WEBVTT - Summer Reading 2016: Time Enough at Last 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.040 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from housetop work 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:15.520 dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:18.600 My name is Robert Lamb, and I am Christian Sager 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:21.440 and I am Joe McCormick. And today we are going 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:25.800 to be doing one of our annual summer Reading episodes. Yeah, 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:29.400 this is just kind of a casual get together here 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:32.120 where we're just coming to the studio, bring a few 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:35.680 listening recommendations for our listeners, share some things that we've 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:39.960 been reading, uh, hope to read in the future, et cetera. Yeah, 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:43.600 a lot of listeners right into us, both on social 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:48.599 media and through email to recommend books and movies and 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:51.440 all kinds of things to us. And I feel like 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:53.840 this is our chance to to give back. Although I 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:59.040 mean probably every given episode we dropped some variety of 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:01.800 things that we've been reading or movies we've been watching, 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:03.640 or TV or something like that. But this is all 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:06.559 about Hey, it's summertime, right, let's go to the beach 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:09.120 and read some books. Why is that a thing people 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:11.560 do with the beach because you, well, in my experience, 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:14.600 is because you you break free from your normal patterns 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:19.080 um and you suddenly find yourself creating all this new 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:22.720 time in a new space, craving John Grisham, No, no, 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:26.160 I mean I thought some people like to go with 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:28.760 the more mainstream books that are available in the beach House. 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:31.480 But but no, I've always found it a good you 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:34.480 can excuse you just really dive into something, uh, you know, 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:39.320 entertaining or or really heavy. Robert, what what was that you? 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:41.440 You went to the beach I think within the past 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.080 couple of years and uploaded to the internet some pictures 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:46.760 of the library on the shelf at the beach House 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:48.480 where they had a they had a book about a 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:51.760 werewolf spy. I guess um was it was? It went 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:56.120 and Robert mccommon um came in. Is that his name? Um? Gosh, 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:58.160 I can wish you remember which author that was. Yeah, 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:00.600 but I was surprised to find some cool old genre 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:05.400 stuff because generally you just find Tom Clancy John Grisham, uh, 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:10.720 some various uh you know, my all romance novels. It's 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:13.640 always Tom Clancy. The kind of people who owned beach houses. 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.400 They like to know how nuclear submarines were. Well. I 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:18.960 hope that the werewolf spy had some love in his life. 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:23.680 Pretty sure he did pretty cud good good. Well that's 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:27.760 a good segue into my first book, which is a 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:32.480 document that looks at the entire history of supernatural horror 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:35.520 and fiction. WHOA, yeah, So this is my nonfiction pick 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:38.200 this this year, guys, and it is by a past 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:42.120 stuff to blow your mind, guest. Mr St Joshi h 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:45.720 He was on a previous episode that Robert and Julie 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:49.520 did about HP Lovecraft in the Science behind his Works, 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:51.639 and I believe you interviewed him, right, Yeah, yeah, I 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:54.600 chatted with him on the phone and uh, we used 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:56.959 to interview on the episode. So those of you who 0:02:57.000 --> 0:02:59.680 are unfamiliar with him maybe go back and listen to 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:01.440 that EPI. So, but I'll give you a little primer here. 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:05.480 St Joshy. He's like a literary critic and an academic. 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:10.520 He's primarily known for very close examinations of weird fiction. 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:14.359 So HP Lovecraft and all the writers that preceded him, 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:18.160 like Algernon Blackwood, m R. James Are, Arthur Macon and 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.800 those who have followed him to like Ramsey Campbell, Ray Bradberry, Clark, 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:26.320 Ashton Smith. He's written tomes on all of these people. Uh, 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:29.360 and he has I guess what can be described as 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:32.720 an acerbic style of writing about the genre. He's a 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.920 little he's a little pointed in some of his criticisms. 