The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 18: The Long Cosmos Pt 1 (Not a Plothole but a Curiosity)

Episode Date: September 20, 2026

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel have emerged from Discworld and are now exploring the worlds of speculative fiction. This week, The Long Cosmos Part 1. Pageboys! Armoured elephants! Crocodiles with daggers for thumbs! Catholic guilt! Find us on the internet:BlueSky: @makeyefretpod.bsky.socialInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretDiscord: https://discord.gg/29wMyuDHGP Want to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on BlueSky @2hatsjo and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - podcast transcripts (PodScripts) Ogilby’s Britannia Atlas #479 - Old road maps Bonus! Glorious 25th: Video Game Chat - The Truth Shall Make Ye FretThe Golden Record by Grace Petrie - Youtube BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Terry PratchettDesert Island DiscworldFahrenheit 451 - Wikipedia   Johnny Appleseed - Wikipedia List of folk heroes - Wikipedia Woozle effect - Wikipedia Poe, E.: Near A Raven Columbian mammoth - Wikipedia  Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com 

Bursar? Perfect. Cool. All the slightly different intonation today. How fun. Yeah. It's good. It shows an exciting reflection of the changing seasons, I think.

I saw a lot of Morris dances today. Oh, right. Where? In my town, my partner and I have started a habit of popping out for a coffee and a pastry on a Saturday. It costs us? No, there's a little independent. So there's a lovely little coffee shop right across the courtyard from the bar, vinyl shop and bar that I quite like to go to

and they sort of share a courtyard. So we wandered up to get our coffee and pastry, not realising there was something on in town today. So Morris dances all over the shop and then they had live folk music in that little courtyard. Are we at some kind of seasonal landmark? I think, yeah, maybe it's an equinox or something. Yeah, whatever Beltaon is at this time of year.

Yeah, maybe that. There's something on. Oh, it's 21st. That is probably something, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, quite possibly. We should know these things, Joanna. We spent so much time reading folklore. I'll go and get one of the books out in a minute. All right.

But yeah, so I saw lots of Morris and Molly dancers in excellent costumes and then watched a nice bit of live folk music while I have my coffee. What is the difference between Molly and a Morris dancer? I think it's a gender thing. Gender thing, yeah. I think it's a gender thing. But can you have a female Morris? Is this a witch and wizard thing?

Is this what I'm asking? I think it might be a witch and wizard thing. You could have a female Morris dancer. A male molly dancer. Yeah. It's very unglamorous drag act. I know. Our dear listeners, obviously, are quite Morris heavy.

You can fill us in. It's probably best you discuss this amongst yourselves, actually. We're not contributing anything of worth. Don't suggest that. They'll start doing it for everything. Shout out to our lovely listener who works at the vinyl bar because I'll probably go back down there later to catch a bit more of the folk music, so I might see them.

Oh, lovely, lovely. So then when he listens to this, maybe he'll be delighted to have gotten a mention. Yes. Yeah, I'll pop in at some point. Yes. Anyway, so that was my unexpected Morris dancing and folk music filled morning. Lovely. So Valhain 1.0 is out?

Yes, I've been playing quite a lot of Valhain. That's what I've been doing this week when I'm not working. Oh, you too, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, we started a whole brand new characters, new seed, new everything. This won't be as exciting for listeners, in fact, exciting at all for listeners who don't play Valheim. But being able to remap the Dodge Key in a patch introduced to two or three days ago, I have never managed to master the key combination for dodging.

So it's a literal game changer for me because I've mapped it to the extra key on my mouse. Nice, I might do that. Because yeah, it's really awkward. It's like control and space, but I'm trying to block at the same time. It's not where my fingers are on the keyboard. Exactly. It's not where your fingers are.

Yeah, and that is important. Title of something. Sounds like a focus on it. It won't where my fingers know. Yes, title of our folks song. add one of those. Usually we go straight to sex tape. The thing is, yeah.

Straight to sex tape sounds like a bad movie, doesn't it? Straight to, straight to VHS. Sorry, please carry on. Focus on or sex tape. The two genders. So I haven't played for ages. I've missed a lot of the updates between wherever I was before and one point out. So I didn't know about bears.

That was a surprise. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was fun. Okay, we should probably let the listeners off this bit. Yeah, sorry listeners. Get Val home. Yeah. fuck say we've been going on about this for five odd years now.

Oh my God, can we make a podcast Valheim server? Yeah. Right? Yeah. That's possible, I think, yeah. I've always, well, we've always said we should try streaming something at some point. Oh, my God, can we? I'm not, we'd either be really good or really bad at playing video games or together.

I know I'm a horrible control freak, but I also know when to not do that around you at least. Yeah. Like I'm fully aware at what point it's just pointless me being a massive control freak. I don't mind being told what to do, but I will hold things up by getting distracted and building for too long. That's fine. I think we could only do Valhom together if we agreed that we had like kind of separate bases because I also really want to stop and build things for a long time and I want it to be the way I decided to build it. Thank you. Oh, no, actually really not relevant and we really should let the listeners have some actual podcast.

Okay, right, fine, fine, fine, fine. Francie, should we make a podcast? Yes, let's make a podcast. Hello and welcome to the Tushamaki Frette, a podcast in which we were reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discord series, and I were strolling down the corridors of speculative fiction. I'm Joanna Hagan. I'm Francie and Carol.

And this is part one of our discussion of the long cosmos, going from chapters 1 to 31. And ultimately going to the edge of the multiverse, I expect. Is it quite far? Definitely quite far. Yeah. No, on spoilers before we crack on, heavy spoilers for the first 31 chapters of the long cosmos and the rest of the long Earth series. We'll try and avoid anything more than minor disc world spoilers so that you, dear listener, can be on the journey with us. Rolling deftly to avoid the thumping foot of a baby elephant.

Or not so deftly as it turns out. Well, no, we're going to be fine. We've learned from Josh's mistake, yes. Don't worry, listeners. No broken legs while listening to this podcast, I expect. You'd be unlucky. We don't have so many listeners where it seems like a statistical likelihood. Put it that way.

Yeah, that's fair. Please cease extreme sports while listening. So that you don't prove me wrong. Please don't listen to this possible podcast while on a ladder. Please do not operate heavy machinery. Or skis. Have we got anything to follow up on? There was a question in the Discord.

How long did it take me to? put together the supercut of you, mainly you, saying the power of belief. And I think it took about two hours. It would have taken considerably longer if it weren't for the auto-transcript site for which I pull too much of my information when discussing past episodes of this podcast. That's fair. I respect that. It was well worth it.

I quite enjoyed that portion of my afternoon, even though it did mean I then had to edit the rest of the podcast quite late at night. That was entirely self-inflicted. good. I have no sympathy. Right. The Long Cosmos then, Francine, do you want to introduce us to this book? Yeah. So the Long Cosmos is the fifth and the final installation of the series The Longass. Co-written by Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett. The forward to this book discusses what we've discussed before, which is kind of some of the process of how these were written. They were written while Terry Pratchett was already quite ill. And so there was a lot more hurrying through it than there would have been, ideally. And so this last book was part of three that were written in very quick succession and presented as a batch of drafts in August 2013 to the publisher. And so, as Baxter says, the last time I saw Terry was in the autumn of 2014 when we worked on, among other things, the big trees passages of the long cosmos, chapter 39 onwards, so I'm looking forward to that.

It has been my duty to see this book through its editorial and publishing stages. And so, yeah, it didn't come out to huge fanfare, but I remember it very clearly coming out because, you know, it was as far as we knew, certainly, the last Pratchett books that would be released. Yeah, this was post-Shepard's Crown. Exactly. So I remember reading the long utopia. Yep. And seeing the fourth of fifth books. And I was like, oh, shit, I didn't realize.

We're getting one more. So this was keenly anticipated in 2016 when it came out. And it's a delightful book. It is a delightful book. I like it. I like it. I think second best of this series so far. I haven't read it since 2016, which is now I'm desperately afraid to tell you 10 years ago.

I don't like that. No, I don't like that. But the first half of the book, certainly. I'm liking very much. It was that there's a little bit of, I would say, slightly clumsy exposition at the start. I think that's been the case. with all of the Long Earth books, it kind of does recap you within the story. And I think we're not used to that because the Discworld books don't really bother with that.

That's true. Because they're so much more standalone than series. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. I think probably if it had had the extremely thorough editorial pass of Terry Pratchett, it would have been less noticeable in the dialogue. Yeah. And that's not to be ungenerous to see him backstow. was an extremely good writer.

It's just that Terry Pratchett was line by line obsessed with his editing. And, you know, particularly good at things like dialogue. Yes. I hadn't realised till... Maybe I did realise that Baxter had collaborated with quite so many sci-fi authors, actually, I think we'll talk about that next week.

But, yeah. Yeah, I've still not gotten around to reading any non-long-earth Stephen Baxter, so that's still on my list. Yeah. Yeah, you'll like it. You will, I think. No, I definitely will. I need to read some more sci-fi. I'm writing sci-fi game-wise at the moment. Anyway, that's not relevant. So tell us, well, tell us where we get up to and tell us what happens. Yes, so we're going up to Chapter 31, Inclusive, Francine.

It was, I included. Excellent. In this section, a message goes out across the long earth. Join us. Joshua is feeling the call in the silence and he sets out on another sabbatical. He hangs out in a tree, meets armoured elephants and an elderly troll he dubs Sancho, and he learns to hunt rabbit-mole things. However, an unfortunate incident with the aforementioned elephants leaves him laid up with a broken leg. He recovers slowly with the aid of a band of trolls and eventually his son Rod comes to the rescue and deliver some news. Lobsang, unsurprisingly, is asking for him.

Lobcang's been absent for a while, locked in a simulation, but he's managed to slip a message to Nelson. Our beloved reverend has a grandson. Nelson meets up with Agnes on her own farewell tour before she lets age take her and discusses his newfound family before setting out to find second person singular, their Traversea host. During a storm, unfortunately, Nelson's grandson, Troy, not unfortunately yet, Nelson's grandson Troy takes him on a traverse tour. Unfortunately, it's very tedious, roll of all. The family bonding is cut short when the traverser steps away. Unfortunately. Unfortunately.

In search of Lob Sang, the only one who can help him get his family back, Nelson attends the funeral of dearly departed Agnes, has a chat with their adopted son, Ben, and sets off into this simulation of a Tibetan village to bring Lob Sang back into the long world. Meanwhile, the next take an interest in the signal from the stars, and so does young home resident Jan Roderick. While Roberta and Stella take Gap Space engineers Devon Lee to the Grange

and discuss the implications of the invitation, Jan seeks stories. putting pieces of the pie together and taking Sister Colleen with him to find answers. Roberta catches up with Jan and invites him to join the messengers answering that call from the stars. Lovely. Delightful. For the benefit of audio-only listeners, Joanna did receive a smile and a fingerguns for that pun halfway. Thank you. I'm proud of it. Obviously, it doesn't work so well until you realise I've spelt pie without the eye because it's pie like in the book where they're doing the digits.

of pie. Pie without the eye. Pie without, pie without the E, Jesus. I'm a writer. Helicopter and loincloth watch. The natural helicopter, Roberta arrives on a helicopter, so I've decided not to get weird with helicopters this time. Okay. This time. Very well. Loing cloth, Sanchez Silver Blanket. It's not on his loins, but it's close enough. Yeah. And it's, it's proved helpful. It has proved very helpful, and I'm glad he's enjoying his cape. Also, we have got elephants. and mammoths. We have, yes. I discovered while reading our fodder, obscure reference, finial, which, spoiler, also includes elephants, I discovered a bonus fact. The age of a mammoth can apparently be determined by counting the gross rings of the tusk, which we may have talked

about before. What I didn't realize is that it can only be roughly determined because the first years of the mammoths, like its very young years, are recorded in the tip of task and they are generally worn away by the time. They die, yeah. Excellent, a relevant elephant. Do you have a favourite quote? Yes. Yours comes first, though, so do you want to...

I went for a short one, because I'm assuming I'll draw out something long and dramatic next week as we're having a bit of an ending. For him, vocal speech must have been about as efficient to method of communication as yodeling in Morse. Yodeling on the list of things that's always funny. Yeah, and impressive. It's nice when they're both. It's like bagpipes, I suppose.

Much like bagpipes, yeah. Yodling and bad pipes actually have quite a lot in common. Hills and such. Hills and such. What's your quote, francing? I feel like we've offended some people there. Lee flared. You dismiss us, don't you? Everything we've built here.

Space flight is an ancient dream, cherished for longer than people like you have ever been in existence, and we're achieving it at last. Perhaps. But child, Roberta said Sam. Maddie, can you not see that all of this has already been swept away? Because the galaxy is now reaching down to you. Well, there is much to do. Should we return to our shuttle? Absolutely devastating. They're really hard-hitting as well as like everything you've worked towards. Well, you know, it may be impressive on your level is actually irrelevant now. Yep.

It's like if you spent, I don't know, a year building a tiny boat to get off of your island and then like a ferry turns up to get you. You're like, oh, well, I'm glad. But I worked really hard on that point. The figurehead may not have been necessary, but it was a nice touch, can we all agree? Yeah. It's really pretty. Right, characters then. Should we start with Joshua?

Yes, we ought to, really. He's our protagonist. He is our protagonist, and he's having a bit of a time. Yes, isn't he? He's in his 60s now. And he is clearly not quite as nimble as once he was, because on his spatical, he gets stomped. He does get very stomped, which is. is interesting because we spend a lot of time and I have a lot of thoughts on.

Joshua being very thorough in his preparation and packing and we spend a lot of time in his head where he's making a plan of his stockade and how long he's going to be on the sabbatical and how he's going to survive. And then this horrible thing still happens to him and if it wasn't for trolls, he would genuinely just be dead. Which is interesting, isn't it? Yes. There are some thoughts to be had on that.

I have a lot of thoughts. partly just that there is no amount of preparation that gives you there's no amount of contingencies that doesn't mean something awful can't still happen yeah and we live in a society and that's necessary it's really really really hard to survive without others yes very important and Josh isolating himself is again and again just not a good thing really yeah and like isolating himself despite knowing he's ended up on a horrible world. Yes, going, oh yeah, this is great.

Yeah, just a weird, weird decision, really. And to stop himself from thinking about the other poor decisions he's made in his life, as far as I can tell. Yeah, I noticed down this quote, at least alone focusing on the essentials of life of survival itself, you could push all that garbage back into the deeper darkness where it belonged. And I did write on that note, Joshua, please get therapy. Men will do literally anything rather than get therapy. Men will get their legs snapped into by a baby elephant

while trying to grab raw rabbits out of the ground than get therapy. I was also thinking about two big things to think about with Joshua. One is this isolation and the loss of Helen having lost Sally at the end of the previous book, the two women polar opposites who defined his life. I've got to throw in the being annoyed about how Helen's treated in the books because I want to stay consistent across them. Yeah, yeah, no, please. You have these really very sweet and poignant moments of grief.

You have him alone in the tree reading Helen's old diary, which is a nice call back to the first book as well. I liked those diary entries of Helen travelling to reboot. But I feel like those moments would feel a lot more poignant if we had seen any of Joshua and Helen being loving together, because we see so little of it. We see their meat. again, as I pointed out, I didn't point out at the end of the long earth. I saved it for the

beginning of the long war. There's a certain ick factor between the age gap and the sort of hero worship she has of him. Yeah. But then we see them very briefly together at the long war when Sally sort of drags him off and a couple of interactions throughout and by we're in, by the long mars, she's pissed off at him by the last book, they're divorced. We don't really ever see them together for more than one very brief period. How many years were very, together. He says they seem like very fleeting years now. And I think that might be right. I think it might be less than 10 years. No, I think it's over a decade because I think Rod, when he's still down, is at least 10 in the beginning of the long wall. No, you're right. Yes, you are right.

Yeah. And he did say decades, actually, that he was in, not reboot the other one. Yeah. Which Bill Chambers is now mayor of. And he has this, their years seem so brief in the end. But he'd hold her diary and he's sort of declaring if he gets out of this. I'll come see you on Dayton Medicine if I have to hop there on a Pogo Stick to do it. And again, it's a little bit too late, my friend. And it's very show-do, it's very tell instead of show. It's telling us that he is really mourning this woman who was such a huge part of his life, but we've never seen it.

I think I agree. Yeah. However, it's very realistic. It is realistic. I think we all know people, and I'm afraid it is specifically men, who put their exes back on a pedestal once they are fully out of reach. In this case, dead. Yes. And, yeah, I mean, yeah, let's remember that this woman has been married to somebody else for the last

decade plus of her life. Yes, very, very true. Do we find out how she died? No, I think it's, yeah, I would assume maybe it's an illness. I assume life expectancy is somewhat shorter and shorter in these smaller, longer settlements. Yeah, if the cancer, the mom died off was kind of genetic as well. well there's not going to be any high tech. Well actually, that's the point. We don't find out how she died. She gets an off-screen death. And later, I'll talk about this a bit more when we get to Agnes, but she very much has an off-screen death too. Yeah. And there's a lot for this book to do. There's not a lot of time to spend with them. But Helen dying off-screen is to set up

Josh's emotional arc in this first half of the book. Yeah. Agnes, basically the book runs out of use for her and it does make sense that she goes. But I'm a bit sad. We've already seen Agnes die, haven't we? Yeah. But I was a bit sad that there are these two off-screen deaths for his wife and the closest thing he has to a mother. Yeah. When we've spent a lot of time with other very poignant deaths of women in his life. Obviously, we were there with Sally for her last moments. The Monica Janssen at the end of the Long War. Yes. That's a really beautiful death scene. I felt they were a little bit hard done by not getting their moments in the same way. Yeah, no, you're right. Actually, you've just said Agnes being like as close to a mother as anything.

I did that, I think this is more Joshua than Agnes character note, that when he's like in just obscene amounts of pain, when his troll friends are strapping up his leg, he is yelling for Agnes. Yeah, it's very sweet. Yeah. And it's very sad. Yeah.

And yeah, he's a 67-year-old man. And as Sancho points out, like, you know, everyone thinks it's very sad if there's a woman on her own or a child on their own. You're a 67 year old man. I don't know why I've decided to he's 67. I may have worked that out earlier or I may just have the number 67 in my head because of the Valheim build pieces. He's definitely 60 something. He's 60 something.

He's a 60 something year old man on his own and yeah, people just don't seem to consider that as unusual. No. Yeah. Whereas Sally was an oddity in being on her own so much. Although quite so aggressive with him. bit that people like, now, okay, yeah, no, that makes sense. Yeah, that's funny. I am also, like, the end of her life in the previous book was beautiful.

Well, I am missing Sally a little bit. Oh, yeah. I just sort of miss her turning up to be really aggressively sarcastic and then fucking off again. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, she had a good ending, but. I miss her. Yeah. And then the other big Joshua idea I had, and this might be me going off a little bit into madness, as I want to do.

Please. There's this conversation he has with Bill before he sets out on this sabbatical, and you see this sort of room with Bill kind of provides some audience surrogacy by describing literally everything that's in the room. It's one of the slightly expositional bits. Yeah. And all of this stuff. And he points out, you know, this is what Joshua was like back in the home,

painting before resembling, that meticulous person that he was. And Joshua says, you had a phase of not being like. like this. You know, remember when all that stuff was kicking off with Valhalla and Lobzang told us to get in the twain and go and find Sally and we just went and did it. You weren't counting your socks. And I was thinking about this. He went off without preparation during times like that because Logsang said it was okay. Yeah. Lop sang said, go do it. And provided a twain and et cetera. And in that provided the security that he would otherwise find by counting his socks or painting pieces before assembling. And I was thinking a lot about

this idea of, and this is not all religious people, to be clear, but there is something about being religious and that allowing you to abdicate some responsibility for your own life. And obviously Joshua, Lob Sang is not a god, but we have had times of Joshua near deifying him while also being friends with him. It's a level of trust you can't imagine him putting into another person. Yeah, but Lob Sang is not quite another person. The only other person he would maybe allow that implicit level of trust is Agnes, who is something in between.

and also this is Joshua who is raised by nuns and therefore raised with some of that Catholic sensibility that seeps into you whether you want it to or not trust me I still feel really guilty about how long I'm talking that's my current thing I'll find something else to feel guilty about in a minute and so I think that there's something in Joshua becoming like this because he doesn't have Lobzang telling him it's okay and this quasi-religious relationship that he has with Lobzang as a figure

Yeah. I'm trying to think if his sabbaticals have usually lined up with when Lob Sang's away. There have definitely been times where they have. And you also have things where he's processing his relationship with Lobang. Like the first death of Lobang hits him a lot harder. First death of Lobang is lovely. Lovely sentence, isn't it? Yeah. And obviously that comes about also with the destination on date of Madison and, he struggles with Lobzang coming back the first time. He gets more used to it after that. Like, obviously when Lobzang dies again and becomes George, he knows.

Like, obviously. Also, this is a stretch. I don't actually think my idea and this is LinkedIn anyway, but I do quite like the detail in the Joshua chapters while he's on Sebastical. There's like a biblical motif. It's like on the sixth day, on the ninth day, very God-creating the earth. Yeah.

I just thought that was a cool motif to have. have in there. So yeah. Some ideas about Joshua and religion. I like them. And one last, it's not really a Josh thing, but just to chew on this in before we move on. When he's living with the trolls for a bit as he's recovering, he mentions that a young cub passes away and the band that he was buried and the band gathered round and scattered flower petals. And I thought that was worth pointing up because that's something that has been like thematic across all of these books, this idea of humanity, not the right word, but sort of being more advanced and emotionally intelligent, sentient, yes, being demonstrated by honouring the dead in

some way. Honouring the dead and looking after invalids. I mean, that's the classic. Oh shit. These other hominids were people realisation that we've had as society, isn't it? I mean. Yeah. Like, oh, Neanderthals looked after this child who'd broken his leg.

Yeah. In this case, the trolls look after the... The man who's broken his leg. The man is broken is like a can't seem to eat chunks of raw meat like a normal person. What the hell? Oh, by the way, actually, I think the religious vibes are definitely, even just the sabbatical itself, right? Yeah. Having this aesthetic, ascetic.

Yes. I've never known how to say that. And I really at this point should have made an effort to look it up because it's come up more than you might think in this podcast. But yes, that, everyone knows what I mean. Stripping down to basics. Spartan, way of living. I could have just said that. Yeah.

And it's very wandering in the desert. flagellation of choosing and sticking with the shit place. Yeah. That's very... I deserve the crocodile with daggers for thumbs, actually. Absolutely. For abandoning my wife. And specifically not just religious, but Catholic.

The self-flagellation is so Catholic. Yeah. And, you know, the crocodiles with knives for thumbs, that's a recurring motif in Catholic maths, I believe. Oh, yeah, very much so. I don't speak Latin, but I've just got that idea. No, no, no, no. You're totally right.

I don't think Mass has done in Latin anymore, is it? No. But yeah, no, insights. I was brought up Methodist. It's like easy Catholic. Yeah, no, we had the incense, we had the crocodiles with daggers for thumbs, and then the transubstantiation, all Catholic things. It's in the early drafts of the Vatican Rag, Tom Lera. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, sorry. Somehow left out of Martin Luther's document. Sorry, right, okay. Nail that to a church dorm, sorry. Should we talk about Rod? I'm just ticking off the groups we are upsetting today.

Yosos, bagpipers, Catholics, Protestants, crocodiles with knife thumbs. I'm not sure how many crocodiles with knife thumbs we have amongst our listeners. If you are a crocodile with knife thumbs, you know, let us know, join the Discord. Yeah, if you can write on a postcard, that might be insensitive itself to suggest. But if you can, we'd love to hear from you. Yeah. Our dagger thumbs are poseable. One of life's big mysteries.

Yeah. Other characters surely must exist. Yes, no, Rod. Yeah, we get to see a bit more of Rod. I like that. I like this insight into the coma lifestyle. They've got polyamory. It seems to be working. They've got polyamory and like a really interesting version of it too. I do think there's something quite interesting about,

I know obviously at least one of these two writers is famously the most wife guy to have a wife guy in Terry Pratchett. I don't know anything about. I think Rob put it like the most married man you'll ever meet. Yeah. I don't know anything about what Stephen Baxter. as personal relationships are like, to be fair,

that even within this depiction, there's something about this polyamorous lifestyle that very much feels like someone writing about polyamory who has never experienced polyamory has no real interest in it and still ends up a little bit set. It does sound like if I tried to write fictional polyamory. Yeah.

Yes, it's all polyamory. There's 18 wives, 24 kids, I'm one of 15 husbands, but I am dating this one woman and we're having a child now. Can you imagine the admin? Spreadsheets. Spreadsheets.

I suppose if it's all very beachcomery, all you really need to keep track of is health, right? Yeah, yeah. But again, it does feel like it's written about from a distance, and he does still end up in basically one quite normal, heteronormative relationship with the woman who is now having a child with. Yeah, because he fell in love, because obviously he couldn't have fallen in love before,

because that's not how... Yeah, you can't fall in the other 18 wives at once. Well, to be fair, there must be a limit. But as I understand it, Pollyamory does. Now I'm starting to sound like Stephen Baxter. I'm just hearing Nick from New Girl in my head saying you can't have two wives. You get one wife, one wife. I do sometimes show startling similarities with Nick from New Girl.

So there's that. I won't discuss my own proclivities on the podcast. I'm not sure the listeners need to know. No, but you are also an author like Nick from New Girl. And that's all we need to know. Right. Right. Fuck, what we're doing.

Talking about Rod. I think there's a nice connection in Rod, sort of doing the yes, you're going to be a grandfather. And Nelson having his, oh, God, I'm a grandfather moment. Yeah, we're definitely like moving up a generation. Yes. And we've had, you know, although we've covered a reasonable span over the last five books, considering the events we've covered, we have taken quite a slow journey through Joshua's aging, haven't we?

So it is. Yeah, it's been. five books, but it has been nice and gradual. It's interesting. Yeah. And it's nice to see how quickly they can fall back into some kind of decent relationship, considering it was so contentious in the last book and it didn't start out well in this book. Yeah, I think I have, dude, we get it, you're angsty about bad parenting. You haven't got me, Dad. I haven't got you. Yeah. And especially compared to like Ben, who was raised by an unconventional, couple, let's say. That sounds like I'm being

judgy again. But it's just hard to easily summarize the thrice reincarnated segment of a Tibetan monk slash super being and a non-robot. Yeah. It's not your classic standard

the heterosexual upbringing. No, it's not. But he seems to be doing pretty well with it all and maybe he and Rod should hang out and Rod can chill the fuck out for a bit. Although the important thing is he immediately went to rescue his dad as soon as the alarm was shown. And luckily, Josh had had enough time sitting on his own, having a fever and being in pain to have reflected on his poor parenting.

And despite Rod expecting him. And we don't see much of this, actually. But through Rob's behaviour, I have to imagine, Josh is not actually very nice to him most of the time. Yeah. So I'm now telling off Rod for being angsty. but actually he's coming in expecting to be told off for showing up. Yeah. And you also get the I very much disapprove of your coma lifestyle.

Yeah, despite me being like the poster child for fucking off into the unknown. Yeah. I expect you to stay here with your mother. Yeah. And her new husband. Do we see him again, by the way? He seems nice. What, her new husband?

No, I don't think we do hear from him again. I hope he's doing all right. Yeah. seem normal. He did seem quite normal. And then let's talk about Sancho. Let's talk about Sancho. We love Sancho.

Breakout star of the New Vick. Breakout star. Librarian. And this feels... I feel, I genuinely felt a little bit, like, quite weepy. Not like full on sobbing or anything, but just, oh, we've got... Because I've missed the librarian. Yeah.

I know we just did Power of Belief last week, but we're not spending as much time in Discworld as we did for the... first chunk of this podcast. And there's a pointed description of Sancho as being very much like an orangutan. Yeah. Before we have him admitting he's a librarian and it felt so intentional and lovely. Yeah. And I quite liked it turned out like that librarian was like a summary word rather than his actual job title or whatever. Like he's... Yes. This idea of carrying memories and resharing them back into the long call and I'm going to talk obviously quite a lot about stories later on. Well, fuck. I'm shocked to my core.

Really? Yeah. It is shocking, I know, but I think there might be something to say about stories based on what happens in this book. Also, right in chapter one, as we're getting all these different reactions to this join us, the invitation. Join us. Join us. Yeah, we haven't really lent into the cult aspect yet. Loving it. Because we're definitely not a cult, Francine. Not a cult. I think this is the first time

we ever see anything in the text from a troll's perspective you have Sancho looking at the band he's with and now we saw them for what they were a handful of animals lost in an empty echoing landscape vulnerable in the dark I don't think we've had a lot of troll perspective in the text before and I really liked that it is nice yeah

and they are like just endearing aren't they the way they described throughout like the like Sancho being like Like, I've got tenure, like, properly, like the physical laughter, throwing your hands over your head and hooping it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They just sound delightful. I love the young trolls and the curiosity.

The moment where Rod brings out the beers, offers one to Sancho, and Sancho asks if it's light. Yeah, Rod actually getting out of the plane and immediately, like, giving a treat to the young one makes you, like, love Rod straight away. Yeah, it's such an easy, shorth. Yeah. Because it's set up right from the beginning of the first book.

is good people are nice to trolls. Yeah. Bad people are not nice to trolls. Yeah. Here's something we love about Josh. Yep. And his son, as it turns out, yeah. And he knows them better than Joshua does, as it turns out, because they live side by side.

Yeah, as part of the coma lifestyle that they are quite often comfortably coexisting with trolls. But in a very different way to the troll coexistence in happy landings. Yeah. Also, all the references to King Louis. and that's now been stuck in my head. Now don't try to kid me, Mancup. I made a deal with you. The next.

I've kind of lumped them all in together because we're not spending a lot of time with any one individual. Well, they'd do it to us. Yeah. I do like how easy it is to dislike them or dislike some more than others. I'm going to take at like a species level, resentment towards them now, I've decided.

Roberta, I would say, is being uncharacteristically dick eddish through this. Like the way she's speaking to the humans. Yeah, saying child, I still like Roberta the most out of the next we're spending time with. I think she's got more humanity and more softness in her. There's a good line she gets where they're talking about working in the gap and the brick moon and everything and harvesting materials and how some people don't like it. And they were like, oh, you probably think it's, you know, silly, a stupid human thing to react to the idea of a dead planet and have any feeling towards it. And she says, no, you'd have to have a very stunted emotional imagination not to have any response to this ruin of a world.

Yeah. And I think that's something that comes really directly out of her journey. Her journey. When we first meet Roberta and she's trying to emotionally process, that wonderful amount of life I saw is going to be destroyed by a hypochane. Did we, by the way, ever find out? And I couldn't find out on the long Earth wiki when this Earth was meant to have died. Because I had assumed it was pre-life, actually. But they're now suggesting that it was like the ruins of a planet that had developed for ecosystems.

Yeah, I don't think we ever find out exactly when the gap became the gap. There is a gap in our gap knowledge. There is a gap in our gap knowledge. Listeners, if you've paid better attention than us. Do let us know. Answers on an asteroid, thank you all. Um, Stella, I feel, is a bit harsher and colder. I know Stella's a little bit older.

Um, although she's got some softness with Devonay, like she talks about them as they were her ex-students and... Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, as Roberta, I think the line that was out of character for her where she was saying something like, we don't have time to have a tour of your new toys, something like that. Like, you're meant to be the human next dip on that. I guess maybe you were just so impatient that you've lost that layer of masking.

