Transcript of The Forever War: The Turd Dimension

Lori 00:13

Hello!

Amy 00:14

hey

Haley 00:16

hey

Lori 00:18

Welcome to Hugo girl, the podcast where we read Hugo award winning novels and sometimes other things. And today it is a Hugo award winning novel. I am Lori. <long pause> Anybody else got a name? <laughter>

Amy 00:33

I am Amy.

Haley 00:35

I'm Haley.

Lori 00:37

We're all home for the holidays. So we're recording remotely. So we have no visual cues of who's gonna talk next. So I have three new reviews. Yes, thank you. Thank you, everybody for leaving reviews. And here's one thing I want to say about Apple podcasts. I might have said this last time. Apple podcasts has a very silly policy, I guess, of only showing you reviews from the country that you're in. I don't know. Probably. It's probably got something to do with the lawyers. I don't know. But I get emails from Chartable,which is this like little third party service that will be like "you've got a new review!" and then I never see it on Apple podcasts. So we got a new one from Germany and we got a new one from Canada. So that's nice. And thanks to Chartable we actually know about it because otherwise we wouldn't so <fart noise> on you, Apple podcasts. It's also like, why is Apple podcasts the be all end all anyway?

Amy 01:37

Hmph, hmph!

Lori 01:38

Anyway, so we got a nice five star review from a German user called American Umlaut. Oh, and it says "excellent sci fi literature Podcast. I'm a lifelong science fiction fan raised on Heinlein and Asimov by fan parents and devoted to the genre ever since. these ladies are a must listen for any fan bringing a sadly much needed fresh perspective to read through some of the greatest sci fi novels ever published. I'm hooked and I'm enjoying the deep dives into my own favorites as much as I am the opportunity to hear about Hugo winners that haven't crossed my bedside table yet. Thanks for the great podcast ladies. You've got a big fan here."

Haley 02:12

Aww!

Amy 02:12

That's so nice!

Lori 02:14

Yeah, thank you.

Amy 02:15

I love an umlaut in America.

Lori 02:16

Yeah, and then Gaal Dornick, that person's username is fun because that was a character from the last book that we read - Foundation!

Amy 02:26

That would be...Foundation. Yeah.

Lori 02:29

And it says "Regular and special episodes. Regular review episodes of past Hugos are pretty good. Special episodes are great. The one on “LotR” as docudrama had me nearly pee in my pants; the one on “The Nerantel Gem: A Fairy Tale” did! More specials, please?” Don't you worry, Gaal Dornick!

Amy 02:45

Haley, you made someone pee!

Haley 02:47

Yeah, we got. We got an episode coming up. Whew! Just wait, y'all.

Lori 02:51

Yep, yep. Yep, it will be a fun springtime sensation. And then the last one is from user Art Sifton, which I googled that name and found out that Arthur Sifton was the premier of Alberta from 1910 until 1917, and he grew up in Winnipeg. So maybe he's related to Kevin's family. And he died in 1921. So he's left us this review from beyond the veil.

Haley 03:17

<laughs> Time dilation!

Lori 03:19

Exactly. Art says "Necessary perspective on classic sci fi works. Solid podcast that’s nicely produced, <Lori interjects: Kevin was very happy about that!> well-researched, and insightful. Glad to hear their thoughtful perspective on some of my favourite books (even when they dislike books that I love).” We did. Well, I appreciate that, too, that people like to listen, you know, even if we don't have the same opinions about the books, I think that that's nice that people will still tune in. And we love that you love them, you know?

Amy 03:48

And heck yeah, shout out to Kevin, what is up?

Lori 03:50

Yeah, shout out to Kevin from his fellow Albertan.

Haley 03:54

I was telling a friend the other day that when all three of us like a book unanimously, it's pretty rare. So there's always going to be like, something that you can agree or disagree with, I think.

Amy 04:03

Yeah, for sure. I think the Halloween ones are the only ones we agreed on.

Haley 04:08

'Cause we like witchy shit, it's true.

Amy 04:10

Ghosts and witches, we're all gonna like it. And lots of breakfast like our last one.

Amy 04:14

Yes, the more breakfast the more likely it is that we'll all enjoy it.

Haley 04:17

Mmhm!

Lori 04:18

Okay, so let's dive into this book. This is today's read is The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. And it won the Hugo Award as well as the Locus award in 1976 for Best Novel, and the nebula for Best Novel in 1975, was published in 1975. And a couple fun facts. It was written for his MFA thesis and then later published as a serial and analog magazine in 1974. And it has an interesting publication history. So the version that I read is not the version that won the Hugo, it is the author's preferred version. So there were some changes that were made to publish it originally, and it wasn't exactly what he wanted it to be. And so it was later reworked. I want to say like in the 90s, maybe. So the version that I read that has an intro by John Scalzi is the version that Joe Haldeman preferred.

Amy 05:13

Okay, good. That's the one I had to I think.

Lori 05:15

Yeah. And I don't know in what way it differs from the one that won, I mean, I imagine it doesn't differ a huge amount. But anyway, so that was interesting. And then a film has been in development since 1988. The current iteration plans to star Channing Tatum.

Amy 05:31

Ohhhh! I'd watch that.

Haley 05:35

That toe of a man.

Lori 05:38

Toe of a man?!

Haley 05:39

He looks like a toe and a thumb. Maybe potato. I like him. But yeah.

Lori 05:42

Oh my god.

Amy 05:44

He's very hot though. So it's okay. My mother loves him. I'll get her to come in and do a guest spot on her love for "Chan," she calls him.

Lori 05:49

We can interview your mom as an expert on Channing Tatum, Chan.

Amy 05:54

I think he has small ears.

Haley 05:56

Oh, man, one day we should do an episode about Jupiter Ascending.

Amy 06:01

Oh, can we please that might be my love. And I might make you guys do that.

Lori 06:07

Okay, and lastly, this book is book number one in the Sci Fi masterworks series. Okay, brief plot summary. I'm going to try since this book takes place over 1000 years or five years depending on your perspective. So the story follows young physics student William Mandela, who has been conscripted into an elite Task Force for a space war against aliens called the Taurans, the first part of the book goes into their training and at first, it felt a lot like Starship Troopers only with a more sardonic tone and a lot of smoking pot and a lot of sex. He is at war from two years or for about two years from his perspective. But then he returned to the earth in the year 2024. And he finds it confusing to say the least, resources are scarce and homosexuality is compulsory, which makes him very uncomfortable. But he thinks he's basically okay with it until he finds out his mom has a female life partner. So then he nopes out and goes to a weird semi enslaved agricultural commune with his fellow space soldier and lover, Mary gay Potter. They have some misadventures, and then they decide to re enlist, they quickly get blown up like a big time, like they've lost limbs, and they're sent to a hospital recovery planet called heaven. They have a nice time for a while they recover, except one time when a shark ate someone. And then they decide to re enlist again together. Space military promises, then they'll be assigned together, and they are and then literally, literally seconds later, they are reassigned to separate locations. So they assume that's their final goodbye. At this point, Mandela is basically in charge of the space military because he's survived for like, 700 ish years at this point, even though from his perspective, he's only 25 years old and not very good at being a soldier or making war, he's just managed to not get hit, or not get hit catastrophically. He deals with a lot in a short period of time, including surviving an assassination attempt, a low grade mutiny and an accidental earthquake on a hostile planet. He and his surviving soldiers finally gets scooped up and rescued only to find out that the war is long over and humanity looks very, very different. So from his perspective, he lives through the war for about four or five years, I think. But while on earth, and for the rest of humanity, several centuries have elapsed, maybe even like 1000 years through the course of the book. And I think we can talk about the end during our general discussion, or we can maybe not because it is very dramatic. And I don't know if we want to spoil it, I just don't know.

