TrueLife - David Walton - Phenomenal Sci-Fi

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/David Walton, is in my opinion, one of the very best science fiction writers alive today. Winner of the Hugo award, The Philip K. Dick award, and always operating on the edge of what is imaginable. I highly recommend all of his books which you can find by visiting his site. (Linked Below)Today we talk about the newest edition to his stable of winners. The first in a trilogy, “Living Memory.”https://davidwaltonfiction.com/ One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Heiress through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. For those who may not know, the incredible author David Walton, sometimes described as the heir to Michael Crichton, has written several incredible books that I have found to be, I'm not sure there's a better word than incredible that can describe some of your work. So for those of the people that may not know you, David, would you be so kind as to maybe introduce yourself?

Sure. I'm David Walton. I've been writing science fiction for a while now. I guess about 20 plus years, 25 years, something like that. And in the more recent half of that, have about eight novels that I have out. The latest one is living memory. I've won the Philip K. Dick Award and the Campbell Award for my novels, as well as an award from the National Space Society for short fiction, and have had the incredible privilege of getting to meet a lot of different authors

that I read when I was young and have experienced a lot of exciting things as part of my writing career. It's been arrived. Man, that's so amazing. Just so everybody can see, this is the newest book. It's called Living Memory by David Walton, and it's the first book in a trilogy.

Before we get into the book, I have always learned that the best place to start seems to be at the beginning. So let's do that. What was it that inspired you to become a science fiction writer? Well, I had probably the thing that kicked it off was I had a friend in college who was trying to write science fiction. He was writing short stories and sending them off to Asimovs and fantasy and science fiction and all

kinds of different magazines and getting them all rejected. And I thought that looks like fun. So I started writing short stories myself and sending them off to magazines to get them all rejected. And it took a little while but, you know, before I actually, you know, got my my first sale. But yeah, I mean, I love reading science fiction. I read a tremendous amount in the genre and it's just an exciting genre to write in because, you know, anything is possible. And you can let your ideas and your imagination run wild. Yeah, that's so true. It's so great to hear, like, I'm not happy that you failed in the beginning, but it's nice to hear someone successful talking about they had failures in the beginning because so often, by the time your work gets published

and you have, you know, a series of winds beneath your belt. It seems to the common person like, oh, this person is just gifted or this person just has everything. So it's nice to get to hear the backstory of how you got to be where you were. So thanks for sharing that. You know, I recently heard a pretty good quote, and I wanted to get your opinion on it. It said that the, the, this particular gentleman was saying that he believes science fiction is the true literature of the 20th. century. What do you think about that quote? Well, it's obviously a one biased toward science fiction. So, you know, there'd certainly be plenty of people who would say there's more illiterature than just

science fiction. And, of course, I would have to agree with that. But I mean, I think the reason that one would say something like that is because a lot of the experiences that people have in life in the 20th and 21st century have to do with the impact of technology on their lives and how, you know, each generation is experiencing things that are radically different than the generation before, which, of course, for, you know, a lot of history was not the case. Your new generation was doing the exact same thing that the old generation does, and well, now that has changed in some drastic ways, and everybody in their lifetime sees technology change culture,

change their own personal lives, change how they interact with people in their lives, what jobs are available, all of those things in the course of their lifetime changed dramatically. And so science fiction is a literature that helps people think about that and come to terms with that and understand what life is like in that kind of context. Yeah, that's a great way to put it. I'm glad you said it like that. I, it's very interesting to think about the rate of change in which we live today. And then if you want to go off on and have an awesome thought experiment, to think about how

science fiction has inspired that. Sometimes I don't know which one is pushing one. Is imagination pushing science fiction? Or is science fiction pushing imagination? What do you think about that? Well, I mean, it seems like those two things are very intertwined. One thing that I do find interesting is the degree to which people in various technology fields, whether it's people in the government who are investing in technology or people working for big tech firms,