Yeah. Which, yeah, masking's an interesting way to put it, actually. We've talked about that before, about some of the parallels there. I do like we learn from this that they're starting to use the Silver Beetle technology and they're kind of coming up with matter printers and replanters. I don't love it, but it makes sense that this is now a technological advance that's spread quite quickly among them. No, chance it wouldn't. In the moment where they're talking about having the food, like matter printer things.

Yeah. And the immediate, can it do L. Gray, hot? Is it Douglas Adams? No, Star Trek. That's Patrick Stewart in Star Trek. The idea of being able to... I was like, I know that's a reference, but I couldn't. The idea of being able to print food and that creating a post-resource scarcity society is like very much the foundation of Star Trek.

Okay, cool. But then also Patrick Stewart often asks the food replicator things. I know there's a name I'm forgetting for them, but he often asks for tea, Earl Grey, Hot. Right. So that's kind of what Red War for taking this. face out of, I guess. Yes. Yeah.

Oh, that's good to know. Fish. I should watch Star Trek. I... Am I too old now to watch Star Trek for the first time? No, you're never too old to watch Star Trek for the first time. I mean, I grew up on it. My mum was a mess of Trekkie.

I have gone back and watched quite a lot of things like Next Generation and Voyager on... I think a lot of them are on Netflix. There was something else I wanted to say, and I've completely forgotten because I started thinking about food replicators. Oh, the lollipops. I'd like to say that the most intelligent people amongst an ex are the best at being nice to the humans. Yes, Ronald and Ruby.

And immediately kind of making jokes, putting at ease. You know, I'm a ballerina, he's quarterback. Much like, actually, I must say, the guy, oh my God, what's his name? Stan, yeah. And we get some of Stan's legacy in this. We discover there's a group that call themselves the humble, which is a collectivist movement of next and humans, led by Marvin Lovelace.

and we meet Indra, who is sort of this carer, I suppose. She's working closely with Ronald and Ruby, and she's Stan's cousin. But the description of them is all horror. It felt horror to me. Yeah, I don't know. I was more interested that it wasn't like the humans didn't, like, we didn't even get the internal monologue of, like, is this okay to be, like, genetically modifying the next generation

in a super eugenicsy way or like it is really interesting concept and I can see why they wanted to put it in there as like as humans our skull size is limited by the fact that it's best that we don't kill off every woman who gives birth. I think it's interesting, I know I've read the whole book obviously I'm guessing you've only read up to chapter 31

I think we see a bit more in the next half. Okay, cool, cool, cool. Right, so Devin Lee then. Yeah, as we're in the area. Yeah, there are human sort of window into the next. Yeah, they're nice. I like them. I really like them.

I love the idea of... Some scientists in their 20 is being good at science and having little digs at the next. Yeah. I'm being really excited about space. This idea of remaining fascinated because, you know, it's talked about in the previous books how the space race kind of bugged off because we now had these infinite Earths to go into. And they talk about the fact that it becomes fascinating again. And also there's not a lot, they're both second generation gapers.

Yeah. Which is saying, like, what else are you going to do? Work in factories at the feet of space elevators in the low earths, which is interesting that the space elevators are still kind of there, but not really. They weren't this huge universe-changing thing that they thought they'd be in the first place. The Willis Lindsay. We don't see Willis Lindsay in this first half of the book at all. Is he even still alive?

I hope not. I can't imagine so. He must have died by now. he's either dead or a brain in a jar somewhere is my guess oh yeah he does seem like the brain in the jar type actually doesn't he yeah he's probably pissing lobsang off uploaded to the cloud somewhere oh gross yeah and yeah contact optimism yeah oh i love um i love how they are just like refusing to be like

existentially crushed by the next instead they're just being like side eye each other like and yeah more complexity pound for pound than a human brain even the next brain. Gosh, Lee deadpanned. And death suppressed a smile. Like, you get the vibe of like working with your favorite colleague in a real bad meeting, you know what I mean? Yeah, just constantly like stupid dumb little.

I like them. I really like them. Jan Roderick, new character. Love him as well. Yeah, we've got the next generation Joshua in a less literal way than Rod. The new Josh at the home, a conundrum,

complicated was the knotted up personality contained within that small body. Yeah, that's a lovely description, isn't it? Noted up, yeah. He's very sweet. I did quickly, just fun little sidebar,

because at one point he's reading Ringweld by Larry Niven, which we know was something Pratchett loved and was sort of Strata or Dark Side of the Sun. I keep mixing those two up. one of those took sort of as a parody of.

I went on to the, because I've never actually read Ringwild. I really should at some point. But I went on the Wikipedia for it. I was looking for a plot point or something and obviously end up just reading the whole Wikipedia page. I got Wikipedia pages for you, Joanna. Oh, I'm so excited.

Or shadowing. After the publication of Ringworld, many fans identified numerous engineering problems in the Ringworld as described in the novel. One major one was that the Ringworld, being a rigid structure, was not actually in orbit around the star and encircled and would eventually drift ultimately colliding with its sun and disintegrating.

This led MIT students attending the 1971 WorldCon to chant the Ringworld is unstable. There's a certain danger in cultivating a fan base full of sci-fi nerds, isn't there? Yep. Niven wrote a whole sequel called The Ringwold Engineers to address some of these issues. But I just love the idea of a bunch of nerds. I've invoked into writing a sequel. I just love the idea of this group. of students chanting this at the author. Bring wild is unstable.

Anyway, yeah, I like Jan. And it's 1971, so you have to imagine the trousers involved. Oh, there were some good trousers. Our capacious. And or very tight. Yes, the two genders. Well, capacious at the bottom. Yes.

Tight at the top. That's all I know about 1971, and I refuse to learn anymore. Right. Well, now you also know that MIT students were chanting at the 1971 Worldcon. Doesn't surprise me, but delights me. Yes. Anyway, I like Jan. I think he's a very interesting character.

Yeah, he's lovely, isn't he? He's really, like, pleasant with it all as well. Like, he's obviously a very inward-looking in certain ways, boy, but he's noticing everything he's writing down patterns and he wants to explain it to people. Yeah, I think that's what I like about him the most is he's not just, I'm cleverer than people because I'm figuring this out and they're not. It's, I can't wait to tell other. people about this.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I love a person who's not only curious, but really wants to tell other people about it. Yes. That's why we get on so well. Yeah, because we get really interested in things and then tell each other. We had to make a podcast. Also, I want to put out, this isn't like a, yeah, plot hole, but a curiosity.

When Colleen and Jan... Less of an MIT chant, more of a curiosity. When Colleen and Jan start on their little journey, they go to Earth West, 31. It's clear, Jan hasn't really gone too far away from the home because he gets in trouble when he goes off to like three first. And then he, Colleen takes him to 31. And it's sort of clear that Colleen hasn't done much travelling either, hasn't stepped very far before. They stay in like a little B&B type thing. Sister Colleen had looked this place up and had arranged a reservation. But we're also told that you cannot communicate across long earths without physically going.

Did she like have to sort of play a game of telephone to make the reservation? I think Joanna, what we've discovered here is a sadly untapped well of interest known as the second wave of page boys. Right. The multiverse page boy. It was Jack rather than you actually. He was telling me about page boys recently within the last couple of years being like what they were. Yeah, like running around castles. Yeah.

Literally being. The whole business of this stepping equivalent. And then we had the motorcycle couriers, of course, in the early days of yuppies. Look at me, again, refusing to learn about the 70s, 80s and beyond. So it's very that, but yeah, I don't think it's a plot hole. I think there are obviously a way to do it. I was just imagining what that way was because it would have been very human. It is so sad that we don't have time for every bit of logistical explanation

because you and I would be very up for those footnotes. It is why I like these books so much because it does spend a lot of time just explaining this world and figuring out how it works and getting us to sit with that. It spends way more time on that than plot and I'm really okay with that. We're world builders. We are world builders. That sounds really unhumbled, isn't it? I am.

Unhumbled or shit word too. There we go. There's my humble again. I've forgotten. Arrogent, proud. Eugristic. Yeah. Good stuff, good stuff, yeah.

I'm doing one of the projects I'm working on the moment, I get to do a whole, like, make a world from scratch and an entire history for it, and it's so fun. I remember to this day a year seven project where we got to like design an ecosystem and how much I enjoyed doing that. I don't remember anything from like that year of school, apart from that, I think. I mean, I don't remember anything from school, as we'll become clear when I talk about pie later. Nelson then let's talk about Nelson Yeah we're better

Because he's pretty good I love Nelson I've had a huge fondness from this character for the beginning I really like the combination of like chat room hardcore puzzle solver nerd and gentle English bicker Exactly

I think like I'm not very patriotic personally But I love how much he loves these small parts of England and how fascinated he is by the newly wild England in the long England. And it is very Buckland. It's very. Who I don't know much about and I started reading about as obviously I was reading Nelson's bits and then I stopped reading about because otherwise that was all I was going to do.

Have you got a copy of Bill Bryson's short history of nearly everything? I must do. His chapter section, whatever it is on William Buckland, I seem to remember being really good. Awesome. So if you want that without the danger of falling down a wiki rabbit hole. Oh yeah, because picking up Bill Bryson's a short history of nearly everything. No, you're right. You're absolutely right. I shouldn't have said that. That was highly irresponsible. Please do not operate heavy machinery, go skiing, or pick up a coffee of Bill Bryson's a short history of nearly everything if you've got something else on a deadline.

Yeah. Although you probably won't break a leg reading Bill Bryson's short history of nearly everything unless you do it while operating heavy machinery. Or skiing. Or skiing. Or skiing. Or listening to this podcast. Right, anyway, Nelson finding out he's got a grandson. I think it's very sweet, this immediate sense of responsibility he feels. Because he could quite happily go, well, it's not really my family, is it? I mean, it's just something that happened a very long time ago.

Why do you think the focus is so on grandson rather than son here? I was curious about that. I wonder if it was partly, um, to tie in with Josh finding out he's going to have a grandson and they're trying to do a sort of intentional parallel and I couldn't really find

a lot of story logic beyond that or it's just taken Lobzang so long to go back and find out about second person singular and what's been going on there that by this point it's not just a son it's also a grandson yeah yeah

well Lobang moves in mysterious ways if you wanted to look for maybe slightly darker perspective on it. Lobzang could have known about the sun, thought that will give Nelson too much of a sense of responsibility he'd want to go there right away. I need him around doing other shit. Actually, that's probably realistic. Yeah. Yeah. It's not as pleasant a thought, but it's a possibility. No shade, lobsang, actually. Always some shade, Lopsin. You can feel like that. Again, this kind of deity manipulating everyone. He's not a god, but.

Not a god, but. It's like I'm a feminist, but... Yeah. But it's very sweet. It's very sentimental. He's quite sweet with Sam, his son, and talking about Sam's mother. And this nice moment of, you know, it was love briefly. I know I was a bit derisive of that moment in whichever book. God, I can't even remember which book.

