TWiT+ Club Shows 767 Transcript - Stacey's Book Club #23

Please be advised that this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word-for-word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-free version of the show.
 

TWiT.tv [00:00:00]:
This is Twit.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:03]:
Hello, and welcome to the club. Thank you for being members of the club. We are here today to talk about a book. And because this is Stacy's Book Club, Stacy, would you like to tell us about the book that you selected for us this time?

Stacey Higginbotham [00:00:24]:
Yes. Let me put my— okay, there we go. This is Slow Gods. This is my library copy, 'cause I had a physical book for y'all. This is by Claire Foy. Claire North, who— that is her pen name. It's a woman named Katherine Webb. She— this book was awesome.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:00:38]:
I'm just gonna tell you guys, um, quick summary. We are gonna hit some spoilers, but this book is about— oh my gosh, you guys, it's about like—

Mikah Sargent [00:00:49]:
It's about a lot of things.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:00:50]:
It's about a lot of things. You would think I would prepare these in advance, and I sort of do, and then I forget them. It starts out focused on a civilization called the Shine that feels a lot like our own. Basically, okay, no, it starts out in a planetary system that has about 4 different civilizations I think that we can track. There's this quant computers, these are computers that have achieved sentience. There are other people, we're just going to call them people. Sure, yeah. They're different aliens.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:01:26]:
One's very socialistic. And then we've got the Shine, which is a group of planets that are probably closely what I imagine the American capitalistic experiment will develop into in terms of—

Joe Esposito [00:01:40]:
Oof.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:01:42]:
And that's where we start the book on this planet, the Shine, where everybody has— you're born and by being born you start to accrue debt from your medical bills and then you accrue debt for your schooling and you have to work this debt off. And there are people who have enough charisma that they make money and everybody thinks this is the right way the world works. And then all of this is suddenly broken by this cube that comes down and is thought of as a god. It's another alien race. And it comes down and it's like, hey, by the way, in 100 or some odd years— is it 100 years? That seems fast, but it's pretty fast. The Sun is going to blow up and it's going to obliterate a bunch of these planets. And the book basically talks about how different societies dealt with that, one being the Shine and then one being this kind of more socialistic society. And our character is this guy, person, I don't actually know if we ever discovered their gender.

Mikah Sargent [00:02:44]:
Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:02:46]:
But this person who— the way these planets work and their faster-than-light drive, basically how they get around huge distances in space is They go into Ark Space. And when you do that, it's like you go into the deep dark, and the dark looks back at you, and a lot of people go crazy. And the only way you can go into Ark Space is if you have an organic pilot and a computer. And so, the organic pilots, the people, when they become a pilot, they go mad. And different cultures that we discover in the book deal with it different ways. But the thing about this guy is he was expected to die because the Shine doesn't care. They just throw people out until they blow up, or, you know, they— They go mad and then they presumably kill them. I don't know.

Mikah Sargent [00:03:29]:
I think lobotomy.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:03:30]:
Yeah. Yeah, basically they don't care. This guy comes back and he's different. And so the 2 segments of the book, the first part is how this socialistic planet, it's how both kind of deal with this issue of their planet about to explode. But since the Shine don't really do anything, they're just like, it's going to happen and we don't care about our citizens. not a lot to really uncover there and spend a lot of time with. But the other planet is trying to get people and everything off, so there's a lot happening on getting those people off the planet. And then the second chunk of the book is how to get rid of the Shine because everybody agrees that they're terrible.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:04:12]:
And the ending is just really Okay. The ending is they visit the black cube that knows everything, and the black cube is like, I'm so smart and so long-lived, I am like a god. Who knows if I'm a god or not?

Mikah Sargent [00:04:32]:
Should you be shouting it though because of the all caps?

Stacey Higginbotham [00:04:34]:
Yeah, it was all caps. I can't shout at people. It makes me feel bad. But if you read the audiobook, I am curious how they handled that. So he's basically like, I've analyzed the situation and it totally sucks to let like a billion and a half people die, but this is the way it had to be to ultimately get rid of the harm that is the Shine. And in the end, the Shine is vanquished, and we can talk about the last scene in the book at the end. So, that's, like, a really long-winded summary. Sorry.

Mikah Sargent [00:05:04]:
No, I thought it was a— I mean, I think it was a really good summary because we didn't want to get down into the nitty-gritty just yet. And I think that, yeah, it is very much— I saw it as the half and half after that little incident that took place that sort of changed things things for Ma. Um, now, this— here's, here's my— I really, really, really liked the main character, and I loved the way that Ma sorts of, sort of, um, observes everything. Um, and yeah, like, that, that is— I, I kind of wish that all historians did their jobs with the way that Ma describes and takes in. There's— obviously, this gets a little bit— I think it's fair to say, and I saw a lot of in reviews, a sort of autism coding involved with this character. And I kind of like— this is one of the books that I would recommend to people who could use a little bit more for folks who fall into that category because you just get to experience things in— it's almost free of interpretation. And so much gets lost in interpretation that we put onto things. And I found that really beautiful, honestly.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:06:44]:
I am definitely on the spectrum and I loved Ma. But I also loved, like, I thought this was such a cool book, especially for science fiction, because in a lot of science fiction, there's like a ship captain or, you know, somebody. Like, in the Wall book, there was that one person with, like, special powers or whatever. There's always, like, a hero.

Joe Esposito [00:07:10]:
Mm.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:07:10]:
And the hero is like this pivot point around everything, around which everything happens, which totally makes sense. It's a good narrative flow that we've had for, you know, Yeah. Millennia. But this book, the hero's journey sucks for dealing with things like entrenched corporate power and apathy from an even larger political entity that can't take on the entrenched corporate power that's hurting people because, wow, do we really want to get into that? I mean, it sucks, but I don't want to put my people on the line. So, I thought it was a really interesting and good way for us to fight against entrenched corporate power, entrenched social settings that we couldn't fight as an individual. And Ma was doing it. He just didn't realize it.

Joe Esposito [00:08:00]:
Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:08:01]:
So, he was just like us, right? Like, as the reader. He was a great stand-in for the reader. And at the end, we still got, like, the happy ever after in the sense, like, the shine was vanquished. So I really, I loved the structure of the book for that reason. And like, I really thought it was really great. And yes, as Jammerbee says, his observations and his description of small talk felt personal.

Mikah Sargent [00:08:27]:
Let's talk about— and I think there are sort of a few overarching themes with this. And what I love is how we can— the book does a great job. There's lots of binary stuff going on here with these binary stars and with the sort of two halves of the book, but also the way that we have sort of zoomed-in humanity— humanity— zoomed-in beings and worlds.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:08:57]:
We can call them humans or persons. I mean, it's—

Mikah Sargent [00:09:00]:
Persons, yes.

Joe Esposito [00:09:02]:
Love.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:09:03]:
Love.

Mikah Sargent [00:09:05]:
is something that is part of this story, and hope. And what I find fascinating about it is the way that it doesn't kind of matter what sort of being you are, but there are, um, there are actions that appear as love. And then you have to get into the nitty-gritty of like, Can things seem as if they are done with love? And if they're observed as what other people who say they love are doing, then is that love? Or is it just going through these actions? And then, of course, looking at the potential outcome and withheld love in some places and the vulnerability that comes from it. Yeah, there's a lot to chew on, honestly.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:09:59]:
Uh, Joe, do you want to break in, or should I? I can.

Joe Esposito [00:10:02]:
Well, okay, so it's interesting because when you get into the love section— because this is like 3 books to me that's all put together. There's a short monster book in the beginning, which is the creation of Maw, about this, the darkness and all that stuff, which made me think of Stephen King's The Jaunt immediately. I was like, oh, this is like The Jaunt, which is one of my favorite Stephen King stories. Then the middle is metaphor, the novel, aka America. That's the whole war and everything going on, which is great. But it's thinly veiled, but it is there. And then the end is the love part. And the end is the most fascinating bit to me when it gets into how Slow categorizes love and being godlike.

Joe Esposito [00:10:40]:
Because if you have the concept of many worlds where many versions of you exist, I would love to talk to myself as a person of faith reading this book, because I think that person would have a radically different interpretation than I did, because to me, it reinforced why I have no faith in anything anymore. But a person of faith reading it might actually get their faith reinforced by the rationale that Slow lays out. So it's fascinating because I think it works in 2 different ways depending on how you approach spirituality and faith. That was my read on it. I mean, I love the idea that love conquers all, but that's not really what Slow is saying in my perception of what's being said.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:11:18]:
Yeah.

Joe Esposito [00:11:18]:
But it's an interesting presentation of what being God or a god type of being is.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:11:25]:
And kind of how that's a very— how as cultures we change over time. And so, Slow being around for so long, having like— and I think of this because we've had all this debate about The Odyssey right now and how some people like are like, well, the movie's fine, but it's— that's an Odyssey for our times versus an Odyssey for when it was written and people glorified and valued different things. And I was thinking about ultimately, because Slow has been around for I don't know how long that computer has been around doing its thing, but being able to look at the world from that amount of time changes your morality and your beliefs.

Joe Esposito [00:12:14]:
Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:12:14]:
And so, yeah, so it makes God either unknowable or you just don't want to know him because he's so alien from you. And I just thought that was so Yeah, that's—

Mikah Sargent [00:12:24]:
oof, that's, that's a tough one because our conception based on, you know, pop culture and perhaps not so pop culture is that a being that lives and lives and lives and lives and lives will lose their mind, like will go insane. That is a sort of long-held belief that we have. And you see it in, uh, you know, vampire lore. Uh, they lose touch with humanity and, you know, even more see beings as, as pawns. And that's a big part of this as well, is the pawn nature of it. And it does make you wonder, because Slow's choice is to not do faster-than-light travel, is to not go into that sort of, um, Lovecraftian dark zone. Did that hamper— while Slow certainly gets the ability to see and experience and learn, maybe there's a limit on how much someone should see and experience and learn. And that does result in this sort of cold pullback that has you treating beings as pawns.

Mikah Sargent [00:13:42]:
And almost like, I can only imagine if you have so much information, suddenly you have an ability to understand patterns. And so you can build your Rube Goldberg machine and see the outcome, but that requires you to treat people as the little mousetrap falling down and the little ball rolling along and this, you know what I mean? That, that it, it almost requires a detachment. And I, Joe, to, to go to your point, I think that some faithful people would find that frightening as a concept, a detached, a fully detached God. Yeah, that's a little scary.

Joe Esposito [00:14:25]:
I feel like there's a paradox too, isn't there? Sorry, Stacy, I didn't mean to cut you off. I was just thinking there's a paradox in that Slow says it's a numbers game, really. That's how it came off to me was, okay, love, but also numbers, asterisk numbers. because we have to save the most people. And then there's this idea that no one is special, so everyone is special, which I went, uh, this is like a $5, you know, hippie guru on the corner saying that to you. That— no, sorry, either people are special and you have to evaluate them and decide, which means you're judging people, or no one is special and now you're getting into literally how many people do we kill to save this many. And I don't know—

Stacey Higginbotham [00:15:04]:
Yeah, I—

Joe Esposito [00:15:04]:
Either of those things is moral. Really?

Stacey Higginbotham [00:15:07]:
This is—

Joe Esposito [00:15:07]:
I—

Stacey Higginbotham [00:15:08]:
my subtitle for this would be Slow Gods, or the Trolley Problem in Space.

Mikah Sargent [00:15:13]:
Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:15:14]:
Because that's— I mean, we see it very tiny, actually, when Ma is bicycling away from Anne Jepar, or his lover/friend in the planet that's about to explode. We see him realize that he has to leave that— his friend behind to take this quantum communication device to kill the Shine, right?

