Synthesized Sunsets

This week we spoke with long time Science Fiction reviewer and anthologist Rich Horton. We talked about his experience in the early internet sci-fi community on Usenet, his career in sci-fi criticism at Tangent and Locus, his work creating sci-fi/fantasy best of the year anthologies, our thoughts on the current slate of Hugo Award nominees, and more.

We hope you enjoy!

TIMESTAMPS:

0:14 - Introduction

0:39 - What drew you to Substack?

1:33 - Rich Horton started Substack by reading people already here (Ted Gioia, Lincoln Michel, Naomi Kanakia)

2:25 - Usenet as a hub for sci-fi discourse

6:07 - Substack is a place where you can talk about books

7:07 - Stories about sci-fi discussion on Usenet

13:08 - Starting Writing Reviews for Tangent

18:19 - Becoming a columnist at Locus

21:13 - Creating SFF best of the year anthologies

25:49 - It was cool to publish stories from literary writers in sci-fi anthologies

28:38 - The challenge of only writing positive reviews

29:57 - It's hard to write negative reviews for people you know

32:32 - Should you be able to spoil a story as the critic?

33:40 - It's easier to write bad reviews for already well-aclaimed books

38:18 - Society doesn't have much respect for critics

39:55 - Newspaper book reviews are dying off

41:18 - The best critics are worth reading even outside of any engagement with the original text

44:57 - Rating books by entertainment and ambition

45:40 - Discussing Hugo Award Nominee Novels

48:54 - Having separate literary and speculative ratings

52:04 - A lot of "hard" science fiction is written by people with an actual background in science

56:13 - Experiences at WorldCon and other sci-fi conventions

1:04:13 - Conclusion and short fiction recommendations of short story The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar and novella New Light On the Drake Equation by Ian R. MacLeod

1:06:22 - Start of Synthesized Sunsets Backstage

1:07:32 - It was cool to learn about early sci-fi internet with Usenet

1:08:22 - A higher barrier to engagement can create better conversations

1:10:42 - Discussing Hugo Awards Review #3: The Tainted Cup + A Sorceress Comes to Call

1:11:08 - We both liked The Tainted Cup a lot

1:13:09 - The Tainted Cup had a somewhat unambitious style

1:16:20 - The Ana + Din scenes in The Tainted Cup remind Kevin of ASMR videos

1:17:29 - Neither of us liked A Sorceress Comes To Call

1:17:55 - A Sorceress Comes to Call would be a pretty good kids book

1:19:27 - It's hard to separate personal opinion from objective quality when reviewing something

1:20:48 - It's important to believe in a character's existence

1:25:57 - Knowledge of the artist's vision can enhance the enjoyment of some art object

1:27:19 - "Earlier in my life I was unable to connect with the art objects of music" (songs)

1:28:28 - Discussing The SFF Magazine Canon

1:29:27 - The line between prozines and semiprozines is quite blurry

1:33:26 - Magazine recommendations

* Reactor has longer form stories and is the most approachable as a sci-fi novel reader

* Lightspeed has the widest variety of sci-fi stories

* Beneath Ceaseless Skies has the most consistent style of secondary world fantasy stories

1:36:59 - Conclusion and short story recommendation of “The Electric Ant” by Philip K. Dick

The week we were joined by prolific author of rational fiction Alexander Wales. We of course discuss his works, particularly Worth the Candle, This Used to be About Dungeons, and The Metropolitan Man, but also talk about time travel, writing under a pseudonym, crafting believable characters, and more.

Thanks for Listening!

TIMESTAMPS:

0:12 - Introduction

0:55 - What are the characteristics of Rational Fiction?

6:11 - Discussing Worth the Candle

7:14 - Using a pseudonym releases pressure as an author

10:32 - How much of Worth the Candle is taken from D&D campaigns you ran?

13:41 - Does being a DM prepare you for being a fiction writer?

16:18 - Being a web serial author you can't go back and change your work

18:19 - Continuously tinkering with a book for ages is overrated

20:00 - Unlike webcomics web serials actually finish sometimes

24:09 - Do web fiction authors ever use Pseudonyms to write something other than the main fic they are known for?

27:37 - Writing under a pseudonym can give you a more authentic reaction

29:06 - Discussing This Used To Be About Dungeons

32:16 - It was cool to have characters who were believably unlikeable in ways

36:35 - Not all conflict should come from misunderstandings

40:11 - Chrononauts in This Used To Be About Dungeons and time travel as a trope

44:36 - It's hard to do everything exactly the same as you did in the past

45:36 - Time loops are like speedrunning

47:04 - Time Travel Story Recommendations

* Palimpsest by Charles Stross

* Primer (rewatch with commentary from Sam Hughes/qntm)

* The Time Traveler’s Wife (only the book)

49:59 - Discussing The Metropolitan Man

51:20 - Is it more interesting to write fanfiction focused on more mundane characters?

55:04 - Lois Lane is an interesting character in The Metropolitan Man

58:34 - The Metropolitan Man owes its biggest inspiration to Superman: Red Son

1:02:09 - Your fanfiction has some high quality footnotes

1:05:03 - Discussing the cthuluraejepsen pseudonym

1:06:37 - Conclusion + Short Fiction Recommendation of Eager Readers in Your Area

1:08:45 - Start of Synthesized Sunsets Backstage

1:10:49 - It was cool to talk about Metropolitan Man directly after reading

1:12:43 - Discussing Kevin’s article Golden Age Science Fiction is Being Reborn... in China?

1:15:34 - Sci-fi has lost optimism and reverence for science and technology in general

1:19:49 - University Sci-fi clubs have died off in the U.S

1:21:10 - There are a lot more outlets for being nerdy than there used to be

1:23:11 - Discussing our review article Hugo Awards Review #2: Alien Clay + Service Model

1:23:25 - Kevin really liked Alien Clay

1:26:04 - Gordon really wanted to like Alien Clay

1:27:40 - Alien Clay sort of spoils its own climax

1:29:48 - Alien Clay has some really interesting characters

1:31:55 - Kevin and Gordon are in agreement that Service Model was very okay

1:32:20 - Service Model was too long and took itself too seriously

1:34:43 - Kevin suggests an alternate version of this book where The Wonk is a figment of Uncharles's imagination

1:37:14 - Service Model was very reliant on its settings being captivating

1:39:39 - It’s hard to rate reading experience too heavily because it is influenced by factors other than the quality of the book

1:41:33 - Conclusion + Short Story Recommendation Human Resources (prequel to Service Model)

This week we hosted Regina Kanyu Wang, an award-winning writer and editor of Chinese science fiction. In 2022, she co-edited The Way Spring Arrives, a pioneering collection of stories from Chinese female and non-binary authors. We were super excited to have someone from the scene help us develop our thoughts about Chinese science fiction, which eventually turned into Kevin’s article “Golden Age Science Fiction is Being Reborn… in China?”.

In this episode, we discuss Regina’s curatorial approach, the differences between America and China, and what it’s like to be a sci-fi fan outside of the Anglosphere. Plus… whether learning Chinese can expand your cognition? Listen to find out!

TIMESTAMPS

00:00:12 - Intro

00:00:53 - What was it like to see sci-fi become wildly popular in China?

00:04:13 - To what extent does Cixin Liu define Chinese science fiction?

00:10:50 - Why are Chinese science fiction fans younger than their American counterparts?

00:11:52 - The “Bus Theory” of Chinese science fiction fans

00:15:35 - China still romanticizes science as a culture

00:18:54 - The “triangle” driving Chinese science fiction

00:20:21 - Why doesn't China have more cultural exports, and why is Three-Body Problem the exception?

00:24:24 - Is there a lot of censorship in Chinese science fiction?

00:28:09 - The Way Spring Arrives, edited by Yu Chen & Regina Kanyu Wang

00:31:35 - “Dragonslaying” by Shen Yingying, translated by Emily Jin

00:36:28 - Is Chinese web fiction more addictive than hard drugs?

00:41:46 - What is cultivation fantasy? / “The Tale of Wude’s Heavenly Tribulation” by Count E, translated by etvolare

00:44:56 - Regina's travels in Northern Europe + being adopted by Finnish fandom

00:50:48 - Does Chinese sci-fi have different attitudes about AI?

00:56:18 - Could AI-assisted language learning be used to expand human cognition?

00:59:05 - Haruki Murakami's weird writing process

01:02:25 - Conclusion and final recommendations

01:04:17 - Synthesized Stage Backstage Begins

01:05:41 - Why does China have so much more of a university sci-fi club experience?

01:09:11 - How is Western science fiction different from American science fiction?

01:11:30 - Why Kevin became slightly less intimidated by the Chinese government during the episode

01:12:23 - Gordon appreciates the simplicity of Chinese Golden Age-style SF story

01:13:28 - Why Chinese SF is kind of like George R. R. Martin in its effects

01:14:09 - Kevin and Gordon review the Hugo Award for Best Short Story nominees

01:15:28 - “We Will Teach You How to Read, We Will Teach You How to Read” by Caroline M. Yoachim

01:19:34 - Kevin was surprised by how postmodern the Hugo Awards slate was

01:20:25 - “Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim

01:23:25 - “Three Faces of a Beheading” by Arkady Martine

01:27:20 - “Five Views of the Planet Tartarus” by Rachael K. Morgan and “Marginalia” by Mary Robinette Kowal

01:31:09 - “Stitched to Skin Like Family Is” by Nghi Vo

01:35:11 - Conclusion

LINKS

* “The Winter Garden” by Regina Kanyu Wang

* “The Language Sheath” by Regina Kanyu Wang

* “A Record of Lost Time” by Regina Kanyu Wang

* Kevin’s article “Golden Age Science Fiction is Being Reborn… in China?”

* Kevin and Gordon review the Hugo Award for Best Short Story nominees

* Douban, a very interesting Chinese site that combines Goodreads, IMDB, and Rate Your Music all in one

* “US Man Credits Chinese Web Novels for Curing His Addiction to Drugs”

This week we were joined by Adrian Tchaikovsky, a sci-fi and fantasy author most well known for writing the award-winning Children of Time series. His books often discuss the interactions between unique artificial and biological intelligences, and for this year’s Hugo awards he has two nominees for Best Novel in that space with Alien Clay and Service Model.

We discuss Alien Clay, the allure of existing at the end of time, the differences between British and American Sci-fi, and the historical and biological inspirations for Adrian Tchaikovsky’s fiction.

Thanks for listening!

TIMESTAMPS:

0:12 - Introduction

1:48 - Alien Clay as a new perspective on evolution with more cooperation than competition

4:03 - Autocratic regimes are desperate for an external moral or scientific justification for their actions

5:38 - Politics as an outlet for our more sadistic impulses

8:25 - Is having a rigidly defined sense of self an evolutionary or cultural?

13:12 - Are the bacteria in your microbiome part of you?

18:50 - Alien Clay as a more pro-science Annihilation

25:56 - Writing novels should be seen as a collaborative rather than competitive ecosystem

29:49 - What inspires you from history?

35:18 - The tragedy of losing information

40:22 - “One Day This Will All Be Yours” and the allure of existing at the end of time

45:30 - People prefer imagining a barren planet that dies with us, then a vibrant one that outlasts us

47:08 - Climate change does not hurt the Earth, it hurts those on the Earth including us

50:24 - Changes in scientific understanding take a long time to proliferate through culture: dinosaurs are still depicted as scaly rather than feathered

53:45 - The differences in American and British Sci-fi

57:49 - Do you think in terms of genre when writing Sci-fi vs. Fantasy?

1:00:40 - Elder Race and creating a narrative where neither the high-tech or low-tech characters are prepared for the monster

1:04:05 - Conclusion and final recommendations upcoming release of Adrian Tchaikovsky's book “Shroud” and short story collection “Our Savage Heart” by Justina Robson

1:04:52 - Start of Synthesized Sunsets Backstage

1:07:32 - Reasoning not talking about Children of Time in the interview, but talking about it now

1:11:09 - Children of Time would make a good prestige Sci-fi TV show

1:15:05 - Kevin really likes “One Day This Will All Be Yours”

1:18:35 - Discussing The Web Fiction Canon article

1:20:08 - Web serial fantasy

1:24:05 - Any form of serialized entertainment tends to generally start ok get better and then slowly get worse over a long time

1:26:22 - Rational Fiction

1:30:59 - /newwave/

1:34:53 - Interactive Fiction

1:35:51 - The line between interactive fiction and video games is blurry

1:37:28 - 17776 and the potential for more parallax fiction

1:40:08 - Conclusion

This week we hosted Naomi Kanakia, a literary critic who writes about the health of the prestige publishing ecosystem and the value of reading the Great Books on her Substack Woman of Letters. She is also an accomplished speculative fiction author, with stories published in major outlets like Clarkesworld and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Our discussion focused on the short story as a form, both in general and within the context of speculative fiction. We also discussed sentimentality in literature, the surprisingly messy origins of the novel, and, of course, Scott Alexander.

Whether you’re a new reader from the Scott Alexander post or you’ve been listening to us for a bit, we’re happy to have you! Thanks for listening!

TIMESTAMPS

00:00:12 - Introduction

00:00:52 - What is a “tale”?

00:02:06 - How has the way that we tell stories changed?

00:04:44 - Do the novel and the short story still have life left in them?

00:07:48 - Short stories as an indicator of institutional trust

00:09:59 - Scott Alexander as a literary author

00:11:51 - Short stories as “assassinating the reader”

00:16:46 - Misdirection and realism in the tale

00:19:22 - Storytelling formats that are lost in cultural translation

00:20:24 - Predecessors to the novel that have gone extinct

00:24:02 - Is Moby-Dick a novel or a really elaborate whaling facts book?

00:25:50 - Ted Chiang's “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling”

00:26:46 - Are we moving from a written to an oral culture?

00:30:36 - Sentimentality in speculative fiction

00:33:43 - Naomi would like to see sentimentality come back to high literature

00:36:37 - Have sentimental novels been crowded out by other forms of entertainment?

00:38:31 - Are biographies the new sentimental novel?

00:40:51 - The ridiculously sentimental moment in Death's End by Cixin Liu

00:43:56 - Chengdu WorldCon and its consequences

00:46:32 - Treating literary conventions as inevitable

00:49:51 - The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. Goldratt

00:51:05 - The “shadow canon” of science fiction and its potential longevity

00:55:29 - Conclusion and final recommendations

00:56:09 - Synthesized Sunsets Backstage begins

01:00:22 - Gordon thinks that classic books are in some ways worse for modern audiences than their contemporaries

01:06:35 - Have we made mysteries worse for ourselves by getting too good at solving them?

01:07:22 - Kevin's article "The Most Underrated Speculative Fiction Writer of the 21st Century is... Scott Alexander?"

01:12:08 - “IT WAS YOU WHO MADE MY BLUE EYES BLUE” by Scott Alexander

01:15:08 - How much does Scott Alexander's nonfiction enhance his fiction?

01:16:59 - Scott Alexander is really good at injecting ideas into the idea space

01:18:54 - Conclusion and final recommendations

LINKS

* Yoon Ha Lee’s interview about “assassinating the reader”

* “On Mars, everyone truly finds their level” by Naomi Kanakia

* Katherine Dee on the Internet as an oral culture

* “Sort By Controversial” by Scott Alexander

* Naomi Kanakia on the “shadow canon”

* “IT WAS YOU WHO MADE MY BLUE EYES BLUE” by Scott Alexander

* “Book Review: Albion’s Seed” by Scott Alexander

* Naomi Kanakia’s profile on Lightspeed (story forthcoming)

Welcome to the fourth season of Synthesized Sunsets: a seasonal magazine about speculative fiction and the future of pop! This spring, the mag will shift in direction yet again. The biggest change will be a renewed focus on fiction. Both of us will be trying to get published in mainstream SFF magazines this year, and we hope to use the more futurist articles in the magazine as inspiration for future stories. With luck, you’ll be able to see the genesis of published sci-fi stories right here on the podcast!

Also, both of us will be attending the Hugo Awards in August. In preparation, we will be reviewing more contemporary sci-fi in the lead-up to the event. We are also going to start posting video versions of old essays on our YouTube channel, which you can find here. In light of this, we will be getting a long-overdue mic upgrade (!!) next week.

Now that we’ve gotten the announcements out of the way, let’s talk about our theme for this issue: rebirth. When I think about rebirth, I instinctively think of it in terms of identity. It’s less about the bodily elements and more about adopting a self-concept that a previous version of you would find unrecognizable. In general, speculative fiction allows for some interesting explorations of rebirth. More on that later.

