It Could Happen Here - CZM Book Club: All Cats Are Grey, by Andre Alice Norton

Episode Date: April 5, 2026

Margaret reads you some golden-age pulp sci-fi about a hypercompetant space captain and her trusty catSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. I'm Lori Siegel, and on my new podcast, Mostly Human, I'll take you to some wild corners of the tech world. I'm about to go on a date with an AI companion at a real-world cafe right here in New York City. There's no playbook for what to do when an AI model hallucinates a story about you.

Mostly Human is your playbook for how tech can work for you. Anyone can now be an entrepreneur, or anyone can build an app. And it's very empowering. Listen to mostly human on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Ready for a different take on Formula One? Look no further than No Grip,

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 10, 10 shots, 5, in City Hall building. How could this have happened in City Hall? Somebody tell me that. A shocking public murder. This is one of the most dramatic events that really ever happened in New York City politics.

I scream, get down, get down. Those are shots. A tragedy that's now for the... gotten and a mystery that may or may not have been political that may have been about sex listen to rorschach murder at city hall on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts in twenty twenty three bachelor star clayton eckard was accused of fathering twins but the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax you doctored this particular test twice mcelons correct i doctored the test ones it took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern

Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Alesspian. Michael Mancini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues,

Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Cool Zone Media. Hello, and welcome to Cool Zone Media Book Club. The only book club you don't have to do the reading for because I do it for you.

And what's that you thinking? You're thinking that I forgot to chant book club, book club, book club, book club. Well, book club, book club, book club. Today, Uncle's On Media Book Club, we're going to go back to the golden age of science fiction with some good pulp fiction. This story is by a grandmaster. It's a little complicated who it's by, actually.

It was published under the name Andrew North, and you're thinking to yourself, I don't know that name. Yeah, I didn't either. And it was published by Andrew North in the August, September, 1953 issue of Fantastic Universe Science Fiction,

which is the kind of stuff I grew up with. I got really lucky. My dad always had Asimovs and FNSF and all those things sitting around. The cover of this particular issue is incredible. It's a statue of liberty buried up to her chest and sand being visited by aliens and UFO.

and that's all like some good Aussie Mandeas shit right there. But the story was published under the name Andrew North. But later in life, this same author published under the name Alan Weston and then Andre Norton. But she was born in good old Cleveland, Ohio

as Alice Mary Norton in February 1912. She was an absolute titan of pulp writing and earned a lot of firsts in sci-fi awards, including the first woman to be Gandalf Grandmaster of Fantasy, the first to be an SFWA grandmaster. And as a proud paying dues member of the SFWA,

the closest thing we have to a union, they get really defensive when you say it's a union. It's not a union. It's a trade association. But they help set the rates for fiction so that people get paid a decent amount, and I'm grateful to be part of it. And she was the first woman to be an SFW.

grandmaster and to be inducted into the science fiction and fantasy hall of fame. She's often called the Grand Dame of Science Fiction. I don't know how to pronounce that, but it's like dame and grand with an E at the end, and she did it all while working as a librarian at the Cleveland Public Library, where, among other things, she defended the acquisition of the Hobbit. And also working at the Library of Congress. Here's her nerd cred. I mean, the library was enough nerdcred. Actually, all of that was nerdcrat. Here's even more of it. She played Dungeons and Dragons with Gary Gygax in 1976. She wrote some fiction for the early franchise called Quag Keep.

According to publishers weekly, not only was it the first book to be written about D&D, it's the first book to be written about any tabletop role-playing game, and is the originator of the trope where tabletop role-playing game players literally get sucked into the game that they're playing. And if you don't know what any of that means, I mean, she's got some real nerd bonafides. She's a Cleveland queen, and she never got married. In 2005, after her death, the science fiction and fantasy writers of America, the SFWA, started the Norton Award, given annually to an outstanding work of fantasy or science fiction

for the young adult literature market. Notable past winners include Children of Blood and Bone by Tommy Adiemi in 2018. I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett in 2010 and Sister Mine by Nell Hopkinson in 2013. She changed her name legally to Andre Alice Norton because being a woman in science fiction publishing was a nightmare. I did the opposite.

I started writing as Margaret Kilroy before I came out as trans, years before I came out as trans, I think because my subconscious knew some stuff. But Andre Norton wrote this fun story, the one that we're going to read to you. It's called All Cats Are Gray. And it's possible that it stood out because that sounds almost like All Cats Are Beautiful, A-C-A-B.

But in this case, it's ACAG. And the name of the story is not a reference to the slogan. It's a coincidence. It is a deeply pulpy story, particularly in the plot structure and the genre conventions. And, yeah, contrast it with some of the more modern stuff we read. Think about it. Do some learning. because as we say, this is the book club where you don't have to do the reading because I do it for you,

but you have to do the thinking. Don't let me do your thinking for you. Unless you want to give me mutton. No, I can't really bring myself to do that. Okay. But Hazel, who picked it, mostly likes it because it sounds like it was written by the protagonist's wistful lesbian ex. And that's just the head canon we have over here. Please don't come for us, the ghost of Ms. Norton.

We love and respect your work. And here it is, All Cats Are Gray by Alice Andre Norton. Stina of the Spaceways. That sounds just like a corny title for one of the stellar Vetto spreads. I ought to know. I've tried my hand at writing enough of them. Only this Stina was no glamour babe.

She was as colorless as a lunar plant. Even the hair knetted down to her skull had a sort of grayish cast, and I never saw her but once draped in anything but a shapeless and baggy gray space all. Stina was strictly background stuff, and this is where she spent most of her free hours, in the smelly, smoky background corners of any stellar port dive

frequented by free spacers. If you really looked for her, you could spot her, just sitting there listening to the talk, listening and remembering. She didn't open her own mouth often, but when she did, spacers had learned to listen. And the lucky few her heard, her rare spoken words, these will never forget Stina. She drifted from port to port. Being an expert operator on the big calculators, she found jobs wherever she cared to stay for a time.

And she came to be something like the master-minded machines she tended. Smooth, gray, without much personality of her own. But it was Stina who told Bub Nelson about the Jovian moon rights, and her warning saved Bub's life six months later. It was Stina who identified the piece of stone Keen Clark was passing around a table one night, rightly calling it unworked slitite. That started a rush which made ten fortunes overnight for men who were down to their last jets. And last of all, she cracked the case of the Empress of Mars.

all the boys who had profited by her queer store of knowledge and her photographic memory tried at one time or another to balance the scales but she wouldn't take so much as a cup of canal water at their expense let alone the credits they tried to push on her bob nelson was the only one who got around her refusal it was he who brought her bat about a year after the joven affair he walked into the free fall one night and dumped bat down on her table

Bat looked at Steena and growled. She looked calmly back at him and nodded once. From then on they traveled together, the thin gray woman and the big gray tomcat. Bat learned to know the inside of more stellar bars than even most spacers visit in their lifetimes. He developed a liking for vernal juice, drank it neat and quick, right out of a glass,

and he was always at home on any table where Stina elected to drop him. This is really the story of Steena, Bat, Cliff Moran, and the Empress of Mars, a story which is already a legend of the Spaceways, and it's a damn good story, too. I ought to know, having framed the first version of it myself. For I was there, right in the Regal Royal, when it all began on the night that Cliff Moran blew in, looking lower than an antman's belly, and twice as nasty. He'd had a spell of luck foul enough to twist a man into a

slug snake, and we all knew that there was an attachment out for his ship. Cliff had fought his way up from the back courts of Venaport, lose his ship, and he'd slip back there to rot. He was at the snarling stage that night when he picked out a table for himself and set out to drink away his troubles. However, just as the first bottle arrived, so did a visitor. Stina came out of her corner, Bat curled around her shoulders stole-wise, his favorite mode of travel. She crossed over and dropped down without invitation at Cliff's side. That shook him out of his sulks, because Stina never chose company when she could be alone. If one of the man stones on Ganymead had come stumping in,

it wouldn't have made more of us look out of the corners of our eyes. She stretched out one long-fingered hand and set aside the bottle he had ordered and said only one thing. It's about time for the Empress of Mars to appear again. Cliff scowled and bit his lip. He was tough, tough as jetlining. You had to be granite inside and out to struggle up from Venaport to a ship command. But we could guess what was running through his mind at that moment. The Empress of Mars was just about the biggest prize a spacer could aim for.

But in the 50 years she had been following her queer derelict orbit through space, Many men had tried to bring her in, and none had succeeded. A pleasure ship carrying untold wealth, she had been mysteriously abandoned in space by passengers and crew, none of whom had ever been seen or heard of again. At intervals thereafter she had been cited, even boarded. Those who ventured into her either vanished or returned swiftly without any believable explanation of what they had seen, wanting only to get away from her as quickly as possible. But the man who could bring her in,

or even strip her clean in space, that man would win the jackpot. All right, Cliff slammed his fist down on the table. I'll try even that. Stina looked at him, much as she must have looked at Bat the day that Bub Nelson brought him to her, and nodded. That was all I saw.

The rest of the story came to me in pieces, months later in another port, half the system away. But do you know what's not half the system away, dear listener? Do you know what is right next to you? Do you know what the cat will always drag in for you when you least want it? That's right. It's ads. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them.

And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'm Lori Siegel, a longtime tech journalist.

And consider my new podcast, mostly human, your bridge to the future. Anyone can now be an entrepreneur, anyone can build an app. And it's very empowering. Each week, I'll speak to the people building that future, and we're going to break down what all of this innovation actually means for you. What I come to realize is that when people think that they're dating these AI companion, they're actually dating the companies that create this. We're experiencing one of the greatest tech accelerations in human history.

And let's be honest, that can be messy. There's no playbook for what to do when an AI model hallucinates a story about you. But it's my belief that. that we should all benefit from this moment. Mostly Human will show you how. My goal is to give you the playbook, so you can benefit. The reason I say agency is because, like, if we can give power back to people,

then I think that's probably the best thing we can do for your mental health. Listen to Mostly Human on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. In 2023, former Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice in so much, correct?

I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg, a lesbian, and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown.

I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Maricopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roll Doll, the writer who thought up Willie Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG.

But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roll Doll, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life. His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. What? And he was really good at it.

You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you. The guy was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's? Played poker with Harry Truman and had a long affair with a congresswoman. And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock, before writing a hit James Bond film.

How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever? And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids. The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote. Listen to the secret world of Roll Dahl on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast. wherever you get your podcast. And we're back. Cliff took off that night. He was afraid to risk waiting,

with a writ out that could pull the ship from under him. And it wasn't until he was in space that he discovered his passengers, Stina and Bat. We'll never know what happened then. I'm betting that Stina made no explanation at all. She wouldn't. It was the first time she had decided to cash in on her own tip,

and she was there. That was all. Maybe that point weighed, with Cliff. Maybe he just didn't care. Anyway, the three of them were together when they cited the Empress riding, her dead lights gleaming, a ghost ship in night space. She must have been an eerie sight because her other lights wore on too, in addition to the red warnings at her nose. She seemed alive, a flying Dutchman of space. Cliff worked his ship skillfully alongside, and had no trouble in snapping magnetic lines to her lock. Some minutes,

minutes later, the three of them passed into her. There was still air in her cabins and corridors, air that bore a faint, corrupt taint, which set Bat to sniffing greedily and could be picked up even by the less sensitive human nostrils. Cliff headed straight for the control cabin, but Stina and Bat were prowling. Closed doors were a challenge to both of them,

and Stina opened each as she passed, taking a quick look at what lay within. The fifth door opened on a room which no woman could leave without further investigation. I don't know who had been housed there when the Empress left port on her last lengthy cruise. Anyone really curious can check back on the old photo reg cards, but there was a lavish display of silks trailing out of two travel kits on the floor, a dressing table crowded with crystal and jeweled containers, along with other lures for the female which drew Stina in.

She was standing in front of the dressing table when she glanced into the mirror, glanced into it, and froze. Over her right shoulder, she could see the spider silk cover on the bed. Right in the middle of that sheer, gossamer expanse was a sparkling heap of gems, the dumped contents of some jewel case. Bat had jumped to the foot of the bed and flattened out as cats will, watching those gems, watching them in... Something else. Stina put out her hand blindly and caught up the nearest bottle. As she

unstoppered it, she watched the mirrored bed. A gemmed bracelet rose from the pile, rose in the air, and tinkled its siren song. It was as if an idle hand played. Bat spat almost noiselessly, but he did not retreat. Bat had not yet decided his course. She put down the bottle, then she did something which perhaps few of the men she had listened to through the years could have done. She moved without hurry or sign of disturbance on a tour about the room. And although she approached the bed, she did not touch the jewels. She could not force herself to do that. It took her five minutes to play out her innocence and unconcern. Then it was Bat, who decided the issue. He leaped from the bed and escorted something to the door, remaining a careful distance behind. Then he mewed loudly

twice. Stina followed him and opened the door wider. Bat went straight on down the corridor as intent as a hound on the warmest of sense. Stina strolled behind him, holding her pace to the unhurried gate of an explorer. What sped before them both was invisible to her, but Bat was never baffled by it. They must have gone into the control cabin almost on the heels of the unseen, if the unseen had heels, which there was good reason to doubt. for Bat crouched just within the doorway and refused to move on. Stina looked down at the length of the instrument panels and officers' station seats to where Cliff Moran worked.

On the heavy carpet, her boots made no sound, and he did not glance up, but sat humming through set teeth as he tested the tardy and reluctant responses to buttons which had not been pushed in years. To human eyes, they were alone in the cabin, but Bat still followed a moving something with his gaze. And it was something which he had at last made up his mind to distrust and dislike. For now he took a step or two forward and spat.

His loathing made plain by every raised hair along his spine. And in that same moment, Sheena saw a flicker, a flicker of vague outline against Cliff's hunched shoulders, as if the invisible one had crossed the space between them. But Wyatt had been revealed against Cliff and not against the back of one of the seats or against the panels, the wall of the corridor, the cover of the bed where it had reclined and played with its loot?

What could Bat see? And you, dear listener, what do you think that Bat sees? Ponder it over while the ads do their thing. Or you can hit the like four or 15 seconds button about, I don't know, 10 times. I don't really care. Make your own choices. Cowards. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders,

and the world are at them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on I Heart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

I'm Lori Siegel, a longtime tech journalist. And consider my new podcast, mostly human, your bridge to the few. Anyone can now be an entrepreneur. Anyone can build an app. And it's very empowering. Each week, I'll speak to the people building that future. And we're going to break down what all of this innovation actually means for you. What I come to realize is that when people think that they're dating these AI companion, they're actually dating the companies that create this. We're experiencing one of the greatest tech accelerations in human history. And let's be honest, that can be messy. There's no playbook for what to do when an

an AI model hallucinates a story about you. But it's my belief that we should all benefit from this moment. Mostly Human will show you how. My goal is to give you the playbook, so you can benefit. The reason I say agency is because if we can give power back to people, then I think that's probably the best thing we can do for your mental health. Listen to Mostly Human on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

In 2023, former Bachelor's Starr Clayton Eckerd, found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice in so much, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for.

Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Gillespie and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police.

As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Maricopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the I Heart Ruff. radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roll Doll, the writer who thought up Willie Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories?

It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roll Doll, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life. His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. What? And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay.

I don't think that's true. I'm telling you. I was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's? Played poker with Harry Truman and had a long affair with a congresswoman. And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock before writing a hit James Bond film.

How did this secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever? And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids. The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote. Listen to the secret world of Roll Dahl on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. The storehouse memory that had served Steena so well through the years clicked open, a half-forgotten door. With one swift motion, she tore loose her space-all and flung the baggy garment across the back of the nearest seat.

Bat was snarling now, emitting the throaty rising cry that was his hunting song. But he was edging back, back towards Stina's feet. shrinking from something he could not fight but which he faced defiantly. If he could draw it after him past that dangling space saw, he had to, it was their only chance. What the? Cliff had come out of his seat and was staring at them. What he saw must have been weird enough.

Stina bare-armed and shouldered, her usually stiffly netted hair falling wildly down her back. Stina watching empty space with narrowed eyes and set mouth, calculating a single wild chance. Bat crouched on his belly, retreating from thin air, step by step, and wailing like a demon. Toss me her blaster.

Stina gave the order calmly, as if they still sat at their table in the Regal Royal. And as quietly, Cliff obeyed. She caught the small weapon out of the air with a steady hand, caught and leveled it. Stay just where you are, she warned. Bat, bring it back. With a last throat-splitting screech of rage and hate,

Bat twisted to safety between her boots. She pressed with thumb and forefinger, firing at the space-alls. The material turned to powdery flakes of ash, except for certain bits which still flapped from the scorched seat, as if something had protected them from the force of the blast. Bat sprang up in the air with a scream that tore their ears. What? began Cliff again.

Stina made a warning motion with her left hand. Wait! She was still tense, still watching bat. The cat dashed madly around the cabin twice, running crazily with white-ringed eyes and flex of foam on his muzzle. Then he stopped abruptly in the doorway, stopped and looked back over his shoulder for a long, silent moment. He sniffed delicately.

Stina and Cliff could smell it too now, a thick, oily stench, which was not the usual odor left by an exploding blaster shell. Bat came back, treading daintily across the carpet, almost on the tips of his paws. He raised his head as he passed Steena, and then went confidently beyond a sniff, to sniff and spit twice at the unburned strips of the space-all. Having thus paid his respects to the late enemy, he sat down calmly and set to washing his fur with deliberation. Stena sighed once and dropped into the navigator's seat.

"'Maybe now you'll tell me what the hell's happen,' Cliff exploded, as he took the blaster out of her hand. "'Gray,' she said dazedly. "'It must have been gray, or I couldn't have seen it like that. "'I'm colorblind, you see. "'I can see only shades of gray. "'My whole world is gray. "'Like bats.

"'His world is gray, too. "'All gray. "'But he's been compensated, "'for he can see above and below our range of color vibrations, "'and apparently, so can I? Her voice quavered, and she raised her chin with a new air Cliff had never seen before,

a sort of proud acceptance. She pushed back her wandering hair, but she made no move to imprison it under the heavy net again. That's why I saw the thing when it crossed between us. Against her space all, it was another shade of gray, an outline. So I put out mine and waited for it to show against that. It was our only chance, Cliff.

It was curious at first, I think, and it knew we couldn't see it, which is why it waited to attack. But when Bat's actions gave it away, it moved. So I waited to see that flicker against the spaceaw, and then I'd let him have it. It's really very simple. Cliff laughed a bit shakily. But what was that gray thing?

I don't get it. I think it was what made the Empress a derelict. Something out of space, maybe, or from another world somewhere. She waved her hands. It's invisible because it's a color beyond our range of sight. It must have stayed in here all these years. And it kills, it must, when his curiosity is satisfied. Swiftly, she described a scene in the cabin

and the strange behavior of the gem pile which had betrayed the creature to her. Cliff did not return his blaster to its holder. Any more of them on board, do you think? He didn't look pleased at the prospect. Steena turned to Bat. He was paying particular attention to the space between two front toes in the process of a complete bath. I don't think so, but Bat will tell us if there are.

You can see them clearly, I believe. But there weren't anymore, and two weeks later, Cliff, Stina, and Bath brought the Empress into the lunar quarantine station. And that is the end of Stina's story because, as we've been told, happy marriages need no chronicles. and Stina had found someone who knew of her gray world and did not find it too hard to share with her. Someone besides Bat. It turned out to be a real love match. The last time I saw her,

she was wrapped in a flame-red cloak from the looms of Regal and wore a fortune in joven rubies blazing on her wrists. Cliff was flipping a three-figure credit bill to a waiter, and Bat had a row of vernal juice glasses set up before him. just a little family party out on the town. The end. Okay, what Hazel has to say about this story.

I like this story quite a lot, and I don't usually like Golden Age pulp all that much, but it's mostly a well-written female character written by a woman that's pretty fun for me. Ms. Norton, or her editors, wrote this blurb for the magazine. Under normal conditions, a whole person has a decided advantage over a handicapped one. But out in deep space, the normal may be reversed,

for humans at any rate. And back to Hazel. And that's really interesting to me. I wouldn't have clocked this as an early story about disability, but I can totally see what Ms. Norton is trying to do. It's, you know, a little old-fashioned, but reading generously, sure, that works for me. The stuff about color blindness

and the twist of a creature being a color outside of human doesn't land as well today, because we have a different scientific understanding of vision and color blindness, but who knows? Maybe that was just different in the 1950s. We still get a story of a woman with a disability who has gotten crafty needing to accommodate it, light years more competent than any man in the story,

using her well-honed problem-solving skills to solve a problem that no one else could. That's pretty nifty to me as a chronically old person who needs to get crafty to work around a lot of my own debilitating symptoms. It's cool to see that represented in early pulp too. All cops are grass turds. Okay, and then this is me again, it's Margaret. What do I have to say about this?

I have so much to say about this. I always have so much to say about this. There's a lot of stuff that wouldn't pass muster in modern short story writing, and that doesn't make this wrong, it means that we just have different tastes, right? Like what counts as well-written has changed, but this is clearly a well-written and entertaining story.

I'm never not entertained by this story. So instead we have this assumption that this modern way of doing things is more correct. For example, you should have, should have quote, if I had this story in front of me as like a, this is really funny because Andre Norton is a grandmaster of SFWA and I'm like a lowly dues paying member of SFWA. But if I had this story in front of me in a workshop,

I would say you need to foreshadow at the very least the colorblindness, right? The thing that is the grand reveal can't come out of nowhere. You have to, has to feel earned so that the reader has a chance to feel smart. You know, the perfectly written modern story, the reader figures it out just ahead of the reveal in a way that makes the reader feel smart, even though you're actually setting it up.

So, of course, they figure it out. You actually are revealing it before the reveal, right? But there's instead, in this case, it's like, ah, I'm colorblind. That's why I know this thing was like not the way you would do it in the modern sense. And also there's also kind of a trope of like, I have heightened senses because of this disability

that when I've been reading about people from the disability community, talking about how disabilities represent in fiction that they're not in love with, again, this is the 1950s. And, you know, I think it's really interesting and worthwhile to trace how these things go and like what we consider, like,

intentionally a positive story and how that changes. But the main thing, I enjoy this story and the fact that I enjoy this story means something to me. The discourse on blue sky, I'm so sorry I'd have said both of those nouns.

I'm very sorry. But the discourse on blue sky last week as you listen to this, if you listen to it when it comes out, was about AI writing, but it wasn't really discourse, which makes it more fun. It was just people dumping on using AI for fiction writing and lots of science fiction writers being like, you couldn't catch me dead using AI.

Because there was some fucking mainstream article that was like, all writers use AI. Some of them are just honest about it. And like, no, no, most writers don't use AI. Why would we want to? Like there's no technical thing preventing us from writing. It's purely a matter of time and skill and learned ability and ideas, right? And it's one of the most glorious and beautiful things that you get to do with your life sometimes. And that article, I think the article that everyone was dunking,

on and I dunked on it too because it needed to be dunked on. It was saying how, you know, oh, people call it AI slop, but what about human slop? People were like, all the old stuff was all crappy and written badly, you know? And the thing is, it's not slop, it's pulp. And there's a world of difference. Pulp is what gives you the fiber. It keeps you regular. And pulp fiction, it's entertaining and beautiful, partly because it comes from people. And specifically, it's kind of, to me, sort of wholly because we get to have these glimpses into someone else's imagination. What we get to see by reading a story that's kind of just pulpy, fun adventure, is we get to see what someone, like, fantasized about was like, oh, wouldn't this be neat?

And this story is such a perfect example of it because it, I mean, it reads like fan fiction. Again, I feel really weird coming for this story in any way. I really like it. But it reads like fan fiction. You have a character who can kind of do no wrong. And she's like, I don't know if she's a self-insert about Norton, Miss Norton, but it's like very much the kind of, it's a cat lady who's always overlooked. But at the end, she lets her hair down when she learns her own agency and she's never going to put it back up again.

and she's like sort of boring and gray, but that she finds her love match and this rough and tumble spacer she saves. Like, it's like the most wish fulfillment, early spec, fic woman writing thing, and it's glorious for that. That is what we get to see and experience by reading All Cats Are Gray.

And whereas just some random shit spit out that has a story shaped, form, it's meaningless. So here's to human slop, because it's not human slop, it's pulp, and I love it. I also love that pulp makes you want to write. It's like punk. You listen to it, and you're like, I can do that.

But you also have a good time listening to it. And so you can do that. You genuinely can. You can go start a band with three chords. And there's a lot of genres that do this, and folk and hip hop are like two of the other ones that do this off the top of my head, where it's just like, You could just do it. And you should. And it rules.

And so you should go write stuff. You should go write pulp. There's no barrier. You don't need to hold yourself up to some elaborately high standard. Now, I actually also, at the same time, kind of will defend gatekeepers, publishers. This is the only context in which I'll defend gatekeeping, I think. I think that editors of magazines and places like that do a really important job of filtering through slush and presenting you with stories that are entertaining and, you know, well-written.

And I actually do think that the story is entertaining well-written just to a different standard than the current modern standard. And I don't know. So it's like, go write your story. And maybe it isn't good enough for a science fiction magazine to pay you a professional rate for. That's okay. Write another story.

But in the meantime, it might be good enough to entertain your friends, right? Like, I'll go see the local punk bands play, even if they're not very good. And I'll have a good time. But then some punk bands are so good that they go on international tours. And everyone is like, oh, this band fucking rules. You know? Anyway, that's what this story made me think about. Well, take care of each other.

Free Palestine. Fuck ice. See you next week. It could happen here as a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com. Or check us out on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources.

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