Joe Esposito [00:15:43]:
Mm-hmm.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:15:45]:
He's like, oh, my God, I've gotta leave him behind. So he does to save the most people. And again, that's what happens with Slow is it's like, yeah, I'm gonna have to kill a lot of people, but I've gotta save more.

Mikah Sargent [00:15:57]:
Um, so is it just an examination of— what is that, utilitarianism? Isn't that the one?

Stacey Higginbotham [00:16:03]:
That is utilitarianism. The most good for the most people. Um, what's his— what's his name?

Mikah Sargent [00:16:08]:
Yeah, I can't think of who, who exactly. Literally.

Joe Esposito [00:16:11]:
No, is that—

Stacey Higginbotham [00:16:12]:
no, it's not Kant. Hey, is it— it's not Hegel. Help us, chat.

Joe Esposito [00:16:16]:
Yeah, I lose all the names. I know that the concepts, but I could never— if you put them up like a memory game, I'd lose in a second. I can't arrange all that stuff.

Mikah Sargent [00:16:24]:
In any case, I thought that this— oh, it's Nietzsche. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:16:29]:
No, no, no.

Joe Esposito [00:16:31]:
Nietzsche is very nihilism. Yeah, that's weird. Nietzsche would say blow up the trolley because this is why you can't just do a Google search and read something quickly.

Mikah Sargent [00:16:39]:
It will lie to you anyway.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:16:40]:
So John Stuart Mill.

Mikah Sargent [00:16:42]:
Thank you. So with this, I found that part of it to be an interesting— because I don't know, when I think of utilitarianism, It's that detached thing again. And you have a main character who mirrors some of that, some of that detachment in the sense of feeling like they don't belong, feeling like they can't quite fit in with the group and understand what different things mean. But the cool thing is, despite that, You see the main character having real relationships with people and, and, you know, showing compassion and understanding. And I think that when we talk about— is it, is it Gebre? The, the lover, although don't call it love.

Joe Esposito [00:17:45]:
There's—

Mikah Sargent [00:17:46]:
That's one of those hard things because Gebre wants to not leave because Tay decided that it is her responsibility to stay on the planet and, uh, did not get a lottery number. And I have to tell you, I identify with that a lot. I'm very much a rule follower, and I feel like it keeps me safe in morality.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:18:13]:
Mm-hmm.

Mikah Sargent [00:18:13]:
And so I identified with Gabe Ray a lot. in the sense of, I think that I would be in a similar situation where, no, this is the thing that our society chose to do, and I did not get that. And it does not matter that someone came along who can take me away on a ship, um, because if I truly believe what my culture believes and what my planet believes, what my people believe, then I'm going to follow that through. So I had a lot of respect for the, uh, archivist up until the point where I've realized, wait, you're doing all of this archival stuff, but so much of it is still there and has not made its way off of the planet. That's a little— that was a little bit, uh, kind of like, oh well, let's make sure you—

Joe Esposito [00:19:01]:
all of your work, it needs to go away.

Mikah Sargent [00:19:04]:
Anyway.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:19:04]:
Well, I thought his call— or Terra's calling was so closely aligned with the culture of the planet that it made sense. I love when characters make sense, right?

Mikah Sargent [00:19:18]:
Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:19:20]:
When they're consistent throughout and not just like, oh, I'm going to move the plot a point, the plot moves around the characters' interactions. It would have been very satisfying as a reader. I would have been like, yes, get on the ship and go and be happy. But you're right, their calling was to preserve their culture and their culture decided, so it was very consistent for Tim, Tur, Terror.

Joe Esposito [00:19:44]:
Yeah, yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:19:46]:
I, I appreciated that, like, the pronouns— I'm just— I appreciated the pronouns, and I appreciate the science fiction books that give you all the different pronoun options for all species because it, it one, it validates like, yeah, gender is not a, you know, a binary. And then also that when you have a million different types of other persons out there in the world, they're not going to have the same binaries we do, right? But it can make it hard to read and talk about the book.

Mikah Sargent [00:20:17]:
Yeah, yeah, especially the talking about—

Stacey Higginbotham [00:20:20]:
I'm like, I know the pronoun here is not the right one. Hold on.

Joe Esposito [00:20:26]:
Actually, on that, the gender interlude that is in there should be photocopied and thrown at people constantly as, here, just read this. If you don't get it, read this. This is so simple and so beautifully written. And it's like 2 pages or whatever, and it's just like, yeah, don't be a dummy about this. Thank you, next chapter. And it just goes on. As far as the thing with Gebre, the interesting part about that to me is they made it very clear— or the author made it very clear with that character. I shouldn't say that because I don't know if that's correct or not, but the author made it clear that Gebre did not have deep attachment to anyone.

Mikah Sargent [00:21:00]:
Mm-hmm.

Joe Esposito [00:21:01]:
So that makes it easier to say well, duty over everything. But what would have happened if Gebray had fell in love with Maw? Would that calculus change? Because I feel like in some ways— this isn't really even a criticism— but the book dissects the way that relationships work to be able to fit each of the different cultures into doing certain things. Whereas, at least with humans, it's all mashed together. So calculuses change. If you're young and single, you do things very recklessly compared to somebody who's married or in a relationship and has responsibilities. That's why people change over time. Whereas, like I said, if Gabri had been in love with Moth, that relationship had deepened, would Gabri have made the same decisions? I'm not convinced.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:21:43]:
I'm not convinced because the— I'm trying to find the name of the planet. Anjapar? There was Ajapar and Anjapar. One's gonna die and one's waiting to be terraformed.

Joe Esposito [00:21:54]:
The same planet. I always just called it the same planet in my head.

Mikah Sargent [00:21:57]:
Yeah, okay. I thought it was Ajamir, but then I was like, Maybe it's not. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:22:00]:
Ajamir, that whole society was a very collective, socialist kind of society. So, and it was driven home. So I— it's actually one of the things I liked about The Three-Body Problem when I read that series of books, because it was— because it was a Chinese book and their culture is much less individualistic. It really came through just in the viewpoints and the way, like, the assumptions were very different. in that book, the assumptions were you were for the collective versus like our science fiction. A lot of it is the great man kind of theory, and the assumption is the individual in love will, will out. And so I thought it was really cool that the author put both in. Clearly the individualistic society really sucked.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:22:51]:
And I— same note, At the very end, when the dictator from The Shine, so the dude, turns up and has that conversation with Maw and talks about the society that Maw's currently in, which is the Ji, maybe? Anyway.

Mikah Sargent [00:23:12]:
Ji's where Maw went after—

Stacey Higginbotham [00:23:14]:
That's where he lives. That's his island where he's like— So, they were—

Mikah Sargent [00:23:19]:
I think that's while they were still on the— yeah, the— what was it called? See, that's the thing. There's so many different planets and stuff.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:23:25]:
There's a lot. I needed a glossary at the front to refer back to. But he said, these people don't have any great moments. They're just content to be the whole time. They don't have, like, great wars or great triumphs. And I really did think that that's kind of— it did— I asked myself, God, would I want to live where you have, like, the possibility of a great triumph, or, like, this big overarching narrative, swelling music? Or do I want to live in, like, the Muzak version of the world where it's all content and peace? And I think it'd be different depending on where I am in my life. But I—

Joe Esposito [00:24:03]:
Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:24:04]:
I liked how, like, all of these are options, and we just have to, like, Figure it out.

Mikah Sargent [00:24:13]:
I really— so that's, that's an interesting thing too, because there, there are many, again, cultural aspects that come into play that result in what you see as success and what you see as just even defining your own goals. And so For one person, yeah, that sort of elevator music playing and everyone's just kind of, you know, please. That may not be what one person wants, but is it that they don't want it, or is it that they were taught that it's what they don't want? And to be able to live, to be long-lived, perhaps gives you the ability to live multiple lifetimes that then give you the ability to deprogram yourself from one culture, reprogram yourself with another culture, not necessarily on purpose, but just through osmosis essentially. And that is a really fascinating thing because, yeah, I think we talked about this in the last book that we read where at one point it would feel almost terrifying, like early on, a little terrifying, the thought of just not having a huge impact and therefore disappearing into the But then depending on where you are in the stages of your life, you might go, golly, disappearing into the ether sounds like the best thing. Just, I'm just here, I'm doing what I need to do, and I'm satisfied, and we're good. Contentment can, can be that. Um, contentment versus drive, I guess. Uh, yeah, that's—

Stacey Higginbotham [00:25:57]:
oof. And it doesn't have to be drive. I wonder, like, I think of it, and maybe this is because I'm in my stage of contentment, But contentment versus like accumulation.

Mikah Sargent [00:26:08]:
Mm.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:26:09]:
Like, like, I feel like I, I'm just thinking about our culture today. Like, I feel like a lot of problems come from people who don't realize that they have enough, right? Like, I feel like I have enough in pretty much all parts of my life, which is a lovely feeling. I'm not gonna lie. And so if And I would love for everyone to have that, and I actually think we could get there for most people. But there are other people who don't feel they have enough, and I feel like they do some crazy things in order to achieve that feeling. I don't know. Absolutely.

Joe Esposito [00:26:46]:
There are a lot of people that there never will be enough, and that's the problem, is nothing can ever be as much as they want or think they want because they think it's going to get them to be happy. And yet they're never happy even though they keep accumulating. So you have to sit there and go, all right, you're spinning around in a wheel here. You realize what you're doing. But I agree because I'm the same way. I, I don't want a mansion. I, I mean, I'd like a Corvette because they're beautiful cars, but I don't need a whole garage of 80 cars. I don't need a yacht that's bigger than an island to sit on and, you know, get skin cancer from.

Joe Esposito [00:27:22]:
I just want to not worry about bills. That's really fine. I like hanging out with my wife and watching stuff on TV and petting my dog. I don't really need much more than that.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:27:31]:
Yeah.

Joe Esposito [00:27:31]:
What I would like to get rid of is the concern that if I fall and break my leg, that the house is gone because, I don't know, whatever, 8 things happen. Or, you know, that's the thing to me is contentment is just to be free of worry and not going, well, okay, now we can add another wing to the house. So I, well, I'd like to build a theater in the house, sure. But that's 'cause I like movies. But ideally it's just to be, okay with where you are, which I largely am too. So that's— and I wonder if that was somewhat of a goal of the book, was to get people to examine how these different cultures value different things instead of trying to get somebody to examine the human being's complexity, which is tough because there's so much to it. Okay, let's break all these elements of people, of human beings that we know, and shatter them and slice them off into different alien cultures or beings and then examine those. to see what you think is the most valuable aspect to you or which combination.

Joe Esposito [00:28:22]:
I don't know if that was the intent or not, but it felt like that without me knowing anything about the genesis of the book.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:28:28]:
I think that's what science fiction can do really well. So if you look at things like Octavia Butler, her Kindred books about the vampire, like, to be able to pull out aspects of humanity and shunt them, like, to to shine a light on a specific aspect and call it like an alien race or whatever you want to do is— that's kind of— I mean, to me, that's one of the reasons I read sci-fi because it does help me. I'm like, oh my God, it helps. It puts words to values you have and then you can actually interrogate them and question them and decide. So I think this book did it really well. And yes, as Jammerbee is saying, the parallels to what's going on today in our world are super revealing. But they're also Like, it's not just— I mean, yes, we can say, oh my gosh, authoritarianism, Trump, but that's also the lens we're like viewing this. But you could also just look at it like capitalism in any sort of authoritarian regime.

Mikah Sargent [00:29:33]:
Mm-hmm.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:29:34]:
And like, I saw parallels in the Accord, so the big unity space, like all the big galactic space thing that was like, oh, we totally—

Joe Esposito [00:29:46]:
Was that the Consensus?