The art that we are using for this issue is Art Nouveau, and in particular the art of Alphonse Mucha. Art Nouveau was a movement that sought to explicitly break from the old artistic tradition and create something totally new. But while they wanted Art Nouveau to reflect modernity, they didn’t want it to feel sterile or mass-produced. So Art Nouveau emphasizes nature-inspired organic lines and a vibrancy.

Art Nouveau is remembered today mostly in terms of its buildings, but it was created to feature across all areas of life: visual art, architecture, and even functional objects. You’ve probably seen its classy turn-of-the-century advertisements that frequently make the rounds on the Internet. The goal was for the boundaries between high art and low art, between aesthetic design and everyday objects, to merge into some kind of unified Art with a capital A.

To me, this makes Art Nouveau vaguely sci-fi in spirit. Art Nouveau’s creators wanted to engineer an all-encompassing art form, but in a way that was humanistic rather than mechanistic. In that sense, Art Nouveau was far more utopian and romantic than the functional movements that ended up succeeding it. All of these qualities make it a great fit for the themes of the magazine that we have discussed thus far.

Alphonse Mucha was perhaps the most recognizable face of Art Nouveau, using his trademark nymphs to create advertisements and wildly popular interior decor. In his masterpiece The Seasons (show below), Mucha depicts four seasonal nymphs in his trademark style. This painting was an active effort to bring together the worlds of high art and low art. Mucha expressed regret about the degree to which his work was commercialized, but he was also happy to be bringing art down from its ivory tower.

Since fantasy (and Art Nouveau) is a direct descendant of myth, it obviously inherited many of its themes of rebirth. But sci-fi also makes a surprisingly good vessel for rebirth, mostly because of its recurring narratives of transcendence and renewal.

In the transcendence narrative, humanity or perhaps just one individual achieves a breakthrough (often scientific) that allows it to ascend to a higher plane of existence. The godfather of all such stories is Arthur C. Clarke, who frequently wrote about a far more advanced alien race shepherding humanity into broader cosmic society and the next stage of their evolution. This story of rebirth has been reinvented countless times over the years, and it shows no signs of stopping.

In the renewal narrative, humanity or a post-human Earth comes into bloom once more after a period of decline or destruction. This story is far more timeless than the transcendence narrative, but the canonical example is perhaps A Canticle for Leibowitz: a 1950s novel that imagines Catholic monks trying to rebuild and make sense of humanity’s destruction, centuries after nuclear apocalypse. Canticle clearly inspired numerous post-apocalyptic narratives, and its weaving of Catholicism with science was a big influence on favorite subject The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe.

Nowadays, renewal is associated with the solarpunk genre, which uses the climate as a lens through which to imagine a utopian future. Solarpunk is in conversation with dystopia and most older post-apocalyptic fiction, taking an optimistic approach rather than a pessimistic one. But despite their opposing philosophies, the two tend to go hand-in-hand. After all, renewal can only occur after some kind of decline.

Speaking of solarpunk, Art Nouveau was quite influential on solarpunk’s aesthetics. Many solarpunk-inspired buildings use those same organic curves and colors that the French were using more than a century ago. Just as romanticism is experiencing a sort of cultural revival in the digital age, I wouldn’t be surprised if Art Nouveau makes a comeback as well. It would certainly be a welcome change to Brutalist architecture.

Anyway, we hope to discuss all that and more in the months ahead! As always, you can hear us say more about this topic in the podcast episode itself. See you there! (And perhaps we’ll catch you at WorldCon— let us know if we can expect to see you there!)

EPISODE TIMESTAMPS

0:12 - Introduction

0:26 - Upcoming changes to Synthesized Sunsets

2:10 - Hugo awards criticism

5:38 - Theme of Rebirth for the Spring Season

7:59 - Art Nouveau as the art for the Spring Season of the magazine

11:18 - Alphonse Mucha

15:52 - The advantages to flat art

17:45 - “The Seasons” by Alphonse Mucha

19:52 - Speculative fiction with a theme of rebirth

20:06 - "The Egg" by Andy Weir

25:24 - The transcendence narrative

27:44 - "Seveneves" by Neil Stephenson

34:31 - Discussing the post time skip section of Seveneves

38:38 - “Childhood's End” pioneering the transcendence narrative

40:59 - Quirks of Golden Age Sci-fi Writing

46:29 - Golden age sci-fi stories do not properly portray danger and peril

48:28 - Should ideas in a work be graded on a curve based on when they were published?

51:40 - "A Canticle for Leibowitz" as the foundational renewal narrative

53:46 - Conclusion

This week we got together with friend of the pod Merrick and friend of the friend of the pod to discuss Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive. Along the way we had some pretty interesting speculation about the future of algorithms, AI writing, and open-source software. I personally think that this was the most interesting episode we have ever done content-wise, so I would encourage you to give it a listen! We’ll see you all with a fresh season next week.

Thanks for listening!

TIMESTAMPS

00:00:12 - Intro

00:00:38 - The group tries to sell Kevin on The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson

00:01:18 - Gordon thinks that the characters in The Stormlight Archive are too dynamic

00:03:31 - Explanation of the series actually starts

00:07:08 - Is the popularity of The Stormlight Archive surprising?

00:09:34 - Is Brandon Sanderson right to look past TV for an adaptation of his Cosmere universe?

00:13:41 - Will TV shows go the way of books or are they just too resource-constrained? feat. Invincible

00:16:17 - The “Sanderlanche” and The Wandering Inn

00:21:03 - The Wandering Inn is able to use its massive length to be both epic fantasy and slice of life all at once

00:25:14 - Gordon thinks The Wandering Inn jumped the shark by introducing too much global connectivity and making the world feel small as a result

00:27:22 - Is reading getting more popular? / Books as lifestyle

00:29:48 - How might algorithms change the text medium?

00:34:00 - Kevin comes up with the concept of “sakugAI” (see Kevin’s article)

00:35:51 - Raj's involvement in open source software

00:39:05 - Bad selection biases in very active Internet participants

00:41:25 - Why isn't there better open-source social media?

00:46:46 - Conclusion and final recommendations

* “They’re Made out of Meat” by Terry Bisson

* “I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison

00:47:30 - Synthesized Sunsets Backstage begins

00:48:31 - Despite being "popular", The Stormlight Archive isn't nearly as popular as anything in the monoculture

00:51:07 - Reading has drifted from a self-improvement activity to a desirable “lifestyle” in the culture

00:55:04 - The declining value of having good music taste and the appeal of a good radio station

00:55:53 - Kevin has interesting feelings about the radio

00:58:23 - Why Kevin sets his Spotify Radio DJ to Spanish

01:00:43 - Gordon and Kevin ponder their “counterfactual music tastes” if they had been born in an earlier era

01:04:35 - The concept of “sakugAI” revisited

01:11:45 - What would the road to sakugAI look like?

01:14:40 - The first AI writers will be hated

01:19:09 - Gordon's article “The Flower that Bloomed Nowhere and the Art of Good Fantasy Conversations”

01:22:04 - Kevin glazes The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere for its "spikiness"

01:23:40 - Kevin reads a banger quote from The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere

01:27:03 - TBTBN's resemblance to Middlemarch by George Eliot

01:27:46 - The extremely mentally cooked protagonist of TFTBN is really good at portraying themself as a bad person

01:29:29 - "Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown" by Ursula K. Le Guin

01:31:59 - TFTBN benefits from having the editorial freedom for nothing to happen

01:33:18 - Gordon recounts initially coming across TFTBN

01:34:19 - Gordon clarifies that fantasy may not even want to go in a conversation-oriented direction

01:35:31 - Conclusion and final recommendations

* “Hear the Wind Sing” by Haruki Murakami

LINKS

* The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson

* The Invincible North Korean animators scandal

* The Wandering Inn by pirateaba

* “Enshittification Is a Choice” by Cory Doctorow

* “Reliable Sources” by TracingWoodgrains

* KEXP Seattle Radio

* Annie Mac’s final show on BBC Radio 1

* Kevin’s article “The Future of Fantasy is Sakug(AI)”

* Gordon’s article “The Flower that Bloomed Nowhere and the Art of Good Fantasy Conversations”

* The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere by Lurina

This week just Kevin (no Gordon) talked with internet theorist, writer, and owner of Kevin’s favorite twitter account Visakan Veerasamy. We talk about Visa’s work in building a worldwide social network of friendly ambitious nerds, Sci-Fi’s themes and ideas being stuck in the past, and some current uses of LLM’s.

Thanks for listening!

EPISODE TIMESTAMPS:

0:12 - Introduction and discussion of Visa’s “50 year plan for a global nerd network”

6:56 - Explaining this Dominos Image

10:26 - People are remarkably unambitious in their social networks

14:58 - How do you feel randomly encountering someone in the real world who knows your stuff?

16:38 - Encourage people to have their own sense of sovereignty

17:21 - Kevin applies the Hegelian Dialectic to the history of Sci-fi

20:39 - Has Visa ever considered writing Science Fiction?

28:41 - Modern Sci-fi is built on old themes and ideas

31:00 - Sci-fi about artificial intelligence has not prepared us for the real thing

32:44 - Did you see the effect of AI on social relationships coming?

34:44 - What are the most novel things you have used AI for?

38:38 - Using ChatGPT as a superior rubber duck

40:22 - People's intuitions on what LLM's are useful for are miscalibrated

47:08 - It is bad to let your attention be held hostage by the worst thing happening in the world at any given time

48:14 - Coining the term Psychofauna to describe modern memetic hazards

52:02 - What would the optimal form of social media look like?

57:42 - The trouble with making new social media is people are willing to sacrifice a lot to be where the action is

58:24 - Conclusion and sci-fi author recommendations of Eliot Peper and Jordan Chase Young

LINKS

* Visa’s Substack

* Visa’s Twitter

* The Library Ethos

* Visa’s books: Friendly Ambitious Nerd and Introspect

This week we talked to Butterfree, an Icelandic author of several works of speculative Pokémon fanfiction and the longtime webmaster of Kevin’s favorite Pokémon website The Cave of Dragonflies. We also discussed Morphic, a fanfic about Pokémon-human hybrids that Butterfree wrote as an edgy teen, as well as what is was like to grow up in the heyday of Pokémon fansites. And, of course, the MARQUEE OF DOOM.

In this edition of Synthesized Sunsets Backstage, we discuss Gordon’s debut short story “Unfit for Human Perception”, the argument of psychophysical harmony, the mind-body problem, whether we’re in a body horror renaissance, and so much more.

No video for this one— Kevin has faced a ridiculous number of technical difficulties with video files, and we’re planning to go forward with audio-only in the future for the sake of our own sanity. But the good news is that we’ll be posting on YouTube soon, which has been a pretty common request in the past.

Thanks for listening!

TIMESTAMPS

00:00:12 - Intro

00:00:31 - The tension between violence and kid-friendliness in Pokémon fanfiction

00:04:00 - Why is the Pokémon canon so loose? / Variation in Pokémon speech

00:07:46 - The magic of Pokémon that have not yet been discovered

00:09:49 - Surprising deep canonical narratives in the Pokémon universe

00:11:33 - Discussion of Butterfree's fanfic Morphic

00:14:48 - Writing a compelling reason for Pokémon to battle each other

00:18:06 - Dave and his relationship with the Pokémorphs

00:19:17 - Dodging mature topics as a kid on the Internet

00:20:40 - Is Pokémon comic-adjacent?

00:21:43 - General webcomic discussion

00:22:54 - Origins of the Nuzlocke challenge

00:23:55 - The ComixMix March Madness Tournament

* Correction: Paranatural came in 2nd in this tournament— the actual winner was Girl Genius. Both Unsounded and Lackadaisy made it to the third round. You can find the full results on the linked page.

00:24:53 - Finnish webcomic artist Minna Sundberg and Nordic influence on the Internet

00:26:32 - Speculative fiction in Nordic countries

00:28:10 - MARQUEE OF DOOM feat. lore about Kevin and Gordon becoming friends

00:30:46 - Web 1.0 and the era of "secret links" feat. Luigi Mangione's favorite blog

00:31:40 - Neocities and Geocities

00:34:23 - Is there enough popular will to restore the Internet to its former glory?

00:36:28 - Conclusion and Butterfree’s final recommendations

* “Foregone Conclusion” by elvyorg (the Grovyle one)

* “The Ties that Bind” by Saffire Persian (the Blastoise one)

00:37:50 - Synthesized Sunsets Backstage begins

00:37:51 - Gordon's debut story "Unfit for Human Perception" and the psychophysical harmony argument for God

00:40:49 - What makes successful body horror / Are we in a body horror renaissance?

00:41:28 - Gordon thinks a lot about the sensation of pressing fingers onto a human brain for some reason

00:42:25 - Are you your body, your mind, or your data?

00:44:04 - Kevin talks about getting sedated by Trader Joe's granola

00:46:43 - This nightmarish scene in Worm that scarred Kevin for life

00:48:33 - Would "Unfit for Human Perception" make it past a publisher?

00:49:54 - How Gordon imagined the wider Internet discourse around Alex would develop

00:52:07 - Gordon and Kevin theorize that once UFOs become established as scientific fact, most UFO truthers will "change teams"

00:53:24 - Conclusion and Gordon’s final recommendations

* “Mountain” by Cixin Liu

LINKS

* The Cave of Dragonflies homepage

* Morphic by Butterfree

* The Quest for the Legends by Butterfree

* Serebii.net homepage

* Pokémon: Hard Mode (origin of the Nuzlocke challenge) by Nick Franco

* A Redtail’s Dream by Minna Sundberg

* Stand Still, Stay Silent by Minna Sundberg

* LoveStar by Andri Magnason

* “Unfit for Human Perception” by Gordon

* “Philosophy with Amos Wollen” on the DeepLeftAnalysis🔸 podcast

* “Why I'm An Atheist Despite Psychophysical Harmony” by Bentham's Bulldog

* “Real Women Have Bodies” by Carmen Maria Machado

* “Spar” by Kij Johnson

* Kevin’s really long article about Irritable Bowel Syndrome

This week we talked with author, comic book writer, and fellow Chicagoland native Daryl Gregory. We discussed his upcoming novel “When We Were Real”, which takes place on a cross-country tour place seven years after the world was revealed to be a simulation. We also cover a variety of other topics including superheroes, sports teams, and sinus congestion.

In our backstage segment we go more in depth on the implications of living in a simulation on free will, and discuss Kevin’s recent article “The Problem with Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather”.

Thanks for listening!

EPISODE TIMESTAMPS:

0:12 - Introduction

0:54 - Daryl’s story on sinus congestion “Free and Clear”

4:54 - Daryl’s upcoming novel “When We Were Real”

8:08 - Writing many different interpretations of living in a simulation

12:24 - How to write stories filled with pop culture references

14:57 - A want for insularity in popular culture

18:56 - Getting deep into a really niche form of media can help you more broadly appreciate the format

20:12 - Effects of the digital panopticon

25:10 - Solipsism as a possible response to learning you live in a simulation

26:45 - Solipsism as a defense mechanism for the inability to feel unique in today’s interconnected world

29:49 - Being a writer is nice because you are inherently the best at writing from your own unique perspective

31:58 - Experience with writing comics

34:54 - Webcomics and the struggles of making it as an artist

36:44 - Do writers and artists see any of the money from tv shows and movies made using their content?

38:59 - Does the world need more superhero stories?

40:15 - Is superhero media irony poisoned?

44:55 - The romance in supporting a bad sports team

48:00 - Food in Chicago

49:20 - Conclusion and short story recommendation “I'm Not Disappointed Just Mad AKA the Heaviest Couch in the Known Universe”

50:28 - Start of Synthesized Sunsets Backstage

51:29 - Does the world being a simulation effect beliefs on free will?

55:44 - “I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility” and infinitely stacked simulated universes

58:11 - Possibility of learning your memories have all been faked

59:38 - Risks of creating clones of yourself

1:02:32 - How would you deal with a copy of yourself

1:04:54 - Discussing Kevin’s article (The Problem with "Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather)

1:08:40 - Do the characters in “Where Oaken Hearts do Gather” feel distinct?

1:14:25 - Regardless of our enjoyment we want to see more stories like "Where Oaken Hearts do Gather"

1:16:17 - Conclusion and Kevin’s Recommendation “Nonstandard Candles”