WEBVTT - Why Science Fiction Matters 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:04.440 Yeah, Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:16.120 stuff works dot com. Hey, guys, welcome to the podcast. 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:17.919 This is Alison I don't know, like, the science editor 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.160 at how stuff works dot com. This is Robert Lamb, 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:22.760 science writer at how stuff works dot com. Today we're 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:25.720 talking about science fiction. We're stepping outside the laboratory and 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:28.680 we're entering the world of science fiction world that I 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:31.560 know you're very fond of, Robert. Yeah, I've been a 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:34.400 fan of a sci fi for for quite some time. Um, 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:37.120 I don't pretend to be an expert on it. Therapy 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:39.800 is plenty of classic sci fi books that I have 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:42.520 not read, um, and we'll maybe get to one day. 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:44.599 But yeah, I have a lot of love for sci fi, 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:47.040 and I know that you have been looking to get 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:49.839 more into sci fi. I have. Yeah, I've done a 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:52.040 little reading. I've read Brave New World, I did a 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:54.880 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy some stuff like that. But 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:58.800 I do I am looking for some more sci fi reading. Cool. Well, 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:01.560 that's what we're gonna talk about today. We're really gonna 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:04.000 kick off talking about like why it, Matt, Like, what 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:06.440 what is science fiction in relation to science? Which is 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:11.400 our core topic here and you know what it means. 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:13.679 And then we're gonna go through a few different titles 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:17.440 that I'm particularly fond of that I might recommend to 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:19.800 you or to anyone out there who's looking to get 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:22.720 into sci fi. And these three titles are good if 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:24.640 it gives you any contacts. I went to the library 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:26.440 at the public library the other night and I was 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:28.600 looking for these three books. I've done a little bit 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:31.160 of reading on them, but I haven't fully read them yet, 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:34.120 and I'm really looking forward to them. And anyway, these 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:36.280 three books that Robert that made Robert's list are all 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:38.520 checked out, so I think that's a good son. Yeah, 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:41.279 and I think they're all they're all Hugo Award winners 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:43.880 as well, Yes, yes they are. So yeah. We'll just 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:46.759 kick this off with the Webster's definition for science fiction, 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:51.320 um quote fiction dealing principally with the impact of actual 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:55.000 or imagine science on society or individuals, or having a 0:01:55.000 --> 0:02:01.280 scientific factor as an essential orienting component. So yeah, it's 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:06.560 all about where, where where science touches society and how 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:10.720 that impacts our view of the future. One interesting thing 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:12.639 I found about science fiction is that you would think 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:14.720 that it would be all about the technology, right, it 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:16.560 would focus on the technology. But in a lot of 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:18.800 science fiction, it seems that it always comes down to 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:23.600 the individual. The individual still remains important determining uh, the 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:27.399 future of the world or the future of interplanetary society. 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:30.160 So I just thought that was interesting. Yeah. I think 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:34.120 like even the even the techiest um sci fi, you know, 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:36.320 it tends to come down to human stories like how 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:40.800 what is how would technology change what we fundamentally are? 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:43.640 And what do they how do they illuminate what we 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:46.680 fundamentally are a lot of times that means illuminating of course, 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:49.600 our our strengths or our weaknesses, depending on whether you 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:52.600 have more of a lighthearted uh sci fi romp or 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:57.160 something just brutally dark. You know. An important distinction to 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:00.320 make in all of this is hard sci fi versus 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:04.520 soft sci fi? Right, um, and uh it comes out 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:08.160 of questions of is this actual science? Is it is extrapolate? 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:12.520 Is it it extrapolated from real um you know, studies, findings, etcetera. 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:17.200 Or is the science just kind of magic? Um. It 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:19.560 doesn't necessarily make the science fiction good or bad. You 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:21.800 have you know, really good hard sci fi, and you 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:23.880 also have some really boring hard sci fi out there. 