Stacey Higginbotham [00:29:48]:
Yeah, like, no, no, the Consensus was—

Joe Esposito [00:29:50]:
Oh no, that's right. You're right. Yeah, that's right. That's the hive mind. That's the Borg, sort of.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:29:55]:
But I looked at the Accord and their issue with the Shine, and I saw like Israel and Gaza right now. But I bet in 20 years, if I read this book and there was another, like, I mean, you could argue that it was like, uh, England looking at Poland when— right, you know, so like, I think we can see the parallels that we're drawing today to our world, but I think they're pretty ever-present.

Mikah Sargent [00:30:20]:
It's just mirrors to humanity, not necessarily mirrors to specific historical instances.

Joe Esposito [00:30:26]:
Because I saw Vietnam right away. I was picking up on Vietnam guerrilla warfare. Got it. Okay, yeah, okay, yeah. But that is— that's what I mean about it's interesting how it keeps presenting these different I don't want to say flaws, but aspects of human failing and saying— because there is, there's, there's sections where if you read them in isolation, you're like, oh, that's about healthcare, and should you be able to live without having to go into debt or live on the street just to survive? There's a whole little deliberation on that. Then the idea of war and what is okay, what is justifiable. There's one thing about— there was something about the shine saying, okay, We need this planet, but we can't just let them get away with being terrorists. So what we're gonna do is we're going to blow stuff up and kill enough people so that they're afraid of us, but not enough that the rest of the planet rises up because we do need their resources.

Joe Esposito [00:31:16]:
So what is the particular scale that we wanna measure our retribution? The line was, I actually took a note of it 'cause I thought it was really good. A quote, a balance must be struck between extraordinary retribution and quiet toleration of constant low-level savagery, end quote.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:31:33]:
Wow.

Joe Esposito [00:31:34]:
That's a beautiful line.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:31:35]:
Wow.

Joe Esposito [00:31:35]:
That's from this book, of many that I was like, this is just great writing. But right there, how many can we kill to keep them afraid but not to inspire resistance? Oh, that's pleasant morality to dive into.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:31:48]:
Wow.

Mikah Sargent [00:31:49]:
There's a lot of, um, there's a lot of callous math that comes into, uh, this, this story throughout, and that is I think of, to draw another parallel, that's how I see a lot of the leaders of the AI space right now, a lot of callous math. And there can be positive outcome. That's the thing, like, something that I think gets lost a lot of times is that multiple things can be true. And so we can acknowledge the fact that there's a lot of interesting equations going on that maybe don't come out to something that Some of us would agree is moral or is not. So another thing that I wanted to ask about for you all is sort of finding meaning through ritual. And that was a big part, it seems, of the—

Joe Esposito [00:32:54]:
the—

Mikah Sargent [00:32:55]:
where is that planet? It starts with an A. It's the place where—

Joe Esposito [00:32:59]:
The Singing Folk.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:33:01]:
Ajumar.

Mikah Sargent [00:33:01]:
Yeah, thank you. So the lottery planet, but ritual being a big part of the culture. And that felt like— when I think of religion and the— not for me, but for the people that have it and use it, the positive aspects that they see, I often am told that ritual is a big thing there. It's a sort of, um, It can be a calming thing, it can be a centering thing, but it can also provide meaning. And that— to think of finding meaning in life, but also meaning in loss of life, in sacrifice, be it to stay on the planet and not cause trouble because you didn't get a lottery number, or to choose— I think it was called Grace.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:33:57]:
Grace.

Mikah Sargent [00:33:58]:
Yeah, Grace. That— I think that requires a whole different kind of culture that I'm not used to, to be willing to work collaboratively in that way. But they did so without needing to have the pluribus groupthink, right? Like the positive groupthink. They didn't need that, and yet they were able to come together and have this agreement. I know that there were some fights. Obviously, there were some people who were against it, but To have that much, uh, sort of agreement to it, I thought was really cool. But I wanted to ask you all, what do you think is more likely for us, um, in our society? Are we the, uh, ones who ignore the warnings and then try to hide the warnings and then, um, deal with it when the problem comes? Are we the ones who would end up doing a lottery system and, uh, in the meantime using sort of ritual and culture as a means of, of finding happiness? Well, I guess we can't really be the third one because we don't have the ability to all link our minds together. So, uh, yeah, which one?

Stacey Higginbotham [00:35:21]:
I think we're The Shine. I think because we're kind of living through that now with climate change, I would argue. But that's just me.

Mikah Sargent [00:35:28]:
Joe?

Joe Esposito [00:35:29]:
No, I agree. I mean, we lived through it with COVID where, yeah, it was, oh no, no, no, no, don't wear masks, uh, this is nothing, it's the flu. No, it isn't. Uh, it's not a big deal, don't worry about it, don't get vaccinated. Get vaccinated. It's, uh, it was all, it is exactly that. And it has been, again, this is a cycle that repeats. When you study history, you start to learn that humans aren't that great at evolving in certain very basic ways.

Joe Esposito [00:35:51]:
We keep making the same mistakes. Many have come back to the idea, like the shine of what is your value? What is the number that makes you important? That number for many of us is a dollar sign and a number after it. That's what makes somebody valuable in the eyes of many societies that use economics in a certain way to assign whether people should live or die or be good or bad or whatever. So there wouldn't be a lottery system, I don't think, because all the rich people would figure out a way to silo away or get off because get off the planet. I mean, because they have all the money and they control the levers. of power, largely. So what lottery is necessary when you can hand a wad of bills to somebody and say, put me on that shuttle? Done. Lottery? That's for the suckers.

Joe Esposito [00:36:34]:
Let them sit back there and think they're getting out of here. They're not. We're getting out of here because we can pay our way out. So that's what would happen. We are basically a Shine Society in most ways, and I don't think it's great, but it's the closest analog to anything in the book, in my view.