Amy 08:34

I think the only thing I would add to that is that the war that they're fighting is against an enemy that no one's actually ever spoken to. And so it's like, there, there was some skirmish in space that people had scarce details on, and then they launched this war against these people, these other entities called the Taurans and that's it.

Amy 08:50

Right yeah, no one really knows exactly why it started. And we don't have a communication method. So no one's ever been able to or really tried to just like, "Can we can we talk?" like, we don't have anything in common that we know of.

Amy 09:05

Yeah.

Haley 09:06

This is why even though even though I love space, we we should not go to space because we'll just kill things.

Lori 09:13

Right. Like if we could just go and mind our business, but it's very clear that we can't. Um, okay, Goodies from Goodreads.

Amy 09:24

Oh, yeah.

Lori 09:26

Go for it.

Amy 09:26

I have, So this is not - these are from Amazon. And they're not that hard to find. Because they were the first ones that I found when I clicked on it. But they were they summed up, one of them sums up my thoughts, pretty well. Let me pull it up real quick. The first one is from Wolf Wind. And he gave it one star, he or she or they and I would recommend reading the whole review because it was very long and I'm not gonna put the whole thing here. But the part that summed up for me was he, he she they really liked the book, but had this beef with it. This book aged very strangely, and I'm not talking about the dates or the idea that we had interstellar travel by 1997. I also get that this book was meant to be commentary on Vietnam, but it does not read like that at all. Instead, it reads about a hetero man watching the dreaded Gay Agenda put on fast forward and trying to cope with it. And it just so happens take place during a war." And then a similar similar idea was put forth by Brian who also points out one of the other parts that jumped out to him and he gave it one star as well. And I will say reading all of this, I do have some I think there's some nuance to what's going on with this. I think it's a little bit satirical. It's not supposed to be really a commentary on homosexuality, really, but it is very odd. And then there's this other part that's very strange, and Brian puts it this way. "The problems start when the military shells its own recruits in the middle of training. I can't imagine how the seals would react to being shot in their bunks, but I imagine there'd be a lot of dead officers who approved that particular training method after every buds class. Now it's one part and then the other part is the point where this books drops in a hole. The point where this book drops in a hole is at the after class activities. Essentially women, women are quote by tradition and law toys for the men as the characters and the women are unwilling draftees. This is essentially a military with a side helping a female specific sexual slavery. I can't support that kind of world building in any book, The dares call itself science anything this would be barely tolerable at a potboiler. Can't see myself ever buying another Haldeman book." And I do again, I think there's some nuance to that that isn't get cut dried, I don't think but it is a very weird way to bring this concept into this book that these women are basically required to sleep with, like the female soldiers are basically required to sleep with the male soldiers. And that was the topic of that review.

Amy 11:41

Yeah. Haley, you got any?

Haley 11:45

Yeah, um, so I found a one star review, not because I necessarily agree with what it said. But just because they're more fun to read, I think been reading like, "this book is great," like so. Tim said, it's long and he goes on and on and on. He calls it his "new worst book you've ever read," but he gets really political with his language, so I wanted to share this. "If it's trying to be boring and succeeds it's still a boring, pointless book. That's not this book's main offense, but there's still a lot more to unpack here because this book isn't just a turd, it's a turd with layers. But but it isn't a mere turd onion. It's a turd beyond space and time ladies and gentlemen, this book is the turd fractal previously only known to theoretical physics." that that made me laugh out loud.

Amy 12:27

A turd fractal!

Haley 12:28

I do not believe that it's a turd onion,but that that review had some some poeticness to it that I enjoyed so

Amy 12:35

Well on that subject, we just finished our Skype a scientist with physicist Emily Duden. And I wish that we could have asked her about turd fractals. Maybe you know she said we could we could reach out again if we needed help. So maybe we can email her and be like so turd fractal. What do you think?

Haley 12:53

Well, that or maybe we should phrase it as the subject line should be The Turd Dimension" <laughter>

Amy 13:00

a wormhole through the turd dimension

Haley 13:03

space and time.

Lori 13:04

Alright, I've got one and like you, Haley. I don't necessarily agree with it. But it was funny. "The hero is" oh, this is this review is from the fourth vine on Goodreads. And this person says "the hero is - well if he had more depth or dimension I would probably hate him. But as it is, he's just a cardboard cutout of a neckbeard's MMPORG persona."

Haley 13:30

that person has an agenda or was recently dumped

Amy 13:34

Do people say "emporg" or do they say the letters?

Haley 13:37

No.

Amy 13:37

I think they say the letters.

Lori 13:39

"MMPORG," it just felt like I was talking for so long to say that

Haley 13:42

Or they just say the name of the game like World of Warcraft or whatever.

Amy 13:45

yeah, you just say what you mean. You mean Word of Warcraft.

Haley 13:48

Yeah, make your insult cutting like a knife, don't make itgeneral.

Lori 13:53

I guess they probably weren't considering how it would sound when read aloud when they wrote their review. Okay. Ready for general discussion?

Amy 14:03

Yeah. Yes!

Lori 14:05

Okay, well, jump in. What did you think?

Amy 14:09

Well, I actually did want to start with this very. So it's a military book. But he has a lot of social dynamics woven in. And he so you know, there's the part where every time he jumps back into real time, the homosexual agenda has been forwarded. And there's also this odd gender dynamics that he has rolling around in his in the amongst the soldiers. There's this compulsory sex thing that happens. I read a Reddit q&a. Like he did it. He did an AMA.

Lori 14:42

Yeah.

Amy 14:42

Haldeman did. Did you read that?

Lori 14:44

Yeah, I did.

Amy 14:44

So you know, one thing he says is that he didn't write The Forever War and somebody asks him very specifically about that about, about the inclusion of those sorts of things. And he says I didn't write The Forever War as a prophecy. If anything. It is a social satire. then he also wrote that he was trying to create a science fictional USA that satirized various aspects of the so called "there and then," you know what was going on when he wrote in the 70s. He lived in Iowa City, which was a hotbed of gay activism and, of course, anti gay outrage. And he also says that he had a very good friend who was an out man at the time, which was, you know, not easy to do. And that kept him from getting tenure. And it was, you know, he thought what he thought was a pretty drastic for an academic who'd been in this position for 10 years. So he had a lot of sort of sounds like, and he also says, "my own position is ordinary for a straight male born in the 1940s. I don't understand desire and love between two men, the way I understand desire and love between a man and a woman, that doesn't mean I don't think that doesn't mean I think one is more natural than the other, which is criminal nonsense. One is just more unusual than the other." He says, "that's a statistical observation, not a moral judgment." So you know, it's typical 1940s guy,

Lori 15:54

"Some of my best friends are gay!"

Amy 15:55

exactly, like so like -

Lori 15:56

"ONE of my best friends."

Amy 15:58

So I think it's something that he was definitely, you know, wrestling with,I don't know that he was necessarily trying to come down one side or the other, really, but it is a very, it is a very interesting way to put this into a science fiction book. And it's obviously a big deal to him, you know, it's a big part of the book.

Haley 16:15

He thought about it a lot!

Amy 16:16

He is thinking about it a lot. And so I just think it's an interesting place to start. Like, where, I don't know, I was baffled by the inclusion and baffled by how much of a plot point it was.

Amy 16:28

One of our listeners, Ronnie on Instagram, did ask about that, when I put out a call for questions. And Ronnie said, I can't tell if the portrayal of sexual orientation here is progressive, or regressive, or both. And, for me, I think the answer is both.

Amy 16:43

Yeah!

Haley 16:44

I mean, he also predicted the use of basically they/them/their pronouns, too.

Amy 16:48

Yeah. Which was very interesting. I mean, I think he's definitely like, we're watching him wrestle with it in real time, almost, like, you know, like, he's he, he starts off very, you know, put off by the idea, then he kind of gets used to it, I guess, is a better way of putting it like he develops a friendship with this other guy, Charlie, you know, and he sort of gets used to it. But then when he's given an opportunity to, you know, go back to the way he thinks things are normal, he jumps right on it. Right.

Haley 17:16

Yeah, I mean, there's probably ways that I mean, I, I understand what he was doing. I still didn't enjoy reading some parts of it. Like, I think the part where he's like, gives him the shivers. Like, come on, dude, Jesus Christ.

Amy 17:28

Yeah. I, part of why I'm conflicted about it is because we are riding around in his head. And I think we see him grappling with feeling uncomfortable. So like, I don't like reading him saying that. He's so uncomfortable, and that he's got the shivers or like, especially when he was like, Yeah, I'm at this point, I'm totally fine with two chicks. But two dudes still grosses me out. Like, that's, that's something that people still say today. But there are times where I feel like, the book is critical of him. And one of the parts that I like, is where he's meeting with somebody, I can't remember who it may be the guy, Charlie, who ends up his friend down the road, but he says, that he has. He says, Oh, I'm tolerant, because when the guys explained him, you know, almost everyone is homosexual now, and he says, I'm tolerant, and then the guy says, you think you are. And I like that moment, because he's really calling him out. And he was like it. I think he's saying, like, being tolerant is more than being polite.

Amy 18:32

Yeah.

Haley 18:32

That's true.

Amy 18:33

Well, and the thing I like about that conversation is that it calls out the fact that, you know, of course, your actions are important. I mean, it is very important that he's not being unkind or violent, or, you know, treating anyone differently, at least not that he knows, I mean, he might be people might be able to tell by his body language, or his tone, or whatever

Amy 18:33

And after I read that he had a good friend that was in this position. I imagine that was some sort of actual conversation he had, with his friend like that, that sort of it's, it's, it's came off as very realistic, you know, like a realistic conversation he probably had with somebody and like, and he never treats anybody badly. So it's hard to think of him as like a bad dude. Like, he doesn't discriminate in any observable way. So it's, you know, so he may be having all these distasteful thoughts to us, but like, at the same time, he's doing his best.

Haley 19:18

that's true

Lori 19:19

But the thing I like about that is that it says that, like, just being nice, is not enough, or just being tolerant is not accepting, right? It's not, it's not quite enough. It's the minimum, basically, tolerant is the minimum.

Haley 19:32

And if you were to place if you were to place his feelings with any other part of society, like his views towards women, or disabled people, or minorities, like it would, it doesn't hold up as much, but there's something that we do with homosexuality, that I think that it's like, well, as long as you're nice to their face, like just seems like we give them more of a pass than we would with other situations with humans and I, As a gay person. I don't like that. So.

Amy 19:53

Yeah, right.

Lori 19:54

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think it's completely valid.

Haley 19:57

I am I did laugh out loud like, how they kind of clinicalize it too like, he keeps calling it homosex and homolife. Like, "I didn't choose the homolife the homolife chose me!" <laughter> So, I mean, we do this a lot, because we know, not just because it's hard sometimes to separate author intent, but because sometimes, like Joe Haldeman, he talks about it. So it's hard not to like think about what's going on in his head. Is he a proxy for the character? Maybe, maybe not. But it's also biographical because he was at a war. So it's, it's, it's a turd onion sometimes.

Lori 20:31

Yeah, well, and he has said in more modern interviews that he regrets some of the portrayals of gay men in the book, and that if he wrote the book, now, he would do it differently. So he recognizes that this a lot of this age well, but I, I do think he's doing more with it than just being like, "eww." And it doesn't all work. But I just got really fixated on the whole, like, you think you're tolerant, but your psychological profile says a little different. So that's just interesting that he, you know, he may not even know himself as well as he thinks he does, or doesn't want to admit how he's how he really feels and like what work he needs to be doing.

Haley 21:10

His poor mother who just finds love and he's like, wants to go back to war.

Amy 21:15

Oh, I know. He finds out his mom has a part time girlfriend roommate. And he's like, Well. He just left! He didn't leave a note. He was just like, well, bye!

Amy 21:30

I thought his mom died. And then he left.

Lori 21:33

Oh, he left when he found out she had a -

Amy 21:35

that's when he goes to the commune. Is that right?

Lori 21:37

Yeah.

Amy 21:37

Okay, gotcha.

Lori 21:38

I think he left twice because I think he came back right before she died.

Amy 21:42

Yeah, that sounds right. Okay.

Haley 21:43

And this is ironic, because he said he was okay with two chicks, but I guess not when it's your mom, cuz he can't fantasize about that.

Lori 21:49

Because it's, yeah, exactly. It's not hot when it's your mom.

Haley 21:53

Yeah.

Lori 21:54

And also, like, his mom's girlfriend was like in her 40s. I mean, gross. Um, and he says that, that he's fine with two women. You know, it's a few years down the road. It's many hundreds of years slash a few years down the road.

Haley 22:11

Yeah, that's true.

Lori 22:13

Yeah, he doesn't he doesn't come out looking all around rosy, but I don't think he's supposed to. So I think it's like, I think that's clumsy. But there's more nuance than just him being homophobic I think

Haley 22:28

yeah, for sure.

Amy 22:29

I agree. Yeah.

Haley 22:30

I would like to talk about - So I like military fiction a lot. I like to read about training. I like to read about weapons, the descriptions of the battles and this bored me to tears. Anyone else have that experience?

Amy 22:47

Yeah, the first part like the training and everything I just felt like I was reading Starship Troopers only the narrator was not excited about it like Johnny in Starship Troopers. And I was pretty bored. But I really liked once we got through part one, I started really enjoying it and I did like some of the battle scenes like the stasis field with like the javelins and swords and stuff and it was very funny like suddenly all our ray guns aren't working inside the stasis field

Haley 23:14

Yeah, that was cool

Lori 23:14

and we're like Joan of Arc with our swords. I thought that was very interesting. But yeah, battle scenes, I do kind of skim battle scenes.

Haley 23:22

It wasn't even the battle scenes was more just like going on patrol it it reminded me of watching Forrest Gump because like that's like, you know, a very big Vietnam war movie. And like, you know, like, there's lots of flanking procedures and stopping and signaling or whatever. But I'd Yeah, the battle was not fun for me.

Amy 23:37

I got the impression that these descriptions of what it was like to be a soldier in these wars was supposed to feel sort of disjointed, not well planned, not well explained, not well executed, you know, because that's how their experience was.

Haley 23:49

Yeah.

Amy 23:50

And specifically in Vietnam, they were never told the objective of these procedures they were doing it was very, it all seemed very strange, you know, and not connected to the larger war and like, all these things, so I, I can't say that I felt bored. I thought it was kind of interesting. And I thought the stasis field was one of the strangest most interesting things I'd ever heard of. So those kinds of things I found interesting, but I also felt like he was making a point about what it felt like to be a soldier in these long pointless wars

Haley 24:17

Oh yes, definitely. Yeah. Just just got a little cumbersome at times.

Amy 24:21

Yeah, it doesn't necessarily make for compelling reading.

Amy 24:24

Agreed. Yeah.

Lori 24:25

But I think the I think that's like, on purpose, but also, is it entertaining for an audience? Not necessarily.

Amy 24:31

Did you like the the fighting in this one better than the fighting in Starship Troopers or the other way around?

Haley 24:37

Hmm, I think Heinlein's a slightly better writer. So yeah.

Amy 24:42

Oh, see, I just, that's interesting. I think Haldeman's probably a better writer. But I think to me, obviously, this is my opinion, that Haldeman's a better writer, he's better does better writer-y stuff, but Heinlein puts you in the action a little better.

Haley 24:56

Well, yeah, cuz I mean, I think he's a better technical writer, whereas like Haldeman knew about war and how, you know, writing about a fun, you know, fascist type Starship Troopers battle's more fun than writing about like the futility of combat and the terrible periods of boredom.

Amy 25:15

That's true! Oh and they were so bored so much of the time, God bless him.

Haley 25:20

I mean, that's war. It's that's mainly waiting.

Amy 25:22

Did you know that Heinlein sent Haldeman a letter and said he really enjoyed the book?

Lori 25:27

Yeah, they met in person. And he told him that! So cute.

Lori 25:29

and it meant a lot to Haldeman that he liked the book. And he thought it's different than how I think about it. But I still really enjoyed the books.

Amy 25:37

He likes to he likes Heinlein. And Hemingway, which I thought was interesting, given the machoism behind this book. Haldeman likes Heinlein and Hemingway. Heinlein. Haldeman, Hemingway, hhh.

Lori 25:51

So Emmanuel, our nice friend Emmanuel on Twitter -

Amy 25:56

Hi Emmanuel!

Lori 25:57

Yeah, he posted a cool picture wearing one of our logo sweatshirts. So that was cool. He said he wanted to hear us discuss time dilation, and its effects on relationships. And we will be having a special minisode coming out where we're discussing time dilation with an awesome physicist. So look out for that. We're definitely experts at this point.

Amy 26:20

Oh, yeah, we got a PhD in physics. <laughter>

Lori 26:23

she's that good of a teacher! 45 minutes. And it's like, well, well, I get it!

Amy 26:27

shout out to Emily!

Lori 26:29

But yeah, I think this is an interesting topic. And it's my favorite part of this book. Because I'm not into the military aspect so much. And when you Amy, when you asked about do you like Starship Troopers, battle scenes, or battle scenes in this book better? I just I pass on that question. Because, I just don't like them that much, like, the Lord of the Rings in there, yeah, exactly. When I read Lord of the Rings, and there were the battle scenes in I can't remember which one of the books. But anyway, they're the big sweeping battle scenes, and I just sort of like, let my eyeballs slide down the page until somebody starts talking. Oh, I'm just gonna say that like the the examination of the relationships and like, his ongoing sense of building alienation from the world as he understood it was what I liked about this book, and I liked his relationship with Mary gay, I read some Goodreads reviews that really didn't like it. But I liked it.

Amy 27:32

Aww, I did!

Lori 27:32

I know, I liked it.

Amy 27:34

And and it's named after his wife. So cute.

Lori 27:35

Yeah, yeah.

Amy 27:38

I thought that I think she like, she functions as like a little too, like a sort of emotional touchstone for him. And like, you know, he might not have fleshed out the emotional parts of the relationship all that well. But they have a lot of experiences together. And he clearly cares about her and clearly thinks about her. And vice versa. I was all for it.

Amy 27:54

So I guess I like her, because as he's becoming more and more alienated from society, on earth, and human society, and not even just alienated, like, he doesn't even know because too much happens for him to even possibly know and keep up. And he's basically he and her are really the only survivors from the beginning, that she's the only constant in his life.

Amy 28:15

Yeah, yeah.

Lori 28:15

And she's the only person who will remember what life on Earth is like, she's the only person who probably get a lot of his jokes. And vice versa. He's the only person who will get her. And they've just experienced a lot together. And I just really enjoyed that. They could, you know, reconnect and just be the person that would get, you know, what I've been through. And what I remember.

Amy 28:38

I found the scene where she got hurt in her little suit. And he was like, trying to help her, I found that whole scene kind of moving because it was very, like he couldn't, he could not help her right and didn't know what to do. And he was very worried about her. And I thought that came across very well. And I think, you know, having had that scene in there, I think their relationship felt perfectly well grounded to me, but

Amy 29:00

they had that weird conversation when it was like before you like when you get the first inkling that they are anything other than colleagues and occasional lovers, when they have that conversation about how they're saying, you know, I'll, I'll beat up this other person that you're sleeping with, they do anything bad to you, and vice versa. I'll beat her up if she does anything bad to you. And it's kind of like, I got I had this moment where I was like, what's up with these two? And then, of course, they they end up with their companionship that spans centuries or four years, depending on where you're standing.

Haley 29:34

Yeah, so I took the opposite view because the what they do in the book with relationships is so for, for a training program that kills people, literally the fact that they would create such a liability as personal ties, I think would never happen in the military situation.

Amy 29:52

Well, but do you think that's why they separated them though?

Haley 29:55

No, I think it's just the the cruel, callous military machine doesn't care what you ever want, I think, so.

Amy 30:00

Yeah, I agree

Haley 30:02

I think was just like to help showcase like, he was never in charge of anything. The military will say one thing like, my, my dad always said that to like, you know, you can't trust the army like they're gonna do what's best for the army. And that is it. So

Amy 30:12

well, yeah, I mean, they, they did exactly that when they both re enlisted after they recuperated on heaven. And then they re enlisted with the understanding that they'd be together and they're like, Yep, we're, you're both assigned to this. And then they get their assignments. Like, one second later, they've both been reassigned to different places. And he's the narrator is like, "that's the military for ya!"

Haley 30:33

Yeah, but yeah, I mean, but I was just thinking about, like, you know, if you were on the battlefield, and you see, you know, your favorite lover shot down, you're gonna try and rescue them. Whereas maybe not with a colleague, colleague that you could be more, you know, like, objectively about. So I just, I was like, There's no way they would spend as much money and then have them like shack up every night.

Amy 30:50

Yeah, I was confused by the compulsory shacking up with the soldiers like I just didn't, I didn't understand what purpose it was meant to serve.

Haley 31:01

It didn't happen in Starship Troopers the book but it happens in the movie. They're like, all like all of the infantry was like having sex in the shower. And it was just like, fine.

Amy 31:09

The interesting thing about Starship Troopers is that it is so sexless.

Haley 31:14

Yeah, yeah yeah.

Lori 31:16

Like in the actual book, The most you get is like, Oh, her beautiful smile. That's what we're fighting for. And I was like, Oh, really, there was not a single boob in that book.

Amy 31:24

Oh, the inclusion of it was either I think it could serve a couple of - I was wondering about this too. And I think the inclusion of it could be a couple different things like it could be Haldeman sort of, in putting in something he wished he'd had when he was in Vietnam. Or it could be some or he could have been ton of spicing it up for publication in the magazines, you know, just sort of putting something in there that he thought would sell. Or it could be an actual thought on what might make the military function better, which would be to scratch this itch so that people aren't, you know, distracted by it or whatever. Or not, you could maybe build morale too, who knows?

Haley 32:02

Oh, I just think of the drama of breakups in a in a unit. Oh, my God.

Amy 32:07

Well, I think that's why they put you with a different person every night, don't they? Like? So the policy is that they put a male and a female soldier and have them bunk together at night. But I think there's like a schedule. And you might have somebody that you like, and you might, I don't know, like, have an informal agreement that you're going to swap off or like meet up in the broom closet or something, but they because I remember. So there's it's absolutely a valid criticism that it is gross that it seems that women in particular, there's the one scene where they're like, let me find this quote, "then unleashed Stargates 18 sex-starved men on our women, compliant and promiscuous by military custom and law, but desiring nothing so much asleep." So like, that's monstrous, right?

Lori 32:52

Right.

Lori 32:52

Like these women have to have sex with these soldiers, because it's part of their duty. So it's, you know, compulsory sexual servitude, but it goes both ways. So in one of the early chapters, it's not put in such like, kind of horrifying terms as we see it in that particular passage. But in one of the early chapters, Mandela goes to bed and the woman who's assigned to bunk with him that night, wants to get it on. And he was like, "Isn't that always the way you get a sleepy one when you want to do it, and you get a horny one when you want to sleep?" And I was like, "What is going on here?"

Haley 33:26

So that happens a lot in war, you know, like, there's the whole you know, but there's a lot of like, sex work that pops up around bases and you know, different places. Yeah, the origin of the band Joy Division, actually, in Germany, there was like, The Joy Division was like the women that would service the troops. So it's just weird that they would put them in the same unit? I think so.

Amy 33:46

I guess I didn't get the impression from the way it was written that so like, there's that weird scene where they they relieve the soldiers at some at some base. And the men there have been without women for however long right? And so they've turned into these like sex starved, crazy people. And that the way it's written is really kind of horrifying. Like they set upon the women from the from Mandella's unit, like,

Lori 34:09

yeah, that's what I just read.

Amy 34:10

Yeah, so like, that, doesn't, The way that read to me didn't make it sound like the women that were still left were doing the same thing. I don't know. It was like, it was just it sounded lopsided, even even given the chapter early in the book with what you're just talking about with Rogers and Mandela, like even, that it sounded like it was still very lopsided.

Amy 34:31

Yeah, you're right. You're right. Because they the way it's written in this latter chapter is like, horrifying. And then when we read that scene with Mandela and Rogers earlier, it's like, seems fairly clear to me that if he's been assigned to bunk with a woman who's sleepy, he's not going to argue and be like, "well, it's your duty."

Haley 34:51

Fair. Yeah. Yeah.

Lori 34:53

But he was sleepy. And he was bunking with a woman who wanted to get it on. He was like, "Guess I gotta!" you know, so it's -

Amy 34:59

yeah, that's true.

Lori 35:00

I mean, but I, it's definitely more uncomfortable, like this scene makes it sound like these women are just going to sort of lie back and be attacked because they have to.

Amy 35:07

Yeah

Lori 35:08

you don't you don't see them have the opportunity to be like, "sorry, guys, we're too tired." You know.

Haley 35:14

So I tend to view it as like, kind of like a physical exchange kind of like a massage like it doesn't seem like there was like, it wasn't love making necessarily.

Amy 35:23

Yeah, I think I think that's that is seems like what it's sort of designed to be. But if it's compulsory, then that's, you know, this particular scene that we're just talking about. I mean, it's definitely alarming. I was like, what is happening? Because most of the book, I wasn't super disturbed by anything that I read, you know, I was thinking like, some of its informed by its time, and I think that he's trying to create some sort of gender parity.

Amy 35:54

Yeah

Lori 35:55

when I read that I was like, Oh, God, like that just sort of leapt out as particularly alarming and upsetting and obvious as compared to some of the other parts in the book.

Haley 36:05

Yeah, he didn't have to do that. Like, he could have just said, people have to have sex with each other. It's part of the deal. But like, he's like, No, he used such animalistic terms like unleashing the starved men

Lori 36:15

"sex-starved," yeah, yeah, it sounds scary. It sounds scary.

Haley 36:22

But yeah, but to go back to the relationships, I find that time dilation is a plot device in terms of humans and aging. It's kind of like, either vampires or living forever, like it just completely changed what changes what it is to be human in a way that I think probably isn't great for most people.

Amy 36:39

Yeah. But even with vampires, in most cases, they're around to see all of the things change.

Haley 36:45

Yeah, that's true. So it's slower. Yeah.

Lori 36:47

And so for him, he's just like, oh, this, this all happened in the past six months?! But it's actually been like 40 years.

Haley 36:56

Yeah. One thing that I really loved about this book is that it anticipated a question that I had, which is, you know, after 800 years, or you know, like, just a long, long, long, long time, language changes, kind of like how, if you put me back in 1300, I wouldn't be able to understand, you know, Middle English, but he addresses that and talks about how his soldiers eventually come to resent him because they've got to learn this like archaic 21st century dialect.

Amy 37:20

Yeah, he really put a lot of thought into the, like, practical implications of what happens when you live for this long.

Haley 37:31

And I also liked how much he talks about compound interest, like how they'd have a billion dollars. <laughter>

Amy 37:40

But then by the end, it doesn't even matter!

Haley 37:42

Yep. I think I took a lot of it at surface value, like all of us were like, Yeah, like that, too. And we're like, huh, yes, me too.

Amy 37:51

I thought it was interesting that he had the draft be the elite kids, instead of the normal anybody, draft.

Haley 37:59

The opposite of Vietnam.

Amy 38:01

Yeah. You can get out of it, if you are in college, or doing something, you know, whatever beneficial to society by somebody standards. And, you know, this way is actually the other way around, like you have to stay on Earth if you're not great. And you have to go to war, if you are great. And it's I he didn't really develop that idea much. But like he sort of said it, and then we just kind of knew it that everybody was really good at something. And then just he just carried on. So I mean, I couldn't tell. I mean, I guess the commentary, there is what I honestly don't know what he was doing there. I couldn't tell -

Amy 38:34

I didn't either. And I didn't understand they took like, they were like, well, you have to do it. Because you know about physics, and we need people who know about physics, okay, but then you go put them on like a frozen planet where they're very likely to get blown up in a training exercise. So it's like, well, you've, you've wasted that intellectual potential, or, you know, whatever it is that you thought you were getting by conscripting people because of their education or expertise. And then you're just like, well, sorry, you weren't fast enough. Sorry you got blown up.

Haley 39:03

So the way he talks about the army, sometimes I'm like, do you really know about the army? And obviously he was, but he was a medic. I think like he wasn't like, on the ground like a grunt. So maybe that's part of it's like, well, what if there's a smart army, all doctors? <laughter>

Amy 39:18

All doctors, and we still end up at war for 1000 years?

Amy 39:22

Just because it seems like a strange choice to make to send the ones off that would theoretically be the, you know, I don't know. I don't want to I do not want to sit here and say smart ones. He used the word elite. You know, just the concept that we're sending off the ones that would normally be doing professional degrees or doing science or doing what right? And we're keeping the ones that aren't like so if you look at the draft the way it was and the way people were able to avoid the draft. It also seems extremely weird and dodgy that we don't make people go fight.

Haley 39:22

Mmhmm

Haley 39:51

It was by class

Amy 39:52

What's that?

Amy 39:53

It was by class.

Amy 39:54

Yeah, right!

Haley 39:55

Like if you could afford college or you were rich like a senator's son, like the song.

Amy 39:58

So maybe, it seems awful to do it that way. It also seems very weird to do it the way he's describing it. But I don't know what the right way to do it was maybe the answer is don't go to war. But, you know, it seems I don't know what the answer is there.

Haley 40:09

I think he was just pulling Opposite Day. He's like, no joints, joints. Smart, not smart, whatever. Like, I think it was just like no sex, sex. He was just like, what couldn't I have? We're gonna have it! <laughter>

Amy 40:23

It's just having a thought experiment that didn't really like, Yeah, but I guess as a thought experiment, I'm not sure what I think the answer is, it's like, alright, so you have a draft? Do you? What, what people do we think we should send? And you have to answer that question one way or the other? I guess the answer is draft everyone and don't let anybody get out of it. But then,

Haley 40:42

well, I mean, we've been doing that for as long as there's been a war of this, you know, if you had money to replace, you could do that the Civil War, you could do that, you know, just happens.

Amy 40:50

Yeah, that's true.

Haley 40:51

But at least I guess, having people with high IQs and physical capabilities and things like that, like, this didn't seem like a big war in terms of sending lots of people, like when the first crew comes back, you know, they're lauded like heroes, cuz there's only 20 of them. So maybe they're like, you know, when you're getting, when you're going into a brand new space with brand new opportunities and different scientific things, you need the best of the best, so

Amy 41:14

or you want to take them out of circulation and keep them busy.

Haley 41:18

Yeah, Idiocracy.

Lori 41:20

Because we know like the government wanted the war to continue in this scenario, the government wanted the war to continue because it was basically an economic engine. And so if you take some of these people out of circulation, who might, I don't know be able to exercise some influence or you know, write some things that might make people see the war differently and oppose it. Then you've got them way far away in space where they can't talk to anybody.

Haley 41:46

For hundreds of years, yeah. so that made me think about so obviously, human relationships would suffer, but also just keeping up with who's where the, the paperwork that would have to be done. Like, he'd have to be like, in a folder somewhere for 300 years, or like in a computer. That's crazy!

Amy 42:02

Remeber he has a paper file, and they came like wheeling it over to him? And it had the post it note for Mary Gay on it.

Haley 42:08

Yeah, no, I mean, it's just -

Amy 42:11

They were like, it was impractical to not just keep a paper file on you.

Haley 42:16

There is a scene in Back To The Future Part Three, a movie that I love where Doc Smith, or no Doc Brown goes back in time to the Old West. And then he he sends a letter that Marty gets in 1955. But like he says, delivered in 1955, like in the pouring rain on this random street to a guy wearing this jacket. So like, when Western Union delivers it, they're like, we've been holding on to this for 75 years, we didn't think you'd show up. And then he did. So that's kind of how I pictured it. It's just like, there's people that are gonna be working their entire life that will just you know, keep tabs on this folder that will never be opened up for 400 years or whatever.

Amy 42:49

I didn't think about that. That's really funny. Like the Mary Gay post-it, it will show up again later in Soap Stuff. But I do like the idea of this cart just existing in the corner in some in some like, temperature controlled room. Where these people show up, you can look -

Haley 43:08

Files warehouse.

Amy 43:09

It's like a museum because it's probably the only paper they have need of

Haley 43:14

Yeah. <Amy giggles>

Lori 43:16

They're just like, digitizing a personnel file. We just kept it in case you wanted it. I mean, it basically is the case they basically just kept it in case he wanted it.

Amy 43:25

Yep. That's really funny.

Lori 43:27

It's interesting that they were sensitive to that, that they weren't just like, alright, well, we're just gonna zap these guys because they're fighting a war that's over.

Lori 43:34

Well, Lori, by the time we got to that future we had the perfect person for

Lori 43:37

Yeah, we did. The perfect weird clones.

Haley 43:43

What are the chances that his name would be Man?

Amy 43:46

Do you know that maybe think of that episode of X Files with the man lizard and that it's like the lizard who turns into a man in the full moon, or he gets he gets bitten by a man and he starts turning into a man during the full moon. He goes to work at a cell phone store and the name he picks for himself is Guy Man. Oh man, that episode is so funny. I would like to talk about the way the Taurans look. (Amy: Okay) I guess I wanted to do like a drawing of this and then I just didn't because I don't like drawing I'm not good at it, but I thought it would be funny to try. This is a description of them is so funny. "He had two arms and two legs but his waist was so small you could encompass it with both hands. Under the tiny waist was a large horseshoe shaped pelvic structure nearly a metre wide from which dangled two long skinny legs with no apparent knee joint above that waist. His body swelled out again to a chest no smaller than the huge pelvis:" - no smaller than I mean, that's a funny way to say, is it the same size?

Amy 44:51

No it's a bit smaller than.

Haley 44:53

it's like, just say like.

Amy 44:57

"His arms looked surprisingly human except that they were too long and under muscled. There were too many fingers on his hands." Too many! How many?!

Haley 45:06

I'm picturing like a, hmm, like, like a like a comb just like 20. <laughter>

Lori 45:11

"Shoulderless, neckless. His head was a nightmarish growth that swelled like a goiter from his massive chest, two eyes that look like clusters of fish eggs, a bundle of tassels instead of a nose." That is my favorite part.

Haley 45:26

Like a bookmark!

Amy 45:26

That made me think of the Ood.

Lori 45:29

Oh, yeah!

Amy 45:30

It was very Ood-y to me.

Lori 45:32

And oh, but you know what I mean, if it were me, I would say like small tentacles, but a bunch of tasssels. All I could think about was like a fan pull, you know, like let's see. "A bundle of tassels instead of a nose, and a rigidly open hole that might have been a mouth sitting below where his Adam's Apple should have been." Well, that's very human centric. Evidently. "Evidently, the soap bubble contained in an amenable environment." Oh, yeah, he was like in a bubble, "as he was wearing absolutely nothing except his ridged hide. That looked like skin submerged too long in hot water, then dyed a pale orange." In in, I guess, quotes, "he had no external genitalia, but nothing that might hint at mammary glands. So we opted for the male pronoun by default."

Haley 46:23

Of course he did. I think he smoked a J. And he was like, I'm gonna think up an alien today! <laughter>

Amy 46:31

I mean, listen, I have not ever read anything else like that. So he did something new, I think.

Haley 46:38

Oh, yeah. Oh, uh huh.

Lori 46:40

The tiny waist and then the three foot wide hips and then the minimum three foot wide shoulders. And then a little noodley arms and legs. It's like how was how's he staying upright? But who knows?

Amy 46:51

If you look up I think it's the image you sent us Haley. But if the if the if our listener wants to look up, Jim Burns Forever War Tauran, he has a great drawing of these guys. They have a very sassy butt

Haley 47:05

They are 136, 24, 136 <laughter>

Haley 47:13

When you were talking about Adam's apples, Lori I was thinking about from To Wong Foo

Lori 47:17

Of course!

Amy 47:19

The way she pronounces that is so funny to me. "And ladies don't have an Adam's apple."

Haley 47:29

I love that movie.

Lori 47:29

Oh, that movie. Okay.

Haley 47:32

I think that's all the plot points I have.

Lori 47:33

Okay, shall we move on from general discussion?

Amy 47:36

Sure.

Lori 47:37

All right, feminist favorite anybody?

Haley 47:44

I liked it. When Mandela's mom got a girlfriend.

Amy 47:46

That was I was gonna say! I liked her. I liked her. And I like tell sassy she got with him. And then she was like, peace. I'm out.

Haley 47:53

That's really all the agency in the book though, for women.

Amy 47:56

So mine is a little mine is a little skewed. Because it's not a scene involving a woman. But I think anytime you call out heteronormative patriarchy. I think that is a feminist act. So I've already harped on mine, but it is when when the other soldier tells Mandela your profile shows that you think you're tolerant. Yep. Yeah. Oh, I also like when Mary Gay when he when he's like complaining to marry gay that everybody's live into homo life now and Mary Gay's like, can you just like, get over it? And he just sort of does dial it back. He's like, Yeah, I guess I'm like being kind of a lot. And I like that.

Amy 48:34

Mary Gay also had another good moment when they were on the commune and they get attacked by the looters. And he's all like, Mary Gay is not gonna be able to do anything with these people. Blah, blah, blah. I'm gonna have to take care of everything. And Mary Gay like takes them all out by herself.

Haley 48:48

Yeah, that's like When Princess Leia picks up the gun. I love it.

Amy 48:51

Yeah. It's funny that he underestimated her when she's a fucking space soldier and her parents are under attack. And he's like, she's too kind to kill anyone. She's like, No, I'm not.

Amy 49:01

Oh, I think he underestimated her because she actually did like she was one of the only ones that didn't, like respond to that weird mental reconditioning. They had where they had to kill all the Taurans. I think she actually did have a pretty strong pacifist streak. Oh, yeah, no, I agree. I mean, I think I think that's why.

Amy 49:20

if they're like, marauders coming after your mom?

Amy 49:23

Yeah, you're gonna get them you're gonna get

Lori 49:25

The fluffiest among us is going to take them out

Haley 49:28

They just got back from space Hogwarts. They're fine.

Amy 49:30

Yeah, you can try and come after Anne Sally, I will show you what I could do with this decorative vase or whatever. I don't know.

