Life Death Sci-fi

Hosts Eric Bueschlen and Chris Herzberg relate to The Earth Abides by George R. Stewart. A 70-year-old story with relevance today. What was the earliest "last person on earth" story? Ish drives across the country looking for survivors and finds more than one kind of survivor. This review was recorded during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, and our hosts talk about fear, death, and survival.

Image:"Earth Abides by George R. Stewart" by Jovike is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Hosts Eric Bueschlen and Chris Herzberg wonder about The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster. Our hosts get right into it with all of the sci-fi connections this story has and it was written in 1909! The Starship Enterprise has visited more than one planet that has problems because they forgot who built the machine that protects them; the same is true in The Machine Stops. E.M. Forster creates a frightening world where people are hooked into a machine afraid to go into the polluted outside world; like in The Matrix, the main character Neo wakes up in an amniotic pod to a very different life he was living, like Logan's Run where society is so afraid of leaving the domes they live in that they allow a culling at the age of 30 to curb population. These stories strongly connect to Vishti's pod and her son, Kuno's journey to escape the machine. How could E.M. Forster have known so much about 100 years into his future? Respect. 

Hosts Eric Bueschlen and Chris Herzberg talk about the sci-fi classic, Ringworld by Larry Niven. We are awed by the scope of this setting and the diversity of the cast of characters. Luck, free will, and destiny are surprise guests in this space opera. Think big, solar system big, it’s a galaxy-sized story.  This episode includes a surprise discussion around the lessons of eugenics connects to The Underground Railroad by Colsen Whitehead.

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In this episode, we explore the first book of Jeff Vanderveer's Southern Reach Trilogy. Is it a story of first contact? Horror? A love story? Perhaps a fairy tale? What mysteries does the lighthouse represent? What are "Hyperobjects? And why doesn't anyone have a name? 

A lot of podcast production talk; music, scripts, and editing. Then some pandemic catch-up time it just felt like it had to happen. Finally, we get to Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, some of the best bits were about "Who IS Captain Nemo? A villain or a hero? Can you be both? Catch all of this and more in episode 4. The Nautilus submarine is the best tech ever!

Hosts Eric Bueschlen and Chris Herzberg argue about this "first contact" satire on religion and politics. We try to answer the questions: