The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 42: The Dark Side Of The Sun Pt. 2 (Too Much Time together)

Episode Date: January 11, 2021

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, usually read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 2 of our recap of “The Dark Side Of The Sun” - the first in our “Proto-Pratchett” Season! Aliens! External Consciousness Acting on the Universe! (Mechanical) Bees! Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail] to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:The Frogs, Aristophanes (Translated by G. Theodoridis) - Poetry in TranslationMan Friday - WikiThe Truly Great - Poetry FoundationPlain English CampaignI Believe (American Gods) - Wikiquote (beware potential spoilers)Black Holes - NASA ScienceHow do astronomers find exoplanets? - EarthSkyMusic: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

Maybe it was an attempted coup, but insurrection happened. Yes. This is like allegory all over again. We did the theater zoom call on Friday night. And yeah, well, that's the equivalent of a night in the pub now. Yeah, basically, we did a full read through of Dr. Falster. So it was fun. Why?

So this is Andy from Quack House and one of the other actors, Helen. And this this particular theater group, the aim is to read through plays and then discuss them to sort of keep our hands in a bit and keep this on the brain. And then there's another one that's our literary salon that used to meet up in person once a month, and we're going to try a video call thing where we sort of talk about writing projects and stuff. Oh, that sounds fun. Yeah, but it does mean I'm doing like four video calls in five days.

And I'm finding that including this one and I'm finding it quite draining. Yeah, I can imagine. I think it's because it's so static. Like, how do you mean? There's an act. So if I meet up with you, like, even if we went for coffee, we'd probably sort of walk around a bit first. And there is like some external stimulation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If I met up with these people, it would be the pub and we'd be sort of getting up to go to the bar and yeah, popping out for a smoke. That's not so weird if you check the emails quickly. Exactly. And like the Sunday pub group as well, which I'll be doing straight after this call. There's like nine of us that do sort of a pub quiz every Sunday. If I actually met up with them in the pub, I wouldn't be talking to them all at once. Yeah, yeah.

And sort of flip from one end of the bar to the other and talk to a couple of them and then a couple of them. Yeah, definitely. And it all shifts. And instead, I'm sat very still while nine people try and talk at once. Yeah. God, no, that's too many people. Yeah, no, there's definitely something to be said for a shared environment to keep a conversation going or natural or not draining. Yeah.

Like, don't get me wrong. I had a really nice time doing the theatre thing and Andy and I ended up on the call till about midnight catching up. Yeah. And I liked recording the podcast, obviously. This is... Oh, yeah. No, no, no. I'm not taking it as a complaint.

Yeah. But I am finding it interesting. Oh, no, no, no, no. I'm not taking it as a complaint. Yeah. But I am finding it weirdly draining as an attempt at socialization. Yeah, yeah. If I had done the discord thing this morning, I probably would have done Just Voice.

Yeah. Because it's less weird to just listen in then and like speak if prompted, especially as it would have been my first time in that group doing it. Yeah. There is something about video call where it's very obvious if you're like paying attention or not. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's definitely been definitely just woken up looking. Yeah.

My lovely, curly, cute hair yesterday got frozen fogged and puffed and I haven't washed it yet. So, although the headphones, I'm sure are flattening it quite nicely. I mean, you're seeing basically my Just Wake Up look slash have just done yoga look. Yes, but you look good when you just wake up on account of the good skin and hair. You can't... Well, okay, actually, I'm having a really good hair day. I'm kind of glad I've got two Zoom calls in one day, but that's because I washed it last night. The skin in person is horribly dry because winter, it turns out even if I don't go inside in winter, my skin still decides to shrink on on itself.

I should probably be hydrating more. Yes. Yeah. It's putting foundation on at the moment, even a BB cream. I'm like, oh, oh, no. Oh, my skin is much drier than I thought it was. So, I'm just kind of trying to go without for a bit. Well, luckily, the only time I put makeup on is for Zoom calls.

Like, I'm sorry, I haven't done it for you. I literally can't tell. Unless you've gone full eyeliner, lipstick, the resolution on these cameras are not enough for me to judge whether you've put on concealer. Exactly. So, I only do it for Zoom calls, which means you can't see that, like, oh, actually, I've got terribly dry skin. Yeah, yeah, that's good. I had to be so careful when I was meeting up with an actual human being last week. Oh, yeah.

Yes, that does mean we've just had our first lockdown week, doesn't it? Yep. Yeah, so that was a week ago. God, damn. It has been a week. It has been a week, hasn't it? I was like, why is this week drawn out? I was like, oh, that's right.

Yeah. A coup. So, we're recording literally the day before this comes out. We're very up to date on current events. And we need to stop saying, like, oh, I wonder what horrific thing will happen between episodes, because there was literally an attempted coup in the US. Is it? What's the word I'm meant to be using?

Interaction. Yes, interaction. I'm not sure. It's a coup military, an interaction knot or something. I think a coup's successful. Well, no, because you call it an attempted coup. Oh, yeah. I don't know.

A coup is also one of those words that I only saw written down for the longest time, so I thought it was pronounced coup. Oh, mate, what did I do the other day? Ori. Ori? A rye. Oh, a rye, yeah. I've never tried to say a rye a lot before, and I knew it was a word, obviously.

And it's one of those ones that, you know, you never see them in the same room together. Yeah, like, you never see the written down word and hear the spoken word. That's such a good way to describe it. I am 29 years old. But yeah, so it's, I've been like, sort of judging myself for not being productive this week, because this was the week I was supposed to start functioning, but then I realized like... There's been so much team scrolling to do.

There's been so much team scrolling. We went from, we were basically in a lockdown already, because we were tier four, but it turned into an official lockdown in the UK. Yeah. There was all the news in the US, which happened on, it was Wednesday, because it was the 6th of January. So it was A, the day I took all my Christmas decorations down, and B would have been my mother's birthday.

Oh, my God. Yeah, so originally I was supposed to like, hopefully spend time with my sister that day, but obviously we can't do that. It's Christmas decorations come down day because it's 12th night, and I very much stick to that tradition. Right. And there was something to be doing. Yeah, partly because obviously it became, it was such an important tradition for us

growing up, because that would be mom's birthday present, was that she didn't have to deal with the decorations coming down. Oh, okay. We wouldn't do it. But it's such a mum present. She'd get actual presents as well. Take something away from me. Actually, it was quite an enjoyable process.

I was putting everything back in little boxes, and then putting the boxes in bigger boxes. I quite enjoyed it this year, because again, I made Jack take the dog away, and so I just, I found some packing things, and I found some egg boxes, and yeah. Yeah. I think partly because I organised all the decorations when I moved. Oh, yeah. They have like a place and boxes. So that was nice.

But it's, it was more weird because, like I said, we would normally have done something, we'd have gone for lunch or something. And so last year when it was the first birthday without her, we went for a meal. So it was weird because I wasn't going and doing something, but there were lots of things that are happening at the moment that I would normally go and do something for and can't because of lockdown. Yes. Yes.

And then the coup happened to take mind of it. And then the coup, which, yeah, surreal, because it was, I've been playing PlayStation. I stopped to go and make some dinner and check the TV on and was just sort of vaguely scrolling Twitter and it was like, oh, there's like a protest thing. Well, that's not surprising. Oh, it's, they're like, oh. Yeah. Maybe you texted the group chat like, what's going on in America?

Like, should we, should we turn the television news on? Yeah. Which I never did. I've watched like COVID briefings when we were building up to lockdowns and I was waiting to find out if my job was going to disappear again and what have you. Yeah. But I never just put the live news on. No.

Then I had the BBC news channel on for like four hours. Eventually I switched to having it running on my laptop so I could keep playing PlayStation and just kind of had the doom happening in the background, but. I did turn it off eventually because I needed to do yoga before bed and I felt like having it on in the background while I was doing yoga was defeating the point a bit. Somewhat. I think Adrienne would disapprove. I think she definitely would.