Mikah Sargent [00:36:53]:
We should probably— I agree, first and foremost. We should talk about sort of the second half of the book. We know, of course, that Ma has this accident that causes them to somehow be able to live on and on and on, but also requires—

Stacey Higginbotham [00:37:11]:
I don't think they're Ma. I don't think they're a person anymore. I think something came back.

Mikah Sargent [00:37:17]:
Oh, it's that bad?

Joe Esposito [00:37:20]:
Really?

Mikah Sargent [00:37:21]:
Okay, that actually shakes my brain a little bit.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:37:24]:
But I mean, no one— like, there's no definitive thing, right? I just assumed that, like, when the Dark is not interested in him because he is the Dark, it's, it's like a copy of Maul that is all the scary stuff in ARC space that we don't actually know about.

Joe Esposito [00:37:40]:
Yeah, when they were talking about their leg healing, They said the reason it doesn't have to regenerate is it's just a copy and it just snaps back into existence. That's why you can't see it happening. It has to happen where nobody can see you, and then I guess they just reset. And somebody else talked about being rebuilt particle by particle. So it is definitely a copy idea. It's kind of the, the transporter nightmare. See, that's how I—

Mikah Sargent [00:38:01]:
yeah, you know, I saw it more as like a quantum accident in my mind more than it was sort of a, um, entity accident. But I really like that way, that way of thinking about it because that adds some— it all— it makes those unregulated moments of, of, uh, you know, causing injury to others feel even more sinister, which is kind of—

Joe Esposito [00:38:25]:
Here's an interesting question. The slow says that Maul is one of 2 people that are like that. It references another one, almost like, you know, Yoda's, there is another thing, where I'm like, oh, There's, there's another one out there? What is that one like? Is that one just like summoning the dark and tearing hearts out left and right and doesn't care? Because that whole, oh, you know what, I was curious what the heart looked like in this being, so I just took it out of his chest. I'm like, that's psychotic. That's just great.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:38:51]:
Yeah.

Joe Esposito [00:38:51]:
That stuff I love. The whole stay curious, you've got to keep your mind engaged or you'll just go like Wolverine and start shredding everything. I thought that was a great little aspect that they played with, you know, the threat, which some of that was architected, but the idea that this thing Because I don't even know what you would call Maw at this point as a copy of a being that is unlike all but apparently one other being in the cosmos that's known. What do you define that being as? You can't just use a simple familiar term because they are exceptional, even though nobody's special apparently.

Mikah Sargent [00:39:27]:
Um, so getting recruited to kind of Take down the Shine is the ultimate goal many, many years into the future. And during this time, sort of figuring out what situation has taken place, what's going on, and trying to, I think, come to terms with the trajectory of— Its life at this point, or lack thereof. Um, yeah, I mean, I guess I'm curious, how did you feel about— how many twists do you feel took place for you, maybe, is the question I'm wondering. What were you— were you surprised by anything in this, or did it feel to either of you like, I could have seen that that's the way the story was going to go? And that's not— I want to be clear, that is not in my mind, a criticism, uh, if it is that way. For me, that sometimes makes me feel more comfortable. I'm, I'm just, you know, happy to take this read in when I go, oh, this is where I thought I was going and it went this way, how cool. Um, so yeah, what was it like for you? Did anything kind of go no way for you? I'll, I'll pick, uh, Stacy.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:40:50]:
Okay, you're gonna have to ask that one more time because I kind of got lost in the middle of it. I'm so sorry.

Mikah Sargent [00:40:54]:
No, it's okay. I'm just curious if I was wondering if anything, any sort of plot points surprised you actually, or if you felt the whole time like, oh, I could have seen that that was where this was going.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:41:06]:
You know, the first chunk of the book, I had no idea where this was going. Like, the first, like, 100 pages, I was like, what type of book? Because I do, my brain wants to categorize the book. And I was like, oh, we're in a dystopian society, and this guy's going to be the hero. Then I was like, oh wait, nope, that's not what's happening. Hold on, now we're gonna do this. So, to me, the whole, the whole book was unexpected. And then the biggest surprise— I'm just thinking back. I feel like nothing surprised me because she did such a good job with the characterization.

Mikah Sargent [00:41:45]:
Mm-hmm.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:41:45]:
I wanted to say, like, yeah. I'm sure there was something that surprised— I mean, oh, you know what, you know what surprised me was the quants. What surprised me about them is how different they are in like how she made each one still a computer, right? But they were optimizing for different things, so that gave them different personalities in a computer-specific way. And I actually thought that was cool. And I also as, like, a nerd, really liked the fact that they had a limited amount of processing power. And so that dictated how they could— how they behaved with people.

Mikah Sargent [00:42:26]:
Right.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:42:26]:
What they could think about, how they spoke, even, when he became a ship. So, I actually thought that was— that's really not a surprise. It's kind of a surprise, 'cause most authors do not give computers computer limitations with human-familiar characteristics.

Mikah Sargent [00:42:42]:
Yeah. Wow.

Joe Esposito [00:42:44]:
Joe, what about you? Yeah, I agree. I think it's so well written that there wasn't anything that was really a surprise. I thought the 2 things that I was wondering about, and neither of them ended up being the case, was one, I thought the darkness was going to end up being more of a thing when this darkness would invade the corners and everything. I was like, okay, at some point, Maul's going to get so injured that the darkness is just going to get like loose and rip a bunch of people into shreds. So I thought that was going to happen. It never did, which doesn't— again, not a criticism. Like you said, I, I have no problem with it. But that was where I thought they were going with keeping, you know, oh, don't look to the side because you'll see something and it's going to terrify you.

Joe Esposito [00:43:21]:
And I was like, okay, we're going to nightmare fuel territory, let's go. And that never happened. And then an out of sync in the comments says that what I inferred as the slow referring to another being like Maul may have been slow referring to itself. That could be. It's possible.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:43:38]:
I agree.

Joe Esposito [00:43:40]:
Early on, I thought it was going to end up that Maw and the Slow were in fact the same thing. That kind of almost, again, to go into the religious territory, that the Slow projected a version of itself out to live with all the beings and to experience it and to die for their sins or something like that. And then return. And when the Slow opened up, I'm like, oh, here we go. You're gonna sit at the desk and Slow's gonna be like, take, open the drawer. There's a picture of you in there. And he was gonna look at it and it was just a black sphere. And it's like, I am you and you are me, you know, which would have been fine because it would have been an interesting way to— for this thing that's been around for so long to try to make sure that its perspective hasn't become warped by putting an inferior version of itself out there and see if it comes back and reaches the same conclusion.

Joe Esposito [00:44:24]:
That's an interesting idea too. But again, I didn't mind where it went, and I actually thought the ending was beautifully done because when the When Maul gets back to the island, and I don't remember the character's name, I'm gonna call him Theodosius Rex. I don't know, that's not the name, but that's what I'm gonna call him. And they were having that little debate. I'm sitting there going, okay, is Maul just going to saw this guy's head off and then like throw it into the ocean? Because that's my instinct.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:44:50]:
Right.

Joe Esposito [00:44:50]:
And instead of being like, yeah, I'm bored of you, I'm going to bed. And then later it's just like, all right, let's, you know, the classic kind of, well, where are we going from here? I'm like, that's great. I hope there's never a sequel to this. This is the perfect story, just its beginning, middle, end, and just be done with it. Sequelitis does not always have to happen. So nothing really surprised me. If anything, I was happy to not have figured things out because it's like, oh, okay, this still works and it wasn't at all what I thought. So that was great.

Mikah Sargent [00:45:16]:
It speaks to the, um, the, the regulation that keeps getting brought up about like needing to stay regulated because it is like, that is true nervous system regulation to be able to confront your— the greatest evil or whatever to you, and to be able to say— again, multiple things can be true— you're terrible, I do not like you, I have my own life to live, peace and blessings. That's true regulation. It's very impressive. I think for me, the thing that surprised me was I kind of wanted to feel like Maybe I think I wanted there to be a right answer to the problem. And by that I mean the, the answer that I would feel— the problem being, you know, the, the explosion, the supernova, uh, and then seeing these different societies and how they dealt with it. I kind of wanted one to be the one that I could just like fully align with. But when I was at the end and I was looking back, I thought Everybody in each of these instances is simply a cog in a wheel. In The Shine, you are a cog in the wheel in the sense of you are a worker who makes things happen.

Mikah Sargent [00:46:40]:
In Ajamir, the, the like happy planet, you're a cog in the wheel in the sense of like One part of this, this cultural understanding and the rituals that are involved and the either sacrifice or even if you go out, like you are sort of meant to be a spore of this society to go and spread. And then the consensus where everyone's just got their minds joined, you are very much a cog in the larger wheel that is the consensus. And And then when you think about the Sloans' actions, everybody was a cog in the Sloans' big wheel. So it was just reminder after reminder of something that I think the most avoidant parts of myself and most avoidant in terms of reconciling with mortality, parts of myself don't want to think about, which is how much we all are cogs in a machine. in so many ways, such small parts of a very, very, very, very large whole. Yeah, so I kind of, again, wanted to walk away going, that's the one I'd be part of, but I thought, oh God, it's all the same, just different.

Joe Esposito [00:48:01]:
I should slightly amend my answer. There was one thing that I wouldn't say a surprise, but I was impressed by, and that That was how brutally honest some of this writing was. There's one bit where they're talking about the planet burning and something along the lines of, well, the planet burned and we all just went to bed, we'd accepted it. I'm like, man, things like that have happened. When you have to read that—

Stacey Higginbotham [00:48:24]:
It's happening now. That's what I'm saying.

Joe Esposito [00:48:28]:
It's crazy. That was so beautifully brutal in its clarity. that we sat there and we hemmed and we hawed, and then we turned the TV off and we went to bed, and they all burned. And it's like, whoa, man, that is not something you expect in a space opera generally.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:48:44]:
And that's, that's what I'd like. Even in the very beginning when Maw's, like, origin story, they're talking about, like, how, like, the, the Corpse Sec guys went through the neighborhood shooting people, and he didn't answer the door because it was not going to be anything good. I mean, that is That is an individual doing something. That is the individual, and then they pulled it out to the macro. She was— this author, really a lot of respect for their, like, skills because they— anyway, um, we should pick our next book, but do we want to have any final, final words from anyone on this? Because we're almost at time.

Mikah Sargent [00:49:23]:
Yeah, uh, I mean, I'll just end it with— it's funny what you just said. That is, that is What I want to give this author so much credit for. Um, I really appreciate anyone who can talk about micro and macro and draw comparisons between the two in such a very— because again, it is just a reminder that like, the universe is not happening to you. The universe is just happening. And you happen to be part of it, but it's not happening to you. And so when we pull it out to that macro and go, this is just a larger thing, and here is a quick little zoom in on how some people might behave in that— ah, that ability to observe in that way, I think, is just chef's kiss. What about you, Jeff?

Joe Esposito [00:50:21]:
I would just say I adore This book, I was really just thoroughly, continually, over and over again impressed with the fact that there are books that overhammer their message when they're trying to talk about contemporary things. They could do it too bluntly, where it will make somebody just skim off it and say, "No, okay, yeah, I know what you're doing. You're not that clever." This book is that clever because there's nothing in here that you can't think of an example of that's happened through our history or currently, and yet it all fits within the story. seamlessly, and it's very honest. There's a lot of honesty in this book that I think could have blown it up if not handled with the level of care that was applied here. I could not possibly recommend it more. It was— Stacy, thank you so much. This was an amazing experience of a book.

