Episode Details

Jesse, Terence Blake, and Jonathan Weichsel talk about Time Is The Simplest Thing by Clifford D. Simak

Talked about on today’s show:
The Fisherman, serialized in Analog, April 1961, a really good scene, fits the story, so ubiquitous, very surprising, pictograms in the text, this book is pretty hip, an Alfred Bester book, The Demolished Man, the mutants are an oppressed species, kinda derivative, Starman Jones, hitchhiking across country, hitches a ride, very Campbellian, Americana stuff, the whole premise is there to please Campbell, just an easy sale, lay bare sneaking suspicion, grew and grew and then waned, a retelling of the story of Jesus, the hero’s journey, goes into the outside, comes out of the cave, he’s a teacher, 10 pages, a Jesus thing, all that suffering goes on him, his great gift, people aren’t even happy with that, fishhook is big tech, Jonathan is Stone, Jesse is Finn, it has become corrupt, it is the church, the universities, corporations, Jesse is not Finn, the technology is great the organization is bad, the technology is bad, institutionalist stuck between the two philosophies, the word Stone, a guy named Peter, Godfrey Stone, a religious book, parallel scenes, lost in the willow island, The Willows by Algernon Blackwood, goes to paradise, he’s got the Good News, also a science fiction story, ah but it is a fantasy, shownoting, 7 people talking about a Philip K. Dick story, thinking about Paul Weimer, raised under a religion, strong opinions, so strange, deeply flawed, compelled with the journey, very solid, repeat itself a couple of times, what a book!, compelling and interesting, The Goblin Reservation, gets the knowledge, the internal journey, all the monsters are real, physics are different, buy this artifact, bringing back knowledge from the stars, a different tone, this has serious conflict in it, conflicts easily overcome very quickly, that blows Jesse’s theory, hunting the monster, hidden agenda, subterfuge, intent to kill, a whole society that is full of resentment, what Paul would have thought of this book, where’s the US government?, absent, not a conspiracy, responding to reality, star signs, decorating the truck, Stars of David, moon and star of Islam, the worries of witchcraft, science has been discredited, if Paul were on the show, we just went through COVID, I am the science, big pharmaceutical companies, don’t do your own research now, counter-science propaganda, that’s just in people’s heads, how science actual is, science fiction books have been replaced by fantasy, a hard to classify book, in a science fiction magazine, such a hugely silly premise, what hard fantasy was, Larry Niven’s The Magic Goes Away, fantasy stuff is science, show me, the Campbell problem, Henry Kuttner’s Mutant, Jack Williamson’s Golden Blood, Dragon’s Island, hiding mutants, algae, weird book, The Skull by Philip K. Dick, basically The Terminator (1984), a religious figure, chipped tooth, he is that guy, doing Jesus style stuff, a cafe, quivering boobs, goes back in time again, the mob comes for him, the cosmic joke being played on him, scenes like that, the Joseph Smith story, also Abdul Al Hazred, the Mohamed story, the country, how people are in it now, company stores, trading posts, the propaganda, industries out of business, new tech all the time, disrupting the no-nothing non-Slans, making them vote for Trump, Fishhook is for profit, they’re cheap, a dystopia for non-psi people, a way for Simak to sell to John W. Campbell, big tech, chatbots, image generators, doing this for your good, the taxi industry, Uber, Bezos’ Gazelle Strategy, democratizing publishing, doing that too, creating a problem in order to provi