Episode 0027: You’ve Got Your Fantasy in My Science Fiction!

It occurs to me—as I utilize an experimental thought-to-text transcriber to write these show notes, my office cooled to a pleasant 293.2 degrees Kelvin by air that has passed through the center a glacier—that much of what I encounter on a daily basis here at The Secret Lair is made possible by technology that (a) I don’t fully understand, and (b) is not considered “feasible” by much of what passes for the scientific community in this, the first half of the twenty-first century.¹ It also occurs to me that it doesn’t really matter whether the Lair is air-conditioned by an array of turbofans and semi-stable Arctic wormholes or by a frost giant and a wind elemental, locked in an eternal struggle and held captive in one of our subterranean holding chambers by two dozen mages who channel eldritch energies into complex and subtle wards of holding…as long as I’m comfortable.

Finally, it occurs to me that whether we used Skype to call our guest on his iPhone or cast a tethering spell to channel his words into our terrible homunculus is entirely unimportant; what matters is that we were able to speak to Earl Newton despite the many miles between Detroit (where he was) and Cleveland (where he was not, but we were).²

Earl Newton, as it happens, is the creator of the video science-fiction anthology, Stranger Things. I daresay it could be argued that Earl has had ample experience blurring the line between science-fiction and fantasy, and one need only look to most any episode of Stranger Things for evidence.

Promo: The Inner Chapters, Volume 1 by Thomas “cmdln” Gideon, available at Podiobooks.com.

Discussion: You’ve Got Your Fantasy in My Science Fiction.

• “Has Sci-Fi Become Too Infected by Fantasy?” by Graeme McMillan.
• “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” — Arthur C. Clarke.
• Is Chris Miller a wizard? He’s certainly cast a spell on me.
• Chris says the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson is a fine example of good, plausible hard sci-fi.
• Wikipedia says, “Science fiction…differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically-established or scientifically-postulated laws of nature.” Also: no elves.
• Chris wants to see more sci-fi/fantasy slashfic. Though he doesn’t specifically mention R. Daneel Olivaw and Dolores Umbridge, I think it’s implied.

Staff Reports

• Chief Medical Officer’s Progress Report No. 3. In which the Bad Doctor (who exudes a flavor of smugness that can only be derived from hindsight) doesn’t appreciate our efforts to bring some damn culture to the primate-equine hybrid habitat. To Cmar’s credit, there are actual facts in his report. For more information on primate banana bartering, you should read this article.
• Ken Newquist reviews The Day After Ragnarok, a Savage Worlds RPG setting from Kenneth Hite and Atomic Overmind Press.

And Another Thing…

• What the hell is Avatar all about?
• We’ll be discussing The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger soon. Possibly even in the next episode.
• Kris is reading The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines.
• Chris is reading Singularity Sky by Charles Stross.
• The “one with the cleavage on the front” is Saturn’s Children, also by Charles Stross.

Lair Keeping

• Our theme music is “Skullcrusher Mountain” by Jonathan Coulton.
• Our Secretary of Artistic Propaganda is Natalie Metzger.
• Our Minister of Crackpot Schemes and Unfortunate Synergies is Jay “The Kingfish” Lynn.
• Our Chief Medical Officer is Dr. John Cmar.
• Our Airborne Legions are led by Commandante David Moore.
• Our Minister of Suspicious Substitutions and Unreasonable Facimiles often operates under the pseudonym The Cynical Optimist.
• Our Minister of Secrets and Subterfuge is classified.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:51 — 42.0MB)

1. Or what we will eventually come to call “the top of the twenty-first”. [↩]
2. For the record, it was Skype and an iPhone, but we do have a terrible homunculus that bears an uncanny resemblance to Earl. [↩]

Related posts:

1. Bring on the Bad Science!
2. Episode 0031: Free Content vs. Paying the Creator
3. Episode 0037: Monster Week 2010
4. The Secret Lair Episode 0001: Revenge of the Title of the Episode
5. Episode 0024: Hard Sci-Fi

1. 

   Nycteris says:

   August 22, 2009 at 9:54 pm

   Actually Skype is better; homonculi are jerks.
2. 

   Kenneth Hite says:

   August 23, 2009 at 2:46 am

   Great podcast, Overlords! And thanks for the great review for Day After Ragnarok!
3. 

   Kris says:

   August 23, 2009 at 11:32 am

   @Kenneth Hite — Thank you! I should mention that Chris and I weren’t terribly familiar with Day After Ragnarok until Mr. Newquist submitted his review, but we’re in the middle of a Savage Worlds game right now and we both started nodding and grinning as we listened to Ken talk about serpent cults and fantastic tech (talk about “infecting” science fiction with fantasy!). The wheels are turning, and I think it’s very likely that a copy of Day After Ragnarok is going to make its way to our gaming table in the near future.
4. 

   Kris says:

   August 23, 2009 at 11:38 am

   @Nycteris — Tsk. Not all homunculi are jerks. That’s just the sort of generalization and prejudice that will lead to a second Homunculus Uprising, and no one wants that.

   Yet.
5. 

   Cobalt says:

   August 24, 2009 at 10:40 am

   Saturn’s Child is rather good actually, not just because of the cleavage on the front. I’m a particular fan of Stross, and was very happy to hear reports (in a previous TSL episode) that he’s writing new books in the Laundry series!

   Good discussion overall, too.
6. 

   Kris says:

   August 24, 2009 at 1:52 pm

   @Cobalt — I’ve read only Glasshouse thus far, but I have On Her Majesty’s Occult Service at home, which is an omnibus of both full-length Laundry novels. I’d have read it by now, but it—like many omnibi—is a wretched hardcover, which requires special preparation (meditation, weight-lifting, that sort of thing) on my part.

   A conversation with one Samuel J. Wentworth Darlington Chupp III leads me to believe that Stross’ Merchant series is also quite good, though the first book is a bit of a challenge.