or whatever it is, you know, scientists working in a lab are informed in their ideas of what is possible and what we might strive for as human beings, based on the science fiction that they've read and a lot of the ideas that science fiction have put forth, they use those terms, those ideas for, you know, thinking doesn't mean that everything in science fiction is possible or is where we're actually going, but people use that as a structure for considering

what might we really invent or where might we go as a, you know, populace. Yeah, that's great to think about it. It kind of goes hand in hand with people's professions as well as their passions, if you think about it from that angle. Like I can see how someone may be in an incredibly progressive scientific field and also have an incredible imagination. I'm wondering, you know, as I was reading your book, I wanted to tell you that I really admire the structure of not only living memory, but all the books you write. It seems to me, and I have, this is my opinion, I've found that the, there's almost like an effortless flow from narration to dialogue. You know, there's like this, this awesome narration part, and then it goes right into the people talking. And it's, it's this effortless structure that allows me to almost feel like I'm there.

It really helps with my ability to imagine the way you've laid it out. And I'm curious if that was a trial and error or how you, how you're going to. grasp of language to get there. How did you do that? Well, I'm glad you, I'm glad you like it. I'm glad it works for you. It was a lot of work. I told you how often I was rejected early on. And there's certainly a lot, you know, even if you grow up and you're, you know, writing a lot of essays in school or whatever, so you feel like, well, I have command of the English language, there is a lot of thought into how do you put together a story and how do you, as you say, how does dialogue work with narrative and how do you use suspense to make a story flow and what do you

reveal early and what do you reveal late and how do you reveal it? You know, there's just a lot of craft to be studied and learned and, you know, I read a lot of books and, you know, with the eye of, There gets to be a point where when you're really trying to learn, where you can't just read a book or a short story and just enjoy it as it is. You're picking it apart. You're studying. You're saying, how did they do that? Why did they choose that? Why did they do it that way? Read books that other people wrote on how to write well and was part of a writer's group and constantly trading criticism and stuff like that. So there were early years there where I was just really working hard on my craft. that bar of getting rejected or accepted to things is, you know, I guess for some people, it's maybe not very motivating because you're like, I'm not doing that. I just get rejected all the time. But if you're, if that's what you want to do, it is a motivator towards trying to refine your craft and make it work, make it work well for the markets that you're trying to reach and the readership that you're trying to reach. So, so yeah, it's a lot of,

lot of work to get there. And, you know, people have different styles that they like. So my style isn't going to be for everybody. But I'm glad it works for you. Yeah, I think it works for a lot of people. I mean, I think I'm hopeful that people will see this interview, but I'm more hopeful that people will pick up your book and really get to see what I saw in there. I'm curious. You had said that, you know, one of the reasons why you were able to do this was because of your ability to be persistent. Is that something that you, is that a quality you have in your life with other things that you do? Is it permeate all of David Walton's persistence? I think it is. Yeah. I mean, you know, when I think of what it takes to succeed at a lot of things, I think persistence,

you know, a combination of persistence and luck is probably, you know, a lot of what it takes. you know, whatever it is that you, you know, set your sights on doing, the, you know, there are obviously people who they just do it the first time and they have a tremendous amount of luck and thus they don't need the persistence. But if that's your, if that's your business plan, or if that's your plan for life is, I'm going to be lucky, you know, I'm going to win the lottery, then that's not a very good plan and it's not probably going to work out for you, even though it occasionally works that for some people. For most people, it takes persistence. It takes doing it again and again

and learning from what you can learn from in terms of refining and getting better at it. And, you know, yeah, if I were going to, you know, give advice to people who are just starting to get into this business, say it takes persistence. Expect that. You know, don't expect to be a bestseller out of the gate. Sure, it's possible. But it's not likely. If you want it, persist at it. Yeah. I wonder sometimes when I read the authors, I begin listening to their story, and it makes me think of their story. So that's why I had asked that question.

