new types rather than allowing them to thrive. Dan And it's sometimes overly pessimistic, but I really like that optimism that's baked into it as well. That idea that that we're capable of moving forward and overcoming this this species-wide shortcoming but we really need to protect that part of ourselves in order to get there. SethH Nice. SethH nice Kalin It's interesting that you i pick that more contemporary example. The one that comes to mind for me, also TV, is the Wachowski series Sense8, which was like mid-2010s, very kind of humanitarian look at psychic connection and psychic empathy, like specifically it on empathy, which is very different from that classical psychic powers um trope that was popular with the Campbellates that you mentioned. Kalin And because they were focused on it really as a way of being super, super men and, and stronger than others. Dan Yes. Dan Even when there was empathy in their methodology, oftentimes it was used to sniff out the weaknesses of others rather than Kalin And whereas, Dan um rather than Yes, exactly. SethH Hmm. Kalin Mm-hmm. Psychic powers as an invasion, as an invasion of i mental autonomy or or boundaries. SethH All right. Emmanuel, your final pick. Emmanuel Yeah, so I think I'm going to go with um a concept that I find fascinating but can actually break your brain is time deletion. Dan Oh, yes. SethH Hmm. Emmanuel And that in a it kind it creates moral asymmetry. And the example I have is the Forever War, ah Joe Haldeman. And basically, realistic warfare causes soldiers to age slower than civilians because they are sent away on those ships. Emmanuel And because of relativistic physics, when they come back, maybe they've aged 10 years, but people that did not travel at the speed of light, aid well, they died basically by the time they come back. Dan Thank SethH Yeah. Mm-hmm. Emmanuel So he uses, I find in that novel, ah Haldeman, there's a lot actually some, there's romance in it, but used in a clever way. Emmanuel He uses time deletion to explore the ethical imbalance of relationships. And because, as I said, soldiers, they return to find lovers either aged or dead. Emmanuel And the ah one partner sacrifices time, the other one cannot. And the um that relation, that love between people becomes an artifact of violence and physics. Emmanuel And the because of that, and with my overarching theme of the other, watching the other, the returning soldier becomes that other because he is perfectly changed and is alienated from his own species. SethH Right. Emmanuel And this book is written as a Vietnam War allegory, the returning soldiers being spat at by the the the US civilians when they came back. And that trauma is not just, you know, psychological, it's temporal, it's social, it's real. Emmanuel And um it's, um you know, the in in that novel and the, how can put it? the alien factor, the alien element, is not the enemy. It's that future that you no longer belong to. Emmanuel And it's it it does ask a questions. mean, it's I love the concept of time deletion, and I find it a shame that it's not used properly in a lot of books. And I find that Joe Haldeman does a great job in that one to explore how it would affect us as a society. Emmanuel But it narrows it down to... interpersonal relationships to make it more i would say palatable and because otherwise you know it just gets on such a grand scale that's hard to follow and i just find the concept absolutely fascinating interesting just like you said with the zone of thoughts you know you you it's it's those concepts are bigger than anything we actually experience in our daily lives and i find them very interesting as thought of exercises to see how we could react ourselves in such situation and how it would affect our own vision of ourselves and of others, which as I said to me is the strength of science fiction because it forces you to put yourself into somebody else's shoes in a totally alien situation. SethH Right. Emmanuel you To give um an example from cinema, look at the movie Contact. where they actually talk about that, that you she could go in that ship, Jodie Foster, the character, and travel for four years, but when she comes back, everybody would have it 50 years because of time deletion. And it's something that she has to grasp with and, you know, she has to accept it. And she does. It's not what happens in the movie, but that she accepts that that could this could happen. And I just find the whole idea truly fascinating. SethH Yeah. Yeah, no, and that's that's a big, broad topic. And I i i love that you you picked a very specific aspect of it from the Forever War. Kalin You sniped one of mine with that. SethH Yeah. Kalin i But I had a different example, which is Kimbo Young's novel, I'm Waiting for You. It's part of their her her collection, um I'm Waiting for You and Other Stories, which is phenomenal. and If we're talking translated i translated sci-fi, which is a something that I'm very interested in. Kalin um But yeah, it's it's like this concept of using when when long distance space travel becomes a thing, there's a service that offers time dilation as a way of being able to um to not lose the connection with somebody that you're close to in your life. And so it follows, it's like an epistolary novelette where a series of journals from this person who's trying to um Kalin who's who's waiting for their fiance to get back from a trip and and things go wrong getting back from the trip. And so they continue to skip time through time dilation to the point where they actually surpass the length of their society. Kalin you know their society crumbles before. It's um quite a melancholic story. It's beautiful. um And actually Denis Villeneuve reportedly signed on to direct an adaptation of of the story. So that would be very cool if it happens. Emmanuel It would be, yes. SethH but That sounds like the kind of story that's right up my alley. Kalin i recommend I recommend checking it out. SethH Yeah. Kalin It's beautiful. Emmanuel Yeah, it sounds great. SethH All right. SethH All right. We're down to me. no for My final pick. I think I'm going to go with one that I can't talk about for very long just because it's it's one of those ones I think, Kaylin, when you mentioned start ah of your list is like things where a concept has just stuck in your brain like a splinter. SethH And this one especially. And I don't even know what... how to broadly define it. um And it's the the concept of breach from the city and the city, the China Mievel one. Dan Oh. SethH um Just like the the whole idea of unseeing and unhearing and and stuff where anyone who hasn't read the novel, it's not going to spoil it because because you you have to You have to lock your brain into it in order to to understand what's going on. But that there are these two cities that are side by side in space and even overlap in places. SethH But people from one side don't see them, people from the other. And they're not allowed to, right? They're not permitted to see or hear or acknowledge that the other side is there. unless like the borders actually crossed, I believe. SethH I can't remember. um And there's a police force called breach that, that enforces this. And it's just, it's an idea that I really enjoyed the book mostly because that concept was so big and so, so out there. SethH And so I i don't even know what else I can say about it, but it's, it's amazing concept. Dan It's one that I considered for this as well, actually. um And for me, I think one of the things I find most fascinating about it is that our narrator character, he does see the other side of it, but he convinces himself that he doesn't. SethH Hmm. Dan And there's there's kind of this baked in fear that SethH Right. Dan if you see them, if you acknowledge you see them, they're going to come get you. And so the more you see, the more you need to pretend you don't see. And it's it's kind of a mental prison that they locked themselves in that that is more effective than actual enforcement. SethH Mm-hmm. SethH Yeah. Dan Oh, absolutely. Yeah. SethH Well, I think, you know, that kind of concept has real world analogs in divided political sides, right? Where you you can't acknowledge that the other side made a point. Dan Absolutely. SethH If you if you if you acknowledge that they made that point, well, that's that's a rock out of your wall, right? Yeah. Kalin Well, also just the way that self-censorship can be a form of self-preservation in an authoritarian society and tired that concept of unseeing of of something that is physically there as a an allegory for unseeing the truth in a society that tells you that the truth is dangerous. SethH Yeah. Emmanuel It's SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah. Yeah. Emmanuel Also for a movie recommendation in that segment, it's not science fiction, but it's part of the same themes, is the movie The Life of Others, the German movie on life ah in eastern germany east Germany, because that's exactly how they lived. SethH yeah Emmanuel They knew they were watched all the time, so they take took it for granted. And they would voluntarily either censure themselves or not see what was in front of them because they expect the Stasi, the state police, to basically always be spying on them. Emmanuel And so they have to change their behavior because of that. And that movie shows you that in an amazing way. It's a remarkable movie. And ah so, you know, science fiction has ramifications everywhere. SethH Yeah. Emmanuel Yeah. SethH OK. I do want to do just a really, really brief kind of bring out your data here. But I i want us to make sure not to ah not to hit anything too hard, just because I might want to do another one of these, and I don't want to steal from future panels. SethH um So if you if you have a couple things where you're like, you know, Emmanuel, if you want to talk about things that kind of fit the theme but not go too much into it, um that's fine. um Dan Uh, well, I, I mentioned a couple of mine that got, they were low on my list, but they got sniped from the bottom of my list. SethH i'm not um I might mention a couple of things as well, but we'll start with Dan. Dan So I won't even call them really being sniped, but I'm glad somebody picked them up because I probably wouldn't have gotten to them. Um, there's, there's one that was sort of similar. Emmanuel Thank you. Dan Uh, Kaylin mentioned the, uh, the quantum magician, which I haven't read, but there's a book with a similar title called the quantum thief that I was going to use as a second example in my, um, my merged consciousness, um, Dan concept um and in the quantum thief it is also a you you took the the description almost specifically as it's a far future kind of heist story um but in that one there are these giant computational megastructures that have kind of consumed multiple multiple millions of consciousnesses to become their traveling societies. Dan That was the big one that I didn't get to. SethH Hmm. Okay. All right. Emmanuel. Emmanuel Yeah, i have two. One that I already talked a bit about is the Culture Series by A.N.M. Banks, um always with my theme of exploring the other. And in that post-scarcity utopia, the culture ah sees itself as a civilized and benevolent society. Emmanuel Yet its intentions, especially in the the early books like Use of Weapons or Consider Phlebas or The Player of Games, they expose the arrogance of assuming moral superiority. Emmanuel And Banks' challenges our perception of what it means to be human when AI minds are often more compassionate, rational and ethical than we are. SethH Mm-hmm. Emmanuel and um it reframes, if you want, the us and the them, and because sometimes the corona i do sorry the culture is the colonizer, sometimes the savior, and it revals it it reveals that the perception of the other often masks self-interest and moral blind spot. Emmanuel So I find that this whole series is great at exploring the and the ultimate test of what an enlightened society could be. Emmanuel And the second title I'd like to talk briefly is Planet of the Apes, Pierre Boulle. SethH right. Emmanuel It's the ultimate reversal as a revelation. you know Humanity as a whole becomes the other. Dan Yes. Emmanuel ah you You talked about it before too, Dan. And ah in that famous inversion, the the apes study our intelligent and they study those primitive humans, which is the opposite of what fuck we do. Emmanuel And ah the reader, they have to confront their ah own assumptions about intelligence, civilization and superiority. And Bull uses that satire to expose our fragile pride and how... SethH Yeah. Emmanuel Easily cruelty and prejudice can be justified when we believe that the other is lesser. um And in the the ending, whatever it's on, the movie in the in the book is quite different when it comes to the ending, but they have the same theme is that um dehumanizing is self-desttrust still self-destructive how no matter how you put it and it's um it's also a parable about you know recognition and denial and I just found those concepts in that book very very fascinating more in the book I find in the movie even though the movie is very good SethH Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And for more on that, Emmanuel and I did an entire episode on that book on in my podcast. so And that was fantastic. Emmanuel Yep. SethH All right, Kaelin, quick hit. Kalin Yeah. um So the one that I didn't get to that i I thought I might was the, you know, like there's a big picture theme that runs through a lot of science fiction, which is first contact. SethH Hmm. Kalin And then underneath that, the thing that interests me a lot are attempts at communication communication. Everybody, at this point, everybody knows about Arrival, so I'm not going to talk about it. SethH Mm-hmm. Kalin But the the book that I've read with the most fascinating xenolinguistics as somebody who is is a linguist was China Mieville's Embassy Town. SethH Mm-hmm. Dan Yeah. Kalin um And I'm somebody who, and I think this is like goes for people who are in the hard sciences, which I am not. um You know, the story is like any anybody who's a scientist reads science fiction and if it focuses on their field, they always gnash their teeth and complain about how unrealistic it is. Kalin And I'm sort of like that with with language in sci-fi. SethH Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Kalin But Embassy Town was just so fantastic in its depth of... i cultural um inability to, or even just biological inability to cross link because of the the way that the language, you know, human language and the way that alien language worked in that. Kalin um And the devastating consequences of actually ending up being able to cross that barrier SethH Mm-hmm. Kalin in our in ah in a way that did not align with the best interests of the alien party. Kalin Yeah, so but i I won't go into it anymore because this is the quick shot. SethH Yep. Sounds good. I'll be really brief on mine just because I need to wrap up. my My son is downstairs pounding on chicken breasts for our dinner. So I'm not sure if any of you heard it, but I had to mute. SethH um Okay. um So yeah, a couple really, really quick ones for me. the There's a house in in Hyperion, in one of the the tales in Hyperion, the Farcaster, the the whole idea of the Farcaster house, where each doorway leads to a room on a different world. SethH um And just the idea that you could have one dwelling, but with rooms on multiple worlds is just fascinating to me. Dan you SethH I don't know how doorbells work in that concept, but neither here nor there. um The battle room from Ender's Game, just you know zero G laser tag. It's such a cool idea. SethH And then the net from the Oxford time travel series and the concept of slippage in particular, I think is really fantastic. Just because the idea is like, if you can't get... SethH And and i'm I know that it can be frustrating for people who like a more hard science fiction thing. um But the concept is like, if if you were... you're trying to travel using the net and you're going too close to something important, it just slips you in time or space. SethH And that might end up putting you in the Black Death, or it might end up you putting you in a field of marrows when when you want to be getting near a cathedral. Dan Thank you. SethH And I just, I think that's really interesting. but What was the laugh, Kaylin? Kalin Sorry, it's just um the I am one of those people who just cannot handle the way that Connie Rillis writes her books. And the the the concept of slippage is cool. SethH Okay. Kalin The fact that it's repeated like 70,000 times in Doomsday Book just drove me bananas. SethH Yes. Yeah. SethH Okay. I do understand. Yeah. I get that one. Okay. um Well, you guys, I think this turned out really, really good, really, really well. And um and I think it's going to give some people some stuff to read. SethH Maybe I'll come back and circle back with another group and ah and do another one of these down the line. Dan I'm just agreeing with you. SethH But before we sign off, okay. Dan This is a lot of fun. SethH what Sorry. Did you say something, Dan? SethH yeah Okay, awesome. ah Yeah, and i'll i'll I'll let you all ah kind of sign off. so um So before we actually sign off, if you have anything you want to plug, go for it. Dan um No, I'm just here for the fun of it. SethH So let's start with you, Dan. Dan Thanks for having me. SethH Excellent. Perfect. and thanks And thanks for joining. It was a lot of fun. Yeah. Emmanuel, I think I know what you want to plug. the Emmanuel Well, I'm repeated the SethH Yeah. Emmanuel a on your guest on your show and I we truly appreciate that. It's a lot of fun every time, Seth. So as your listeners know by now, I'm the host of Lafayette We Are Here, French history podcast. You can find it on lafayettepodcast.com or if you're interested more and more into my reading, and movie viewing, you can head to manufoto.com. So M-A-N-U-P-H-O-T-O.com. And you have all the links to my podcast, but also to my story graph in my letterbox. SethH Oh, cool. All right. All right, Kalen, I know you've got something. Kalin Yeah, ah well, um so I am a board member with the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, and we are just about to launch our Aurora Awards, which is like the Canadian version of the Hugos, kind of fan-based community voted awards for sci-fi. Kalin um Dan Thank you. Kalin a retrospective book club that we're launching in January to celebrate a couple years down the road our 50th anniversary. So we're going to be reading a novel a month and I'd just like to extend an invitation to anybody to join that. You don't have to be Canadian, but we will be reading Canadian works. Kalin Canadian winners and that'll be kind of happening through Discord but you can find our or more info at our website kisva.ca that's c-s-f-f-a.ca and i also I also think that we should just plug the Nebula Lugo Discord because that's where we all met each other you know if folks are interested in having the conversation Dan Absolutely, yeah. SethH Yes. Kalin like we're having over text. We are always talking. Dan And it is one of the friendliest places on the internet. Kalin It's a very, very active Discord. It's lovely for that. SethH Yeah. Kalin And Emmanuel Oh, yes. Kalin yeah. SethH Yeah. Kalin um Yeah. and And people are, you know, focused on reading some Huey Owen Nebula books, but um talking about all different sorts of sci-fi, talking about movies that are coming out. Kalin And yeah, it is very friendly and very lovely to... to kind of explore different books in that community space. Emmanuel Yeah, I find people there, not only they have the good hindsight, but they never judge anything. You could love a book and I could hate it and we'll just talk about it. And there is never, ever a bad world. SethH Yeah. Emmanuel I've never seen something like that, especially on the Internet. I mean, of all places, that's where people, you know, behind the safety of the keyboard, they just yell at each other. SethH Right. Dan I agree. Emmanuel Nobody does that on that discord. Dan Absolutely. Emmanuel And I find it really yeah refreshing. SethH All right, guys, this was really a lot of fun, and I'm i'm definitely going to look into doing this again. So if you're out there and you're somebody who thinks, hey, I'd like to do something like that, reach out to me. If you're on the Discord, just send me a direct message. But you can always email me, feedback at hugospodcast.com, and yeah, we'll set something up. SethH All right. Thanks, guys. it's It's a great way to finish out the year, so I appreciate it. Dan Thank you. Kalin It was a pleasure. SethH All right. Yep. Emmanuel Merci Seth. SethH Bye, y'all.