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.600 I feel like he's kind of a horror fiction horror 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:45.640 literature ment at. Yeah, yeah, his lips stained purple. Yes, 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:50.680 that's how you know. Ellen Datlow is um a really 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:54.120 prominent editor in the horror field. She edits the best 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:56.640 Horror of the Year books that come out at the 0:03:56.720 --> 0:04:00.320 end of every year. She described St. Joshy as the 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:05.120 nastiest reviewer in the field. So, um, I'm giving you 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:07.880 this warning ahead of time. This book is great. But 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:11.600 he doesn't pull his punches. When he doesn't like something, 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:13.800 he lets you know about it, and when he loves something, 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.920 he celebrates it in all its glory. It's weird because 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:19.680 I think I don't I can't remember offhand an example 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:23.280 of him tearing something up like I tend to read Joshi. 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:26.600 He does a lot of introductions two books and uh, 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:30.040 and certainly puts together as at its compilations of things 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:34.440 that he likes. So I've certainly encountered the loving as 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.040 t Jo, not so much the hammer. Wouldn't it be 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.400 great to read a book though that had an introduction 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:43.120 that ripped the very book you're reading to shreds. Well, 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.440 here's an example. I've got one for you. Publishers Weekly 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.080 did a review of this book, and they said Joshi 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:54.240 reserves his sharpest judgments for contemporary horror writers, especially popular bestsellers, 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:58.360 dismissing Stephen King as quote a schlockmeister, just the literary 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:00.880 equivalent of all the b movie and comic books he 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:05.440 digested in his youth. So so there's that. Um, this 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:08.320 is a great book, though, Like, if you are looking 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:12.920 to really dive into the horror genre and to find out, 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:15.600 like what's the best of the best, what's the history 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:17.599 behind it, what's the stuff I should go out and 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:20.760 look for. This is it. I mean. He starts with 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:25.720 the Greek and Latin literature that includes supernatural elements, moves 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:29.359 up to the Gothic era, has a whole huge section 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:33.240 on Poe, and then talks a lot about the weird 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:35.880 horror writers at the end of the nineteenth century. That's 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.440 just the first volume. Originally, this was published in two 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:41.680 separate volumes. In the second volume covers the development of 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:44.800 horror literature through the twentieth century, with sections mainly on 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:49.760 those people I just mentioned before, Makin Blackwood, Lovecraft, etcetera. Uh, 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:53.200 Shirley Jackson has her own whole chapter all the way 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:56.560 up to Peter Straub, Stephen King and people who are 0:05:56.560 --> 0:05:59.479 writing today like that. Well they're all writing today, but 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.680 like Kately and R. Kiernan, who's like a relatively recent 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:06.200 writer comparatively to the rest of this stuff. So I 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.640 I really recommended if you're just looking to just play 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.839 around and see what's out there in horror literature and 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:14.920 what you like and what you don't like. Yeah, he's 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:20.400 definitely one of those those uh, those great authoritative um 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:22.440 experts on the field where you can always just get 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:24.840 a few at least a few ideas of authors you 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:27.800 need to check out and try. Yeah, I'm loving it, 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:31.240 especially the egg Allen post section has been really illuminating 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:33.160 for me so far. And now, would you say his 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:36.720 his survey of the field is more exclusively literary, just 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:38.880 like looking at the authors and their works and the 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:42.080 relationship to each other. Or does he do historical and 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:47.480 other cultural contextual stuff too. Uh No, it's primarily literary. Yeah, 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:51.440 I don't think he not so much unless he's like 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.560 previously written about an author like so, for instance, in 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:56.520 the post section, he already had like a lot to 0:06:56.560 --> 0:06:59.320 gather from, so he could provide you with some context 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:01.400 about like what was going on imposed life at the 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:03.560 time that he wrote I don't know, murders in the room, 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:06.760 morgue or something like that, and that provided some context, 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.920 but but not for everything. Yeah, so yeah, I mean, 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:13.000 I highly recommend it. I know from talking to some 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:15.320 of our listeners, they always like it when we bring 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:19.280 up the weird horror literature that we've been reading, and uh, man, 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:21.440 this is it. This is the book if you you know, 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:22.880 you don't have to read the whole thing. You can 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:25.280 just get it, flipped through it and kind of find 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:28.600 like the area that you're looking for and and dive 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:30.840 in and you will come out with just a treasure 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:33.920 trove of authors to go looking for. Then I gotta ask, 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:37.360 last time we did a summer reading episode, y'all convinced 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:39.560 me to read The Great God Pan by Arthur Makon, 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:42.320 who is one of the writers you mentioned that he 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.000 gets into. I went and read it, loved it. It's amazing. 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:47.680 What does he think about it? I haven't gotten to 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:49.480 the section yet where he talks about making. But if 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:52.880 I know Joshi, I would imagine that he thinks it's awesome. Yeah, 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:56.080 he probably like sets up a shrine at its feet. Well, 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:58.120 I know a lot of a lot of critics trashed it, 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:01.720 didn't they back then? Yeah, I mean a hundred and 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:05.240 twenty years ago when nobody knew anything. Yeah, and no, 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:08.080 I think, And certainly it's not for everybody, Like I 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:10.720 can imagine plenty of people would maybe not dig it today. 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:13.040 Give men maybe a little bit stuffy, a little bit 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.000 the prose style is yeah, is definitely of its time, 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:18.600 and it's How does our friend H. E. C. Steiner 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:20.600 refer to it? He talks about it as being like 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:23.400 yet another one of those stories of like learned gentleman, 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:27.760 like just sitting around by fire talking about something horrific. Right, 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:30.520 but it's awesome. It's one of the best horror stories 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:33.079 I think I ever written. You would not comprehend my horror? 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:36.280 When all right, Joe, what do you have? What do 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:39.160 you have from the nonfictional bucket here for us? Well, 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:41.080 I've got it. I've got one fiction book and a 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:44.040 few nonfiction books, but all I'll start with one that 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:46.400 if you are a regular listener, to the show. This 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:48.360 probably is not going to come as a surprise to you, 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:50.640 because I think I've gushed about it on at least 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:54.120 one episode before, maybe multiple episodes. But my first nonfiction 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:58.480 pick is the Invention of Nature Alexander von Humboldt's New 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:02.280 World by Andrea Woolf. And that's a book published by 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:06.840 NOTAP and it's about the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:10.920 who lived from seventeen eighteen fifty nine. And this guy 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:15.000 has a lot of things in the world named after him. 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:19.160 There's the Humboldt Current, the Humboldt Glacier in Greenland, Humboldt 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:23.480 Bay in California, the Humboldt Range, Humboldt Falls, Humblet Mountains, 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:28.840 Humbolt penguin, Humboldt squid, uh tons of other animal species. 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.640 He's all over the map in the natural world. They 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:34.559 should all get together and full formed like a Humblet 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:38.400 super team, right like, and turn into a giant robot. 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:42.040 Yeah exactly, huh. And so I I think, in fact 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:43.640 that this is my favorite. I think he's even got 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:45.880 a sinkhole named after him. Now, once you've got a 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:49.360 sinkhole named after you, you you have made it squad goals. 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:52.960 But so he traveled all over the world during his 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:55.880 lifetime making observations of nature. He was one of those 0:09:55.920 --> 0:10:00.360 classic nineteenth century naturalists, kind of like dar Win, but 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:04.319 preceding Darwin, and so his influence in his own time 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:08.240 was pretty much incalculable. But I don't think I ever 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:12.520 learned a single thing about this guy in school, And 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:14.800 after reading this book, I think I'd say von Humboldt 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:19.120 might be the most historically influential intellectual of the past 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:23.920 millennium who is just completely forgotten by history. Why is that, 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:26.600 I don't know, But reading Andrea Wolfe's book on him 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:30.959 is just wonderful. I I absolutely loved it. So to 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:34.920 give a little context about what's going on in Humboldt's lifetime, 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:37.599 I want to read a quote from Thomas Jefferson that 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:40.679 sort of reflects the attitude toward nature one might encounter 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:43.800 in the learned gentleman, as you say, of the of 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:46.840 the nineteenth century. Turn of the nineteenth century. So Jefferson 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:51.560 had put the mammoth on this chart he made of 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:56.680 extant European mammals, and obviously some people were like, why 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:59.439 the mammoth, and so he said quote. It may be 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:02.080 asked to why I insert the mammoth as if he 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:05.640 still existed. It may be asked in return, why I 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:10.480 should omit it as if it did not exist, such 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:13.440 as the economy of nature, that no instance can be 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.560 produced of her having permitted any one race of her 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:20.400 animals to become extinct, of her having formed any link 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:22.959 in her great works so weak as to be broken. 