And again, we also get this kind of as much normality as you can have. You know, Troy's mother was New Seal and she was a permanent partner. It pleased him that Troy was growing up with the semblance of a normal family and knew who his mother and father one. Not that he was judgmental about such things. No. But he's pleased nonetheless. Yeah.

Yeah, everyone's got the same vibe here. There is definitely a vibe here. But yeah, it does sound like his brief partner was a really cool woman and was very shiningly praiseful of him. That's very sweet. And Troy himself, the little boy, is very sweet, and taking him on the traverser tour. Yeah.

and immediately you're my granddad you're my family now come on let's go look at cool stuff I can go very quickly followed by the heartbreak of like

was he calling for me oh yeah he became integrated very quickly he did speaking of Lob Sang I just want to talk about him briefly he's not really

here much in this section well we see him right at the end we do see him right at the end I like the detail back in chapter one of he'd taken the time to have this messaging service smile at his old friend

that's a very sweet thing. It's sweet. I mean, I really like the tiny detail of him going on about needing back up during football. Yes, I thought that was very funny. Yep, that's something, right. I also do like the joke line at the end of it of him being so upset. We're only one goal down. Yeah.

Oh, but generally, genuinely quite a heartbreaking moment there, of course, because he's just found himself. a measure of peace and it has to come out of it again. Yeah, it's like being woken up from a dream. You were very much, very much in. Yeah. Yeah, and then, yeah, dragged back out into, I imagine quite a lot of inner turmoil in his case. Yeah.

But then when is he not a bit turmoil? When is he not a bit turmoil? And I've got to say, most of us don't have the option of eternally starting again and increasingly odd ways. Yeah, I do think he gets a lot more room to, I mean process. And then Agnes, obviously, we don't spend a lot of time with as well. Yeah.

But I do love the time we spend with that. As I was saying earlier, I do feel like her death feels a bit anticlimactic. As you said, we've had one Agnes death already. Yeah, I think it might have just been one of those plot points that they didn't have time to cover and then didn't want to not do justice by half doing. And so it's kind of graceful off-screen. I was thinking about why it bugged me and like I said at that with Helen was wasted opportunities but I think it's also because Agnes is the closest analogue we have to the witches

from the disco-well but she feels like she would immediately get on very well with Granny and Nanny and Magrat absolutely and I think that's why I'm a bit sad about not getting that last moment with her but I do like spending that we get this moment of her decision to bow out gracefully and the lesson she learned from she-me yes it's interesting as well that it's it's kind of she's come to this realization at, I say, the end of a long natural human life, like over 100 years, I think she says. And I wonder if that's kind of a little, like, human brains are just done. Yeah, I don't want to carry more memories.

I don't want to, I don't need to learn any more new things. Yeah. I want the equivalent of being a cat. And giving Nelson this very sweet kind of mission to go on with of keep an eye on the people that loved me, would you? I wish we'd had a chance in the other books to spend more of just Agnes and Nelson hanging out. I love that pairing, even though we only get it very briefly here. Yeah, yeah, they're both very peaceful people.

Yes, I imagine there would be very relaxing to be around, despite Agnes also being a little bit terrifying at times in a very good way. I think it is very sweet when we do talk about the funeral that the hymn was mourning as broken and a spare ambious. unit of lobsangs playing the Rick Wakeman piano accompaniment. Which did you know because it was Kat Stevens and then it was Rick Maitman doing the piano is the arrangement they're talking about. And Rick Waitman wasn't credited originally and I think it was a re-release where he was then credited. It was kind of a mystery who had done the piano accompaniment at one point.

Oh, there you go. That's a good obscure reference, Vinio. There we go. Oh, sorry. No, no, no. I mean, I'd have never noticed it in a hundred years. Oh also just quickly it's nice to hear that Nikos from the last book has got kids of his own now he's grown up He's doing well he was always gonna he was a good lad he's a good boy yeah

Can I have a short shout out to one other none actually Colleen only because I love the idea of wearing a practical jumpsuit and wimple That is very true thank you for pointing that out that was important and I like it too briefly into locations one more character I want to mention purely because we get a brief moment with Maggie Kaufman and although she's the mission is cut short because Dick and

Ed Cutler has called her back to I guess deal with the signal but she was going to find out 25 years since she'd left a science party on West 247, 830,855 a very strange earth an earth that was a moon of a greater planet and the relief mission they'd left there who had vanished

She was going to find out what happened to them before she was got called back. And I want to know too, Maggie. Yeah. I did also double check once we had had kind of the revelation about the pine numbers go back to check if that was digital. If the word she'd been going to was digit to pie, it's not. I then Googled the number just to see if there was anything significant about it. And all it came up with was the long earthbooks. So I don't think there's something significant about the number.

But I want to know too. I suppose we can write to Stephen Baxter. What do you reckon happened, Mr. Vaxter? Locations then. Brick moon. Brick moon. I like the brick moon. Tell me why.

I just, I love the idea of it and the idea of everything that's happening out in the gap. But this sort of ominous description as they're travelling through it, it was as if they were swimming into the centre of some vast honeycomb. It's all these big spheres being connected by these round tunnels. It's also described like huge old Roman era drainage system, concrete vaults and cylindrical passages. And it's been occupied for decades now and it's sort of got character to it. I think whenever we imagine like sci-fi space stationy things, we always think of them as very clean and shiny and silver. And I like how kind of weird and round.

The raggedy office that. Yeah. And dirty. It just, it delights me. It amuses me. Little bits we liked. Yeah. Horshoes.

Yes. Okay. Just, it's a very nice little detail when we're learning about the sort of hell knows where and Bill Chambers being mayor and things that they had built the town hall where the smithy had been because the smithy had been the original sort of point of gathering. That's the thing with colonising the long earth because iron couldn't be stepped that you'd always end up with these smithies. And so they had, when they built the town hall, they put an iron horseshoe over the door,

which was an oddity because they didn't have horses, but people wanted the good luck of the horseshoe. I loved that and I loved the idea of the smithy being like the, I think they called it the thumbtack that have pinned the community to this particular earth. That's a lovely thought. And I wonder what other like buildings, businesses, whatever you could use. Because like that's an unusual, it's become like the local equivalent of coffee shop almost, hadn't it?

That's why people went to gossip and everything because it's the building. Yeah. Because it's the important one. And I just, ah, library, I suppose, if it was a world in which it was. difficult to transport information in any way other than heavy books. Yeah, you sort of get the nice stuff with New Springfield where the communities actually spread over two or three earths, but they come back to a central earth where they've got like a, their dance floor and their space for parties and gathering. Yeah. Oh, God, that's right. And Valhalla's coffee shop logistics.

That's probably my coffee shop's in my head. Oh, God, yeah, I spent so long thinking about the Valhalla coffee shop logistics. I spent too long thinking about the coffee shop logistics in Valhalla. I did it the other day I was reading a not particularly great fantasy book, but there's a bit in the book where a character really loves sweets and she gets gifted lots of sweets and there's loads of chocolates. And chocolate in fantasy books is always something that goes, because I know how difficult it is to make chocolate be solid. I did a lot of research into this for a rabbit hole we did ages ago. Oh yeah. I love that. Solidifying chocolate was something only invented in like the 20th century. Before then it was just messy.

It was only hot chocolate. It was drinking chocolate only. And even the logistics. fantasy books, you do just get like good world building. You do just get hot chocolate, don't you? Yeah, you don't get solid chocolate. Solid chocolate is unfortunately requires quite a lot of industrial processing. So it existing in a fantasy book that doesn't have a lot of other industrial processing. I mean, the answer is just fucking, I don't know, magic in it. But. Or maybe because they discovered the possibility of industrial processing for chocolate so early, that's what took up all the kind of power that in our world we channeled into the Industrial Revolution.

Entirely possible. Chocolate actually was the bottleneck for technological progress. Where are they guessing the chocolate? Where was it grown? If there's nothing described geographically anywhere that could be a place where you could have cocoa plants because they do need some specific stuff geographically. How is it? That I feel like there's a bit more movement on right though, because if we're in a fantasy

version of, you know, this is like a local equivalent that can grow a bit more temperately. But logistics, I'm afraid, oh, logistics, no matter. Yeah, yeah. Even the logistics of hot chocolate being hot chocolate. Anyway, sorry, I'm going to go into lots of sidebars there, but it's something that takes me out of the world. But I like the horseshoes.

Yeah, I've fucking forgot what we were talking about entirely there. That was amazing. Okay. I like the idea of trying to, of claiming a bit of this luck anyway and carrying this bit of folklore across so many parts of the long earth, it being a small story that's carried across. I found, finally, I forgot to tell you, a hagstone in Suffolk soil. Amazing. Not on a beach in a field. Well, I was looking for fossil.

I've got a shit ton of fossils now, by the way, from that patch. But I found a hagstone. It's a small hole, but it's through there. And I've given it to my colleague who was having a run of bad luck. Oh, lovely. Because I was thinking about her when I found it. So I feel like that's necessary. And yeah, finally, the amount of the hours I've spent kicking through Flint and chalk. And you finally found a haggstone. I did, yeah. I'm very happy for you. Thank you.

Sorry. What did you like? Oh, all sorts. You always sound so surprised when I ask you the questions if this isn't the point of this bit of the podcast. I know, I think in my head somewhere I'm still just like letting you tell me about things. I forget that I'm expected to contribute. So universal maps. Yes.

I think it's a really cool idea. Okay. So these were maps of features that generally persisted. did as you travelled across the long earth. Nothing human like towns and roads, but the underlying mountains, rivers, coastlines, landmarks. Isn't that great? Yeah. You'd have to have like different, okay, logistics again. Yes. You'd have to have different sets every 10,000 worlds maybe. I've not been paying too close attention. We know, for instance, that between Earth zero and Earth one million. There's so many geographic changes that this universal map would no longer be universal.

So you have the Valhalla belt, you have the ice belt, you have belts. You have belts. You have belts, Joanna. And we get a sort of vertical map. I think Jan has it at one point that shows like Oh yeah, with that scientist's name that our favourite scientist hates. Yes. Have you seen really early roadmaps? They're like that. So they are vertical and there's a line. It's just a line going through them. This is like early, early, like 1600s or earlier. Right. And it's just a line going down like a scroll year down rather like that with names of towns that you're going to find along the way

because it's like a tube map almost. Ah, love that. I'll dig one out because, you know, that site that has loads and loads of old maps to Beres and Edmonds. Yes. It has some ones generally of Suffolk as well, and that's where I found one of those. It might be even earlier than what I'm talking about. Cartography is so cool

Why haven't we got more obsessed with cartography, Francine? Well, I think we've both got that book about it. Oh, that's true. But no, you're right. We need to get... And you've bought me another book about... I bought you a book about cool pictures on maps, to be fair. That's a different flavor of cartography.

Is that not cartography? I mean, it is... Zoo cartography. Crypto cartography, because it's like sea monsters. True. I wasn't really focused on the actual mapping part, though. No, you're right. I don't think I should try and get into.

Or maybe I should. I'm generally always a little bit geographically confused. Like I've got a better sense of direction than you. I know. I'm definitely like there to make you look good on an navigational sense. The bar's quite low there. I'm like if I walk out of a bathroom, I don't know I've got American there. If I walk out of a loo in a restaurant, there is a higher than 50% chance that I will turn the wrong way when I leave.

There's something intrinsically wrong with my interest. internal compass. Hotel lobbies, I get lost in very easily. I get confused about how to get back to my room and sort of have to stand around looking confused, trying to figure out where the stairs or the lifts are again. Yeah. That's what liminal spaces are for. That's true. Hotels in general, very liminal spaces. But yeah, maybe we should get more into cartography and then we'd be less geographically confused. Yeah. The idea of these universal maps. Yeah. That's what we were talking about. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, I really love the idea of them. I love thinking about like how they are developed and how many you'd need to take with you for like a journey into the high megas. Yeah. Because it's not just being aware of worlds. You need to be aware geographically of the worlds you're travelling through. So you don't accidentally like step into a mountain or some such.

And if you were like only traveling within let's say a band of 20 worlds because you were a coma rather than an explorer. Yeah. would you have a more detailed but still largely universal map? What I'm saying is, are we basically having kind of the levels of an OS map here as well? Can I get a more detailed map with like, oh, I don't know, like a hillock? I don't think I've ever said the word, hillock. God, there's a good word, though. It is. It's lovely, actually.

I love an OS map in general, actually. I've got a whole box somewhere, a vintage. OS maps. Lovely. I've got a pretty modern one of where we live, and I do pay for a subscription to OS maps digitally because I do go walking the countryside, and as we have now discussed, I am bad. Bad at knowing where I am. I'm pretty good.

If I'm like a large geographical area, like say I'm doing like Nettle Heath or walking through a woodland or something, I'm quite good at keeping track of like how many times I've turned and how many times I need to turn to get back to where I started. that sort of thing. And that's what's going to keep you alive. And ultimately, hopefully if we're together, post-apocalypse, will keep me alive to. If we do end up stranded in the woods together, I would do my best to keep you alive. Thank you. I appreciate that, did it? If you could do the thing of reminding which direction the sun sets and rises in, because I always mix it up. And I blame Game of Thrones. Okay, I blame the Game of Thrones because there's like a thing of

like a prophecy of when the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. And the problem is now my brain remembers that and can't remember which one's the prophecy and which one is the actual thing. Well, if you can remember that I drive east to get to work and drive West to go home and I'm always driving with the sun in my eyes, that'll remind you. Thank you. That's actually very helpful. I know like which way is east and which way is west.

Exactly. I just don't know which way the sun sets. It's a 50-50 chance. I'll get it right, but that's quite a. a large margin for error. Easter eggs? Or are they Wester eggs? No, I'm 90% sure these are Easter.

Okay, tell me about them then. There's a nice line. They're talking about how Lubsang names these hidden messages and things, and Joshua calls them Easter eggs for some reason, an old computer game term. This is a weird one. I will occasionally get on my high horse a little bit about not every reference slash in-joke is an Easter egg,

because I think that's how it gets used now, and that's not what it comes from. I'm very aware of it through things like DVD menus, but it does kind of originate. The term definitely originates with video games. Yes. So the term was coined in 1980 by Steve Wright of Atari in reference to a hidden message in the game Adventure.

I quite like the backstory of this hidden message, which there was a programmer working on the game called Warren Robinette, and he coded in a hidden message where if you clicked on a very specific pixel, it came up with this message created by Warren Robinette. and that was because Atari at the time refused to include programmers in the game credits to remove bargaining power for them when it came to trying to get pay rises and things and also to stop them from being poached. But there are early examples.

I started that in Japanese studios, you know. Yeah, it's horrible. Game industries a mess. Ask me, how I know. I'm barely in it. One of the earliest known examples is a game called Moonlander from 1973, which is a game where you're supposed to try and land. a lunar module on the moon. But if you fly horizontally instead, eventually, you land at

a McDonald's. Oh, super. Yeah. But it's possible there's a lot of older ones because of the way these were coded in and like arcade game cabinets and stuff. There's so much that's not quite lost gaming history, but like the research isn't all done. Arcade archaeology. There's a fucking speciality. Right. But the DVD menu stuff is very cool as well. That's sort of where I learned of Easter eggs is a thing. And this was when DVDs, because it was an exciting new technology, you could have menus and stuff rather than just putting a tape in and hitting play. I do remember that being quite a novelty,

being able to skip to the episode you wanted in a friend's box set, obviously. If you want an example of this is new technology and we've got to do something cool with it, the Buffy DVD menus has these PS1 era graphics flying through a graveyard to get to the episode selection screen.

It's so silly. I love them. I love them so much. through all seven seasons. Although it did somewhat ruin watching shows to go to sleep with because it would catapult you back to the menu screen. And then the music plays over again. Why was it

10 times louder? Yeah. And if you did manage to... Tell me an Easter egg from a DVD so I can't think about it. So the coolest one and it's quite a famous one, the original DVD of Memento, if you did the right things and found this Easter egg, you could watch the movie in chronological

order. Memento is famously from the end, back to the beginning. Good grief. It is ridiculous. That must be the highest effort Easter egg ever. Yeah.

It was very famous Roderoux at a lot. So yeah, just little... Did you talk about Easter eggs when we did our video game special? I don't know if we did. I've never heard those bits

you just told me. I think Pratchett liked an Easter egg but I think probably we just mentioned that rather than went into any detail. There's probably some of the Discworld games because he did like an Easterer. We should look that up.

I think there are some of the Discworld games and we should have a look at that. But again, just an in-joke or a reference is not an Easter egg. No, I think we've been guilty of that in the past. We definitely have. But I'm trying to be more conscious of it now. Yeah, yeah, we're learning and growing. On this one really is the small niche thing, at least.

Yeah, I refuse to him breaks as a person in any kind of useful way. Oh, God, no, not doing that. Jesus. Tried exercising for a bit. It was horrible. What else did you like, Francine? I like the idea of these shared primitive instincts being across the three types of hominage we spend a lot of time with. So two quotes here.

When we are on the, I think the brick station, brick station, yeah, with the next. Here and there, boxes and pots held plants and flowers that grew in splashes of sunlight from the windows. The visitor's eyes were drawn to the green and other primitive reaction and one dev found grimly satisfying to observe. And then with the trolls, Joshua kind of thought they must share these deep primal memories of those common early days, like the memories of the teeth of leopards. And we get a bit of chat about how the trolls, as we found out in a previous book, were, you know, we shared a common ancestor. But like the hominids. Yes. They pissed off to the long earth and we learned how to make split atoms and bangrocks together.

Chocolate, yeah. Chocolate. Yeah. I can't think of any other Industrial Revolution technology now, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't one. Trains, franzine. Trains. We made trains. And then eventually, Twains. Yeah, trains, twains and automobiles.

Sorry. Shared ancestral memories, though. I mean, that was pretty much it. I like that there are, I like that we get to see the three generations pretty much, even though that's not how common ancestry works. sharing these things like the fear of the leopard's teeth and the catch in the eye and plants. Yes. Because that's a very, that's a lovely primitive instinct actually.

That's one of those things where I think, oh, humans are great, aren't they? Like when I think I've said before, maybe on the podcast, but I find it just charming that humans really like to be near moving water. Yes. Like we like to be near water. Like we'll sit by a pond. That's great. That's cool. Put something in there that makes it move.

Fucking yes. Ace. S tier. Yeah. We'll set out by that. We'll make a smithy. Yeah. I mean, I get it a lot. Like when my mental health is feeling rush, it's like, oh, you know what? I really need to be in it or a large body of water now. Like, I need to go and look at the sea for a minute. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Or at least a lake. Green works to an

extent too. I think we're more conscious of that now because we've just had that horrible dry summer and now the green's starting to come back. Oh, God. Yeah. Not in my garden. Come back to life. Let's go on to the big stuff. So the setty signal and stories and stories and cultural stagnation. Yeah, I thought that was quite a disparate list there, so. Well, the stories and cultural stagnation go together and the set signal sort of part of it. I'm very glad that the book told me what SETI stood for within the first few pages and that it stands for the search for terrestrial intelligence, which I probably should have been able to work out. Well, it's one of those things. I think we've both heard several times,

then you've forgotten. Yeah, you just sort of don't put it, store it properly in your brain, do you? So I'm opening with a question, and I'm always. listeners to answer too. If it was up to you whether to respond to a signal like this or not, what would you go? Contact or the other one. Optimism or pessimism? That is a very good question. Would you like sometimes think about it when I talk about it when I talk about it? No, no, no. I'm just going to make a vibes-based decision, I think. Yes, because I need to find things out. Whilst all I'm going to do it, but remain pessimistic about the outcome. I like that. So it's kind of like a FOMO thing. Yeah. I like that. I'm a straight up yes. I'm on the, but with my pessimism is attached

to the world we currently live in and I'm sort of like, well, it can't, no, we're here. Yeah, it can't get any worse, really. Oh, we definitely can. No, we definitely can. It probably will. But we do need some kind of intervention. And right now, I can't see any like terrestrial based solutions. Yeah, so if I can see if the aliens want to do anything nice. Yeah. And also, yeah, I mean, you fucking got it, haven't you? Exactly. Also, if we don't, and I'm assuming we're in charge of this now, if we don't, someone on earth is going to. Yeah, even if it becomes not a massive organised project. And like it might be somebody with, I don't know, bad taste or evil. Well, yeah, there's quite a lot of that, whereas we obviously have excellent tastes and are purely morally good,

so we're the perfect people to respond. Listeners, contact optimism or pessimism, discuss. Answers on a postcard or a extraterrestrial signal. Yeah, I was going to say, or a radio signal. Yeah. On a golden disc. Oh, on a golden disc. And while you're at it, go listen to the lovely Grace Petrie song, Golden Record. Yes.

Which is about the golden song and that lovely story. Anyway, so yes, the signal, I like that a lot of humanity kind of dismisses it really quickly. Like it happens and then a lot of people stop thinking about it. A nine-day wander in the news media of the low earth, because they were insular and inward-looking and got back into local. politics and celebrities. Which not being funny. We've kind of had, I know it's not the same. I know it's not the same.

But UFOs were in the fucking media for a little bit earlier this year, last year. Yeah. I think it was last year. And then we all just kind of forgot about it. Yeah. So very believable. But I love this idea of the signal being so much more than just what the radio picks up because it's first picked up by this large telescope project in the building.

I think that's the, no, the Clark project is the next step. That's the new one. Yeah. this one's the Cyclops. The Cyclops picks it up and then they do the Clark project and then that gives them enough information to start doing what they're doing now, which is building something the size of a continent. Lots of Arthur C. Clark references throughout this book by the way. It made me feel like I need to have read a lot more Arthur C. Clark. Now, I do think you're like Arthur C. Clark, actually. Yes. I'm not going to recommend every sci-fi author that these guys are referenced,

but, you know, he's a classic for a reason. No, I know. I genuinely need to have read a lot more classic sci-fi. So you get Joshua feeling the signal in the silence, the silence being different and having an urgency to it. Yeah, like, what do you say? Like a predator on the ground. Almost as if some tremendous beast sat beneath his tree trying to lower him down to teeth and slashing claws, an ambiguous invitation.

I like how I can tell which quotes you've definitely got saved, so I can just kind of vaguely reference them. I try not to read every quote I've written down because I tend to just clap. crown my plan with them, but you know. Yeah, I know. But this signal being so much more than what the radios pick up, the trolls are picking it up, it's ringing within the long call. And there's a moment where Stella dismisses the influence of the trolls on it.

There's a couple of moments of Stella being quite dismissive towards the trolls, and the next in general being dismissive towards the trolls, which is a shame because the next evolved because of trolls. it was the sort of microcosm of happy landings and that human troll society that created the conditions that allowed for the next to evolve. True, but, and not to be like to very on the nose us about it, but do we not think a lot of what the next is doing

is a bit of a parallel for colonialism and how we fucked up on multiple occasions by not listening to the people whose entire existence has been learning to survive in these situations? Yeah, no, that's very true. I think that there's a nice point being made there. It would be nice if we got more outcome other than just the next realising,

oh, we would have maybe noticed that already if we had attention to the trolls. And even the traverses feeling it. We get this. Yeah. I don't think I have got it written down, but Troy pointing out, like, in his way during the storm,

the traverses acting weird and not in the way it acts weird during storms. Yeah. That is upsetting it. Yeah. Yeah, that he doesn't seem to want to explain to Nelson. So Nelson's like,

okay, it's fine, let's go back to you, Yeah. Yeah. So I like this idea the signal spreads and how it's felt and read and interpreted is outside of the next particularly. It's kind of being put to one side and put under the carpet. And it's this fascinating thing, but only to some. And then you start getting this idea through the book as well, something talked about of like cultural stagnation, creative stagnation. Jan points out when they're watching contact in an early scene.

And he's saying like this was 80 years ago and everyone still talks like this. And it's because new movies and TV aren't being created anymore because everything's being decentralized out of the data and there's no way to transmit across the long earth. You have low earths that have slowly becoming more built up societies and they have their own transmission, they have electricity, they have ways to watch movies. But no one's really stopping and making movies. And I expect they are developing their own culture. Yeah. But it's not pop culture. You're not up to that.

Yeah. You need a density of humanity to get pop culture that influences everybody. And it's theorised as early as I think the first book of, if humanity spreads far enough, that you're going to get lots of little evolutionary trees. You're going to get lots of societies that evolve different language and things. And that's kind of what the next is, is one of those offshoots, including developing their own language. And then, of course, you get this really fun stuff. When you go into the stories and Jan collecting the stories, you get the,

Johnny Shakespeare story, which is lovely whether it's meant to be apocryphal or not. But that comes from an idea of where is Shakespeare's place in a world? And it's sort of this idea, right, I'm going to pick this one cultural, significant thing and make sure it doesn't die in these worlds where people who live in lumberyards or are combing, where is their space for literature and story and everything. So this man, Johnny Shakespeare, makes it his mission to spread it to the world, which is lovely. There's two sides to this within the book, which is that it's lovely, and then also maybe not necessary in the way he's doing it,

especially not the bit where he destroys an entire planet in a very horizon zero dawn way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, okay, so Desert Island Discs, mm-hmm. You get by default a copy of the works of Shakespeare and the Bible. Yeah. Like, that is how, I should probably say, for international listeners,

desert island discs is a very established and, well-regarded radio program in which you interview eminent celebrities and ask them what you're going to take to a desert island. Terry Pratchett was on it. His episode was fantastic. I'll link to the show notes. And it became also our friend of the pod. Al made Desert Island Discworld, which is the same concept, but specifically what Discworld book would you take? I should specifically say it is music-based the main radio show. I'm thinking now of the books. but that always leads on to my favourite like icebreaker type or like yeah a conversation starter which is the Fahrenheit 451 question which is what book are you memorising right and if you get one book to

memorize in like a post-apocalyptic whatever situation whatever whatever you're in you get to memorize one book what would it be and I love it because it's multi-layered like what book do you find most important, but also maybe what book do you want to be able to recite to everyone else? Yes. What story do you want to be in charge of? Yeah, it's really important to learn about like mechanics. Yeah. But I don't want to be the person explaining to everybody how to fix their fucking car.

No. I want to tell stories from Woodhouse. Yes. Like, the thing is for that, I feel like I could go Shakespeare on the basis that I've got some of it in there already. That's it. Yeah. But someone, you know, you know someone's already picked that. Yeah.

I think like Frankenstein would be an important one. An abuseful one. Because obviously you can hear us discuss Frankenstein at length from last year's Halloween episode. If I was going to go classic and snobby, if I was going to be like very just what is on my shelf that I love and want to be able to always have, then it would be the night circus by Aaron Morganstein. Lovely. Obviously the other thing is, could I memorize all of Discworld? and if I could only pick one Discworld book there we go

we're now doing the Fahrenheit 451 version of Al's podcast Is this plagiarism No it's fine we're crediting him Are we stealing from Ray Bradbury Al Or Radio 2 Or does island discs Radio 4 darling

Radio 4 sorry Anyway Sorry I've interrupted a really interesting point of yours there because I agree with it. Yeah, so you have this idea. And I will say, I was thinking if I was in Johnny Shakespeare's position and wanted to make sure we didn't knew Shakespeare, he dismisses the idea of the travelling company because he's no impersonal.

The travelling company is the way to do it. That would be perfect. If the Long Earth existed, that is what I would devote my time. We were talking about what we would do with the Long Earth, where we go off and live in the wild and accept it. Probably we shouldn't do that because of who we are as people. Yeah. I would form a travelling.

I would form a travelling Shakespeare company. I would take Shakespeare across the long earth by performing it because it should be performed, not red. Yeah. And I'm not sure I would love performing in Shakespeare all the time, but... Well, I would probably bring some other places as well. I'm sure I could find something useful. Yeah. You can do props.

It's not the Shakespeare I'm afraid of. I get stage for it. But, you know, I'd probably get used to it. Yeah. And also, it's not very big audience. is quite possibly. And I've always loved the idea of like the Patrick Rosfuss travelling performers, like the fantasy, you know, it's a lovely trope.

It's a lovely trope. It's one of my favourite trope. You're absolutely right. It should have been a travelling guard situation. It's like they haven't read Weird Sisters. Exactly. Also, you know, travelling performers less likely to accidentally destroy a whole planet. Well, I'm not saying you're not going to.

but it's less likely. Yeah, you're right. We've got the theme of replicator technology. I was trying to think in what context we, as a travelling Shakespeare troupe, would abuse replicated technology and accidentally destroy a world anyway, completely needlessly. It would probably involve props and sets because I'm so used to working with theatre companies that have a budget of some change we found down the back of the sofa that if I had replicated technology and could have an actual fucking balcony.

Yeah. But yeah, okay, so we have this idea of stories. Jan is collecting these stories. He's looking for travellers' tales, urban myths. He's putting these, as I sort of joked earlier, the pieces of the pie together. We are reminded really early in the book that person to person is the only communication that works across the long earth. There is no way to transmit information from earth to earth. And then we learn the next to using this.

They are spreading stories, viral narratives, memes in the original sense of the word meme. Although every time I read memes, I also really like the idea of the nature of the news. next feeding like dumb cat pictures. I mean? Would you not? Would you? Of course you would. This is unfortunately how political change happens now, apparently. This is the learning that Biden got elected from the supernatural meme. Super Biden election. Read my book. American teen dramas from Sunnydale to Riverdale for context.

Sorry, I'll stop shilling for myself there. No, no, please. It's good. Now we're out of redacted corner in an end. to a shill hotel lobby. Which means we're immediately lost. Obviously, I don't love that the next have this idea of we can kind of use this to manipulate. Although they're not using it in a nefarious way. It's an idea of introducing ideas.

Well, that's an evil start-woman. Actually, yeah, no, it doesn't immediately. I'm simply introducing ideas. If that's an ulterior motive, then so be it. I think it's not immediately evil. It is evil depending on what someone does with it. It's one of those things. It's like Roberta saying,

no technology is dangerous if you use it correctly. But what if you don't, which is entirely possible. Remember that entire planet. And also, that's not true. Some stuff is made to be dangerous. But the idea that stories persist across the long earth, that human-to-human communication is the own, or not human to human, human to troll and the trolls on call.

Sentient to sentient communication and stories being so powerful that they are the thing that persists. So Johnny Shakespeare becomes redundant, not because he destroyed an entire fucking planet, which again, don't do that, guys. Advice from the true shall make you fret. Maybe not destroying planets with a replicating book. I forgot about our thumbs up, thumbs down system. I remember cake was on the thumbs up. Cakes on the thumbs up.

Thumbs down, destroying an entire planet was badly broken. program replicators. Exactly. Always program your replicators correctly, the advice of the truth shall make. And if you can't do it by yourself, get a grown-up to help you. This has been a confusing and rambling PSA from The Truth shall make you fret. But Johnny Shakespeare is redundant because he didn't need these replicating books. He just needed to tell the stories.

It was in his heart all along. The real friends with the replicators. If only he had to destroy the planet finding out. All this comes back around to the idea of what Sancho is as a librarian. His job is to remember for the trolls. A head full of memories and stories. He takes his stories across the population. And I think as we come to the end of the long earth,

not as in the entire long earth's going to be destroyed, just we're at the end of this series of books. The idea that stories are the most powerful thing that persists is wonderful. It is. And oddly realistic. And oddly realistic. Maybe that's just because we've been brainwashed over the last six or seven years. Definitely not a cult.