This is partly why I make sure I do my yoga in the day times before the American news cycle really starts. I did. I did it. Yeah. I thought I was going to skip it last night. I was so tired, but I was like, no, come on. You can do it.

Well, yesterday's was a nice one as well. I'm getting into your cut. Yeah, it was. It was an easy one. I'm getting into your kind of mindset where I just don't want to break a streak now because I've done eight days in a row now. Yep. Same.

Today's is a really nice practice. I really enjoy it. It is. I like balancing poses. I like balancing poses. Which is amazing if you know me a couple of years ago. Yeah. My balance is actually surprisingly good because I work quite hard on my core strength and

posture because otherwise I just wouldn't be able to do my job. Yes. My problem is I've got really weak ankles. Yeah. Because you've ended them a lot, haven't you? Yeah. So there's just only so long I can stand on one leg. It's not that I can't hold my balance.

It's that my ankle will start protesting. For me, it's if I get into my own head and start thinking about what I'm doing, I will start going and I am like mainly limb. And so it gets a bit. Yeah. You are very limmy. Yeah. Do you know what?

I think yoga is the only sport exercise I managed to stick with because you get the results so quickly. Like you notice the difference in yourself really quickly. Yeah. The last day just lacing up my boots was a hundred times easier than it had been. Yeah. And it's like after a week of doing it regularly again, I was like, I see, I know this. Why don't I just keep doing it?

It's the one where I feel the difference most between when I'm doing it regularly and when I'm not. Yeah. Whereas like running is more of a maintenance thing for me when I'm not working so that my fitness is enough. I can do my job. Yeah. Yeah.

Not that I go to base level. Yeah. Yeah. Not that I've been running this week or left the house. No. Well, it's been icy as fuck, mate. I wouldn't recommend it, honestly. Yeah.

It's not like you can go somewhere with decent grip easily. No, I would definitely end up I'll say with it. But next week it's just supposed to rain. So that'll be nice. Well, that'll be nice. Yeah. Yeah. It'll be lovely.

Stretchy, stretchy, stretchy. Is there anything related to anything we should be talking about? What's happened? Is there any Pratchett news? Has anything other watch started? People don't like that. We'll talk about that another week, I guess. Yeah.

So the watch exists now, but it's, well, I'll talk about this at the end of the podcast and what's coming up for us. But we're not talking about it yet because it's not out in the UK yet. And we're going to wait till it is airing in the UK. So apologies. And that's some kind of moral decision. It's not even really moral so much as like then all of our listeners can have seen it. Yeah.

Yeah. Which means I can't listen to any of the podcast reviews about it, which I kind of want to, but I won't. I'm resisting the urge just because I want to go in without lots of notions. Yeah. It's difficult though because it's all over Twitter. I have muted it. That's clever.

Yeah. Which I sort of feel a bit bad about because I am curious to see what the advertising lead up to it is, especially in the UK when it's got a UK release date. But I just can't stand to see people talking about it constantly. I had to unmute the word Trump from my Twitter so I could keep up with interaction. Yeah. Scrolling. I think that was why I put live news on in the end.

I'm going to mute all American politics again for a while just for self-care, but like not till after January because I feel like there's probably a bit more shit to come. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of important till then. Yeah. Do you know what? We've been going on about American doom and we've had plenty of our own doom here. It's just that it's a continuation of the existing doom.

Yeah. UK is just- New numbers. lockdown, Brexit, death. Yeah. When I woke up on Thursday and like I said, I had, I was kind of up until like two, three in the morning because of news coverage and stuff. I was trying to stay up because I wanted to see if they were going to finish the process

of the electoral college votes. I fell asleep before they did. Yeah. And then when I woke up on Thursday and I was so tired and sort of like had a weird news hangover and like a little bit of an actual hangover as well I have been drinking. Oh, I feel rubbish today. I must have had some bad news after that. But it was also like my flat was so cold.

I hadn't like left the storage heater on in my room overnight, which I normally do. But it was like 10 in the morning by the time I got out of bed and I was just sort of vaguely wandering around in pajamas for two hours like it's Thursday. I really understand what Arthur Dent meant about not being able to get the hang of Thursdays. This is the most Thursday Thursday to ever Thursday. And then I had to check on my phone that it was definitely Thursday. Oh dear. What day is it today?

Sunday. Sunday today. Sunday today. What day is it today? Sunday. Sunday today. Sunday today. I'm a bit confused because I delayed this podcast by a day.

Thank you, Joanna, on account of my... I forgot now. I didn't sleep. That was it. It's quite exciting to record knowing it's coming out in less than 24 hours. Yeah, it is. We can't say anything. I need to add it out.

Nope. That's fine. If I say, that's all right. I'll let it that out. I am lying. This is basically going to be a single take. Listeners get all of the goriness. It's like that tracking shot from Wings, except not elegant.

I don't know what you're talking about. I am the picture of elegance. Well, I'm fucking not. I'm honestly considering putting my dressing gown on over this jumper. All right. Should we make a coffee? And then should we make a podcast? Yeah.

Make history. Sorry. I needed the rule of three and I went too far. Yeah. I'm not making history, Francine. It's a Sunday. I'm going to record this and then I'm going to... All right.

Just the coffee in the podcast. Excellent. Hello and welcome to the Two Shall Make You Threat, a podcast in which we are usually recapping and discussing every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series one at a time in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan. And I'm Francine Carroll. And this is part two of our discussion of Dark Side of the Sun, one of Terry Pratchett's

early sci-fi novels, and the first set of episodes in what I'm calling our proto-Pratchett season. Oh. All right. I wish I'd come up with that last week. So what's... Do we know the rest of the season then? So these are the other two early Pratchetts we're going to discuss this year, which are

Strata and the carpet people. Okay. Cool. Cool. I should really like tell you... I should tell our listeners... The schedule's very important and I'm not allowed to see it. Because I wrote it on the back of an envelope and lost it, but I'm going to do it again

and we'll tell the listeners and everything. We'll put it up on the website. Send me page numbers, send me schedules. I will get useful information on the website and we will have a lovely day. Yes. That'll be a thing that we definitely get around to very soon. Yes. Because we are functioning organized adults.

Note on spoilers before we continue. Obviously, heavy spoilers for the book. We're on the dark side of the sun, but we will avoid spoiling any major future events in the Discworld series and we're saving any and all discussion of the final Discworld level, the Shepherd's Crown, until we get there. So you, dear listener, can come on the journey with us. On the back of a sunpuffy, blasting into the stratosphere. Exactly.

I love the sunpuppies. I love the sunpuppies. I haven't got anything to follow up on from last week. Do you? I feel like yes, but I've forgotten it. Excellent. What have I got here? Oh, no, no.

It's just that I wanted to make you a business card saying today's Echo of Tomorrow's Scream. Okay, excellent. Which I will get around to. I've just made a note of that in my follow-up section for some reason. Excellent. Please do do that. In that case, Francine, would you like to tell us what happened previously on the dark side of the sun?

Sure. Previously on the dark side of the sun. We follow our hero soon to be planetary chairman, Dom Sabalos. God, have I not tried to say that before? No. Has he messes about in boats and survives an assassination attempt only to be blown more or less to smithereens at his own birthday slash investiture party? Luckily, one of the few remaining smithereens was enough to regrow our Pratchettian generic

hero, and after a few months he's feeling better enough to sail off into interspace with his tutor, his snarky robot, and his new pet swamp being. Defying Dom's grandmother, the group seeks jokers. Fate, it seems, is on Dom's side. Unlike his grandmother, Joan, who is trying very hard to drag him home by his greenish ear. Marvelous. Did you, did you actually read chapter six?

I did. Yeah. Yeah. No, I didn't skip that just to spite you. Yeah. No, that should have been the last time, shouldn't it? Yeah. And then they went to the bank and got away.

It's the last bit about them. Excellent. Thank you. So this week, and sorry, it's a long summary because obviously it's the entire. Bank is kind of hell. Also a person. Also a person with a girl. As well as a planet.

Yeah. I've got that later. Right. Sorry. Right. Good. Cool. Sorry.

So this week on the dark side of the sun. Sorry, this is quite a long summary because we're at the back half of the book. So what happens? It's really hard to summarize this book, isn't it? I spent quite a long time writing that pretty shit paragraph of the last time on because it is less cohesive even than it seems while reading it, isn't it? Well, you're with your previously on as you can afford to be quite succinct. Whereas I'm trying to kind of get everything in and I don't self-edit very well.

That's cool. I'll mute myself for the next 20 minutes. Excellent. Go grab another coffee. Say hi to the puppy. Sweet. Okay. So on chapter sevens, it's Hog's Watch Night on Widdishans.

Don wakes in a puddle on the surface of bank. The luxury yacht piloted expertly by Isaac crashes in to collect him. Unfortunately, Hirshug has been taken by Don's grandmother and Ig is missing. The gang head for band expecting Joan to be waiting with Hirsh. We meet Asman and his robot Waze, an exceptionally lucky humanoid assassin in a golden collar. Waze is charged with ending the life of Don, but the universe keeps getting in the way. We learn that Asman works for the Joker Institute and they're determined to stop Don before he can find the home of the Jokers, even resorting to kidnapping Ig and planting a bomb inside

him slash it. Waze and Asman head out for dinner and face an assassination attempt of their own, but Waze's luck prevails. Don wakes as the ship arrives at band and discovers Joan is, of course, already there and waiting. Don and Isaac land their dangerously low on fuel ship. Don runs as Isaac fights off Joan's robots before sneaking on board her ship to rescue Hirsh. The chapter ends as Don hides from the hatching of the sun dogs. In chapter eight, Don dives to dodge crackdown and finds himself breathing water as he converses

with Chattagaster, another planet spanning consciousness, somewhat damper than bank. Chattagaster informs Don that the Joker's home may not be a physical place at all and Don elects to consult the creepy eye. He agrees to take some of Chattagaster with him. Our ragtag bunch of misfits had Jack a sun puppy and head for Minos and the Chain Stars. In chapter nine, the gang arrive at the Chain Stars, another Joker relic, and Don meets his furnace, a high degree creepy eye, with a perfect reconstruction of the sea to call his home.

They see the stars and head for dinner as Don continues to discuss the nature of the Jokers. They then head to Minos to pick up a new ship and experience the famous maze. Wandering through the labyrinth, Don meets Waze the assassin at the centre and learns that the institute fear-finding the Jokers, a badly timed explosion, ends the chapter. In chapter ten, Don wakes in a fancy bedroom, body replenished with goo goo once again. Reunited with ick, he realises he's at his sister's palace on Leoth and was nearly killed in the previous chapter's explosion.

Luckily, his grandmother's ship was close at hand. At dinner, Don learns that ships from all 52 races in the galaxy life bubble are gathered around his sister's planet waiting his next move, attempting to relax regardless, the gang taking a Greek-style play. Don breakfasts alone before being joined by his step niece, a princess of the planet, and her drosk bodyguard. The princess tragically doesn't share a common tongue, but they manage to communicate by a bodyguard translation as they head out for a horse ride.

Tali, Don's step-nephew, joins them and Don and Tali take part in a sham fight. Don's unfortunate win spikes the princess's Charlie's ear. In the final chapter, Tali is fine, Charlie is actually a better fighter. Bankers disappeared and Don theorises about Jokers. The assassin Waze interrupts as Don works it out. He takes Don's family hostage and sends Don to the centre of the Joker Institute fleet. Alone with Ig, Don makes the stunning realisation that the real Jokers are the swamp pigs we met along the way, motivated by empathy.

He takes the fleet back to Wiglishens as Ig implores the races to teach the Jokers and we end with the races in harmony-ish together as Don returns to fishing. Oh, very good. God, yeah, it's a weird-ass book, isn't it? I've learnt the hard way that I can't do my usual read the book without taking notes, then quickly go back and mentally know where I want to be finding the bookmarks because I can do that with the Discworld books because I've read them before. I was just reminding myself by reading it through in the first place or this one.

I read it through the other day. Yeah, that's cool. And then last Friday night, I went through again trying to find page numbers. I don't remember if this now. So I read the book as a whole last week and then I went through and did my post-its on Thursday, which was the day I was really struggling with. So then when I went back through to turn those post-its into an actual episode plan on Friday, I just had no idea what I was talking about.

Yeah, cool. All right, we're on the same page. Well, I mean, we're not because we have wildly different page numbers. Oh, yeah. On helicopter and loincloth watch, obviously, we've got a lot of general flying things. And we'll assume that Charlie is basically wearing a loincloth because women in sci-fi. I've got more rants on that later. Oh, is she meant to be the woman on your copy of the book?

Yeah, because they're riding horses together. All right. So I'm assuming... I dug up all the images and stuck them on Reddit and Joe posted them on Twitter by the way, listeners, if you want to see the four different cover images we found for this. Excellent, yeah. I think there probably are more because I think there's a different American cover, although apparently it's quite hard to get in the US.

So apologies to our US listeners who may not have been able to read along with this episode. Oh, that sucks, yeah. You probably get E-book. Yeah, I think so. Anyway, quotes. Quotes, quotes. I don't know whose is first. So shall I just go first?

Yeah, you go first. I think yours is first. It is. It's also quite short. This is at the opening to chapter 10, and it's a little haiku from Charles Sub-Luna. Hark to the crash of the leaves in the autumn, the smash of the crystal leaves. It's very nice. I like it.

I like, I love a haiku. I can't write haikus for shit, but I really like them. I do as well, and I... I understand that they are much diminished in their beauty, even reading them translated, even by a very good translator because there's a lot of word play and intonation you can only get in the, you know, because Japanese is such a different language to ours. Yeah. They're also just as a poetic form, like ignoring the 575, you know, the structure of it.

They exist as like almost a perfect sort of Polaroid picture of a moment. That's the idea of the form behind it. And I really love that. It's a single snapshot of something. Yeah, I do. I, as a prolific cutter of words, I always appreciate someone trying to be as succinct as possible while getting the message across entirely. As someone who, as I mentioned earlier, cannot self-edit for shit, I very much appreciate

them as an art form that I'm not capable of. So what was your quote? Mine is a page 155 on mine, which I think is nothing. This is when Ig is doing his exposition dump. And we searched even the alternate universes. It is true right along to the dark and possible ones that are the stuff of nightmares. There was life, the bank and Chattagasta, a small fry. In some universes, the very suns live.

There is a galaxy that sings in one universe over there. A poor pointed and one claw disappeared momentarily into another continuum. There is nothing but thought which pervades all, not only thought but understanding. But it is alien to us. How blightly you use the word alien. You have no idea how alien a thing may be. Ooh, I like that. Yeah, that just ties into my general fascination with the idea of consciousness as we can't perceive.

And I like the idea of a claw disappearing momentarily into another continuum. Yes. That's a moment I would really love to... This is a book that I think could translate to screen brilliantly. Yeah, you were saying last time in film format rather than TV, this one. Yeah, I don't think there's enough narrative to make a series of it. Yeah, I agree. Lots of strings in this bit.

Very stringy. And when Dom is communicating with Chattagaster and he's breathing in the lake and having this conversation with a lake spanning consciousness. Yeah. That was making me think of how I would do that on screen. Yeah. Cool. Very glowy.

Yes. Okay, so characters. Characters, yeah. So, Azman. Azman. Azman. Azman. Not related.

And just as annoying. So, Azman is the Joker Institute guy. Yeah. Earth-based Earthman. Very earthy. It's the whole Joker Institute motivation of we want to study them, but we absolutely do not want to find them fascinates me. And it's very pinpointed in his character.

But he is also sort of a late-stage antagonist. Yeah, it almost mirrors the kind of debate that we have in real life where scientists are like, we shouldn't try and make contact with other civilizations in space kind of thing. Yeah. Also, we're a fucking mess. Who wants to know us? Well, quite.

But yeah, it's a hell of a thing to put your life's work into making sure you can't find all the answers. Yeah, it's a very strange thing. And then you have Waze as well, obviously, the robot who is... Full name the Waze of Man or something, wasn't it? Waze of Earth, sorry. Yeah. Which there are so many, again, so many references, I think,

that if I looked into, I would find. And I've noticed there's not really a thoroughly annotated version of the book anywhere. And so, L Space have a really sparse annotation page for this one. So I was thinking something I definitely don't have time to do, but will probably do is try and make my own list of annotations for this. Excellent. I will not help with that. Yeah, no, that's cool.

I'm just saying that. So Waze is made to look completely and totally human down to artificial tear ducts. But he's also designed to be incredibly lucky. Yeah. Which means... Sorry. Weird.

Which is weird, like the whole... Well, he's competing against... The universe is arranging itself over keeping Dom alive. Yeah. And it's sort of that he's the only one who could kill Dom because he is so lucky. Yeah. And so it is his individual luck against fate.

Yeah, it's like the bullet boiling in midair. It's like, oh. Yeah, this kind of stuff just happens between us. Yeah. I really like that kind of interplay in that that's the sort of argument between them. It's the fate versus luck of it all. Yeah.

And then we have Chattagasta, the Talking Lake. Yay. I like Chattagasta. I like... I mean, I like the idea of a planet spanning consciousness in general. Yeah. And Chattagasta kind of ended up on this planet after being created in another water planet

and it exploded and I'm not really sure. Just try not to think about it too much. Okay, cool. It was all a bit suffusing with memories in a fun, abstract way. And yeah, you're right. That would make a really cool bit of movie. He's a really interesting... He's an abstract concept that has developed a consciousness

within a lake. Ooh, I was giving her she pronouns in my head. Did they actually specify it? That's the point. I don't think you... They get pronouns. That's the horrible, automatic thing... Yeah.

...that society does where if you don't know... Yeah, you do put it in a box. I ended up feminizing probably for similarly ingrained reasons of just... It seemed like the opposite of bank somehow and bank was very hypermasculine. Oh, yeah. Very good point. There's a rock and they're looking for a gas one

to complete the quarter of element. Yeah. Or there's a gas one and they're looking for a rock one. No, there is a rock one. They've got bank, which is rock. They've got chasticastor, water. They've got fire, which is the sun. Oh, right.

And they're looking for a gas one. Yeah. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. But yeah, I thought chasticastor, the whole section is beautifully written. Yeah, it is. From someone who...

Very dreamy. It's very dreamy. It's someone who is ruminated on the concept of jokers because when you're a giant lake, you don't have a lot else to think about. Yeah. And the fact that chasticastor's aim is to leave this planet and go and be a consciousness somewhere else.

Yeah. I like the way Pratik admitted a couple of times. I wasn't really aware of what he was looking for in the description of chasticastor, like the knowledge, but not knowledge, not intuition. Just the inbuilt... A bit. Yeah.

Actually, the quote about that is great. There's no precise word for it. Intuition was too course of term. There was something in it of a leaf's knowledge of how a tree grows. Warm, dreamy and arcane. Dreamy and arcane. That's going on my business card.

Yeah. I was going to say that one suits you better than me. I am neither warm nor dreamy. Arcane, yes. Arcane and profane. So, his furnace is next? His furnace, Kreek E plus 690 degrees. So, this is the creepy eye.

Yeah. I've decided that's how I'm saying it. Yeah. No, that's cool. Go with it. They are... The culture in general are interested. They're information gatherers.

But they have different degrees. And that's almost like a... So, because this race can adapt to look or be part of any other race, you have the low degree ones that are sort of small and cheap and human, and then you have these higher degree, higher concept researchers.

I also get the impression that literally that's the temperature they thrive at as well. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. But there is something in... There's a reference when they arrive on Minos that a low degree creepy eye is trying to sell them a match with the maze.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I wonder if there's something in the kind of... the caste system that is the ones who could survive in the liquid phosphorus, I think, because it was put at the beginning, or the... Yeah. Posh ones, as it were.

The posh ones. The posh ones, God. I'm so eloquent today. Oh, me too, me too. Yeah, that whole civilization is very cool. Yeah, well, the whole idea of constantly studying other life forms is man, the hunter, creep, the information gatherer.

Mm-hmm. And I like the races seeing themselves in them. Like, Dom speaks to his furnace and says, well, you seem very human to me. All these things that you do, there is a humanity to it. Yeah. And then when Hirsch has been speaking to them, Hirsch comes after and says, they seem so phnobic to me.

Yeah. Yeah. Which are two very big distinct cultures. So I thought that was interesting. Yeah, you see, it's like a mirror personality. Yeah. Which suggests that perhaps they are, lack of a better word, a bigger personality,

so that you pick out bits that make sense to you. Yeah. It sort of said that they adopt the human viewpoint. And Dom says, oh, I think you do this to grain it. We gain a greater understanding of the universe. Mm-hmm. Because each race experiences a different universe. And that's quite a cool foreshadowing thing

with how the book resolves, with the Yggs being the jokers. Yeah. And ultimately wanting to learn from the races. Yeah. Yeah. There's quite a lot of clever foreshadowing in this section to get to the Yggs with the real jokers with the Yggs we met along the way.

Yeah. Sorry, I'm so funny. I was glad nothing came of the booby trap dig, by the way. I was very sad when I thought that my little pet friend might explode. Yeah. No, I would have put the book down. Charles Sabluna is one of these ones

where I feel like that's referenced for sci-fi. I don't quite get off the top of my head. True. But I really like the reveal about Charles Sabluna. Because it's implied that Charles Sabluna is this scarred man who has this little robot companion. Yeah. And Dom meets them at a dinner at his sister's place.

And he says, oh, that's Charles Sabluna, isn't it? And indicates the man and the robot. And they say, yeah, he's the one who deciphered the joker language. Dom says the poet and the mad computer. And the response is, yeah, he's not really mad, though. And I don't know who the poet was. His servant's very fascinating with all those scars. Yeah.

So it's the robot is Charles Sabluna, not the man. And I only noticed that on this read. I didn't notice it on my first read through. I didn't notice that. I did get the whole, the mad computer thing, but I kind of thought that, oh, they meant he was a mathematician or something. Ah, haha. That is clever.

Because in my head, I think because I formed my own theory that Charles Sabluna was his dad or something. Oh, right. And so I was looking for clues for that instead of... No, to see what actually happened. Reading properly. Well, when you're reading something that's got a kind of central mystery to it, you do latch on to your own theories.

Yeah. And to be fair, he's also built up as something that's never really realized that you get that fun little reveal, but then... Yeah. Yeah, because he keeps nearly meeting him, doesn't he? Yeah. Yeah. You sort of think there's going to be a lot more to it.

Yeah. Yeah. So, Lady Charley. Yeah, I wasn't particularly infuriated. I just thought it was a pointless bit of book, but you were infuriated, so please go ahead. I wasn't fully infuriated. It's just...

It's the thing we were saying right back then. I have fury. Yeah. I don't have the energy to be fully infuriated. It was the thing we were saying way back in a colour of magic like Fantastic. I think I was probably talking about Bethan at the time. Yeah. Is it parody if you are just doing the thing?

And this... I want to give Terry Pratchett the benefit of the doubt and say, as this is kind of a sci-fi pastiche, she is pastiching the fact that there tends to be this type of character, but also the fact that it's shoehorned in so last minute. What bothers you about the character before we get into the... Well, she's introduced as very pretty, can't communicate easily,

the bodyguard has to translate for the two of them, and completely fascinated by the main character. He's just turned up and immediately this pretty woman really wants to know everything about him and go on a horse ride with him. And it is implied that there is some kind of mutual attraction. Obviously, then it gets averted when she meets the crap out of him because he nearly kills her brother.

And then you add in the weirdness of this is his step-nice. So, like, they're not related, but they are family. And I just think it's lazy writing. She's completely unrealised as a character. It's, oh, look, pretty woman who can't talk a lot and fascinated by the main character, and then, oh, look, pretty woman can actually kick people. And can actually talk a lot.

That's why I thought... Because she communicated just fine. Yeah, it turns out she actually can. So I thought the whole point was that she was, like, ulterior-motivating, trying to learn about him for spy reasons. Well, exactly. And if the plot had then done something with it, if it wasn't just crammed in in the ultimate chapter...

Yeah. Her perfume was going to his head. I'm sorry. Oh, I can't find that. The thing that bothered me about this bit of the chapter was that, for some reason, Dom acts like a complete asshole during the fight and feels bad about her afterwards. It seems like a random bit of character development

that never really cropped up before or afterwards, that he was this... Yeah, if this chapter had happened... Has to win type guy. Yeah, if this chapter had happened two chapters ago, it would have made a lot more sense. But it's a very weird penultimate chapter to have. Yeah.

I mean, even then, it seems like an event to cap off a pattern of that kind of behaviour. And it just... As far as I could tell, it wasn't. It's an early book, so the writing isn't as strong. And it just sort of comes out of nowhere. It doesn't really need to be there. It doesn't move the plot along.

None of these characters turned out to be particularly relevant. The emotional journey that Dom goes on via it is... Yeah. Blur. And it feels like it's partly shoehorned in to mock the sort of pastichi sci-fi trope of a girl who is completely fascinated by the hero and obviously then subvert it by actually

sweeps the crap out of him and does speak English all along. Yeah. Yeah, it's a bit colour of magic in that he's like, oh, I want to put this trope in somewhere. Yeah. And it just... Erked me. And I probably wouldn't be so irked by it if it wasn't

for being combined with obviously the cover illustration of... Yeah. Generic sci-fi woman with tits out. Yeah. Which I'm rewatching Farscape at the moment, so obviously I've got a lot more opinions on generic sci-fi woman with tits out.

I'm sure. I love that so deeply, but there is a lot of generic sci-fi woman with tits out. So, Phenobic culture. Not so much tits that I've seen. Well, they've got three genders, so I'm assuming at least one of them is a bit breasty, but it's never really mentioned.

Yeah. That's very human-centric, Joanna, because who says they're mammalian? Good point. They might lay eggs. Yeah. I thought it was a nice added bit of world-building detail in that there is a big deal about

Phenobes do not leave the planet. So, once they do leave the planet, they cannot come back. Yeah. It's interesting. It seems to be a mirror of, you know, Japan did that for a century or so. Yeah.

Killed anyone who came back, like, right down to the details. I think that was the inspiration for that bit. The fact that a big part of Hirosh's motivation for this section is he is being threatened with being returned to his home planet. Yeah. And that's why they have the barracues with

the Phenobic soil. Yeah. Because even though they know they'd be killed if they went back, they still very much associate with home. Exactly. And they send all their money back. It's very sad.

It is very sad, but I like it. It's one of the really good bits about this writing is those moments of world-building that gives a huge layer to a character in a paragraph. For sure. Yeah. And then we have the twist character.

Yes, the eggs slash jokers. What? And again, this is, there's some really good foreshadowing. There is. I definitely had a bit of a, there's five pages left of this book. What the fuck is going to happen?

Moment. Yeah. Ten pages or whatever it was. And then it starts talking. Yes. Yeah. It is definitely an exposition dump climax, which is fine with me because it's a short book

and I can't be asked with a massive battle scene. So. Yeah. It's an exposition dump climax to a giant battle scene. Yeah. But in general. Yes.

I also like the battle scene being headed off by the bank straight away. Like, no. Lads. Economic sanction lads. Fine. Yeah. Poor little egg.

The description of eggs before we know what eggs are. This is from Waze when he's been bitten by the swamp egg. Third largest air-breathing character creature that the planet has produced. Phnomes think they're lucky. Fishers say if one makes a pettive view,

it means death will never be lethal. They might have a rudimentary psychic sense. They've got no natural enemies and they're something of a planetary totem. So they are native to Widdishans. Yeah. Yeah. And that sort of building of...

Like a dolphin. Yes. And they build themselves in to not be killed. Yeah. And I like that. I like that that hint of foreshadowing of they've set themselves up very well. But I also thought the big reveal,

the one thing it reminded me of, and obviously this actually came out before, was the White Mice in Hitchhiker's Guide. Yeah. Yeah. It's that same... It was there. Little word and...

Yeah. Lurking along the whole time. Yeah. And it was very cleverly done here, actually. Looking back, I suppose it's quite odd that he went into so much detail about a little rodent character. Hmm. But I could almost just read as Pratchett

enjoying his world building. And then you're like, ah, because it matters. It does matter. And Pratchett is a very good writer. And like I said, this is an early book and there's room for improvement, especially when it comes to things like female characters.

Yeah. But even in this early stuff, you can really see he knows the building blocks very well and builds this very cleverly. Well, that's it. Yeah. I mean, I'm criticising as we go along because recap analysis, whatever.

But I did enjoy the book very much, so... Yes. The other thing I thought was quite good about the depiction of the jokers, when Waze and Asman go for their meal near the Joker Institute, they have a conversation about the fact that the jokers are depicted as humanoid.

Ah, yeah. And that sort of comes back around to what you were saying earlier. Like, it's really fascinating that we probably can't perceive creatures outside of our understanding. So when we depict alien creatures, we do depict them as like us. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. And like any depiction of gods over the years have generally been in some humanoid form. Unless you look at like the weird original descriptions of angels, which are all 18 eyes. Yeah. But that was mushroom-based, wasn't it? I know, but I still really like it.

Yeah. Yeah, that seems to be back into Tumblr popular culture at the moment. Biblically correct angels, getting a lot of multi-eyed horrors popping up on my feed. Yeah, I like it. Mushroom-inspired religion.

Yeah, so locations. Locations. Where do we go? So we've got band, which is a very quickly rotating planet. Yeah, which I think is because it's squished, which keeps it going, isn't it? Like there's a physics thing behind this.

I remember learning if the Earth, the Earth is like slightly squished because of the rotation. Yeah. And then that means that also all the tectonic plates mean there's just one mountain range around the center and the rest is all like. Yeah. And it's very pretty from a distance, apparently.

Yes. And that's where the sun dogs live. And then we have Minos, which has a famous maze. And Minos was the king of Crete, who ordered the labyrinth to be built to house the mine at all. Yes. And Isaac hinted at and Dom refused to let him finish.

Yep. Yes, we know. And then we have Laos, or as you were saying, Laos. Laos, Laos, I'm not sure, which is the planet Dom's sister is married to the emperor of? Yes, which is a cool little robot garden planet. Yeah, there's absolutely nothing living. So all of the plants, all of the trees and everything are robots,

which as much as I disliked the Dom and Charlie stuff, I did like the device of watching the robot spider build a tiny web and catch a fly. Yes. As that conversation goes on. Yeah. That's this spider thought about electricity or something. Yes.

I liked, yeah, just little details of that was nice, like a mechanical bat wheeling into the distance or something at the end and just it's very, it's clearly very realized in his imagination. Yeah. It's, I wish I could read more just set on that planet. Yeah. Yeah.

And the, yeah, the intricacies of all the like the bees and the flowers and the, all the creating. Yeah. Creating an entire, yeah, creating an entire ecosystem. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like if it had been written 20 years later, he would have written it as some kind of virtual reality thing.

Yeah. I could definitely see that. But I like that it's mechanical and maybe it was mechanical for a reason because it's cool. It's like all my steampunky, isn't it? But not. I don't, there's probably a very certain aesthetic for this. There's an aesthetic for everything.

I'm some kind of goblin cottage core. Oh, no. That's clutter. Clutter stuff is goblin. Oh, yeah. That's what I try and avoid being. And yes, I have little bowls full of conkers and things everywhere. I was so excited.

Self-loathing. I was so excited because I bought some very nice bowls at a cool little Mexican shop not far from here and then didn't have it used for decorative bowls. So I bought potpourri and I've never felt so grown up. Good grief. Yeah. Dective bowls of potpourri.

I hate that. Oh, thanks. No, just potpourri in general. It never smells like it should after the first week. That makes me so sad. Yeah. I mean, I haven't bought anymore since I've thrown it out. It was specifically Christmas potpourri.

Yeah. Oh, it was. Okay. Well, that works then. Yeah. Seemed potpourri. But yeah, I bought some really nice like vanilla-y stuff and it made the room smell nice for like three days

and then nothing. Yeah. Physics, eh? Chemistry. Chemistry or whatever. Yeah. It's nice stuff. It's nice.

If you get nice stuff, it's nice. Hot controversial take from Francine over here. Fuck me. Jesus. Glad you tuned in today, listeners. That is, I might need to lie down after that one. Okay. So, onto little bits we liked.

Obviously, collating some of the little references to Discworld and other proto-Discworld references. Obviously, we've got the fact that it's Hogs Watch Night. Yep. And clutches are doing their thing. Anything we didn't have in the last one? The bureaucracy around assassination. Yeah.

It turns out Asimand has tried to arrange his own assassination attempt and there's a whole weird little plot line. Yeah. But the fact that he has registered it with a group of assassins and there was paperwork, it's all very proto-assassin's guild. Yeah, for sure.

And then a reference to something non-Discworld, Isaac is, and this is on the blurb, we never actually read the blurb on the back of the book, has Man Friday circuitry. Yeah. Which is a reference to Robinson Crusoe. There's also a few notes about things like the naked son I think got mentioned, which sounds a bit

asimov-y. Yeah, I think that one was. Yeah. I mean, the Man Friday thing is actually super problematic, messy and gross. I haven't read Robinson Crusoe since I was a little child, so I have no idea. It's very obvious time.

I'll link to the wiki thing in the show notes about it. Okay. Let's all stick to reading cast away and drawing faces on footballs, which I'm sure is fine. Yes. Reading cast away, watching cast away. Watching cast away. Bear in mind, my main knowledge of Robinson Crusoe is

that I was in a Panto version of it a few years ago. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, no, I did see that. Yeah. I think we all tried to block that from our memory. Yeah. I'm a six for eight dame in a coconut bra.

Yeah. Anyway. Anyway. This isn't a little bit I like. This is a little bit I noticed because this is something I have started noticing in books since actually a huge pet peeve of mine, which is starting a chapter with a character waking up.

Okay. You don't like that? I don't because it's really overused and it's a bit of was it overused in 1976? Possibly not. Do I mean 76? When did this come out again? 76.

Yeah, good. Oh, well done me. Excellent. It was written in 74. It possibly was. Well, it is an old thing and it is, it's a newer writer thing and it's a lazy thing. But is it part of the pastiche?

I don't think it is. I think it's just not great writing. I feel so bad saying that about a Terry Broucher book, but like it's an early one. It's like his second novel. So I feel I'm not. See, when I saw you'd written this in the plan, I thought it was going to be a little nod to the fact that it was quite

funny because he was knocked unconscious this many times that it's always starting with a, I think that's part of why it bugs me because like if someone actually got knocked unconscious that often they'd have serious brain damage. Well, if someone actually got blown to smithereens by a space age gun, they wouldn't be able to be grown back by Goo Goo Joanna.

Yeah. All right. Fine. So three out of 11. And I think that's the weirdest medical miracle of this book. No, it is funny. It just, I don't know. I started noticing it in because Jenny trout pointed out in

her 50 shades of gray recaps because like almost every chapter starts with the main character waking up. Okay. Well, this just in EL James copied Terry Broucher. Yeah. Is that her name? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Scumbag. Yes. Anyway. Yeah. That was just the thing I noticed jargon. Yeah. Oh, that's me.

I, I like that. Where is it? Where is it? To me, it sounds like jargon. Dargon. Nonsense. In, uh, Saudi Miss tradition, God invented it for stall the first attempt at interstellar travel to prevent scientists

from understanding each other. You understand. Which I quite like as a concept that some higher being is making us all really prone to talking about like science or law or whatever talk. Yeah. My recommendation of the week is check out the campaign's plain English.

I'll link it. Excellent. Otherwise we'll never make it into space. Within lawyer speak, I very much support the campaign for plain English. Having had to fill out paperwork in the last week. Yeah. Having had to trans not translate edit a lot of columns and

articles written by lawyers. It's a matter close to my heart. Yes. Robots argument was another fun bit. Was this when Isaac was facing off? Yeah. Yeah. I just, um, it's quite funny following on from the jargon.

Actually, I wrote those down at very different times, but the, um, the class three robots basically going on about, uh, I perceive a possibility of an immediate chronological sequence of events, which includes a violence. I express preference for a chronological sequence of events, which precludes a violence, just their entire like argument slash threat exchange is very clinical. It is.

And it's somehow emotional. Yeah. It is sweet. I feel bad for the poor class three robots. It's very, um, silly henchman. It's a bit, um, it reads a bit future armor. You know, the, the mom character. Yes.

The mom character being the mom like dad burn them. Yeah. Uh, the whole little bit was quite sweet. Yeah. Um, the play, the play, I thought you might have a, thought you might have something to say about the play. Uh, so it's a skit on current earth outer worlds politics, uh, written in early Greek style, which meant they're all

wearing masks and the coat, the chorus was robotic. I'm not sure if they were actually robots or if Terry Pratchett's just a theater critic. Um, and the chorus at one point sounds Brekker, Keke, Kex, coax, coaxial. I don't know. They were robots. I don't know a lot about early Greek.

This are apart from the research I did when we were talking about, uh, philosophers back in pyramids. Yeah. We're not. There was some philosophers in that. Yeah. Bloody lurking philosophers and loincloths. Uh, I don't think there's a lot of loincloths in the play.

Um, although I don't know, giant wing sandals and the. No. Carrot. Okay. Fine. Finish your first thought. Stop going off on this. This is, I had to look at annotated Pratchett to see what

this is from. And it's Aristophan, the frogs, the chorus makes similar weird noises at various points. Uh, so this is a old, old Greek play, which apparently in Sondheim did a musical version of that Meryl Streep was in. Right. Yes. Obviously.

Actually, let's seek that out. I'm just making fun in my head and then realize that sounds amazing. Let's. Part of me wants to seek it out. Part of me thinks it can't match up to my mental image of Meryl Streep in a giant frog costume because I'm not entirely. I'll let you know. I think it was like performed in a swimming pool or something.

Aristophan is the frogs Sondheim. That will make no sense to me when I read it tomorrow. Okay. I'll remind you. And then one of my favorite bits is, um, there's a line where Isaac says something along the lines of born of the sun, they headed to the sun. Okay. And it's, uh, and it's, you know, he, it says he's misquoting something.

Uh, but I hadn't heard that line. So I looked up the poem. It's from, it's a poem called the truly great by Steven Spender, who's contemporary of sorts of Alden and that 1940s Oxford poets. All right. So it's not something I get now, but I think it might have been more in the public consciousness in the seventies when this came out, like it would have been a more well-known poem.

Okay. Uh, and if you don't mind, I'm going to read it because it's a beautiful poem. We've had a poetry reading for a while. No, we haven't. Apart from the haiku a minute ago for that. It was over too quickly. Uh, I think continually, I think continually of those who were truly great, who from the womb remembered the soul's history through corridors of

light where the hours are suns, endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition was that their lips still touched with fire should tell of the spirit clothed from head to foot in song and who hoarded from the spring branches, the desires falling across their bodies like blossoms. What is precious is never to forget the essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs breaking through rocks and worlds before our earth. Never to deny its pleasure in the morning, simple light nor its grave evening demand for love.

Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother with noise and fog the flowering of the spirit. Near the snow, near the snut sun in the highest fields. See how these names are faded by the waving grass and by the streamers of white cloud and whispers of wind in the listening sky. The names of those who in their lives fought for life, who wore at their hearts the fire center. Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun and left the

vivid air signed with their honour. Cool. Isn't that a great poem? That's good, isn't it? Yeah. Was it called again? Just called Born of the Sun? No, it is called the Truly Great.

Truly Great. That was another one I looked up in Annotated Pratshit which refers to it as I think continually, but I think that's just because that's the opening line. Yeah, awesome. And I will link to it in the show notes as well. But it's lovely because it's so thematic of the book itself. Yes. This idea of searching and not being bogged down with sort of gross

humanity but continuing to look for something higher. Yeah. Yes, you can, I wonder if that's one of his favourites that he had in mind throughout or whether he found it. And it was like, ooh, this matches. Like I said, I think it would have existed more as a well-known poem in the public consciousness than it does now. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The scary thought that this book came out nearly 50 years ago. That's okay, we don't need to think about that. I'd prefer not to think about time at all. Let's think about, we're onto the bigger stuff now, types of life and sentience. Yeah, I mean, I think we've covered quite a lot of this as we've gone. For such a short book, I think it did a really good job of talking about

one of my favourite sci-fi things that I said last week, which is the idea that we can't really conceive of the different forms of life that might exist. Yeah. And it's one of those things that your brain kind of butts up against, but it doesn't annoy me in the same way that, like, say, advanced maths or physics does. If I get to a concept, I just can't understand, like, ah, brain gears grinding.

Whereas this, I'm like reaching the edge and looking out over an ocean kind of thing instead of hitting a wall. Yeah, you can sort of accept that you don't know. It's really pleasing, yeah. Yeah. And the quote I chose was kind of like that. And just, I don't know, just the grandness of it all, really. I very much enjoy.

Also, I have a tip of my brain request from listeners, who I assume we've got quite a lot of sci-fi fans. If anyone can remember, which sci-fi book starts out with, like, this epic battle between the very first beings, which turn out to be like light and dark matter or something like that. And there's this whole thing, and it turns out it all happened within a millisecond or something like that. I've read this maybe 10 years, and I cannot, I don't know enough to

search it on Google or anything. I really want to reread that book, so. But yeah. Thank you. The idea that sentience and life can hide in ways that we couldn't even understand is also a bit scary in the way that perhaps we're trampling or destroying it. Yeah.

Without knowing. Like, you know, one day the mushrooms will probably rise and kill us all, kind of thing. Yeah. Okay, existing as an excellent form of life. Well, that kind of ties into one of my bigger things, which was this fear around it. Yeah.

Which is a very human thing. Like, the whole motivation for the Joker Institute is not finding the Jokers, because what if they subjugate us? Yes. And this idea of, and it's a fear that comes from not being able to conceive of it, I think. Yes. Like, where people tend to build fear, it's quite often around the

unknown. There's a really good little bit. This is like meant to be one of the quotes from Charles Subblina. They should not exist. They're theoretically possible, but so is balancing a needle on the end of a hair. Faced with something like the chain stars, a man must either bow the knee or get getting worried.

Yes, that was a good quote. And I think that's, that's the thing that pervades the book, the reservation of bowing the knee or getting good and worried. This idea of there is something so outside our understanding, potentially, that we can't comprehend it. And if we did, that could be a massive problem. Yeah. Yeah.

Do you, do you agree with the general theory there that if, for instance, in all our current world, if, if we could know that God existed, that would fuck up every religious person's day? That would depend on the nature of God. Oh, no. Let's get into the big stuff. No, I was talking about atheism with a friend the other day, because I was talking about the fact that atheism can be very

different, depending on whether you come to it from a secular background or a faithful background. Yeah. There's a difference between never having had faith and having had faith and lost it. Yeah. And I'll be talking about that a lot more next month when we talk about small gods.

Oh, good. But he sort of pointed me up when I called myself an atheist very determinedly. I'm not sure I'd call myself an atheist because you can't really fucking know 100%. Yeah. And to clarify, when I call myself an atheist, I mean, I don't follow theism.

I don't believe in any organized religions. That doesn't mean I don't believe that there couldn't be a consciousness operating outside of our universe bigger than I can comprehend. Yeah. Because you can't know. Yeah. I think both of our belief systems kind of add up to a cosmic shrug,

don't they? Effectively. Maybe. I don't know. But yeah. But this idea of it fucking humanity up, that depends. I mean, if you mean a god in the traditional Christian sense of a big, beardy man in the sky wagging his finger at you saying,

don't do what you want. Yeah. And then the concept, it's the concept of punishment and retribution that I think humanity fears and would deal with the most. Well, I think it would be worse for humanity to find an indifferent god than to find a... It would definitely be worth for that subset of humanity,

wouldn't it? Yeah. Like personally, I'd be like, oh yeah, that's kind of a relief. This is where it would be really handy if I could still remember word for word the whole, I believe, speech from American gods, which is... I mean, we don't have time for that, Joanna. I'm sorry. Yeah, no, I know.

We'll link it. I imagine there's not many, but if any of our listeners haven't read American gods, there's a wonderful speech where a character just depicts everything she believes in and it is everything. And one of the things she said is, I believe in a personal god who cares about everything you do. And I believe in an impersonal god who made the universe and then buggered off to hang out with her mates.

Yeah. It's not at all spoilery, so I'll link the whole speech somewhere. Yeah, we'll pop that in the show notes. And then the power of belief links into that, obviously. Yeah. Well, this is, once again, it's an underlying theme in the book that... It does tie in well with our next Discworld, doesn't it? Well, it ties in with Discworld in general.

The amount of times I put power of belief as a talking point. Yeah. Because it's something Pritchett comes back to you over and over again and writes it really well, and it really fascinates me as one of us who had the faith and then lost it. It's probably down the back of the side somewhere. Used to go to church? Oh, yeah, I suppose.

I used to go to a Christian youth group. I think I tried to force faith upon myself, and I never really got the hang of it. I wanted to believe and never did. Whereas I sort of automatically had it, and then suddenly it buggered up. Well, not suddenly, but it buggered off. Yeah.

But there's a few things around this idea of belief that really fascinate me in this book, one of which is this idea of is life actually essential to the universe? Yeah. Which, if I can find the relevant page, Dom says, we're so used to the idea of life as an essential part of the universe. Even in pre-sad times, we peopled our stars with imaginary beings and kidded ourselves that life off Earth was an odds-on chance

because we didn't want to be alone. Yeah. And Hirsch says, well, nor did the jokers, but in their case, they altered chances. The jokers gave the opportunity for life to exist, and that's... Maybe our future as a race. Yeah. Life shouldn't necessarily exist. That sounds much more depressing than I mean it to,

but I mean, it's not a given. Earth is in this Goldilocks zone, and everything happened to mean we ended up now able to sit on our sofas with microphones and webcams having this conversation about a 50-year-old book on Zoom. Yeah. Yeah. Like, it's luck. Yeah.

It is sheer luck. I try not to think about that too often because it's another concept that makes my brain go, ooh. Luck. Yeah. Not luck, but the luck of human existence. Yeah. Coming from nothing.

It's one of those things that usually comes at you from a hippie-dippy, this will cure your depression, haha. Oh, yes, you're actually such a small... Which is always annoying, but then if you try and think about it, like in your own confined headspace, it can be a bit less annoying. Yeah, it's the galaxy song from Monty Python thing. Remember how unlikely is your birth? That is the attitude I like to come into existentialism with.

Yes, positive existentialism. And then there's this idea of are people actually better off without gods or without some kind of higher power? And this is this argument of the Joker Institute fears the jokers. Yeah. Because I think you have some idea that men are better off without gods. And this is against all belief because the Joker are artifacts of what allowed these different races to communicate with each other and eventually travel

to each other and become not a utopia, but they're not at war with each other. Yeah, yeah. I think perhaps he's saying that we're better off with the concept or the possibility of gods, but not with the actual thing. Yeah, no, I think that's the argument. Yeah, which is a fair point if we go back to pyramids, for instance, to oversimplify it somewhat. The idea of gods was definitely better than the real things trampling through the street

and trying to steal the sun on each other. But it comes down to this really early perhaps you believe idea of you stop believing in it when it becomes real because you don't believe in the sun, it's just there. Yeah. Although a lot of people do believe in the sun, of course. Well, yes. But you don't believe in something that this is something that comes up in this microphone.

Yeah. This is something that comes up with, I know there's a conversation with Granny. Oh, there's a conversation in which is abroad, actually, which is, which is don't believe in gods because they know all about them and know they're there. There's no, it's not worth believing in them. Yeah. And that's the idea here of the Joker's a better off as a figurative concept than because if they just exist, you don't believe in them.

They're just there. They can't stand for what you need them to stand for. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yes. No, I get where you're coming from. Yeah.

And I think that's one of the big questions. I agree. Possibly. Yes. I don't come down particularly either way on it. I just think it's an interesting question that raises. The Joker's kind of are the example of the race that didn't have that. Yeah.

So they had to build it for themselves. Yeah. And one could argue that they did okay. I guess. I don't know. It's hard to say whether they had a happy ending or not, isn't it? Because I know it's such a short book. You can't say how their civilization was like clearly went on for a long time.

They had to rebuild a lot of planets. They'd gone through the kind of cycle we are going through and maybe, yeah, I don't know. And then there's this whole dimension multiverse thing that's going on that's never really fully explored because, you know, it's a short pasty book. But yeah, I may be thinking too far into this melting my brain. Well, this is what I love so much about this book. And I think it's unfair to say I wasn't expecting to enjoy it. Yeah.

But I wasn't expecting. I expected a short, silly sci-fi book. I wasn't expecting huge questions about the nature of the universe, belief, God's probability. Prattie does it again. And he delivers all of that in a few hundred pages. And I think it's such an amazing example of the potential he had and why Discworld is so great because Discworld gives him 41 books to explore these ideas. Yes.

Yeah. I'm not saying we'll eventually solve all problems of the universe by reading the Discworld series. I'm not saying that. But I'm not not saying that. Okay. So stick with the podcast and you'll find out. Spoiler's darling.

What is it? The Doctor? Spoiler's sweetie. Spoiler's sweetie. Sorry. Hoolockians. I'm really sad that I learnt that term. Super Hoolockians.

Yeah. Francine, do you have an obscure reference finial for me? I do. What page did I say it was on? Sorry. Everything's covered in mud now. Oh, page 153. Oh, I've got a post in it.

There we go. Right. If I did manage to cut that out properly listeners, I'm sounding confused now because my dog just came back from a walk and trampled all over all of my notes. Yes. For no known reason, questions relating to Joker's world usually became nonsense when rendered into PMath. But it was possible, just possible, to make up an equation from the outlines around the

logical holes, which made me think of how we know black holes are there. So these are like a black holes in probability math because by nature, because they're sucking everything in, black holes don't emit anything apart from hypothetically some things. Stephen Hawking theorized science. So astrophysicists who are working out where black holes are have to look at the stuff around the edge and like the gravitational influence and things like that. So like this whole probability math working out where Joker's things are reminded me of how you find out where black holes are and general things like all of our astrophysics,

for Rod and me, not astrology, need to be very careful of stuff. Once you get past a certain point relies on clues rather than direct observation. And it's very interesting and difficult to even try and summarize field, but I will try and find a cool article on it and link it for you. Not that I could be qualified to summarize it, obviously, but I mean, the things I've learned are cool and would be hard to summarize, so I will. And if we've got any astrophysicists in our listeners, then who have thoughts on it? In our listeners.

In our listeners shift. Then please get out of them. I've exorcised enough physicists this week. If we have any astrophysicists listening, please get out of our listeners. Then send replies in the clues around a black hole's gravitational field. Yeah, we'll find them. Yeah. We'll find them.

100% find them. Or a postcard. Look, if I start looking for things around the edges of an absence of stuff I've done, I'll find a lot of things. Oh, this is the whole concept we should explore in a horrible way, yes. Oh, look, the absence of my productivity. It's by the recycling bin that has not been emptied. Oh, it all gets a bit Sherlock.

All right. All right. On that note, I think we'd really better go away. Yeah, probably. So thank you for listening to our discussion of the dark side of the sun. It was really very good of you. It was very nice of you. Obviously, as we've only done two episodes on this, we are going to come back to you

with some bonus content later this month. I can't guarantee it'll definitely be next week. I thought what might be fun is if we did one of our Q&As, but like an existential addition because of this. Like, so we were doing really trivial questions last time, but I'll make another one of those question generators and be shit like religious and religion and dimensions. And yeah. So yeah, we're going to resurrect.

The thing we did is our very first lockdown bonus episode. Now we're in lockdown three and do another Q&A session with each other. But if you've got any questions for us, do you get in touch and ask them? Yeah. And we will answer them. They don't have to be existential. I'm not married to this idea. Ask us questions of any nature, existential or otherwise.

Yes. Yes, we have more listeners than we did last time, so there's a chance of questions coming in. Yes. And then we'll be back in February to talk about small gods. Yes. And before the end of the month. Big concepts.

Before the end of the month, we will have a schedule up so you know what we'll be talking about, which month for the rest of the year. Big commitment. Big talk there from Joanne. I promise. She'll find that envelope. Considering we spent literally no time together, we spend too much time together. We are never not texting each other.

It's true. We are in constant communication. So if you'd like to get in touch with questions, queries, thoughts, castles, snacks and albatrosses, you can follow us on Instagram at the true show, Mickey Fratt on Twitter at Mickey Fratt pod on Facebook at the true show, Mickey Fratt. You can join our subreddit community, r slash t t s m y f. And you can email us the true show, Mickey Fratt pod at gmail.com. But you can ascertain our whereabouts by looking at the gravitational fall in the

absence of electromagnetic radiation. We're not black holes, Francine. All right, email might be easier. Yeah. And in the meantime, dear listeners, don't let us detain you. Hello, darling. Oh, hello. Oh, puppy.

So muddy all on my show plan. Oh, hello. Oh, so might be mad on the fainting. Well, lucky I didn't want that one. Oh, dear. Oh, we'll give it a second. Can we please make a gif of just you having a puppy launched at you? Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry.