SethH Hi there, and welcome back to the Hugo's There podcast. I'm your host, Seth Heasley, and this time I'm doing just a regular episode where we're talking about an award-winning science fiction or fantasy book. In this case, it's City by Clifford Simak. And my guest is Christine Baker from Hugo History, another podcast akin to what I do. So Christine, thanks for joining me. Christine Thank you for having me. SethH It's great to have you. And I always love it when another project pops up that I can be like, yes, subscribe from the beginning and and get to kind of go back through these as well. So tell tell my listeners about yourself. Christine Um, I am a historian, like I have a PhD in history, and I am also a bit of a sci-fi fantasy nerd, but my nerddom was very focused on, honestly, stuff published in about the last 25 years. SethH Hmm. SethH Hmm. Christine I read sci-fi and fantasy as ah a kid. I'm i'm almost 50 now. And I bounced off, honestly, some Heinlein and some other things like that when I was a teenager, and then I didn't really revisit the genre until... Christine about 25 years ago. And I think because I am a historian, I have this like comp completest need to like understand the genre. Christine And so I have decided as my project for myself that I wanted to go back and read all of the Hugo winners as just ah one way of looking at the chronology, the development of science fiction and fantasy. SethH Nice. Now you're a real pro because you talk right through your cat walking straight across your setup. Christine She doesn't usually do that. That's actually unusual. But yeah, I'm like, all right, I'm just going lean back, let her go through. um SethH Yep. Christine So, yeah I just decided to do this podcast. I knew there were other podcasts out there, like like like ah Seth's podcast. Like, I also love ah Hugo Girl. um But I thought, you know, it was a way to keep me on task in terms of, you know actually reading something regularly. SethH Yeah. SethH Yes. Christine Yeah. I enjoy ah meeting people, making friends. And so it seemed like a nice way to get to meet people, like to do it, you get have a different guest to every month. SethH Yeah. Christine And yeah, it's just a ah fun thing that I'm that I'm doing as my. SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah, and you're you're getting some great guests as well, and and it's it's really... Christine Yeah. Yeah, I'm excited. SethH It's a fun community, so... Christine it it really is. And people are like really willing to say yes. SethH Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Christine Yeah. SethH Yeah, and for me, it's it's fun to go back through some of these because they're they're books that I haven't read in several years at least. Christine Sure. SethH um And so to to hear a different take on one, and, you know, sometimes it's like, oh, okay, I like that one a lot better than she did. Christine Yeah. SethH But it's fine, you know? Christine Yeah. Well, and also because like I don't have like the depth or the breadth of knowledge about the genre. um And so a lot for the for me, a lot like I'll have someone on who knows a lot more about it. SethH Hmm. Christine They'll be like, have you read this? Have you read this? I'm like, no, no, no um But but it's I also feel myself developing at least some of that as I go further through. SethH Yeah, yeah. I definitely had a lot of that. Christine And that's that's fun, too. And that was sort of why I wanted to do this. SethH Yeah, and i think doing it in order too, you you get to see the genre progress. but the The way I did it randomly, it was a little harder to latch onto that. Christine Yes. Christine Yeah. And somebody, I think in your Discord, asked me why I was doing it in order. And part of it is like, I'm a historian. That's just how I do things chronologically. So it just, you know, I had read a couple of couple randomly along the way, like, oh, I'm going to go back and read Ringworld or something. SethH Yeah, exactly. Christine And I was like, no, I got to like do this in a way that I can see like... SethH Sure. Christine systematically and be able to think about like the historical context of what was happening when these were written like what were they reacting to and stuff like that that that's really what makes it interesting well they're interesting on their own most of the time but that that is something that adds interest for me SethH Right, right. SethH Yeah. For the record, it's not my discord. I'm just living in it. um It's, ah you know, Matthias is the boss there. Christine oh oh i did not realize okay oh SethH So um I'm just an evangelist for it. So I'm a recent convert and and i still have the zeal. So, yeah. Christine Oh, amazing. Okay, cool. i I literally thought it was yours. SethH Nope. Just one I play around in. So it's it's a lot of fun, though. Christine Nice, nice. It is, you know, I've only been on it for about a week. It's a lovely community. SethH Yeah, it is. All right, let's talk a little bit about City. i don't know if yeah I know that you usually give a little bit of a kind of a bio of the the author, and I think if people want to hear that, they'll hear it in your forthcoming WayStation episode. Christine It's true. Yeah. I mean, I can give, I can talk just a tiny bit about it. SethH Okay, so... Sure, yeah, go for it. Christine um So, Simak is someone who is really known for writing, like, pastoral science fiction, um that a lot of his books are sort of set in, like, more rural areas, right? SethH Hmm. SethH Hmm. Hmm. Christine Um, he was, you know, he, he is a guy who was from rural Wisconsin. he was born in 1904. He was married to the same woman for more than 50 years. Uh, he worked as a journalist. So he actually lived most of his life in Minneapolis. He worked for the Minneapolis star and, Christine Yeah, he started writing, you know, science fiction, and he ah he, I think he was first published by Hugo Gernsback, and then eventually ended up having a lot of things published in Astounding. Christine And, you know, though the, I guess the, what is the name of the book that won the Hugo? SethH Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. Christine Waystation, sorry. SethH Waystation. Yeah. Christine um His book, Here Gather the Stars, or also known as Waystation, did win a Hugo for novel, but this book's city is also known as sort of like one of his best works. SethH Yeah. Yeah, this is one that I've been hearing about for a really long time and and was wanting to get to. And so when we first connected, I was like, we've got to figure out a way to collaborate. And I let me try that again We've got to figure out a way to collaborate. SethH And you know I thought I could come on yours and do one of the you know the early books or something, but it would be me revisiting something where my thoughts are already on the internet about it. you know And there are a couple of titles I wouldn't have minded revisiting just because I kind of bounced off them a little bit. Christine Yes, yeah. SethH But then the worry is it's going to happen again. Christine Sure, yeah. SethH And that wouldn't be a lot of fun. Christine Yeah. SethH Yeah. Christine yeah it's Yeah, it's interesting. I already kind of wish that I could redo a couple of episodes, and I'm only like 10 episodes in. SethH Yeah. yeah um But you mentioned a couple titles and City was one of them. And i thought I thought, yes, let's do that. It fits in my format because it's an International Fantasy Award winner from 1952. SethH And the International Fantasy Award was eventually sort of turned into the World Fantasy Award. So if you get a copy of the book, it might say winner of the World Fantasy Award just because it's you know sort of the same thing. Christine Yeah. SethH um Christine And I... SethH and ah And I think the the first story that the collection, because this is a fix-up novel of of interconnected short stories, but the first story is called City, and I think it's one of the longer ones, um was also an award winner. Christine Yes. Christine Yes. Christine Yes. SethH I was trying to look it up ah surreptitiously. I don't know if you did. Christine Sure. Yeah, I think that they, I think, I think the short story City got a Retro Hugo 1945 for nineteen forty five for best Novelette. SethH Yeah, yeah, published in 1944. I just found that. Christine so sorry yeah nineteen forty five retro hugo SethH So, yeah, and then for the 1945 retro hukos, because they're for the next year. Christine yes And i I actually decided to read the the... I read this book very early on in my journey because I was reading... ah oh my brain. What is the but the first Hugo? SethH Oh, The Demolished Man. Christine Oh, The Demolished Man. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine So I had read The Demolished Man for the very first episode and um ah for your listeners, if you have not read The Demolished Man, there's like just like weird Freudian sex stuff in there. SethH Oh yeah. Christine And I thought to myself, i need to read a few more books published this year to understand like, is this part of just the age or is this its own unique thing? Christine So this was one of the books that I picked out because it was in Jo Walton's, her her ah sort of retrospective on all of the Hugos that she publishes over at Reactor. SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah. Christine And she mentioned this being a really great book, and so I picked it up for that reason. And it does not have weird sex stuff in it, which I appreciate. SethH It is true. Yeah. um So yeah, maybe we should just talk a little bit about what is this book? So you want to describe it? Christine Sure. So this book was, it was published as a series of short stories over several years, basically over World War ii And then it was published as ah a fix-up. Christine And when it was published as a fix-up, they Simak added introductions to each of the chapter each of the chapters. SethH Yeah. Christine and so The story is, the book is basically a, it's set in a world where there are no people, there are no humans, but dogs are the sort of the dominant species. Christine They can talk, they are as intelligent as people, they have technology, they mostly have robots to do things that require thumbs. And they basically, you are getting bunch dog scholars debating these different short stories, which were basically ah kept as oral histories. SethH right Christine And they are debating how much history they contain versus sort of myth. And they talk about, you know, they talk about people in the story in the stories, and the dog scholars debate, like, we don't know if this is really real or if this is, like, a fiction that our early dog ancestors made up as, like, ah a symbol of their god. SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah. Christine And so it's this it's the story of, honestly, like, humans leaving... SethH Yes. Christine earth and sort of moving off into other planets and dimensions and earth being taken over by dogs and um sort of like how that progresses. SethH Yeah. SethH Yes. Christine It's very interestingly done, I think. SethH It is, yeah. The introductory notes to each story remind me of, you know, like a biblical scholar saying, you know, looking at the fragments of Papias or something. Christine Yes. SethH And, you know, and they say things like, you know, this one shows ah certain dogish origin, you know, because of the use of this language, you know. Christine Yeah. Yeah. SethH Yeah. Christine It is, yes, it is amazing. SethH Yeah. Christine i I think that that is the thing that really got me, because again, like I am a historian, so like I am used to reading like analyses of primary sources and stuff, and he just, like he nails it. SethH Yeah. Christine like It's just so, like it's it's like almost like a little like historiographical introduction where they're like, you know, this tale is is really difficult for the casual reader, like that uses a lot of words that you might not be familiar with. SethH even Christine Its ideas are like quite alien. SethH Right. Christine There aren't actually dogs in this story, but and it like we'll go on to give you like different dogs and their theory about what this story means. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine And I just I love it. SethH Yeah, and and it's funny when, you know, it'll refer to this respected, you know, scholar, known dog in the past named Rover, you know, or something. Christine Yes, it's like Rover and Tig are like the two really big scholars. SethH Yeah. Christine It's great. SethH Mm-hmm. Yes. but the And the first intelligent dog, dog of course, was Nathaniel. So that's, you know after that point, they started getting regular names, it seemed like. Christine Yes. Yes, human names, yeah. SethH Yeah, yeah. um Yeah, let's see. Where do we go from there? SethH The... Christine I mean, i don't know if you want to talk about it, like, i don't know if you want to talk about them sort of story by story. That might get a little long because there's eight. We could sort of talk about, like, larger themes. Yeah. SethH Any way you want to do it is fine with me. um you know We could talk briefly about each story. like Like you said, it's eight stories plus an extra one that was tacked on later. Christine Yeah, I just worry that it'll be a little it'll be a little long if we do it that way. SethH Yeah. Yeah. um You know, it's a pretty clear progression in, in what's happening. Right. um Because, it and I guess the thing I wanted to say was that the, the interstitial stories with the, the, the notes about them are kind of humorous in the way they're written. SethH Right. Because, because you're reading this as a human talking about were humans myths or were they real? um Christine Yes. And and that is what sorry come on SethH And, and no, no, no, go ahead. Go ahead. Christine and and that is part of what I liked. because like So i am my area of specialization in history is medieval history, but I also teach a lot of ancient history classes. SethH Yeah. Christine And you are often teaching things where we have... you know, like we will have different kinds of primary sources, like Christine And we are trying to figure out what it all meant, like, especially if it's about a society that predates writing. And I always tell my students, it's kind of a joke, but like if if scholars don't understand the thing, they always decide that it has quote unquote ritual significance. Christine Cause it's like, if we don't get it, it must be religion. SethH Right. Christine Yeah. SethH Yes. Christine And so I thought that was really funny that they're like, they're like okay, we've got this this man thing and what is that? And like we don't really think that existed. And let's figure out how do we, since since we think it's it's clear, there's no evidence of man. Christine um We need to come up with an explanation for like why our ancestors would have created this figure and what it meant to them. SethH Right. Christine And like it just feels so true about the way that we analyze sources in ancient history. SethH Yeah. Christine I thought it was great. SethH Yeah. Christine but SethH it It kind of reminded me of, ah you know, if you look at TikTok or YouTube shorts, people taking history things, especially religious people, um that they'll they will find, you know, or this is a clear sign of the return of Christ, you know, the war in Iran, you know, or or whatever. Christine Sure. SethH and And they'll take ridiculous AI videos of of a land formation that looks like Noah's Ark, you know. and And I think this is, it's so dumb, but there's enough of it out there that a segment of the population is going to just buy it wholeheartedly and not question it. Christine Oh, man. SethH And over time, you know, some of that stuff could come down and that's what gets recorded. Christine Oh, man. Yeah. ah i I try and avoid the TikToks myself. I feel like a lot of the a lot of the things like the TikToks, those are real ephemeral in terms of like what's going to make it into the historical record. SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah. SethH True, true. Christine And maybe I'm ah i'm a little bit happy about that. SethH Yeah. SethH Yes. Yeah. Christine So, I mean, there's like there are a couple of themes that I thought was interesting, and I'd be sort of curious what you thought about them if you want to kind of organize it like that. SethH Sure, sure. Yeah, let's do it. Christine So one of the things that happens in one of the stories is that humans have gone to Jupiter and they, you know, Jupiter is not, and would not be an easy planet to live on. SethH Yeah. Christine And instead of trying to like, terraform Jupiter or something they are trying to change humans into something that can live on Jupiter and so they are they have this like machine i think they call it like a manipulator that turns the humans into they call them lopers they don't really describe what it is but it's basically a being that can live on Jupiter and this might be a spoiler yes yes SethH Right. SethH Right. and And you have to keep in mind, this is 1940s Jupiter, but you know, before we knew all that much about and the actual nature of it. Christine Yeah, but this... SethH Planetary science came along and spoiled a lot of fun. Christine It really did. um And this is a bit of a spoiler for the story, but the basically like they keep sending people out as these lopers and they keep not returning. Christine And so they're concerned that they're dying. SethH Right. Christine And so eventually the person in charge of the project is like, I can't send people out to do this on their own. SethH Yeah. Christine And so he has himself and his dog transformed into these lopers. SethH Yeah. Christine And what they learn is that the reason that nobody is coming back is that it is so awesome to be a loper. SethH Yeah. Christine um Like, they just have this incredible brain connection. SethH yeah yeah Christine Like, you completely understand all of your companions. You're, like, not tied down by, like, I don't know, like, physical reality. And it's just, like, you can just, like, run around and, like, they come to a waterfall and it sounds like music. SethH Yeah. Christine And it's just, it's amazing. And so eventually this guy comes back and there's this concern about telling the world about... what it's like to be a loper because then every human is just going to want to do that. Christine It's going to be an extinction event for humanity. And I thought this was an interesting point, but like I, in a million years, do not think that every single human would choose to become a loper, no matter how good you said it was. SethH No, definitely not. Mm-hmm. Christine You know, SethH Yeah, i'd I'd be curious. I'm not sure I agree. mean, not every single human, right? Christine Yeah, well, I mean, because, like, in the book, it's it's almost all of them. SethH um Christine There's just, like, a very tiny human community left in Geneva. SethH In Geneva, yeah. Christine But basically, almost everyone does decide to do this. SethH Yeah. Christine And that was that was something that I found... SethH Mm-hmm. Christine a little bit strange and you know some of it might come from the fact that again he is publishing this during world war ii like during this really horrible time that it's like well of course if we had this like paradise um where it was amazing to be a human or it was sorry it was amazing to just be and all you had to do was leave your humanity behind that would be great um but yeah i didn't quite SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah. Well, and equally it would be, it would be nice. And this is kind of jumping from that theme onto another one it is, is if somebody came along, a philosophy came along that, that made people stop killing each other and, and, you know, kind of united humanity a little bit. Christine sure sure Christine Yes. Christine Yes. Yeah. So, yeah. So there's this, there's this philosophy that, don't, they almost describe like people catching it like a, like it's a virus. um I thought like more than just a philosophy, but yeah, this, this, this idea of how to understand other people to not just understand SethH Yes. Christine like see their perspective but to be able to completely feel it like it almost feels like a precursor to grok um from stranger in a strange land um and it then once you completely understand another person or being like you're obviously not ever going to hurt them and so this leads to the end of violence SethH Yes, very much. SethH Yeah. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine um And that, I mean, sad to say, that didn't sound that realistic to me either. Not that, like, I want to judge sir like science fiction by its realism, but I was, like, one of those points where I was like, i am not sure. SethH No. SethH Right. Christine Well, and... SethH It's a nice idea that a philosophy could come around and fix us. Christine And fix... Yeah, exactly, that there is... SethH But I think if you look at the history of of what religions have done, and i'm I'm a religious person, it's not a good track record. Christine Yes. Yeah, that idea is, like, even if you think you have one idea that is, like, super clear, that means, like, what I mean? Like, just think about, you the Bible. Thou shalt not kill. Christine ah Humans are really good at coming up with loopholes, you know? SethH Right. Seems pretty clear. Yes. Christine Like, oh, well, I shouldn't kill, like, these people, but I can kill those people. SethH Yeah. Christine um And, like, the thing about violence I thought was i thought was interesting because SethH Yes. Yeah. Christine i I couldn't tell if Simak was... i couldn't tell exactly what he was trying to argue there, because once the dogs really embrace nonviolence, which also to me makes them, like... SethH Mm-hmm. Christine Dogs... It just... Dogs without any kind of, like, violence seemed weird to me, because dogs are... I have a dog. I love dogs. SethH Yeah. Christine But, like, they are not... yeah yeah Anyway, they they just seem like they like to like you know they like to grapple. They like to fight. It just seems that like completely weird that they would not do that at all. um But... SethH Yeah, they're not going to chase squirrels anymore. I'm pretty sure they are. Christine I know. Well, you can chase them. You just can't catch them and kill them. SethH Right. And they still were doing that, right? Christine It's gotta to be a... Yeah, yeah. SethH Yeah. Christine But he seems to be implying that once you reach a point where everyone understands each other and no one is violent, then... Christine like those societies can no longer progress like there were a couple of different points where he seemed to be implying that like you needed like the friction the conflict um striving to be able to like get ahead and so i i wasn't sure what he wanted the reader to conclude from um SethH The striving, yeah. Christine um SethH Yeah. Mm-hmm. Christine And again, he's writing during the World War twoi So he had lived through World War I as a kid and now he is he is ah you know living through World War II and he's looking around. And I can see him wanting to hypothesize a future society where we have figured out how to not be violent. But I was just a little surprised at these and maybe this idea that like we need the violence to kind of, again, to like push us towards progress or something like that. SethH Yeah, I'm not sure that I can help with with what his point was there. Christine Yeah, I just wasn't sure if you had noticed anything that made you think anything about about that. SethH so Christine Because I was like, does he like the dog society? SethH I definitely noticed that... Christine Is that good? SethH Yeah, yeah, because i mean it it gets a little mixed up because it's not just... you know Once you have no killing, then every population of animal is... overproducing, right? they don't They don't have the balances. Christine Yes. SethH And and so that becomes a ah plot point at some point as well. Christine Yes. Christine It does, yeah. SethH um And you know the philosophy stuff is interesting because of course we don't get any soliloquies from Juane, the guy who's who's propounding this philosophy. SethH And it's a sad story because he's on Mars and and it's it's probably a good idea to mention that there are humans on other planets. Christine Yes. SethH But but on Earth, they're starting to to dwindle, move out of the cities and kind of separate. Christine Yes. SethH It reminded me, did you read dumb Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky? Christine Yes. Yeah. SethH um Where it's like the the last remnants of humanity. Christine i i A bunch of this reminded me of Tchaikovsky. Different Tchaikovsky's. SethH it Yeah, yeah. and And Jenkins reminded me of UnCharles Christine Yeah. SethH um from that book. Christine Yeah. SethH And there's there's this guy on on Mars who has this philosophy that he's working on. Christine Yeah. so SethH He's on the verge of a breakthrough and believes that this philosophy will move humanity forward 100,000 years and two generations. um Unfortunately, he falls ill and needs emergency surgery from somebody in the Webster family. And that's that's another thing to mention is that the the main human point of view characters are all from this family. SethH And unfortunately, the Websters have gotten to the point where they're so insular that they never leave their homes. and And it's a ah ah kind of agoraphobia that's just, he can't get over it. Christine Yeah, like and and the Webster in question, he had actually traveled to Mars. He had like worked on Mars, but then he comes home and he can't convince himself to leave. SethH Yeah. Christine That seems like ah a theme that we see in a lot of CMAX work. SethH Yeah. Christine this Not necessarily the ago agoraphobia, but this desire to not be in cities or population centers. SethH Yeah. Away from home. Christine There's a lot of anxiety about that kind of thing. SethH Yeah. The tragic thing I thought there was it seemed like Webster had just was stealing himself to, okay, I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. And then he finds out that Jenkins, his valid, his valid robot had gone out, gone out and said, no, no, no, you can all leave. SethH He's not going. Christine Yes, like that, yeah, Jenkins had made this decision for him because Jenkins knew him and, but he, yeah. SethH Yeah. Yeah. And Christine And that this is something that, yeah, but, and this is something that he regretted and like of generations on, it was known that like this, you know, this Webster had cost humanity this possible breakthrough. SethH and he was probably right. SethH Yeah. Yeah. So Joanne dies and the philosophy is incomplete. And so the other, so there's, there's humans, the small group of humans that, you know, most of them in Geneva, there's usually somebody at the Webster house until a certain point where there is not any longer. And then there are the mutant humans as well, who I always pictured Walton Goggins from Fallout when I pictured the Joe, um who's this. the The mutant humans are loners. They don't really have community. Christine Yeah, we only really hear about Joe, so I don't even know how many there are. SethH Yeah. Right. We were given to understand from Jenkins that there there is a community of them, sort of, but they're all kind of doing their own things. Christine yeah SethH But it turns out he was wrong about that as well, um because they up and left as well. Christine Sure, yeah. Yeah. Well, so that's one of the other things about the book that's sort of interesting is that you have you have mutant humans and then also mutant robots. Christine I mean, he doesn't call them mutant robots. SethH Yes, wild robots. Christine I guess they call them wild robots. SethH Yeah. Yeah. Christine um So, yeah, you have this Webster family that lives in this house. SethH Yeah. Christine And we basically meet one of the early Websters when, like... Cities are falling apart because I love this part that um with the invention of planes, everybody just has their family airplane like you would have a family car. Christine So like you don't have to live in a city. SethH Yeah, or atomic helicopters, yeah. Christine Yeah, you can just, like, fly wherever you want to. And then they've also figured out ways to grow everything, like, hydroponically. So, like, nobody really grows stuff, like, in the ground. So people just live wherever they want to. SethH Right. Christine And so cities are dying. um And it's sort of like this one guy who really likes... his sort of like his house, his place that he lived, this you know this Webster that creates this original community where he he basically Christine he teaches the dogs to talk like there's also like surgeries involved so like their voice box like there's there's some waving at the fact that we know that dogs don't have the the anatomy to form words um one of the websters teaches the dogs to talk to like keep him company SethH Right. SethH right SethH Yeah, I wasn't totally sure if it was just a companionship thing or just the idea of uplifting dogs sounded great to him. um and And the idea of passing things on to them because humans were kind of on the wane. Christine sure SethH But yeah, his modifications breed true, right? And so so ah i couldn't I couldn't make out if all dogs had to have those special contact lenses so that their eyes could, you know, so they could read. SethH and They could see in two dimensions. Christine Yeah, it it it felt like in the beginning they needed to have like these interventions, but then over time they were like, they grew in in some way and they and they were passed down. SethH Yeah. Christine don't know. Yeah, I don't know. That part. SethH Yeah. Christine I mean, like you know this this is not in any way hard sci-fi, so he's not really explaining any of the tech. SethH No, definitely not. Christine um He tells you enough to kind of like... make it seem, I don't even know if plausible is the right word, enough that you can be like, all right, we'll go along with this. SethH hmm. Christine um SethH Yeah. One of the stories that sets up a lot of the rest of the book is the third story, Census, where there's a guy, grant this guy, Grant, who's going around interviewing people and interviewing dogs as well. SethH He interviews the dog, Nathaniel, who that's one of the ones where they say Nathaniel was a real person, you know, the historical Nathaniel. Christine Yeah. SethH right There's probably treatises on it. um Christine Mm-hmm. SethH And he encounters Joe, who at first I thought was a robot. Because it seemed to be very long-lived. Christine Yes. Christine Mm-hmm. SethH But no, he's he's an um he's just a mutant. And um he had, i think, he had helped with the perfection of the interstellar rocket. Christine Yes. SethH He had looked at somebody's design and said, here's the problem. So the mutants are very smart. Christine Yeah, so joe yeah Joe the Mutant had basically given like the spark that solved the problem of this interstellar rocket. SethH Mm-hmm. SethH Meanwhile, Grant has the Jouane philosophy, the incomplete Jouane philosophy with him. And Joe looks at it. Christine Which I also think is completely weird. SethH Yeah. ah Is it a book? Christine Is it the only copy? SethH It's a spiral bound notebook. Christine He seems concerned when it gets stolen. SethH Yeah. No, they did they they had atomic powered helicopters, but no electronic media storage. So. Christine Yes, just not even photocopiers, I guess. I don't know. SethH Yeah. Christine Yes. SethH Yeah. um And he reads it and says, oh, yep, he's he's close, but it wouldn't have worked anyway. um And then he takes it. Christine Yes. SethH and And so now now it's not available to humans. But then the mutants end up giving it to humans at at a time where it kind of screws everything up somehow. And I'm not sure how that worked. Christine Yeah, they like, somehow Joe figures out, just like with the rocket, he sees like where Duane the Martian went wrong with this philosophy of human understanding. And ah doing a lot of hand-waving here, he figures it out and he fixes it and maybe somehow puts this idea in a kaleidoscope? Yeah. Christine That if you look through the kaleidoscope, you automatically, it's like you have this this philosophy downloaded into your brain. SethH Right. Christine Like... SethH i reread that passage trying to make out exactly if the if that's what he was saying, was that the kaleidoscope was doing that. Christine I, that's what I got. Like I, so I had notes from the first time I read it, like, you know, about a year ago and I reread it and I was looking at my notes and I just, there were so many question marks in that section. SethH Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Christine Cause I was like, a kaleidoscope is really an excellent, like symbol of like seeing things from different perspectives, but then to be like, no, we're going to actually have it like almost implant this new idea in your brain. Christine Like once you've looked through it, you, you, you understand, you grok um this concept. SethH Right. Yeah. And I think, you know, the the idea is that that um the idea is that that then affected people and made them vulnerable to then the the preaching about the paradise in Jupiter and and got them all to leave and on mass. Christine Oh. SethH Right. Where the the Webster character who was trying to suppress the knowledge of Jupiter was essentially saying, you know, don't do this now. SethH Like we're, humanity is making strides and, and you know, we we might come out of this okay. Christine Yeah. SethH And it'd be a shame to trade that for an unknown, you know, that's on on Jupiter. Christine Yeah. Christine Yes. Yeah, that we... Yeah, that he again, he talks about it like it's this extinction event for um for humans. SethH Yeah. Christine And I guess... I guess he was... I guess... Like, he literally... Webster at like at one point... Okay. Starting over. Yeah. Christine The guy who was turned into a loper, like a person who could live on Jupiter, um Fowler, he eventually returns. SethH Fowler. Christine So, like, I think that's in, like, the third story and then, like, maybe in the fifth story, he comes back and he becomes a human again. SethH Yes. SethH Yeah. Christine And he is meeting with Webster. This Webster is, like, the... He is the chairman of a world committee. And um Fowler is basically trying to explain to him that... SethH Right. Christine All humans need to become lopers because they're going to be really, really happy. But Webster is, he literally says, like, I don't know what to tell people because I can't tell people that Jupiter is this paradise that will literally be the end of humanity. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine And, like, at the same time, they're having this celebration to celebrate 125 years since there has been murder in the solar system. SethH Yeah. SethH Right. Christine So, like, he is looking at about how humans are progressing. um and like he doesn't want he doesn't want them to sort of like give up on being humans. SethH Yeah. Yeah. Christine It's... I mean, and he talks a little bit there about having like a racial heritage and a racial destiny, which I think reads in a slightly different way today. um SethH It does. Yeah. Christine But i I understand there that is more thinking about how Christine I think one of the themes of C-Max work is sort of like, what does it mean to be human in a larger sort of like solar system that maybe is made up of aliens and all kinds of things that humans don't understand. SethH Yeah. Christine um That is definitely something you see in Waystation. um SethH Yes. Christine And so it seems to me like in this way, at least Webster is like, no, we have to stay human. Whereas, Christine none, like, nobody in the book ends up really staying who they are. Like, the dogs become really un-dog-like in their attempt to sort of, like, avoid all violence. SethH Yeah, yeah. Christine You know, like, again, like, they can't even kill, like, squirrels and birds. They even have this conversation, like, are we allowed to kill fleas? Nobody likes fleas. You know? SethH Yeah, exactly. Christine um and We haven't talked about this yet, but we also end up with an ant civilization. SethH Yes, I was going to mention that about Joe, because that's something that he starts as well. Christine That was... Yeah. Yeah, so Joe the mutant had been experimenting with ants to sort of see, like, they seem to have built this really complex civilization, but, like, why have they never developed further? Christine And he has this, he basically does a bunch of stuff and he realizes it's, like, every time they go and, like, hibernate over the winter, they forget everything that they've learned, so they always have to start over. SethH It's a reset. Yeah. Christine And so he basically creates, like, a dome that's warm so, like, they don't have to hibernate. And so then the ants get really, really smart. SethH Yeah. Christine um And then they also sort of start taking over the world. um SethH Right. And that's one of the interesting things. Christine I was not... Yeah. SethH it It looked very crass as well, because Joe has done this experiment and he's seen that now they have machines, right? Christine Yeah. SethH You can you can see like coal fires or something going on under that dome. Christine Yes. Christine Yes. SethH And then he steps and breaks the dome. And you you think, oh, that's terrible. You just destroyed everything in your experiment. But no, what he did was he released them back into the world to take those ah those advancements into the rest of the species. Christine Yeah. Christine Yeah, and again... SethH But you don't realize that until quite a bit later. Christine Yeah, and that it is the fact that he released them, he, like, broke the dome open that made them have to sort of, like, sort of fight to sort of create their... Christine so Like, know what I mean? Like, it it gave them something to fight against, and so that is Yeah. SethH Yeah, it gave them a new population pressure, right, or or or adaptive pressure. To talk about it in evolutionary terms, right? Christine Yeah, it is... SethH it Christine Yeah. Like, nobody ends up... SethH Yeah. Christine This is not a happy story. Like, it's not like a super... SethH No. Christine You're not, like, hit in the face with it, but, like, when you think about where everyone ends up, like, nobody ends up in a particularly good place. SethH Right. Christine Um, I... SethH and And I found that i throughout, I was like, oh, I expected there was going to be a golden age of humans and dogs living together and being able to communicate. Christine No, yeah. Yeah, so so basically what happens with the dogs is that, um again, another Webster descendant, he is living in this human enclave of Geneva, and he decides that humans are too screwed up, and that dogs need a chance to, like... Christine be the dominant species and he does something to basically close off geneva and also somehow eliminate all evidence of man um which is how um which is how we get to the point where the story is like that the dogs are trying to figure out if man ever existed SethH Yeah, yeah. Christine um SethH Well, he was writing a comprehensive history, right? Christine oh yes oh geneva that's right yeah SethH And and and so then basically he just destroys his own work. And and i I can't remember he gave Jenkins the robot, you know, an order to to help suppress this because he clearly is helping kind of with that. Christine Yeah, he I think he definitely explained his idea to Jenkins that that he needs to, like, that that humans have screwed up and dogs need to have a chance. SethH Yeah. Christine Yeah. Mm-hmm. SethH Yeah, and it's funny because he travels from Geneva back to the Webster house and he goes there and he encounters a dog named Ebenezer who wants to jump up in his bed and snuggle, right? Christine yeah SethH Like dogs want to do And Ebenezer says to him, I like it here. And Webster thinks he's saying in the house. And what he means is on Webster's lap. Christine Yes. SethH and And I don't know if that, you know, that that's that's the the golden age that I want, you know, dogs and humans, right? they' they're They're best friends, man's best friend for a reason, but we don't ever really get that. Christine Yeah. No, and like, you know, um John is the Webster who we are dealing with in this section of the book, and he basically talks about how, like, Christine i think I think I wrote this down. I think it's a quote that he he says that human life is a senseless paradise. That, you know, he, like, humans want for nothing. Christine um They don't have government anymore because, like, everybody has more than they need. And so who needs to like, to have government? Like, religion has disappeared. The family unit has fallen apart because you don't need, like, any kind of provider or protector. Christine Yeah. SethH yeah Christine And, you know, John has been working on this history of Geneva, and he's like, no one's ever going to read this because, like, nobody needs to read this. And his, I don't know, a woman that he had a child with, I don't know who it's Sarah is, ex of some kind, you know, she's an artist and she, like, paints all these things, but it's like no one... SethH Yes, is X of some kind. Christine I guess everyone's just in their... They're just in their own little... Like, we don't really get other people, but it's like, there's no community. Like, because everybody has everything they need... SethH Yeah. Christine Like, this part doesn't... This is the part that doesn't hold together for me at all. That this idea that, like, because everyone has everything they need, then they're just, like, just doing one thing on their own and not even talking to other people? SethH Mm. Christine Like... SethH Yeah. Christine it It seemed really, it seemed a little bit strange to me. And so, SethH Yeah, it didn't seem like there was anything and that would inevitably lead to that. Christine yeah, exactly. but this, oh man. I mean, this does seem to be a concern in science fiction. I can't think of what books it is, but I've definitely read other books where they are probably SethH Childhood's End, definitely. Christine Okay, I haven't read that. But where they're they're playing with this idea of like, what would it like to be a be a person if all of our needs were met and we didn't have to like work or whatever. SethH OK. Christine And there does always seem to be this concern that humans would just become like... Basically, you would just, like, sit in front of a TV and just, like, eat and just not and just not ever do anything. SethH Yeah. Christine Like, sort of, like, the walle the wall-y image of of humans on those ships. SethH Yeah, yeah. Christine And that has never made sense to me. i feel like when people don't have to, like, you know, people don't have to, like, worry about, like, feeding themselves, I think a lot of people would do really cool stuff. Christine um i don't I don't understand this argument that humans would just become completely passive and would do nothing but watch, like, TikTok videos until they, like, melted into their couch. SethH Yeah. Christine um Like, you can watch a lot of TikTok videos and still have other time of the day to, like, do interesting stuff. SethH Yeah. Christine You know, like... SethH Yeah, if you don't have to be working 45 hours, 60 hours a week. yeah i mean i I do get some of the... Christine Yeah. SethH like in Childhood's End definitely has this in it. This is an Arthur C. Clarke novel where art kind of starts disappearing. Christine Yeah. SethH The you know the idea of the starving artist, right? that A lot of... really good art, you know, jazz and and the blues, you know, comes out of suffering, right? But, you know, not every kind of art comes out of suffering and striving. Christine Yeah. And like a lot of times I think that like there are a lot of artists who could make a lot more art if they didn't have to starve all the time. SethH Yes. Christine but Like I guess there is there's this idea that Again, like, we need the violence or discomfort or the struggle in order to, like, develop. That's something that we're seeing. Christine And so maybe maybe what Ciamak is trying to say is, like, he feels like he's caught because he's he is, as a person, is living through World War II where he's seeing all this fighting and... SethH Yeah. Christine He is thinking, what would it be like to live in a society that had completely left violence behind, and he can't convince himself that it would be better? Christine and That's a real bummer. SethH Yeah, maybe. Yeah, yeah. Christine Yeah. So, a thing that I completely didn't understand about the book that I'm wondering what you thought was, um, the cobleys? SethH One other. Christine Okay. SethH Yes, I was just about to to move us to talk about those. Christine Okay. SethH I feel like there's there's a little bit of, and I've criticized other books for being cat books because I'm a dog person and and i've I've never connected with cats. Could be because I'm allergic, but I've never seen the utility of them. Christine Sure. i mean, that doesn't... SethH um So Christine i like ah for For the listener, ah some of my cats are literally coming over as if to be like, what? SethH yes, they're they're shocked and they're like, wait, you're friends with this guy? Christine But we are we are a delight. SethH Yes, yeah. um but But here, I wonder if Simak, because he intimates that dogs have always had a form of ESP. And there are cute videos that you can see of dogs you know waiting at the window, even though you know their dog parent has not left work yet, but they will be home shortly, right? Christine Yes. Yes. SethH um and And so the idea is here that that dogs have some for some the form of listening that they do, and they're hearing other worlds. They're hearing other dimensions. SethH that that share space but not you know reality. Christine Yeah. SethH And I wonder if that's his explanation for dogs barking at absolutely nothing, which my dogs do all the time. Christine Oh. Our dog does too. We we say that he's reporting dog crimes. SethH OK, I will use that one. Christine it was We live on the fifth floor of a building and like he's looking out the window and we're like, sir, those dogs are allowed to be on the sidewalk five stories below us. And he's like, dog crime! SethH Wow. Yep. Yep. Christine You should know that... SethH Well, sometimes I just, I think my dog is barking and what he's saying is we're barking now and that's all. Christine We're barking now, yes. Winston has a list of things that that are dog crimes, including being a golden retriever. He doesn't like that. SethH Oh, yeah. Christine He yeah he is opposed to the goldens. SethH Yeah. It's a very common crime. Christine Yeah, he has to bark. It is a very common crime, and he is not he does not like it. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine um SethH Yeah, ive the the the co yeah will I do want to talk about that. Christine But yeah, so the... Yeah. SethH Because I think that, you know, who what was that? I can't remember the name of the Webster. I only i only wrote down Webster instead of the first names. um You know, when Hobbies, tale number six, um you know, the one who wants to to erase the existence of of humans and and allow, OK, John. Christine Sure. Which section? I probably have a written down. Christine Till number six. Christine That's John. SethH um Christine Yeah, he's the one writing the history of Geneva as John. SethH and And he starts hearing about the cobbly worlds and and and thinking, you know what, the the dogs are never going to develop the need to, the way they need to with humans in the way. Because if we're here, they're always going to want to be right by our sides. SethH And and so that's, I'm not sure what he learned about the cobblies from them. Christine Yeah. Christine It is... Like, so the cobble, yeah, the cobbleies seem to be other dimensions. um I was also just curious about the word, the cobbleies. SethH Yes. Christine Like, I tried to find if it had other references, and I i didn't. SethH Yeah, I'm not sure I want to look it up on Urban Dictionary. Christine Oh, I didn't look it up. but I just Googled it, you know, but i I didn't see anything specifically. SethH Yeah. Christine It just wanted me to know about, like, cobbles, like cobblestone streets. I was like, no, no, no, cobleies. SethH Yeah. I hope it's not an older, really offensive word. Christine Yeah. Christine Oh, no! Well, okay. I mean, I guess that would be a thing to learn. Um, oh but... SethH Yeah. That would go in warnings for 21st century readers if it if it was. Christine It absolutely would. SethH Yeah, and there is some language here. Christine Um... SethH I mean, i mean warnings for 21st century readers. Christine A little bit. SethH There's one female character in the book, I think. Christine Yeah, it's a very dude-focused book. I mean, and the one female character in it, like, she's a very advanced, like, science technician secretary. Like, it's unclear. SethH Yeah. Well, i guess I guess there's John's ex as well. Christine Um... SethH um But but like all all the dogs and all the robots are coded as men, it seems like. Christine Okay, yeah. we Christine It's true. This is not past the Bechdel test, even a little. SethH So no, no, definitely not. Christine um Also, we keep saying, we talk keep talking about man, because that's what that the book refers to it as. SethH Yes, yes, of course. Christine We're not talking about people or humans, it's man. SethH It doesn't. Yeah, no inclusive language. Christine no I mean, and you know, like, i'll yeah. SethH I mean, that's think back to original Star Trek, right? Christine I think that, like, I think with classics, yeah. SethH Where no man has gone before, and they they've corrected it in the and the more modern ones. Christine Sure, sure. I think with classic sci-fi, have never super-minded the books where women don't appear. It's when women do appear and then are treated in a really sexist, misogynistic way that that's the part that I really bounce off of. SethH Yes. SethH Yes. Christine But this, I'm like, no, they just weren't ladies. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine Like, okay, fine. um SethH Yeah. Christine But no, the Cobblies is, it is, it's just a, I- SethH Yeah. and Christine When I first read the book, I i just literally did not understand. Because it's it's it's not really explained. They just sort of start talking about like hearing voices from another place. Christine um And... SethH Yeah. Christine Yes. and Because eventually, they start moving into these cobbly dimensions. Is that your understanding of what starts to happen towards the end? SethH Yes, yeah. Christine Yes. SethH and And it's not just the dogs, though. i think I think it's intimated that the mutants also did that, um that they went to other dimensions. Christine No. Christine Yes, and maybe the ants as well? SethH And maybe the ants as well, yeah. um And so it's like like somehow the higher order power that humans kind of missed out on was the ability to travel between dimensions. Christine Yeah. SethH um But it's not a monolithic either, right? Cobblies just means other dimensions. and So a cobbly comes through in Tale Number 7, Story Number 7, and it's it's nasty, right? SethH it it It has come into this world and is looking for life to to kill in a world where killing is unknown. Christine Yeah. Christine Yeah. Like, a yeah and... Yeah, and, like, again, that part was very confusing to me. Like, are the Cobblies just another dimension? it... Like, is there any an evil force there? Christine Like, I think it made me think of, like, um the old movie Poltergeist, where, like, the little girl is, like, listening into the TV to, like, hear that. SethH Yeah. Yeah. Christine And so it it felt very sinister to me. and it seems to be at least a little bit sinister in that, again, one of these cobblies comes through and I think kills a wolf character. SethH Yeah. kills Kills one of the wolves. Christine also... but also Christine they want to go these cobbly dimensions. SethH Yeah, well, I mean, part of it is that the ants are taking over and and the dogs realize that, and and Jenkins realizes that that with the ants industry that they're that they're doing is eventually going to take up all the space in the world and there will be no space left for the dogs or or the other animals. Christine Yeah. Christine Yeah. SethH And um and so then the the dogs are looking for a place to to go. And there are other dimensions that seem to be life-supporting, but mostly empty. Christine Yeah. like And at some point, Jenkins gathers up all the Websters that are left and brings them to a different dimension. SethH Yes. Christine And like, yes, it's just like, it looks just like our dimension, but like, there's a different tree over there. SethH Yeah, it's very close to the same, but not the same. Christine Yeah. SethH Mm-hmm. SethH Yeah. Christine Yeah. SethH And that's a good. Christine Some of the stuff with some of that stuff, it didn't like, I i don't know if I like, because again, like I've now read it twice and and within a year. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine So not so far out. And I had notes from the first time, but a lot of that still didn't, it didn't completely hang together for me. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine um SethH Yeah, there's, you know, ah all the humans are in Geneva, but also the Websters are still around. um And and and i at first when Peter is using his, he called it a throwing stick, which is ah it's a bow and arrow, right? Christine Yes. SethH This thing that he's invented. Christine Yes. SethH I didn't know he was human. I thought this is something that a dog did. Christine Yeah, I thought he was a dog at first. SethH um Christine Yeah. SethH And and the the the book does not really hang a lantern on you know, and tell you, oh, by the way, this human character, Peter, It just expects you to remember that the feral child of one of the Websters was out in the woods. Yeah. Christine Ha! I didn't even put that together till right now. SethH Yeah, I realized it today that that was the same character. Christine Yeah. Yeah, because cause John closed off Geneva while his son was off like with some friends like playing at being a hunter. SethH In the woods, yeah. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine And... Yes. And also, like, we don't get a sense of what it means to, like, close off Geneva. Like, what does that mean? SethH Right. but Yeah, I'm not totally sure. Christine i also, i like, again, as a historian, there was a lot, like, uh, I don't know if the dogs would do archaeology, but, like, just because there are no humans around doesn't mean there isn't evidence of humans. Christine Like, how could you obscure all evidence of humans? SethH Right. Christine Like, if you are digging, you will come upon, like, bones. SethH Yeah. Christine Yeah. SethH Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, the the in the introduction to the stories sometimes, it it'll talk about how, you know, this is clearly a fantasy because it talks about other worlds, right? SethH Other planets in the solar system. and the And the dogs don't have science in the same way that humans do. And the robots have not taught them that about about other planets. Christine yes yes SethH um I'm not sure what that was pertinent. Christine i mean the role of the robots is also so we have jenkins who is like the robot butler for the websters and he is around for the whole book like you know he is like SethH and And it's thousands and thousands of years for for anybody who hasn't read it. Christine yeah Like, at least 10,000 of them. SethH Yeah. Christine Yeah. um We don't see that many other robots, but we are led to believe that, like, every dog has, like, a robot assistant um to, like, pick the fleas off, help them get food, help them do the things that you need thumbs for. SethH Yeah. Yeah. To help pick the fleas off. SethH Yes. Christine But then the ants start infecting the dogs. SethH Yeah. Christine With... It's like they make robot... Tiny robot ants. SethH Fleas. Christine Fleas that then get on the dogs and like... SethH Yeah. Christine so Wait, no. Because like they affect the dogs but they also affect the robots. SethH They get onto the dogs and then they jump to the robots, is is my impression. Christine Oh, I see. SethH I was reading that one today. And and you know the i the the dog was very offended that someone thought it was a flea. Christine Yeah. SethH No, it was not a flea, I'm telling you. And then they see it get into one of the robots. Christine Yeah. SethH And the robots have been receiving the call, right where all of a sudden they they go off and they help the ants build their structure that's getting larger and larger. Christine Yes. Christine this big building that the ants are doing. But again, like, we don't, we don't really learn anything about the ants. SethH Yeah. Christine We just see that they have been uplifted in some way by Joe and they are building. SethH No. Christine And I don't know if we're supposed to see humanity in this, like humans, maybe we are building without sense, without meaning. SethH Right. Is this is this communism? Christine is this communism? SethH Yeah. Is it the Russian bloc? you know Think about the time. I Christine Yeah. I mean, maybe, I don't know. SethH i mean, it's a collective structure, right, with the ants. Christine I mean, are the, ah Sure, whereas, like, the dogs represent, like, individuality and freedom. SethH Yeah. Christine Sure. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine I mean, yeah, I could see that reading. That seems fair to me. Um... But yeah, the robots are just building with We don't understand what their goal is. Christine And, like, eventually... I don't remember if this is the epilogue or... SethH It is the epilogue where where you're going with that thought. Christine yeah this... Yeah, so there's an epilogue to this book that was written in 1972. nineteen seventy two it was part of a collection that SethH Right. Christine was put together for after John Campbell died. And someone wanted Simak to write another story in this world. SethH Yeah. Christine And he was, it does not seem that he actually really wanted to, and he felt very weird about it. um But in this story, Jenkins is still around and no one, there are no dogs. SethH Yeah. Christine There's, there's nothing. and the The ants have basically built over, we're led to believe it's like the entire world except for like a five mile like sort of radius around the Webster house, which they've left as sort of like, you know, um out of respect. SethH Yes. Christine and And he goes to see what the ants are up to and there are no ants there anymore. the it's i mean, I'm assuming that it's it's telling us that the ants also went to Copley World. SethH that That's my impression, yeah, that they they also had had used up everything on Earth and and then left. Christine Yeah. Christine Yeah. And then, um and then Jenkins gets, basically Andrew, who was a wild robot, comes in a spaceship to see Jenkins and is like, um there are other worlds out there and there's life on them and we have work to do. SethH Right. SethH Yeah, there's plenty of work to do on other worlds. Christine Yeah. And again, we we get the impression that Jenkins is leaving, but he is very sad about it. SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah, he's reluctant to leave, but he he eventually does walk out and and go into the ship. Christine Yeah. SethH So it's kind of a happy ending for him, i guess. Christine Yeah. I guess, but it's like the world has been left... Well, I guess, I mean, they talk about um mice in the latin in the epilogue, that are all these mice around, and they're not smart, they can't talk, but, like, i don't know, maybe the mice will take over eventually. SethH Yeah. Christine It is... SethH Yeah. Christine it it There's this cyclical nature of just... SethH Mm-hmm. Christine It's like this idea that, like... Violence is bad and no one wants violence, but you also need violence to keep people, like, progressing and also to limit population numbers. SethH Right. To maintain balance in populations. Yeah. Christine Yeah, and if you don't have that, then every intelligent species eventually basically takes over everything. Christine Except it then seems weird that they just abandon it, because, like... SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah. Christine I don't know. I feel like i feel like Clifford C. Mack was he he was he was maybe a little depressed in this book. SethH Yeah, yeah, that could be. Because because like it's just very somber that that everybody advances to a certain level and then they leave. And yeah i I can't remember if the final story I was reading it just earlier this evening and I didn't get all the way to the end. SethH And I had previously read it, but... Christine yeah Sure, sure. SethH um ah what's happening still in Geneva because John Webster had gone because his his ex had gone and she was going to do a couple hundred years at a time in this perfect dream that she could pick, which being in a dream, you can't wake up from no matter how nice sounds awful to me. Christine Yeah. SethH If you have any knowledge that you're in a dream, but but he had decided to go there and just be down forever. Christine Yeah. Christine Yeah. SethH And and I thought it was this was Simak afraid to have him just blow his brains out or something. Christine Yeah, it was because they... Yeah, so Jenkins goes to Geneva to talk... to John, who has been asleep for yes, thousands of years. SethH Yeah. 10,000 years. Yeah. Christine um Christine So, okay. So, Jenkin... SethH Because they answer the ants are taking everything over, and he's going to ask for a solution to that. Christine Yes, and... SethH The humans had a way of of managing them. Christine and Yeah. And so John is like, oh yeah, we like we we took some syrup and we we put poison in it and we didn't we we made it so it's just a little bit amount of poison so that the ants would take the poison back to the nest. SethH Yeah. Slow enough acting so that he'd get the queen. Christine Yeah, but this this technology, basically Jenkins thinks to himself, this requires the knowledge of killing and chemistry, which are neither things that the the dogs have expertise in. SethH Yeah. Christine And Jenkins doesn't, he doesn't want to tell them about killing. SethH Yeah. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine And so he just decides he's not going to. And John just goes back to sleep. SethH Yeah. Christine like SethH Mm-hmm. Christine And again, like I am left with this really depressing view of humanity that like, Christine i mean I feel like Clifford C. Mack would have hated social media and the internet. SethH Yeah, I think so. Christine like It's just this idea that if you have something that's entertaining enough, you're just going to plug your brain in and you don't need to even person anymore. Christine like That you'll be like, oh, I don't need to like have friends or a family or a community because I can just watch these videos or you know live in this dream state forever. SethH Yeah. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine And it's just... Christine So part of what's weird about this for me is that there is coziness about Simak's style. SethH Yes. Christine And this coziness seems so at odds with his conclusion that like humanity is... SethH Yeah. Christine i don't know, doesn't know how to be happy. like they like That they have to kill and destroy in order... to, you know, and in order to basically remain viable on the planet. SethH Yeah, to be themselves. And and that that's why Jenkins took the Webster family away, right? Because he realized with the bow and arrow and and all that kind of stuff that they were all so fascinated with, even while he's trying to teach them how to shift dimensions. Christine Yeah. SethH they're like, hey, can we use the bows and arrows now? Christine Yeah. Yeah. SethH Because those look awesome. Christine They become a little, obbs yeah, they they act like little children. SethH and And so he's like, hey, I'm going to whisk them away so that they don't pollute this world with their with their killing. But they can go try that on a brand new planet, brand new dimension. Christine Yeah. SethH Yeah, it's it's funny because it's this I really like the book and um and I I know this about myself. Christine Yes. SethH I'm a very happy person. I'm not prone to depression of any kind, but I love a downer ending in a book. So I don't know what it is about me, but but I'm I'm totally OK with a book like The Road and, you know, yeah. Christine Like, Christine ah really liked this book. SethH Yeah. Christine And I think that what I like is, again, this sort of... cozy pastoralism. um Even if I don't agree with, like, I live in a city. SethH Yeah. Christine i love living in a city. It's fantastic. SethH Mm-hmm. Yeah. Christine You know, like, um I very much enjoy um urban life. I would not go and live, i have lived in in small towns and in the middle of nowhere, and I really like living in a city. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine So I don't agree with Simak's fear of the city, although I can respect that not everyone wants to live in a city. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine But SethH Yeah. Christine And, and again, like, if you think about his message here, it's a very depressing message. Um... But also, like I still found the book just really interesting. Christine you know Positing this, like, okay, know dogs have taken over and they're trying to figure out, like they have these old stories. What do they mean? Where did they come from? Christine How can they analyze this to learn about their own past? And I don't know if these dog scholars are like living in a cobbly world. you know They don't really explain that. SethH Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Christine you know like Somewhere we have a giant dog university, where they have gone and... ah you know, they're they're debating about their own history. um i do, like, the ending is depressing, but there's a little bit of a hopeful note, this idea that Jenkins is going to go off and, you know, that the other wild robot is saying, like, there's work to do which is similar to, I think, the way that the kind of, like, the the note that Waystation ends on, that, like, a new big thing is happening and, you know, there's more work to be done. Christine um SethH Yes. Christine And i like I like that, but I'm still, It is still a bummer, man. SethH Yeah. i One thing that I liked was the the development of language where at some point the dogs don't refer to humans. even if Even though they remember them, they remember them as Websters. SethH And I think that is kind of the way things go. Christine Yes. SethH you know Christine It... SethH it's it's It's now the generic name. It's not Band-Aid brand. Christine Yep. Yep. SethH It's just a Band-Aid. Christine Yep. yeah Xerox, Q-Tip, Google. SethH Mm-hmm. Yep. Christine Yeah. No, that is... SethH That one was quick, too. Christine Yeah, the Google was quick. Yeah. um Yeah. I don't know. So, like, I don't know if if what it is is that I was just not really familiar with this whole, like, pastoral movement in sort of classic sci-fi. And I don't know if there's a lot of other authors who do that. Like, again, I think it's a little bit... It's a... Christine I don't know if we would call it cozy. Um, if it was, if it was, um, written today, like it doesn't, you know, like there's not a lot of like big explosions again, there's no violence. SethH Right, right. Christine Um, there's conflict, but it's, it's sort of, it's like, there's not a lot of tension in the novel. SethH Yeah, yeah. Christine Um, and I did enjoy that. SethH Hmm. Christine Um, and I, Christine but and And this is not sort of like... Christine don't feel like I read a lot of sci-fi that's like this, so maybe ah ah part of it was just that it seemed very different. SethH Yeah. Yeah. Christine Because like even though I do enjoy a lot of sort of like cozy fantasy stuff, cozy sci-fi, this had a much different feel to me. Hmm. SethH Yeah. um And you know I would say that I started reading this one quite a while ago after we first talked about doing this. And then i kind of i kind of got busy doing other things. And I thought, I'm i'm just going to listen to the audiobook for this one. So I i just went ahead and ripped through the audiobook. SethH But then going back through it to read it in print, really it really rewarded that process just because I could see the seeds of future stories in the earlier ones. um And so that was that was really interesting. Christine Yeah. I do think it's a book that is, it benefits from reading more than once. SethH Yeah. Christine Or perhaps we have given enough background now that if you read it, that you would you would see some of these things. SethH Yeah, maybe. Christine Yeah. and I like that as well how is the audiobook I did not I'm i I normally um I prefer audio in terms of like my own reading but when I read for um the podcast I always do it um like I don't do audio um to sort of oh sure okay yeah SethH Mm-hmm. SethH Yeah. Whenever I can, I do both. um it's a It's a decent audiobook. It's not it's not amazing, but it's ah it's serviceable. there There are some that are just bad, and and so I wouldn't recommend it. We wouldn' wouldn't recommend those, but this one this one's fine. Christine Oh, okay. That's nice. Yeah. SethH Yeah. Christine And again, like, I like this book, but I also now i also see why, like, it was Waystation that won ah Hugo. SethH Yeah, yeah. Christine Although, again, this was published, and this this would have been probably a book they were considering in the year that The Demolished Man one And... SethH Yes. Christine The Demolished Man is also... There's just so much weird Freudian psychological stuff in there that ah that comes out in like weird sex stuff that oh i did I did not find that a pleasure to read. SethH Yeah. Mm-hmm. Christine um But i I thought it was interesting that The Demolished Man and this, and another book that came out this year um by ah Theodore Sturgeon, one called More Than Human, um there they're all very, very concerned about... SethH I haven't read that one. Christine like, mind reading? Like, telepathy? And this idea that this is a ah skill that some humans may develop, and how is that going to change society? SethH Yeah. Christine um Which... I don't know if we see quite as much um in more contemporary sci-fi. I mean, obviously sometimes we we have like telepathy and stuff in books, but I don't know. SethH Yeah, well, you know, Christine it just I think it becomes more of a plot device and less a thing that we're really concerned about. SethH yeah, definitely. And, you know, John W. Campbell put his thumb on the scale a lot, too, with his editorial stuff where he would be like, yeah, but can you put more ESP in it, you know? And and so, Christine Oh, I didn't realize that Campbell was into that SethH I mean, he was really into Scientology. Christine Oh, well... SethH And so he was really into the mind. Yeah, yeah. Christine Sure. mean, like, he dabbled in Scientology. SethH yeah yeah Christine um And, like, so one of the things that I think is also happening here is that, like... The 1950s is like when psychology is developing as a field. SethH Yeah. Christine um Like 1950, 1951 is when like the the DSM one is published. SethH Yeah. Christine Like this is when we were first coming up with um sort of like drugs to treat different mental illness. And so like you suddenly have a lot of like psychiatrists around, but there is a lot of quackery. SethH Mm-hmm. SethH Oh yeah. Yeah. Christine Um, and so, oh absolutely. SethH Well, there's a lot of stuff in the DSM that they're subsequently, they're like, uh, maybe we don't include that as a mental disorder. Christine Yeah, no, exactly. And so I think it's interesting that it it's clear that we have like sort of authors kind of trying to deal with some of that, that they're, you know like, how do we analyze the brain um through like psychiatry as clearly part of their like science fiction, future technology model. SethH Yeah. Christine Whereas we, we have figured out a lot of things. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine I mean, obviously it's not like we're finished and science fiction is still often concerned about, um, SethH Right, right. Christine you human thought and what goes on in our brains and how that can be altered. But I always found that I find that kind of interesting as well. Just looking at their perspective on how brains work. Christine Cause it's like in the fifties after world war two, that's also when they're for the very first time they're realizing about things like PTSD and trauma, like that this has a long effect. SethH Yeah. Yeah. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine yeah, And, you know, we have this character, Jenkins, and he's a robot, but he's also definitely a person. he has feelings and emotions, um even though it says at the end of the book that he cannot cry, even though he wants to. SethH Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Christine um Christine And I do not remember at all where I was going with that. SethH No, just kind of talking about the the era that this came out in. Christine Oh, yeah. SethH And you know there's a lot of stuff from the 50s where it's it's all about atomics, right? Christine Yes, thank you. SethH it's all Atomics are going to just solve everything. Christine Yes. SethH And you know there's you think about foundation. That's all about ah you know atomics and mentalics and all that kind of stuff as well. Christine Yes. Yeah. Christine Yeah. Yeah. What are the things that are going to make our lives better in the future? Um, and it's clear that they really, really were hoping telepathy was going to be developed. SethH Mm-hmm. SethH Yeah. yeah Christine Um, Whereas, ah I don't know, I think mind reading sounds terrifying. i don't think that I want to know that much. Like, I think that, like, oh, man, like the, you know, the sort of being able to separate the signal from the noise when it comes to stuff like that. SethH Yeah. Christine um SethH Yeah. I think it's tough enough to know your own mind. Christine Yeah. Yes. And again, just because you can see what someone's thinking doesn't mean that you understand. SethH Right, right. Christine Yeah, they were just hoping, hoping that there would be some way to, like, you know, I guess avoid war, avoid violence. SethH Yeah. Yeah. Christine um And he wrote a cozy, cozy story about how... SethH Yeah. Christine Nope. SethH Yes. Yeah. So if you're looking for a book that's a bit dour in places, kind of funny as well, but dour, this is a good one. Christine Yeah. So what did you think of the dogs? I did not think that they were all that dog-like. SethH I was just going to say, I'm not sure how doggy they were. And and I think that's that you know that's a ah consequence of evolving them. Christine Yeah. SethH is you You don't know what the consequences are going to be of that. Christine Yes. Christine Yeah. But I was a little bit... So, I don't know if you have read... Tchaikovsky has a series... I think it's called The Dogs of War. SethH No, I haven't. Christine i mean, Adrian Tchaikovsky is just... He is so prolific you can't even, right? SethH Oh, yeah. Christine Hold on, let me look this up. SethH Yeah. Are there there's literal dogs of war in it? Christine Let me get... Yes. Yeah. SethH OK. Christine It is called... oh Hold on minute. Christine Yeah, it's a 2017 novel, and it's called Dogs of War. SethH OK. Christine And the thing that, and again, it involves basically like humans are creating mecha dogs to like fight stuff. um But as you might expect from Tchaikovsky having read things like Children of Time, he takes extremely seriously the question of what a very smart dog would be like. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine um And I think that he does a very, very good job portraying what sort of like what those dogs would be like, what they would want out of their relationships with humans. Whereas this book, it just a little bit just felt like people in dog costumes. SethH Yes. Yeah, it kind of did. Christine Yeah. Yeah. SethH I might have pick that one up. I've got a bunch of audible credits that I need to use. So so maybe I'll, yeah. Christine i I do. I recommend it. It's the start of it is i definitely was slightly dubious at the start. It's it's part of a ah series where he kind of explores. ah but Anyways, it's good. Recommend. SethH Okay. Christine um i might. SethH Okay. Christine I like everything that Tchaikovsky writes. SethH Yeah. Christine It's a problem because he writes too much. SethH Yeah. Yeah. he's he's He's a nice guy too. I got to meet him at the Hugo Awards a couple of years ago. Christine Oh, lovely. He seems listened to his podcast with Emma Newman and yeah, he seems pretty delightful. SethH Yeah. SethH Yep. Well, I think that's a wrap on Citi. So Christine, thank you so much for doing this. Christine Sure. SethH And thank you for for picking an interesting book that I'd wanted to get to for a long time. Christine Well, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's been, it's fun. And it's fun to like, sort of like see the people, like I am walking in your footsteps, your, your Hugo podcasting footsteps. Christine and SethH I think you're doing a tremendous job. So I look forward to to the beginning of every month. Christine Oh, thanks. SethH I wish you were doing it faster, but I can't criticize you because I didn't. Christine Yeah. yeah SethH So yeah, it's it's fun. Christine Yeah, I mean, my my job becomes a lot more chill in the summer because, again, I teach classes. So I'm definitely going to be doing some, like, interesting other episodes. SethH Yeah. SethH Oh, fun. Christine Because there are some people that I want to have on who want to come on, but like i already have is the the Hugo Award winners scheduled for the rest of the year. yeah. Christine so yeah So we're going to see. There might be a ah couple of other episodes. I'm going to have to decide kind of how i'm goingnna how I'm going to do that. And they maybe just dropped fairly randomly. SethH All right. SethH Bonus episodes. Christine So. SethH Awesome. Christine Exactly. Bonus episodes. Christine But not requiring so subscription. Just bonus for bonuses sake. SethH Yeah, yeah, yeah. Excellent. Well, on that note, where do people find you? How do people find you? Christine um but You can find the podcast Hugo History at wherever podcasts are found. Spotify, iTunes, all of those good places. You can find me on Blue Sky. um My handle is a little bit weird. It is at klaxoncoms.com. Christine Because that is my website. SethH Yeah. Christine I do like some freelance writing. And my partner and I were joking around that sometimes I feel like a human klaxon. And so we went with klaxoncoms. SethH yeah Christine Anyways, so klaxoncoms.com Blue Sky, where I'm pretty active. I like talking to people. I am also on um the Discord that is not Seth's Discord. Christine But tell them about the Discord, because that is a nice place to talk books. SethH That is the, it is called the Nebula Lugo book club blog and and no, sorry, book club discord. So if you want to just reach out to me, I'll get you a link because everybody over there wants more people to talk to. SethH And it's a great community. Christine I was actually going to ask you that because i was telling somebody about it tonight. A friend of mine who has been like, he's in my choir and we realized that we were kindred spirits when we were at an activity and somebody said something about like a Hugo and we both at the same time were like, let me check my spreadsheet. Christine And we're like, you have a spreadsheet. I have a spreadsheet. SethH Yeah. Christine So he would, uh, I'm allowed to invite people to the discord. SethH Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Christine Okay. All right. SethH Yeah. Christine I'm going to invite He'll be very excited. SethH Yeah. I mean, as long as you're nice you know and everybody over there seems seems great. So yeah. Christine Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just, i wasn't sure what the rules were. SethH Yeah. SethH Yeah. Christine Yeah. Yeah. SethH Cool. Christine Anyways, thank you so much for having me. It's been, yeah, it's been just, ah it's been a real pleasure. SethH Yeah. he Same. I wish you could see me because you know it's nice to. Christine No, you're just a black blob. That's what I know about you now. SethH Yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah. um Christine And you can see me and a cat. SethH Excellent. Christine Even though you're allergic, but it's okay because she's on the other side of a screen. SethH It's OK. It's OK. And actually, you know ah i'm In the allergy season, I take Flonase, and it seems to even me out even when I go to cat houses. So um it it was always a mild allergy. Christine Oh. SethH My sister is just deathly allergic. Christine Oh. SethH So that's why we never had cats. Christine Oh no. Oh. SethH And that probably influenced my not really liking them. Christine Yeah. SethH um Christine We just have all the pets at my house. Two cats and a dog. SethH OK. Yeah, this was an absolute blast. It's it's great to talk to you. And you know if you ever need somebody for one of those bonus episodes, let me know. and Christine Oh, yeah, I would love to sort of start thinking about that. Yeah, because I'm hoping to have, I've been talking to Premi Muhammad about coming on. SethH Oh, nice. Christine Yeah, because she was saying that she wants to, she's trying to promote her book that's coming out in October with Hills. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine And I was like, are you willing to talk about an old sci-fi book too? And so she wants to talk about Little Big, um which was a Hugo nominee but didn't win from like the 80s. SethH Oh, cool. Mm-hmm. Christine So, and then, yeah, just. SethH I really enjoy doing that kind of stuff where where you talk about books that didn't quite win and so maybe need a signal boost. Christine A little bit more attention. And yeah, and that's why I thought this was kind of fun because it's, I mean, obviously it won other awards, but I didn't, you know, but I also like, i when I started this, I had never heard of Clifford Simak. SethH Yeah. Yeah. SethH Yes, it did. Christine Like I knew Heinlein, I know Asimov and, you know, i know um I know a bunch of sci-fi people's names, but I'd never ever heard of Simak. SethH Yeah, same. SethH Mm-hmm. Christine And like, honestly, I find his stuff to be really delightful. SethH Yeah, yeah. SethH OK, well, Christine, I'm sure we'll figure out a way to interact more down the line, but it was a pleasure. Christine I hope so. SethH All right, bye now.