Was one of your parents super imaginative? Or do you think that maybe you got some genes from your parents to help you make you this way? Or is it genetic? Or what's going on there? Yeah. I don't know that I have a good answer to that question. There are certainly some things that I can see coming from my parents, but I don't really think that's one of them. So I don't know where that creative storytelling urge comes from.

I will give this. I did certainly grow up in a house where reading was greatly appreciated and books were appreciated. So it was a culture of reading. I read at a young age. I read a lot. We went to the library all the time. So in terms of loving books and loving storytelling, that is something that I grew up with and came from my upbringing. That's so awesome to hear. In my house, I always tell my daughter, readers or leaders? You know, and if we can look back to like the Homeric verse, as we see this culture of storytelling. And if you look at other places around the world, like that's, that was one of the great things people would get together. And I always love going camping and someone would read a story or even being a kid and getting a bedtime story. This idea of the story seems to be something that's ingrained in all of us. And a good story is very hard for us to turn away from. And so I'm just super thankful that you've continued this, you know, this legacy of storytelling because it's so amazing to me. And I think a lot of people are going to love this first book of the trilogy, Living Memory, right here. So I was curious, if you could

maybe talk a little bit about how, what does it look like from a blank sheet of paper before you start getting into the book? Yeah. So, I mean, you're going to get a different answer from different authors, you know, for that. But for me, a lot of it always starts with the science that I am infused about. So you can kind of see if you look through some of my books. You know, I got into quantum physics and I thought quantum physics was really cool. And so I, so I wrote superposition because it made my mind explode with all kinds of ideas of, you know, what was possible there. And, you know, I started, you know, reading about mycology, the study of fungus. It was like, wow, you know, fungus is, you know, you just think of like athletes foot or something, but,

or the mold on your shower. But, you know, fungus is actually this, you know, really fascinating, a very wide variety of species that do all sorts of different things. And so I wrote The Genius Play because I got to do that. So for me, a lot of times it's a science or a technology that I get very interested in. And then I'm almost doing the research without it being research yet because I'm just reading a lot about that topic, getting excited about it, having my mind stretched in various ways, and then story ideas. start to pop out from that. And, you know, when I start in with the actual narrative, I already have

my brain crammed full of all sorts of, you know, cool ideas about that topic. Yeah. In this particular book, I really enjoy the way you kind of tied in some of today's sort of headlines or the way society is moving today, at least in some ways. And I thought that that was a cool thing. Do you use that same method for writing a book as character development and issues in the book? I'm sorry, I didn't quite follow the question. Okay. So in this book, I really admired the way in which some of society's things that are happening today. Like, it seems today that we are working away from masculinity. in today's society. One could make that argument. And in this, in the new book that I was reading,

it seems like maybe that might be weaved into the storyline there a little bit. Was that like a conscious process or do you take things that are happening in today's society and put them into the book to kind of put your own spin on them? Well, I mean, I certainly want the, the things that are happening in the book to be relevant to people and in some way speak to, you know, you know, we talk about the difference that, you know, some people call fiction lying for a living. And I don't really like that. You know, it's kind of funny. And I understand why people say that because it's kind of fun to say. But I think that, you know, fiction ought to be telling truth. You know, fiction, even though the events that it talks about are not actually, you know, true things that happened. the things that it tells us about ourselves, about our world, about how it works when we say, you know, this is how people would react in this situation. This is how countries or governments or society would react in this situation to this technology or this situation. You know, if we're doing our jobs well, it ought to be true. It ought to reflect true things about human beings, about the human condition, about how our world is structured and how it changes and how it works.

so that we are actually, you know, learning things by thinking about the implications of these, you know, what if scenarios in science fiction because they are in some ways true. I like that answer, right? And now that I, now that I hear you say that I can, it's like, it's like seeing a magic trick. You know, if I do a magic trick, you look at me and be like, wow, I was a cool magic trick. But if I show you how that magic trick's done, you have a better understanding of what's really happening. And now that I get to hear your answer, it does. does reveal to me the truths in all your books. They're really true to the nature of what's going on in the world.

I admire that. Thanks for sharing that story with that. It's always awesome for me to get to talk to an author and get to understand how they think so that I can add another dimension to how I read their book. And I hope other people can do that as well. Thanks for sharing that. I really enjoyed it. So as you spoke earlier, the science and the things that you're into inspire the book.

So it seems to me, if we follow that logic, you've been into dinosaurs lately. Yes, that's a good, a reasonable conclusion, yeah. I mean, there's a sense in which I've been into dinosaurs for a long time. You know, when I was a kid, I was the kid who got the books of dinosaurs out from the library and regaled my parents' friends about the, you know, various multisyllabic names and, you know, what era they lived in and various things about them because that was really cool. But yeah, I think dinosaurs are fascinating. I think specifically the process of evolution is fascinating in thinking about how different traits come about

and how species come and go. And certainly there's a lot in this book about the idea of extinction events. and, you know, considering our future as a human race while we look at the, you know, this, the, the, the, the, what happened with the dinosaurs in the Cretaceous and, you know, so, and obviously more to come on that regard as we get into, to books two and three. Yeah. I really admired the way in which the dinosaurs lived in this particular. book. It seemed a lot like a primitive tribe. I don't want to say primitive because they're not really primitive. You know, you could argue that they're more advanced than we are. But I really admired the way in which you stayed true to the, gosh, it's so hard for me to even to say.

Like, I really admire the way in which you created the world they live in. I thought that was an amazing job. And another thing that I thought was. was very original was the way in which they communicated. How did you come upon this idea of the oliphatory sense being this? Obviously, it's tied to memory, but how did you come upon this idea? Yeah. So, you know, in many ways, it's like creating an alien species, right? You know, this is not aliens from another planet.

This is, you know, aliens from our own history. But I'm making them up, you know, they didn't really exist. And so, yeah, part of what you want to do when you're coming up with an alien species, at least as far as I'm concerned, is to think of things that are unique about them that will inform everything that is about them, everything that they do. And so, you know, I've read books like Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time. I don't know if you're familiar with that one, about spider evolution. You know, spiders are left on a planet and they're evolved.

over the course of a long period of time, and then you get this look into, you know, what their culture is like. And it's very spider-like, you know, it incorporates into that culture all sorts of aspects of spider biology that informs then what their culture is like. And so that's part of what I was trying to do here to say, you know, okay, I've got this idea of a species that, you know, communicates through or you know that has a really exceptional sense of smell off the charts sense of smell right which of course there are a lot of species that you know have significantly more sense of smell than humans do that are alive today and and a lot of their interaction is you know much less in the sight and sound world that we tend to inhabit and much more in the chemical world that is you know part of what they're really

good sense of smell is telling them about what the world is constructed at it. And so, you know, I thought, well, an intelligent species that is coming from that kind of perspective, their whole way of interacting, their way of communicating, the technology that they develop, the culture and how it's put together is going to be informed by that very different way of seeing the world because they think from a chemical perspective. And so, you know, technologies that have to do with with chemistry and biology and genetics are going to come more easily to them, be more obvious to them. And technology that, you know, the technology path that we have taken, you know, through iron and bronze and, you know, a lot of those materials that we think of as essential to a modern society, you know, was not something that occurred to them at all or would have been much farther down there. development path because they were, you know, they were dealing with a completely different way of

approaching the world. So, yeah, that was very fun to explore and to tease out what would the implications be of this species where the sense of smell was their primary sense and their primary mode of communication. Yeah, well, it was very fun to read. It shows in there. So thank you. I remember hearing a story a while back that I don't know if it was Terrence McKenna or if it was a lecture of some sort. But in this particular lecture, the professor said, the next time you walk into a crowded room, take a deep breath. And then be conscious of where your eyes go to. Like if you look at a person, maybe that's a person you're attracted to. Maybe it's a person you should be aware of.

But do those two things in combination with each other because the, the, the information we get from smell is very important. And as soon as I read your book, it's like, oh, yeah, I remember hearing this lecture one time. And it just gets me thinking, which great fiction does, like yours, is it gets one thinking about what is possible. And I really began to think about, like, yeah, maybe we're not using our sense of smell that much. Like, what do we really study that sense of smell? If you look at all these other animals that seem to rely on it for a daily use or, you know, I noticed my cat coming up and always smelling and you know we all know the dog smell and it's so amazing to

think about that way how this thing right in front of us could give us so much information but yet i have to read a great fiction book to even see the daily things in front of me there thank you for doing that there have been various studies that people have done with with humans as far as you know can a human follow a trail uh you know like a bloodhound um if if you blindfold them and you you you know, you remove their other senses, but, you know, can they just use the sense of smell and follow it? Or, you know, people who have really themselves worked on their sense of smell, such that, you know, can they find a particular book on the shelf based on how it smells or, you know, things like that?

I've never heard about can people find a book on a shelf like that? How did that study go? People have claimed to be able to do that at any rate. I don't know. I think pheromones, too. I think it's fair to say, that your attraction to someone else can be through the old factory right there. You can be like, hey, this doesn't seem right or whatever. And maybe that's one of those things where you're like, I can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe it's a sense of smell that, you know, even dogs at airports and stuff like that are looking for drugs or it's interesting to think about. And of course, as I suggest in the book, you know, there is certainly a root to the human brain that is through the sense of smell.

that, you know, our brain is, you know, significantly affected by that chemical intake, much as many others in the animal kingdom are, and we don't necessarily think about it or realize it, but when faced with a technology developed by a race where sense of smell is, you know, is dominant, then, you know, we may be susceptible to some of those interactions as well. Yeah. This gets me to this point, like, you know, I was very, rereading the genius plague. And, you know, I'll also reference the, the, the, the, um, chemical quintessence or, I don't know it's not a chemical, but, you know, this idea of quintessence. And it gets me to this idea of alchemy. I see this like all chemical vein running through your

books where like people, this, this lead is being turned into gold. And sometimes it's through a mushroom or sometimes it could be through a different drug. But is that something that you have put into this books, like this little bit of alchemy in there? Or how does that transfer through your work? Yeah, well, I mean, certainly in quintessence, the book quintessence, you know, alchemy is being used as a kind of alternate science. You know, and what I wanted to do in that book,

since it takes place in the 16th century was to say, you know, here are people working, you know, with the early scientific method, coming to grips with, you know, what that as a source of truth and what it shows them and how it challenges their belief systems. But I didn't want it to be where you, as the, you know, modern person in the 21st century, you're like, yeah, yeah, but I know how it really works. Well, no, you don't know how it really works because you're discovering it right along with it. You know, they're using the experimental method to figure it out, but, but you don't know what the result is going to be because it's not how it works for you.

So I was, you know, borrowing from a lot of the ideas of alchemy in terms of, you know, creating that, you know, alternate science concept and how it was going to work in that book. And I guess, you know, when thinking about, you know, all my books or how I approach things, there's, you know, it's not something that I thought of before, like, oh, you know, alchemy isn't all my books. You know, you're bringing that up as a new thought. But I think it certainly is true that, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of of times I'm looking at, you know, maybe not an alternate science exactly, but thinking about how does the, you know, how can I stretch the capabilities of things that are true about, you know, amazing things in the world. How can I pick out those things where you look at that and say, that's amazing, that really works, that really happens that way?

and, you know, kind of stretch that out to be, say, well, how will that affect people? So, you know, in the genius plague, obviously, you have the drug then that is going around because the fungus from the Amazon is influencing people to spread it and to, you know, get it around. And so, you know, just like those ants that are affected by fungus and cause to do things, against their will or even something like rabies. There are things in the world where diseases or fungal infections can affect the brain and can cause specific results that are helpful to the thing that is trying to be spread. And so, you know, you have that fungus.