Joe Esposito [00:51:09]:
It was great.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:51:10]:
Yeah, I really like— I was really excited when I read it, and I was like, I hope they pick that one because, you know, I— we're kind of hit or miss because sometimes we're going light, sometimes we go deep. Um, and so let's talk because our next meeting is probably going to be around October. So I went for spooky science fiction, horror sci-fi, um, options for y'all. Um, and let me just pull them up because— I want it. So this is— I'm just going to preface this— this is a weird book. Um, and I don't— I think it was like fan fiction first, but it's called There Is No Anti-Memetics Division, and it's by— I say Quantum, but it's QNTM. Um, it's, it's a gentleman named Sam Hughes, but he— again, it's like, it's not AO3, but it's— I don't know where he started publishing at first. And this is The idea— the theme of the book is like things happen and then they erase themselves from everybody's memory.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:52:14]:
So did it happen?

Mikah Sargent [00:52:15]:
This is so cool.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:52:17]:
Yeah, it's a really— it's a mind fuck. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent [00:52:23]:
Oh my goodness.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:52:24]:
More traditional, um, option is Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes, and this is like straight up People are going crazy in space. Um, they, they're on a spaceship and then they go to this planet where something creepy happened and, oh my God, what happened? Ah, spooky.

Mikah Sargent [00:52:45]:
That one seems cool.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:52:47]:
I was like— and then there is Salvation Day by Kali Wallace, and this is, this has got some dystopian stuff, it's got some government stuff, but it's, it's again People break into this, uh, ship that was abandoned because it, it was a virus. But these people are poor and dispossessed, and they've got no— they're like, fuck it, we'll do this. Who cares about a virus? But then they discover, was it a virus, or was it something much, much worse?

Mikah Sargent [00:53:17]:
Dun dun dun! Oh, wow.

Joe Esposito [00:53:22]:
Event Horizon, COVID edition. Awesome.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:53:25]:
Yeah, so, so there you go.

Mikah Sargent [00:53:27]:
Um, and I forgot, are these chosen via poll?

Stacey Higginbotham [00:53:33]:
They are chosen by a poll. I, I throw some options out there and y'all— it, you know, I will say if you really want a very atmospheric book with a very dissatisfying ending, and I say, okay, it's We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen. Um, my challenge, and the reason I, I can't recommend it to this group, is because like I was literally creeped out reading it, but the end relies on something that is patently false in science fiction. It's kind of like you get to the end and you're like, wait, what? No, that's not true. Um, so it kind of destroyed it, but going into it, like, I totally recommend it because it's a really creepy read. So I'm just throwing that out there not to choose from, but if you want a creepy read and if you're willing to be like— I hate to say suspend your disbelief because it's science fiction.

Mikah Sargent [00:54:30]:
But very much suspend your disbelief.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:54:33]:
Yeah, you very much have to suspend your science fiction disbelief. If you feel like science fiction is important to follow actual science, which I kind of do, Um, this is not the book for you. All right, we're, we're seeing everybody seemed to enjoy the book. Good.

Mikah Sargent [00:54:52]:
Yes.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:54:52]:
Um, it wasn't a page-turner, says Jammerbee. I can see that.

Mikah Sargent [00:54:59]:
Um, I think, I think I agree with that. Um, it did at times— I thought, okay, I've got other things I'm gonna go do. I'll be back though.

Joe Esposito [00:55:08]:
But yeah, I, I kind of through it, I want to say like 10 chapters at a time. Some really good chapter openings for a lot of these too, like some really powerful opening paragraphs where I was like, oh man, I could see that as an animated short or something.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:55:20]:
It's great. Yeah, this was very literary, um, I thought, like from a side— like I was not like, oh, this person can actually write sentences and metaphor and do all kinds of cool stuff and kept introducing characters throughout. I think I read it in like 2 to 3 days, but I'm also very weird.

Mikah Sargent [00:55:41]:
Title of another book, I'm Also Very Weird.

Joe Esposito [00:55:43]:
I think I read it in a week, and at the end I was like, oh, this should have been a '90s Sci-Fi Channel series for the people who made Farscape. This would have been amazing.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:55:50]:
It did feel—

Mikah Sargent [00:55:50]:
God, I love Farscape.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:55:51]:
It reminded me of The Expanse.

Mikah Sargent [00:55:55]:
Oh yeah, for sure.

Joe Esposito [00:55:56]:
Or Babylon 5. That was another one where I thought the Babylon 5 people could have made this into a dark, wrenching, haunting series about the nature of humanity and how messed up we all are. Wouldn't it be great? Maybe someday. Apple TV's around.

Mikah Sargent [00:56:08]:
Yeah, exactly. Uh, I think that does it. Um, the poll is up now, everyone, so you can vote in the poll to choose the spooky October book. There Is No Antimemetics Division by Quantum, Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes, And Salvation Day by Kali Wallace. So get in and get voting. I know I'm putting my vote on one of them. I'm not going to say which, you'll just have to look.

Mikah Sargent [00:56:40]:
Uh, Stacy, thank you so much for bringing us together for another book club. We appreciate it.

Joe Esposito [00:56:47]:
Yay!

Stacey Higginbotham [00:56:48]:
Thanks, y'all, for reading it and participating.

Mikah Sargent [00:56:50]:
Absolutely. Joe, thank you for being here.

Joe Esposito [00:56:53]:
Sure, it's great. Another great book. I've had no, no loser books in this whole thing so far, not the ones I've read.

Mikah Sargent [00:56:58]:
So awesome.

Joe Esposito [00:56:59]:
It's great.

Stacey Higginbotham [00:57:00]:
I'm still salty about the Bobiverse, but I did see that there was a new Bobiverse book out there for people who, who do like the Bobiverse. And there's also a new Murderbot book.

Mikah Sargent [00:57:09]:
Go grab your Murderbots and your Bobiverses and, uh, you'll— you can, you can celebrate that. Uh, I am going to celebrate all of you out there for being the wonderful supporters that you are. You help make all of this possible, uh, and we thank you. If you're somehow watching this and you're not a member of the club, head to twit.tv/clubtwit to learn more, and you can also participate in future book club episodes. I have been and will continue to be Micah Sargent. Uh, thank you all, and we'll see you again soon. Goodbye, everybody.