Definitely not a cult. If we are, I think we fall and pray to our own brainwashing, so that's fine. Oh, yeah, that's cool. Yeah. I love that idea, by the way, of, we mentioned earlier about how Santo was like, oh yeah, nobody minds if it's like an older guy on his own alone. But I really like the idea of the like that place in. society for older trolls being like and you know a moving ex-telligence it's sharing stories sharing

knowledge it's why we get really fascinated by folklore because folklore is telling us and explaining things to us in this very simple and beautiful way of it being encoded in a story I really loved the johnny apple seed johnny shakespeare thing yeah um johnny apple seed we might have talked about before it's entirely possible we've talked about a lot of things franzine it's been seven years. He's one of my favourite folk heroes because there's a lot written about him

at the time by his contemporaries and even that is very folk heroish like there's a lot of conflicting accounts this guy was a religious guy

he didn't believe in grafting afl roots onto the rest of an apple tree I'm not a Ghana what I'm trying to say and failing spectacularly is that he

It's a really interesting character. He was like a missionary almost. He'd go around and he'd plant like little nurseries. He wasn't like dropping them willy-nilly like the kind of stories go. But yeah, he was planting nurseries and vaffled trees across America. It was just really cool. It's a really cool story. I love it.

And then I really like the idea of this absurdly nerdy English. Because I know he's American, but in my head he's not version. Oh, he's English. Yeah. Actually, to be fair, I think that. there's something American in that fetishization of Shakespeare, and this is not all Americans and not all. The English are very proud of Shakespeare, but we're also very...

I've met English men who I'm pasting onto this person, basically. All right, yeah, fair. So, yes, you're probably right, there are Americans who fit this character well, but I've met a couple of English academics who fit the trope very well. Okay, fair. Yeah, also, fun parallel, Johnny Appleseed was also a bachelor. Yeah, I liked that they were basically both missionaries for what they were into. Apples, Shakespeare.

Yeah, the two genders. And I was just thinking about how the long earth is kind of a fertile ground for folk heroes in general, isn't it? Yeah. Because like you were saying, that stories are passed on mainly orally or like written down and passed on. And it just gives them room for the tales to grow taller. Yes. And I love it. And this is the Wikipedia page, by the way, that,

Like the new history of espionage or the old history of espionage. So don't fall down the rabbit hole unless you've got time. List of folk heroes. Cool. Yeah. Also, an easier one to not get lost in forever, but very interesting. The woozel effect, which I was reading about urban legends because I thought maybe I'd go down that path instead. But it's known as evidence by citation. So it's when a source is widely cited for a claim.

that source doesn't actually back up what people are citing it saying. Oh, that's very cool. Yeah. And it's named after a woozel, which is like a creature in a Winnie the Pooh book, but it's just them following their own footprints. Oh, you must remember that book. Yes, I've got. Actually, yeah, that's what I'll memorize.

Just A.A. Milne's collective work. So I've got quite a lot of it in here already. Perfect. And yeah, and then Brittany Diamond, I just wanted to mention quickly, as like the Earth's 31 story. The damaged woman, which I hate that's the subtitle for the story. Yeah, it's a bit odd. But I guess the point is it's meant to be like lurid enough to be like a memeable story, isn't it?

Because it did remind me of those slightly lurid paranormal books that were very popular when we were kids, and I think quite a lot earlier as well. But the ones that like had pictures of the aftermath of spontaneous combustion. Yes, that was exactly where my brain just went to as well. A very descriptive paragraphs on ball lightning and like the effect. That kind of thing. Like the stuff that is just about believable. The 14 times primer.

Like it's not the 14 times, but it's what gets you ready for the 14 times. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it just got that whole, that whole thing just had the vibe of that for me. Like if you were picking a story to try and meme to prepare people for it, I think you'd put it in one of those books. And it also just reminded me briefly,

of old mother dismass whose senses kind of went on walkabouts. Oh, yeah. You sort of hope she passes through and picks up the conversation. And the other story that's mentioned, the C-ball. Yes. I just really like the way it was described as like the average or shared characteristics of two worlds that make it look like that. So it's almost like the universal maps thing again, except these two worlds don't share much apart from a vague globular shape, I suppose. And it's just like long exposure sort of.

Yeah. It's round and blue. It felt like there's something in, I don't know enough about programming, to be fair, but it felt like a kind of weird programming clash. Like the planet's blue screened. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, this is planet.

Yep. We haven't, like, loaded the skins. Yeah. Yeah, like when you're playing Valheim and you can see an island in the distance, but the textures haven't loaded yet. Exactly so. Anyway, yeah, so that was a set of disparate thoughts on the stories within the book, because I couldn't string them together in as neat a way as you could.

So let's talk about pie. Well, hang on, hang on, apple seed. I've been waiting to make some kind of apple pie joke. Sorry, rewind, rewind. So, yeah, that's pretty much all I had to say about stories. I just really like Johnny Appleseed. And speaking of Apple Seed, how about some apple pie? Fantastic.

I'll have a slice of that. Do you want to talk about pie? I'll have a slice of that sound like you're trying to like workshop a catchphrase. The truth show may keep fret, we'll have a slice of that. I don't think I could have a catchphrase. I've got one now. Well, fantastic. You have it.

Anyway, so the book, as we've talked about, pays quite a lot of homage to contact, which contains a lot of pie. Yep. But in ways I don't understand. So I thought I'd have a look into other less technical appearances of this celebrity number. There is in the Palais de. de de Coupville, a science museum in Paris, a pie room, which is a circular room, was 707 digits of pie attached to the ceiling, like wooden digits. Cool.

Which at one point had to be corrected from 500-something onwards, because the guy who did the calculations in the first place made a mistake when he was working out pie. Amazing. And I think he got quite a lot further than 500 or whatever as well. Yeah. Like, it's like a much worse version of when you get to a certain point. point in a Suduco and you're like, I fucked up early. Oh.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, that's really stressful. Yeah. But like much, much worse, I guess, because. Yeah, thank you for bringing it down to my intellectual level, though. I can't go higher than this. I also, and this is more R level, more so even than just a random museum. Some writers apparently try to write using Pi in a form of constrained writing.

So it is writing words with the amount of letters in each digit of pie going as far as possible. Oh, interesting. So there are some actual short stories. It's hard. I tried to write just like a coherent sentence in the 20 minutes before we started recording because that's a brilliant use of my limited research time. Maybe why I didn't string my point together very well earlier. But like literally I wrote as to write,

and I wear a dozen marigolds on sacred dawns, the stems tangling. Oh, that kind of sounds like poetry, but doesn't make... Yeah. Like, I'm sitting there, I'd like counting letters on my fingers. Yeah. Maybe if you're a little bit better at knowing how many letters are in things, this would be better. But... Yeah, I'm not good with that.

But somebody... Someone who does crosswords dating. Yeah. God. I should be better at that. But somebody rewrote the Raven to follow this pattern, so the first stander. Yeah. Midnight. So, D-Drewdard.

dreary, tired and weary, silently pondering volumes, excelling all by now obsolete law. During my rather long nap, the weirdest tap, an ominous vibrating sound disturbing my chambers antoe. This, I whispered quietly, I ignore. That's amazing. That's by Mike Keith, and I think he's called it, yeah, near a raven. So I'll link to that. Beautiful.

But yeah, that's a really fun exercise, actually, if I'm not trying to do it in 20 minutes before recording. Yeah, I might try and do a poem for next week. Yeah. A play poem. Nice. Yeah. So that's all I have about pie. Beautiful.

Thank you for telling me about pie. Have you now got an obscure reference, Finney or for me? Yes, and it's about mammoths. Yay! As foreshadowed earlier. Is it foreshadowing if I just tell you? Yes. So Colombian mammoths mentioned here.

Some mammoths that they come across are more closely related to the temperate Colombian mammoths and they are to the woolly mammoths. of the data equivalent. And so I was just read, Colombian mammoths have a gratifyingly long Wikipedia page. Excellent. So I got to read about mammoths. But I thought this bit was particularly interesting.

So around 1725, enslaved Africans digging in the vicinity of the Stono River in South Carolina, unearthed some molar teeth that are now known to have belonged to Colombian mammoths. They were examined by, a British naturalist, I think, who confirmed that eventually. But at the time, the slave owners who were given these teeth were puzzled and decided that it must be something biblical. It must have been something to do with the Great Flood. But the slaves who dug them up, you'd like the naturalist who looked at them and talked to the slaves.

They said the slaves unanimously agreed that the objects were, in fact, the teeth of elephants, similar to those of African elephants that they were familiar with from their homeland, to which Cates be concerned, marking the first technical. identification of any fossil animal in North America. I just thought it was a good example of, A, the slave owners being like, this fucking Bible, flood, whatever, what are you talking about, guys? And then, like, a scientist too. I have not read about apart from in this context, so I'm not saying he's a great guy. Who was willing to listen to these people and go, oh, yeah, no, that sounds likely, actually, and you know what you're talking about.

And thus was able to properly identify a fossil for the first time in North America. That's so cool. And it was mammoth, which was. makes it better for me because I like elephants. Do we think the Colombian mammoths went to see the pyramids? Yes. Good. Excellent. Because there were lots of pyramids in the Americas.

Oh yeah, that's a good point. Stapch pyramids in South America and things. Good. We've got in North America, I think. Yes. I think there might have been some wooden pyramids. There are some earthworks that I think have been identified. Oh my God, I'm remembering years ago reading something.

now I should shut up. And on that note, I think that's everything we're going to say about the first half of the long cosmos. Yeah, because I just keep telling myself to shout out now. And that can't continue on a podcast. We're going to be back next week with the second half of the book, which will start with chapter 32 and go all the way to the end. Of the series. Yeah, I'm going to get quite emotional because we are kind of like, this is actually going to be the last Terry Pratchett novel. Time to go back to the color of magic.

Yeah, novels, yeah. We've still got some other stuff to cover. We've got some short stories. We've got some supplementals. We'll always find stuff to talk about this. Don't worry. Next week it's not the surprise end forever of the podcast. No, no.

I was just thinking how we can make sure we get some Pratchett in. I'm just going to reread some Pratch at Skavy or whatever. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Pratchett scurvy. Anyway, yeah, we'll be back next week. Until then, of course, dear listeners, you can join our Discord.

There's a link down below. You can follow us on Instagram with the Treeshow, Make You Frat. On Facebook at the True Show Make You Frat. join us uprodite us uproletar, R-S-M-YF, email us your thoughts, queries, castles, and crocodiles with massive dagger claws, the Drewshamake-you-thrette-pod at gmail.com, and if you want to support us financially,

you can go to patreon.com, forward slash the Trusholmakey fret for uncut episodes and occasional other bonus nonsense. Until next time, dear listeners, I'll have a slice of that. Oh, fuck. All right, we're leaving that in exactly as is.