Lori 49:36

Exactly! Haley's got a whole arsenal in her podcast closet right now.

Haley 49:41

I'm staring at a Winchester safe right now. <laughter>

Amy 49:43

Oh, my goodness gracious. One time we thought someone was breaking into the attic and dad went out to the garage to see if he could see who it was and he yelled into the house, "Anne, get my gun!" We don't have a gun in the house and he thought maybe that would just scare them away.

Haley 49:59

George and the art of deflection <laughter>

Amy 50:04

He's like, I'll outsmart them.

Haley 50:06

Yes. Like Kevin from Home Alone like, "my dad's not home right now!" or no, "dad's in the shower!"

Amy 50:11

Exactly. I definitely did that as a kid.

Haley 50:16

One time I did that. And as I was lying about my dad being the shower, he pulled into the driveway, and I was talking to the UPS guy. And he was like, "what" and I was like, "Ah!" so it happens.

Amy 50:25

You got caught in your lie!

Haley 50:27

Well, they told me to lie.

Lori 50:29

To this day that UPS guy's like, remember when that kid lied about her dad being home?

Haley 50:33

I mean, that's fine.

Lori 50:35

All right. misogynist moments? There are so many to choose from.

Amy 50:39

Definitely the women, the women having to have sex with the men is up there.

Lori 50:43

Yeah, for sure.

Haley 50:44

I mean, I know that. Yeah, I think his reaction to his mom getting a girlfriend was a little extra.

Amy 50:49

Yeah, that's a bit rough. So I have one toward the end of the book when he's like a incharge guy and he - I can't remember her name now. But he gives a woman who's for the purposes of this interaction, basically his equal. And he directs her to do some task that's like beneath her rank. And he can tell it's pissed her off, and he did it on purpose. And he says she was a little miffed, because what I'd asked her to do should properly have been an assignment for Ryland or Rusk. And so those are like two male officers who were beneath her. And I was like, oh, a nice little like on purpose microaggression in the workplace. Good job, Mandela! (Amy: Mm hmm!) Like, Mandella really wants to be a good guy. And it's like, he can't get out of his own way.

Amy 51:35

Yeah, yes, that's a good way of putting it.

Lori 51:37

But again, his own image of like, what a man is, is, I think, an obstacle for him.

Amy 51:43

God bless.

Lori 51:44

And I think a you know, what, however, kind of clumsy, it is, Haldeman is playing with that in some kind of way that I think interesting to look at.

Amy 51:52

One thing I read in that AMA that we were talking about earlier, was that he in order to figure out how women think this - Have y'all ever seen that movie with Jack Nicholson, where he has to write from the women's point of view. And he says, or he's a writer, and he says, in order to write from a women's point of view, he just thinks about what a man would do and then thinks about, I can't remember how you but -

Lori 52:14

I know what you're talking about.

Amy 52:16

He started talking about how he tried to think of how women think, right, so Haldeman said, that in order to write from women's perspective, he thought about, like, all of the things that happened in a day, or all the experiences, a bunch of experiences, and he thought he sat down and made a list of how those things would happen for a man and how those things would happen for a woman. And from that experience from writing down that list. He now thinks he knows how women think. <laughter>

Haley 52:40

QED! Equation.

Amy 52:42

I mean, I do think it's an interesting, you know, experiment for people to do probably like to try and try and think about it from another perspective. You know, it's a very important thing to do. I'm not saying that's a bad move on his part. But now suddenly, he knows how women think.

Lori 52:55

Here's what I can say for Haldeman: he tried!

Amy 52:59

God bless him, he tried.

Lori 53:03

I'm glad you said that Amy, because I read right before we got on the call. I read that in 1999, at the request of Robert Silverberg Haldeman wrote Mary Gay's first person account of her time of separation from Mandela. It included not only the military details, but also the difficulty of coping as a lone heterosexual woman with a society where same sex relations are the inflexible norm. And as a heterosexual woman, I'm going to go ahead and go out on a limb and say, I think I'd be okay.

Amy 53:32

We'd be fine. It'd be fine. It would be fine. We'll be fine. <laughter>

Lori 53:37

But I I'm interested in reading that especially in light of him saying more recently that he wouldn't have depicted gay people the way he did. Yeah, I am interested to see how he did that in 1999.

Lori 53:54

Let's see what euphemisms he uses.

Lori 53:57

Shirt and trousers.

Haley 54:04

Notary public, space tailor.

Amy 54:08

I'm interested to read it because it was published in a Robert Silverberg magazine. So I think it's probably a short story, so I'm going to see if I can (Amy: Oh, yeah, I did.) Oh, it was in an anthology. So it's probably a short story. I want to see if I can find it. Uh, okay. Food. There's some interesting food in here.

Amy 54:26

They have the Soylent something or other soy steak.

Lori 54:29

Yeah, that soya beef. And they had fakesteak, which is one word. I love that. I mean, I like fake steak. That's like, seitan right? I love fakesteak.

Amy 54:37

I love a portmanteau. That's a good one.

Lori 54:40

They had their meal where they just like balled out of control in London. They had filet of beef. Two vegetables, we don't know which ones, two vegetables and wine. Then they add cheese and fruit and more wine for dessert.

Amy 54:54

And I like they went to the when they went to the commune is like in order to show how healthy and good this commune was. They had real food that they were farming was good.

Lori 55:02

Yeah, they had Oh, their fancy dinner at the commune was canned beef steamed with cabbage and potatoes.

Amy 55:08

That's sounded very good.

Lori 55:09

It does sound good. Very, very nice Irish dinner.

Haley 55:14

Oh, this was not in the food section. But there was also an orange cat in this book. I'm just saying,

Lori 55:20

Oh, yeah!

Amy 55:21

Oh, I felt so bad for the end of that cat.

Haley 55:24

Yeah, but that was another interesting like, way to showcase that he's a man trying not to be a typical man. Because, you know, there's a stereotype of men not liking cats. He's like, but I grew to like the cat.

Lori 55:35

But like, so begrudgingly. Yeah. When he first was like, I don't like cats. I was like, Okay, I'm trying to like you, Mandela. And now you're like, mad about cats. And it's like, every ship needs a cat. Have you ever read The Terror? Have you ever read one book about a ship?

Haley 55:51

Have you seen Alien?

Amy 55:52

There was also a cat. There's also a cat in Endurance. And they have dogs in Endurance too.

Haley 56:00

Yeah, there's space mice. I mean.

Amy 56:04

and then he grew to love the cat. So this just like, all kinds of wrestling with, you know, this, this is a good example of how patriarchy and heterosexism hurts men.

Amy 56:15

Exactly. He can or he should be able to learn and grow as he needs to.

Lori 56:19

It's bad for everyone

Haley 56:21

And he does, it just takes 1000 years.

Amy 56:23

Like our friends MFM would say, "toxic masculinity ruins the party again."

Lori 56:30

Or like in his case, it's just really obstructing the party. (Amy: Yeah) because he just I think the he wants to be different and he just can't. He can't get out of his own way. And then when Mary Gay's there to sort of poke him he's like, Yeah, okay, I'm being ridiculous, but she's not there for a lot of (Amy: doing the emotional labor yet again.) No kidding. No. Kidding. Okay. Boob talk. I mean, phew. No specific boobs.

Haley 56:56

Yeah.

Amy 56:56

Yeah. They talked about, the, Mary Gay's body got described almost because she had the scars and the bruises from the, from the suit. But I think he stopped short of actually creating boob talk out of it.

Amy 57:11

So there was early in the book and chapter five. He says, if anyone could make a fighting suit look sexy, it'd be Sean. But even she couldn't. <Amy giggles>

Haley 57:22

Oh, wait, I guess technically, the boob talk is "no external genitalia, but nothing that might hint of mammary glands."