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:29.560 I mean today, that's obviously extremely wrong in multiple ways. 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:32.320 But this was sort of the climate in which Humboldt's 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:38.040 view was revolutionary. So in many ways Humboldt is responsible 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:41.679 for the way scientists came to see nature as they 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:45.480 do today, not as a static created order with everything 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:48.840 in its right place and nothing really changing over the 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:54.240 long term, but as this dynamic, changeable, massively interconnected system 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:59.160 of ecology and biological and chemical webs of relationships between 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:02.120 all the things on Earth, the elements, and its life forms. 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:06.959 So in Humboldts of view, habitats could be altered and destroyed, 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:10.520 species could go extinct, and changes in one place could 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.840 have far reaching effects and others. And Humblet began to 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:16.080 use the analogy of the world as sort of one 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.520 unified organism, whereas you know in an organism, if you 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:22.000 get gang green in one part of your body, it 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:25.440 will affect other parts of your body. So, Uh, I 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:28.640 loved this book. It's just full of really fascinating stories 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:31.520 about humblets travels around the world and his experiments. I 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:33.800 think I used it as one of our sources in 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:35.840 the episodes Robert and I did about the early days 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:39.520 of electricity experiments where uh one of the ones I 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:42.480 related with Humbldt's quest to collect the bodies of lightning 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:46.880 strike victims so he could examine the burns to their 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:50.000 to their body hair and see exactly what that could 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:53.720 tell us about animal electricity. Another one was humbldts experiments 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:57.760 with bom Blonde about the electric eels of South America, 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:00.840 collecting eels by causing horses to stay impede over a 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:03.280 pond full of them, and then once he finally got 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:06.400 some eels. Uh like touching the eels a lot, and 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:11.120 it's weird, but he was a very interesting, very smart, 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:13.440 very cool guy for his time. He was like the 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:17.360 ig Nobel Prize winner of his time. Like, instead of 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:19.800 taking bees and holding them to his body, he just 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.160 touched electrical kind of but more of a more of 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:25.840 a scientific superstar. Yeah, he was absolutely a rock star 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.920 of his time, like more than Stephen Hawking or any 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.800 celebrity scientists today. He's like dead to history now. I 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:34.640 don't know if they don't talk about him in school 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.800 or or you know, I guess just in the science 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:41.160 community in general. I don't know. It's it's a good question, um, 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:45.320 because his his influence was absolutely huge. A big part 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:48.840 of the book is just showing how big his influence was, 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:56.040 like their chapters focusing on contemporaries of of Humboldts like Gerta. 0:13:56.320 --> 0:14:00.880 Darwin's Thorau, so artists, politicians, other scientists, and how they 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.680 all revered him and got lots of ideas from him. 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:07.280 And so I really don't know exactly why it is 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:11.120 that his legacy is mostly forgotten. Well there's penguins and 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:14.560 glaciers and sinkholes at least. Well it sounds like you 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:18.920 really need to push the Humboldt renaissance here. I mean, yeah, 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:23.960 everyone behind and pushed Tesla back to the forefront. So yeah, 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:27.920 I think humbold more interesting than Tesla. Whoah, you heard 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:31.160 it here first folks. Yeah, but anyway, this should we 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:32.960 name a car after him. Well, if you want to 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:36.520 find out for yourself, for yourself, you should read this book. 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:39.720 So it's really really wonderful. It's not only a pleasure. 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.800 It covers this massive blind spot I didn't even know 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:46.840 I had in sort of the Western history of scientific thought. Uh. 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:52.160 So that's Andrea Wolf Alexander von Humboldt's New World. Uh 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:56.960 check it out. Big, big thumbs up from me. All right, well, 0:14:57.040 --> 0:15:00.360 um from my part um. You know, we a lot 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:07.480 of scientific books, especially the mainstream general scientific books across 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:10.240 our desk, and of the ones that have come out 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:13.960 in the past year, I really have to say that 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:17.720 mar j Hart's Sex in the CEA our intimate connection 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.000 with sex, changing fish, romantic lobsters, kiki squid, and other 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:23.840 salty erotica of the deep, it's probably the one that 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:25.920 right at the top of my list. Yeah, that's a 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:28.360 great book. And we talked about it in our Osadas 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:30.800 bone Worm episode. We didn't talk to her with Ma 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:33.640 and there and and we're planning to do another interview 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:37.720 with her later this summer. Uh. She was delightful down 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:42.080 to Earth and really is into the kinky stuff between 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:44.840 marine life. Yeah, like she does. I thought she did 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:48.520 just a fabulous job, not only you know, in the book, 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:50.520 but in the interview as well. I mean, just really 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:54.840 conveying I love for these creatures, but also a great 0:15:54.840 --> 0:16:00.320 willingness to enjoy the ridiculousness of totally inhuman weird nous, 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:02.840 of the sense of humor about it. The way that 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:06.280 um she frames each of her chapters. Yeah, yeah, I 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:09.080 enjoyed that. It reminded me of Mary Roach. I'd love 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:11.280 to see more come out from Marra sort of along 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:13.560 the same lines as how Mary Roach has got this 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:16.000 series of books over time. Yeah, she has a similar voice, 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:20.080 but but coming from you know, more of a devoted 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:24.800 expert background, because this this is her her area of expertise, 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:30.080 and she really brings across a clear passion for ecological preservation. Uh. 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:33.160 And it it's probably would say it's a perfect scientific 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:35.320 beach read for obvious reasons. You're going to the beach 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:39.040 and not better than the werewolf spot. Then you go 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:41.320 swimming around in the ocean and have all the various 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:45.800 fluids of marine life spawning just flowing around over your body. Now, 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.360 this gives me an idea has anybody ever tried to 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:53.720 create a wear bone worm story? Well, you know, it 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.320 would be hard because you'd have to swim all the 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:59.040 way to the bottom of the ocean near a whales 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:02.640 carcass and then be bitten by a bone worm. So 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:05.679 it starts like the abyss. Yeah. Well, but then I 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:09.679 don't see how I don't think think see how they 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:12.240 would be a threat to anybody. Like basically they'd be like, oh, well, Carl, 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:15.040 he caught this bone worm illness, and now he just 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:17.560 he keeps to himself a lot because he goes down 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:19.960 the whale car because we'll remember we were talking about 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:22.200 in that episode though about maybe it was just me. 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.119 But but like how it would be great if you 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:27.359 could use bone worms as like a weapon, like in 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:29.560 BioShock or something like that, and you just throw them 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:33.000 at people and they immediately start drilling through. So they 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:34.919 could be like that. You could just you could just 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:39.240 change into a ware bone worm. But but a spy 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:44.399 took Uh. The other book that I thought i'd mentioned 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:46.919 this is another one that I've definitely mentioned on the 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:50.879 podcast before, uh, and that is a Chinese mythology and 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:53.919 introduction by and Beryl. I found this to be just 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:56.359 a first of all, it's it has provids a great 0:17:56.359 --> 0:18:01.040 overview of mythology as it's studied in general. So even 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:04.080 if you're going into it without a whole lot of 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:07.399 religious studies in your past or you know, mythological understanding, 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:11.040 she provides just a great introduction to just what mythology 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:13.480 is now it works, and then then a wonderful overview 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:17.560 about what's distinct about Chinese myth cycles uh, compared to 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:23.280 the West, compared to even other Asian myths cycles UM. 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.199 And there's just also a cool arrangement of themes, so 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:29.000 she she groups everything and to for instance, they'll be 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:33.200 at there's a section on on miraculous births, section on heroes, 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:37.000 the section on immortality, on strange creatures, etcetera. So I 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:40.640 feel like the the information is very well presented. Uh. 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:43.560 You know, it's more of a more of a scholarly 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:48.320 textbook for sure, compared to U to to my my 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:51.119 previous recommendation. But if you were at all interested in 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:53.800 Chinese culture, if we were all interested in UM in 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:56.679 Eastern mythology, I think it's a great book to pick up. 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.879 And I picked up a few different Chinese mythology texts 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.479 found a few of them a little a little harder 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:06.439 to engage with, So of those books, I feel like 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:08.919 this is the this is the best, And this was 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:11.720 a resource that I'm guessing that you turned to for 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:13.200 a couple of different things that we've done over the 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.520 last few months, Right, like the mythology episode that you 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:17.880 and I did. You guys did an episode on the Zodiac. 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:20.320 Did it come into play there? Um? I picked up 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:22.440 the book after the Zodiac, So I think I actually 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:24.240 stopped this one out when I was working on that 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:27.040 How Stuff Works Now piece of Superhero that was going 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:28.879 to be the next thing I mentioned. Yeah, there was 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:34.000 one particular story, um from Chinese folklore conserving concerning the 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:36.919 seven to ten brothers, however many you want to count, 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:40.360 and I was just determined to find a good scholarly 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:43.440 resource on this. As it turns out, it's not really 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:46.320 dealt with in this book, but it ended up acquiring 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:49.320 it anyway, And after I got it, I realized, well, 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:51.520 this is not really gonna help me with this particular assignment. 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:53.159 But then the more I started reading it, everyalized it 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:55.440 was just a faculous text and couldn't put it back down. 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:57.480 Cool that sounds great. I hope we get more out 0:19:57.520 --> 0:19:59.639 of it too, don't Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's tons of 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:02.959 inform in there. So if if you guys want to hear, uh, 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:05.399 you know, anything else concerning mythology from us, if we 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:08.400 have not filled our quota from based episodes, because we've 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:12.320 had a couple of them, right, we've had the the uh, 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:16.159 the overall look at mythology and then Joe, didn't we 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:18.439 just record one dealing with myth as well. Yeah, we 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:22.840 did one with on a mythical creatures mythology. So yeah, 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:24.800 we we we have a couple of us feel like 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:28.240 really strong myth based episodes. In mythology of course continually 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:30.560 comes up in our episodes. Anyone, we don't bust myths. 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:32.680 Here is stuff to blow, all right, we embrace them, 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:36.480 we build them. Okay, so we're gonna take a quick break, 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:38.359 but when we get back, we're going to delve into 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:47.440 our fiction picks for the year. Okay, so we're back, guys. 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:50.960 I have been talking about this book, probably to you 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:53.879 off air, but to pretty much everybody in my life 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:59.080 for the last year. It is Jeff Vandermere's Annihilation. Uh. 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:02.240 This is the first first book in his trilogy of 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:06.520 the Southern Reach story. Have I have I torn your 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:08.919 ears apart yet? Oh? Yes, I I pushed hard for 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:11.240 it to for its inclusion in a book club that 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:14.800 I'm in it and it was it was just I 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:18.640 guess too, Sci five. This is the stuff to blow 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:21.720 your mind book. I'm telling you, like it's all like 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:24.240 all the things we're going for with this podcast are 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:26.679 in this book. UM. So, if you don't know who 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:29.639 vander Meer is, he's a weird fiction, sci fi horror 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:33.320 author together with his wife, and he's compiled a lot 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:37.240 of just excellent anthologies as introductions to those genres that 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:40.600 he writes within. Um. In fact, last year, his book 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:43.000 The Weird was on my list and I've probably talked 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:46.320 about it on almost every single episode since then because 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:49.639 I just loved that book. Um and so you've probably 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:51.640 heard me mention it a lot of times. But Annihilation 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:54.960 is his book. It is a novel. Uh. And if 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:56.720 you're a fan of what we do on the show, 0:21:56.920 --> 0:21:59.920 really I can't recommend you have to check it out. 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:05.360 Combines weird science with this haunting prose in a great mystery. Uh. 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:08.040 In fact, this is a description of the book just like, 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:09.720 and I'm going to just give you a bare bones 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:13.200