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.320 Um but yeah, you're your Your hard sci fi is 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:29.760 going to be more rooted in in the actual science 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:33.680 of the thing, in realistic um visions of the future 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:37.160 based on the current course of science of science. For instance, 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:40.960 hard science fiction would be like Arthur C. Clark, especially 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.280 his uh, his novel A Fall of Moon Dust Stu, 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:45.920 which deals with moon colonization. Or Ben Bova has a 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.080 number of books dealing with the colonization of mars Um. 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:51.320 You know, these are these are all books that that 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:54.120 at heart are dealing with the actual science. If you 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.360 get into soft sci fi, I mean, the classic example 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:01.840 would be something like Star Wars. Yeah, because mean, I mean, 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:04.320 I'm sure there's some books that try and explain the 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:06.840 science of Star Wars, but any in fact, we have 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:09.680 an article about the light Savers. But by and large, 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.360 Star Wars is not concerned with how the science of 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:15.120 anything works. It's about this about creating a you know, 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:19.960 a big space opera, big romantic, melodramaic, melodramatic adventure with 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:23.960 you know, superpowered individuals and super powerful factions and all this, 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:28.839 um uh. And then also you have smaller works, say 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:32.799 like The Time Traveler's Wife, which I haven't read, but 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:35.640 but I understand that takes a sci fi element and 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:39.920 use it as a plot device for a character driven exploration. 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:43.840 You know, so correct me if I'm wrong. But um, 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:47.360 The Time Traveler's Wife is not really a book concerned with, um, 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:52.120 you know, the physics of time travel and um. Yeah, 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:56.800 and along those lines, we also have, um, very optimistic 0:04:56.960 --> 0:04:59.600 sci fi. You have very pessimistic sci fi. And when 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:01.800 it comes to these visions of the future, you also 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:04.360 have your your very utopian visions of the future and 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:07.240 your dystopic visions of the future. And you know that 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:10.359 kind of speaks for itself. Star Trek. Star Trek is 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:13.800 a classic example, yea of of a very uh, if 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:16.920 not utopian, then very optimistic vision of the future. You know, 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:19.000 it's rude to you know, it goes back to, you know, 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:21.359 the excitement about the space race and then this idea 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:23.599 that technology was just gonna get better and better and 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:27.880 change the the the way that we live. Um. You know, you'll, 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:31.160 I mean, even though there there's war and there's a 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:33.839 there's destruction and death in in the and and certainly 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:38.039 conflict in the in the Star Trek universe, Um, you 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:40.440 still see like whole like all of Earth is united, 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.520 is one people, whole systems of you know, of of 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:45.960 aliens are united as one people, you know, and that's 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:48.520 you know, and they even have this, uh, like the 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:51.919 whole Prime Directive deal where they don't they don't mess 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:56.120 with with rising civilizations that haven't achieved you know, space 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:58.960 travel yet, you know. So they're they're already writing, you know, 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:01.120 writing into this future that we will have learned from 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:03.800 our past that we're not going to say, repeat the 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:09.200 exploitation and decimation of the Native American um people, you know, 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:12.159 on a cosmic scale, right, So they already have really 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:14.640 cool stuff like green technology, and there is an element 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:18.760 of morality threading the entire series. So let's look at 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:22.359 some of the more pessimistic stuff. What about Avatar you 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.080 put that, I would say that Avatar is not just 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:27.800 like Super Dark, because you have some sci fi that's 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:32.000 just basically saying humans are horrible and in the far future, 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:34.400 we're just going to be even more horrible. Um, but 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:40.039 Avatar still paints a rather bleak vision of humanity's future. 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:42.600 You know, it's like humans have destroyed their own planet basically, 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:44.280 I mean it's they talk to speak of it as 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:47.160 a poisoned world, and they're headed off to another planet 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:51.280 to exploit its resources and its native inhabitants. Um, you know, 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:55.440 continuing the cycle that you know, we started in colonial days. 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:57.640 And I was sorry, I see it. It's the distinction 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:01.560 of colonization versus new colonization. I guess. Yeah, it's just 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:03.440 kind of you know, it's it kind of comes down 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:05.440 to the whole you know idea, you know, the terror 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.080 of history. It's like our humans gonna just keep making 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:10.720 the same mistake over and over again. And you're more 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:14.880 optimistic visions involve us learning from our mistakes, and the 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:18.600 more pessimistic or in my opinion, realistic ones involve us 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:22.240 making the same mistakes over and over again. So let's 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:24.280 get into some of the classics. Let's talking about H. G. 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:27.960 Wells and Jules Verne. Yeah, yeah, these were these are 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:30.280 two of the big guys. Um. You know, you can 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:34.240 you can go back and find, you know, older works 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:36.760 that are technically sci fi, but these are the real 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:41.600 fathers of modern science fiction. UM. Wells, of course, is 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:44.120 known for such works as the It's the Time Machine, 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:49.920 Verne twenty leagues under the sea, so you know, they're 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:52.600 they're they're writing. Especially Verne is right, wrote a lot 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:54.600 about the future, predicting what the future was going to 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:57.360 be like. And he was like a true tech like 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:00.280 tech geek, Like he would probably have a podcast with 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.080 with Jonathan Strickland today, you know, if you were around 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:05.320 um or Jonathan would and him would be tweeting back 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:08.080 and forth, because yeah, Verne was writing about you know, 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:13.720 air conditioning, automomobiles, facts, machine electricity, traveling to the moon, submarines. 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.080 You know. In all this, um Wells was new Slatch either, right, 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:18.920 he was learning about time travel, of course, he was 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:23.920 learning about lasers and visibility, interplanetary war, um, even wireless 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:27.240 communications and answering machines. And just to give your perspective, 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.160 H G. Wells was alive of from eighteen sixty six 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:33.520 to ninety six. Yeah, and one thing I ran across 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:36.680 when I was brushing up again on him was that 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:41.320 people pointed out that if Mary Shelley hadn't written Frankenstein, um, 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:45.439 then Wells may have actually like hit all the the 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.640 key like sci fi plot elements, you know, and just 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:51.360 you know, nailed them ahead of time because he was 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:53.280 just he was just on a frenzy towards the end 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:55.720 of the nineteenth century, just like Book a Year, you know, 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:58.560 and each one is you know, a classic today. But 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:01.360 it's also worth mentioning again that, yeah, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:04.480 in addition to being you know, horror, is definitely a 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:07.880 key early sci fi work. Yeah. The important thing with 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:10.599 any of this, uh, any science fiction is that is 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.160 not what it tells you about the future, because obviously 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.520 none of it's going to be completely correct, um, but 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:18.440 but what it tells you about the time which was published, 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:21.319 you know what, what were their thoughts in the Victorian 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:25.840 age about about their modern technology, about what the future 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:28.640 was gonna was gonna hold for everybody? Um right, So 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:32.960 Wells and vern we're both concerned about humanity's path back 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:35.800 then and where I might leave in the future. They 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:37.720 were thinking that maybe it's going to be a stagnating 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:41.080 world like that of the Morlocks and the Eloi. Yeah, yeah, 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:44.360 one where um we're basically the the the class divisions 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:48.200 and industrialization would lead to an age where um, you 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.880 had you know, these these dreamy little elf people living 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:54.439 on the surface world doing nothing with their lives and 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:58.680 in their society while these monstrous, you know, troll like 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:01.200 creatures actually think they were more spider like in the 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:05.040 in the book, but it's hard to get the image 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.080 from the film out of your head. But but one 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:11.680 of these monsters toiled underground to keep the surface system alive. 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.520 And and of course Verne wrote us, you know, several 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.520 books dealing with the future of warfare, and you know, 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:21.880 they're pretty pretty bleak in that regard that, you know, 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:24.280 we have all this amazing technology and we're going to 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:27.160 continue to use it to destroy one another. So what 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:31.440 were some of the outdated concepts that both Verne and Wells. Yeah, 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:33.160 these are things where you know, you read them today 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:36.360 and um and and they just doesn't make you know, 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:38.600 it doesn't jive as well, like you know, say, well 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:40.640 that's that's not the way it turned out at all, um. 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:43.960 Sort of like if you you know, you know, it's 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:45.360 sort of like if you've watched you know, two thousand 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:47.360 and one a Space odusy and you're like, whoa hold on, 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:50.400 our space stations don't look like that. Um. But but 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:53.240 generally the older the sci fi, the bigger the chance 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:56.760 that the science is really won't keep by today's standards. UM. So, 0:10:56.800 --> 0:10:59.320 like vern said, you have to give them credit for trying. Yeah, yeah, 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:01.160 because they're working with with the best that they had. 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:03.520 I mean, sci fi written today, even like the most 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:05.640 cutting edge sci fi you know, is it gonna hold 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:08.600 up in you know, a hundred years. Maybe maybe not. 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:11.120 This stuff holds up because I mean both of these 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.640 guys were great writers and uh and had something important 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:16.400 to say, you know. And that's when we keep going 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:18.480 back to him. So like Verne's Journey to the Center 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:21.800 of the Earth, Um, it has some outdated ideas about 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:25.440 the Earth's interior um and uh, and you know, and 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:28.840 he's trying to to educate the reader about about you know, 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:32.200 what extinct creatures existed in which geologic age, you know, 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:35.680 and not all that holds up today. Um, it's you know, 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:37.520 but it's it's but it's fine because he was he 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:40.400 was writing for the modern you know, his modern audience, 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:44.319 and it clues us into how they were thinking back 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:47.600 in the you know, the Victorian era. UM. Likewise, the 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:50.680 time Machine, there is great sequence in the end where 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:54.960 the time traveler UM goes just travels like ridiculously far. 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:57.920 Then he's already ridiculously far ahead because what the Time 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:02.640 Machine takes place in uh eighty m eight hundred and 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:05.520 two thousand, seven hundred one, you know, so which is 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.319 great because so many time travel movies like they go like, oh, 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:09.760 this is what the future is gonna be like in 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:12.160 N and you know, I'm like, oh, we didn't have 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:15.240 flying cars in NT seven, so you know, wells had 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:17.280 it right. He's like like, all right, they when you 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.200 finally get to the year eight hundred, eight hundred thousand, 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:22.160 you know, then you can correct me. But but no, 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:24.439 he had this this vision of the like the earth 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:28.040 when the sun finally stopped, you know, stops burning, and 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:31.920 the earth just stops in its tracks and and everything dies. 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:34.559 And it's very bleak and beautifully written. But of course, 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:38.840 uh it's it's based on outdated models of celestial mechanics. 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:43.840 It still works, though, I highly recommend high highly recommend 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:47.520 via Time Machine. What about the movies, um, you know 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:52.120 there they can be fun, but you know, it's you know, 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:54.920 each work of sci fi is is rooted in its day, 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:58.080 you know, and sometimes when you have like an older 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:00.400 work of sci fi and it's produced in an other time, 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:02.439 you end up with sort of a mixture of those 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:04.520 those things, so it's kind of a kind of deluded 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:07.640 in my opinion. So today we're gonna start off with 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:09.719 three sci fi books that I personally am going to 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:12.199 read and we hope you will too if you haven't already. Um, 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:14.920 And we picked these three books because they are award 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:17.600 winners and stuff like that, but they're also held up 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:20.960 as classics in the pantheon of science fiction, and I 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:23.760 really like each of them, so I can speak to them, 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.120 you know. The first one that made our list was 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:29.200 Dune by Frank Herbert. I'm just going to read you 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:32.160 the first line in case you've never read it. In 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:34.800 the week before their departure to Aracus, when all the 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:38.120 final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy in 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:42.880 Old Crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul. Yeah, 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:47.400 and so begins Dune, Herbert's novel, and it won the 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:49.560 Hugo Award in nineteen sixty six, and it went on 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:53.199 to also win the very first Nebula Award. June has 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:55.559 had a bunch of sequels and even a prequel written 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:57.920 by Herbert's son Brian. Oh. Yeah, like a string of 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:02.640 prequel like the her kids are just going crazy with it. 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:05.280 So June follows paul a treatyse the son of a 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:08.200 powerful family kind of think of for our future equivalent 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:11.360 of the Montagues or Capulets, and this powerful family is 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:14.720 just gaining control of the desert planet Aracus. And Oracus 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:17.200 is important because of course it's a source of milange, 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:21.040 and this is a drug that's pretty helpful for interplanetary travel, 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.120 psychic powers and other stuff. Yeah, crucial I would say, 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:27.440 like it's basically it's kind of it's kind of like 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:29.760 the Middle East of this universe, you know, with with 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:33.240 its oil, the planet that has the the the the 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:36.520 element that makes the whole system work. You guys might 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:39.320 remember us mentioning milange and doing on our podcast about 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:42.840 what drugs astronauts are one, didn't it come up on that? 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.640 But milange is not one of the drugs at Astronauts. 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:51.080 It's not, it's not. It is actually fictional And so 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:53.320 Herbert's Soon is a hugely complex story, and it's one 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:55.920 that has generated a serious fan base and some serious 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:59.640 book sales. The Library Journal says June is to science 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:02.040 fiction what the Lord of the Rings is to fantasy. 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:04.080 So why are we talking about doing today? Why didn't 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:06.920 it make our short list of three? Well? Um, well, 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:09.160 first I should point out that this is doing is 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:12.360 very much a space opera. Um. It's it's you know, 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:15.480 it's grand, it's epic, it's you know, it's I really 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:17.960 like that term space opera. Yeah, I mean it's you know, 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:19.280 the first couple of times you hear it, you kind 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:22.240 of think of people singing in space, right, A large 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:25.320 woman with a hat with horns. Yeah. I don't take 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:29.360 their any hats with horns in this, but but yeah, 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:31.920 it kind of grows on you. Uh not to say 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:35.720 that there's there aren't some some scientific ideas thrown around 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:40.080 in here. Um. For instance, Herbert was inspired by um, 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:43.640 by some some ongoing efforts to reclaim some some desert 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:46.760 land in the US. And so there's a there's a 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.760 good bit of ecological content in the in the books. 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:52.040 It's very well thought out and you know, very scientific 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:56.000 and perhaps accidentally, Um, you're going back to the milange. 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:59.280 There's the whole business where they take the pilots of 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:03.080 these of these huge spaceships take it because space is 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:06.240 so dangerous that and especially traveling at really high speeds. 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:08.360 It's so dangerous. You have to be able to see 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.120 a little bit in the into the future to UM 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:16.920 to successfully navigate, you know, UM and Interrestlingly enough, there 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:19.480 have been some reports that the that the Soviet Union 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:24.160 actually looked into into the possibilities UM of using psychics 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:26.320 in their space program early on. I did a blog 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:30.680 post about it though. Yeah. But but for the most part, 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:35.240 um Done is more concerned with larger ideas like what 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:37.560 what is the long term future of humanity and space? 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:40.640 Because this is like a far future world we're dealing 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.040 with where I think the the Earth no longer even exists, 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:45.720 you know, so it's just the you know, the far 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.880 future colonies that's sprang from Earth. You know. He gets into, 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:50.960 you know, concepts of like like what would religion be 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.000 like in the future in a post Earth future? Um, 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:56.520 you know, what's what's the rate? How to sexuality figure 0:16:56.560 --> 0:17:00.320 into it? Uh, you know, gender issues, etcetera. So it's 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:02.880 a great adventure story that hits a lot of pretty 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:08.679 serious issues concerning the human race. Also, the main character 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:11.840 overdoses on space drugs and he writes a giant sin 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:13.679 or him to save the universe. How could you not 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:17.640 love that? Pretty gnarly. Yeah, you gotta you gotta love that. Um, Now, 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:21.000 did you like the rest of the series. Um, I 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:22.760 love the first book. And the great thing about the 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:24.200 first book I should mention too, is like the first 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:25.600 time I read it, I read it like in high 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:27.679 school or junior high and loved it because it's a 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:30.040 great sci fi adventure, you know. But but then I 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:33.600 actually reread it last year and um, you know, it's 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:36.919 it's been a decade or so and I'm a different 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:38.600 reader now and it speaks to me on a whole 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:40.560 different level. So it's I mean, I think it's the 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:44.400 mark of a great, great book that that. But but yeah, 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:47.280 the second book is good, but not as good and 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:49.720 in the third book it was in the fourth book 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:51.600 all right, you know, I enjoyed some things about them, 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:57.880 but they kind of get progressively um dents and progressively dry, 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:00.879 and uh, you know, this is just my opinion. A 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:03.320 lot of people share this opinion. Some people love everything. 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:08.480 My dentist actually like everything done related, and which is 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:10.960 awesome because again he can talk about it and I 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:13.640 can garble about it when I go to see him. 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.159 But but now I'm not a fan of the later books. 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:19.359 Have you seen David Lynch's Dune? Yeah? Yeah, that's uh, 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:22.359 you haven't seen it? I have you? No, I have 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:25.439 not seen it. I mean it's it's not I love it, 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:28.600 but not as a as an accurate betrayal of of 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:30.679 how I see the book in my head. Um. So, 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:33.199 it's got some great costumes in it. Uh, you know, 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:38.560 Staying runs around in his underwear stabbing people. So again, 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:41.639 what's not to love? Um, there's a great John Hodgment 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:43.840 quote about the film. Can you read that for us? 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:47.920 I must remind you this was the David Lynch version 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.040 of Dune in which everyone was sexy and deformed at 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:53.600 the same time. Yeah, so I love I love that quote. 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:55.680 That pretty much sums up the film. In other news, 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:59.000 they've tried a couple of different adaptations of Dune, haven't they. Yeah, 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:02.000 there was like a scythe By mini series version of 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:03.879 it that I think I watched part of it, but 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.360 it didn't really speak to me. When we were researching 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:09.800 this podcast, I read that French director Pierre Morrell, director 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:12.360 of Taken and From Paris with Love, I've never heard 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:14.600 of either of those films of you. Uh yeah, one 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:16.480 familiar with him. I haven't actually seen them, so I 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.080 can't really say much on you know, whether I think 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:21.880 it's great or not. But but if if he's out 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:25.080 there listening and has some casting ideas, I think that 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:28.560 he should get Eddie Murphy to play the entire Harconan 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:32.360 family a clumps, you know, where it's like different fat 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:36.040 suits for different members of the family. So Morrell seconded 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:39.720 to your opinion about Lynch's do not being perhaps treated 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:43.600 the story. Morrell commented to MTV News, Like many people, 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:46.639 I was not fully satisfied with David Lynch's movie in ur. 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.520 I do respect David, and I think his interpretation and 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:53.760 vision were interesting, but not what we fans expected. Yeah, 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.280 you know it was. And it's also it's very much 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:59.840 a film actation stuck in its time and and speaking 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.600 each Dune was written in six and I mean this 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:05.840 is so in many ways, this is the book that's 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:08.919 really like sci fi coming out of the sixties. You know, 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:11.560 all these fantastic elements that we just talked about. So 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:14.560 if you haven't read it, by all means, consider reading Dane. 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:17.680 That's our first book, and moving on to our second book, 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:23.840 Neuromancer by William Gibson the sky above the port was 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.359 the color of television tuned to a dead channel. And 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:30.840 with that you're starting along with Case the protagonist. You 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:34.399 would call him a protagonist, right, yeah, yeah, definitely. In 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:37.520 Computer Cowboy, William Gibson's heavyweight contribution to the world of 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:42.760 SCIPI back Neuromancer One. Not just a Hugo and a 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:45.320 Nebula ward. It also snagged the Philip K. Dick Award, 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:48.040 and it herald the beginning of a new science fiction genre, 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:50.040