Amy 57:29

Mammary glands! That's right!

Lori 57:32

Well, and remember the end. At the end when he's like, first, he's checking out the new type of human female ish humanoid. And it's like, there's just something too perfect about it. And then he notices like, everyone looks the same. And then he's like, yeah, they're structurally perfect, but I just can't get aroused by them because it's weird.

Amy 58:01

It reminded me of how Jude Law looks in, I think it's Galactica - I'm not Galactica, - AI and Gatica? AI. That's what it is. He's like that robot person in AI. And he's like - Jude Law empirically attractive, not attractive in AI.

Haley 58:18

I would agree with that

Lori 58:19

That part of the end where he's like, recognizing that everyone looks like structurally attractive, but he still struggles to find them attractive or be attracted to them. (Amy: Yeah) that reminds me I did you guys read the Hugo nominees for Best novelette this year? (Amy: No, uh-uh) There is one that was at the top of my ballot, it's called The Pill by Meg Elison and y'all should read it. It is so good. And the novelettes are very short. It's so good. And the conceit is that someone comes up with a pill that makes you skinny and you can't gain weight. So like, you could just eat pizzas every day all day, and you would never gain weight. But as a corollary to that, everyone's body looks the same. It's called a pill body. And so the narrator is talking about how like, there isn't anybody with like, juicy thighs or crooked boobs or like it's just she's just like you you know, if you have seen one naked pill body have seen em all. And so there's just like no variation, no nuance, and it is very boring.

Amy 59:21

Interesting!

Lori 59:22

Yeah. Oh god, it's such a good, it's a very good intersection of science fiction and horror. It's very good. I highly recommend reading it. Um, okay. Boobs. Did you like the book?

Amy 59:36

Oh wait Soap Stuff!

Lori 59:36

Soap stuff! Oh, gosh. Yep, my notes are out of order. Sorry. Yeah, soap stuff what you got, Amy?

Amy 59:41

Well, the two things: Mary Gay's post-it. I don't know if you are experienced with post its ladies. But post its do not maintain their stickiness for very long, especially if they are moved around in any fashion. And so I was worried that that post it wouldn't have actually stuck to the front of that file for all that time. And so the fact that it did seems very convenient to me. And then Mary Gay, I felt like Mary Gay putting herself in a perpetually orbiting ship so that she could stay young forever until Mandela came back was a little soapy.

Haley 1:00:23

That's some love, right there.

Lori 1:00:25

Well, it is and I liked it!

Amy 1:00:28

I mean, I'm not saying I didn't like it. No, I don't, I am not saying I did not like it. But I am saying it's a little melodramatic.

Haley 1:00:35

Yeah. But I also think functionally she's not giving up anything. She doesn't know anybody in 3126.

Amy 1:00:41

Yeah, it's like she keeps going out on this ship hoping that the one person that she knows and remembers and has some frame of reference for understanding anything about her -

Amy 1:00:49

How long do we think she would have stayed in that ship hoping he came back?

Lori 1:00:53

Well, she said she was 28. So she was like three years older than him. So she was going back and forth for about three years. That's not so bad.

Amy 1:01:02

That's all right. All right, right. Right. Right. Right. All right. Fine.

Lori 1:01:05

It's not so bad.

Haley 1:01:07

But it is a big act, though. For sure.

Lori 1:01:09

Oh, yeah. The two of them have, now have more in common with each other than anyone else in the universe.

Haley 1:01:14

Who ever existed, yeah.

Amy 1:01:17

That's amazing.

Amy 1:01:19

What if they didn't like each other?! I was about to say, it's really good that they like each other.

Haley 1:01:23

Oh my god, that's like a lot of stress. That's like people that live together and work together. Like in the same business. I can't. It's just too much pressure.

Amy 1:01:31

Yeah. Yeah. Her note to him at the end when she says, you know, "if you're my age, and you still want it, I'd love to be your lover. And if you're 90, I'll be your nurse."

Amy 1:01:41

It was so cute!

Lori 1:01:42

I choked up a little bit.

Amy 1:01:43

It was sweet.

Lori 1:01:44

I know. It was sweet. They just love each other across space and time. Love is the fifth dimension, as Anne Hathaway cornily says.

Lori 1:01:57

Haley, do you have a soap stuff?

Haley 1:01:59

I'm bad at finding soap stuff.

Amy 1:02:02

Well don't you worry, I got one.

Haley 1:02:04

Yeah, I figured. (Amy: Yay!!)

Lori 1:02:05

So the one that I've got is "all of you have a posthypnotic suggestion that I will trigger by a phrase just before the battle, it will make your job easier." So they've got something else say that basically turns them all into super soldiers, even if they're scared or even if they think they shouldn't be doing what they're doing. If they see like, a little, you know, a little child Tauran, I mean, which doesn't happen in the book, but like whatever misgivings they may have are squelched by this post hypnotic suggestion. They don't know that they've been programmed either. Yeah, they've got programming, and then he's like, surprise, you can't even quit if you want to.

Amy 1:02:38

Did we ever find out what it was?

Lori 1:02:41

I don't think so. We'll see. I don't think so.

Haley 1:02:46

They don't want to say it because it might trigger us.

Lori 1:02:50

Let me do a little search in my book. Ah, I was able to re-check out the library book today. So I didn't have to buy it.

Haley 1:02:57

I bet it's Towanda. That's probably what the phrase is.

Amy 1:03:00

Agreed. <laughter>

Lori 1:03:03

Turns out the Taurans were older and had more insurance.

Haley 1:03:06

They are so many 1000s of light years older.

Amy 1:03:10

"You have your orders, you might as well know all of you have a posthypnotic suggestion that I will trigger by a phrase just before the battle. It will make your job easier." Yeah, they don't say what it is. Unless it's what he says next, which is: "Shut up. We're short on time. Get back to your platoons and brief them. We move out in five minutes." <laughs> Maybe that's it? I don't know. Okay. Did you like the book?

Amy 1:03:37

Yes.

Lori 1:03:39

Me too. Haley?

Amy 1:03:43

Haley?

Lori 1:03:45

Is she deliberating or have we lost her?

Amy 1:03:47

Haley, are you gone?

Lori 1:03:50

Alright, so Haley has been unceremoniously booted by her computer that turned on her. So Haley says yes, she liked the book and for Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. She says it's Star Wars.

Amy 1:04:02

She says, "Obviously." I agree this is obviously Star Wars to me too.

Lori 1:04:08

Yep. Yep, same, same thing. I mean, it is so far from Lord of the Rings because it is a war actually in the stars. And also it can't be Lord of the Rings because there are literally no friends.

Amy 1:04:16

I was gonna think, I was trying to think if the Taurans were anything like, Orcs or something, but I don't think so. Because they actually end up being nice. And yeah, the Orcs are objectively evil.

Lori 1:04:29

So, yeah, which, the Orcs being objectively evil is problematic in itself.

Amy 1:04:34

True.

Lori 1:04:35

So yeah. Taurans, not Orcs and Orcs? Ehhhhhhh! (Amy: Hmmmmm!) That's a subject for another podcast. Coming up next time. What are we reading? I don't remember.

Amy 1:04:47

Oh, we're reading The Expanse. We're reading Leviathan Wakes.

Lori 1:04:51

Is that the first book of The Expanse?

Amy 1:04:52

It is!

Lori 1:04:53

Oh, okay. Then that's what we're reading for January.

Amy 1:04:56

Great!! <laughs>

Lori 1:04:59

Okay, well, listen out for our special minisode where we get to Skype with a Scientist, thanks to Skype a Scientist. So thanks for listening, leave a review, make my December merry and bright by leaving reviews no matter what country you're in. I'll see them eventually. And thanks for listening - bye!

Lori 1:05:17

<burps audibly> Excuse me! I think I made the microphone stinky.