And then, you know, in the genius plague, it's the chemical that the ancient dinosaur civilization used to record their memories, and yet that chemical, just by the nature of how it works in communicating the sense of smell, can be used in our modern world with humans, not just to communicate those memories, but also to communicate dominance. And so, yeah, there is kind of a recurring idea there, I think, in people taking what is possible and using it, you know, for one thing, for power because people do that. And then also just that idea of a substance that can affect our brains in ways that kind of gets that interesting idea of, you know, who am I really?

I think a lot of my books do that. Who am I really, you know, and what choices are my own? You know, even, you know, superpositioned or supersymmetry you're talking about splitting into two different people. You know, there's the version of me that does this and then there's the version of me that goes off and does something else and and which of them is really me, you know, and am I what I choose? Am I what I, what I, what I eat and drink or smell that, that affects how I feel, you know, if I, if I drink a Coke, I'm, I'm a different person than if I don't,

you know, whatever, whatever it might be. You know, so, so how do I define and get an idea of who I actually am? I think a lot of my books are, are kind of wrestling with that, slippery idea. Yeah, that's a great way to put it. And I do, like I don't, I like to read a lot and a lot of people will follow like the hero's journey or Nietzsche's camel to the child or whatever.

But you have like a distinct set of rules that you follow that are different than that. They may not be the same rules you follow all the time, but it's different than something that's the hero's journey or it's different than something that is, a little bit more cookie cutter. Like I find novelty. I find something new in these books.

And one thing that it seems to me that there's another vein, and maybe this is me just reading into it, but it seems to me that I get this idea like the, there's a communication between the characters and the earth. There's almost like this other language that's being spoken. I don't know if I'm imagining that or, you know, it seems to me that, you know, in genius plague, here's a message from the, like a, like a symbiosis.

between the earth and the people. And I can look at that and see that in real life sometimes. And when I look at living memory, I see this symbiosis between people and creatures, which is just another form of the earth. In your philosophy, do you see there being a language between the earth and the people that we can kind of communicate with each other?

So, interesting, interesting question. So, you know, I guess, I don't necessarily see it exactly how you just described it, but I think a lot of it goes back to that idea of investigating and thinking about who we are. And not just, you know, I described, talked already about, you know, who I am as an individual and the choices that I make and what makes me, me, and what am I responsible to, for. But also, you know, who are we as humans, as a human race? just trying to in various ways poke at and not necessarily answer,

not necessarily trying to answer questions as much as to ask them and to raise thought and say, how are we different from the animals that inhabit the earth around us? If there were animals that were not primates that evolved sapient intelligence, what would they be like and how might they be different than us? To what extent are we influenced by the earth that we live in and the, you know, the, how we evolved in our environment and the things that we have built around us as far as a human culture and the things that we just, you know, live in in terms of the world that we inhabit, all of those are part of what makes us human and asking questions about what, you know, how do we characterize

that. What is that like? Where did we come from? Where are we going? Some of those big questions about the universe. I don't necessarily want my fiction to be answering those questions in any kind of pathways. There aren't easy answers to those questions. But to ask those questions and get people thinking in those ways. I think that's a lot of what I'm trying to do. Yeah. And I think you do it really well. And that's really where the gold is, is getting people to come up with their own answers and inspiring them to use their own imagination, to create their own stories. Because once, it seems like the pebble in the pond, like you've thrown this pebble into the pond and your books are creating this ripple effect that inspire other people to create more fiction and create a better world

that way, you know, and I, I'm real thankful for that. I was just curious, I remember a while back, you and I had shared an email about a mushroom that was actually giving off language. Do you remember that email? It was quite some time ago. Some time ago, mushroom that was giving off language. So I'm not sure I remember exactly what you're talking about, but there are, you know, a number of, when I was in my mushroom phase. Yeah, yeah. In my psychology phase and, you know, all sorts of amazing things.

But yeah, I mean, there are a lot of ways in which you look at a forest ecosystem. And, you know, a lot of it is, you know, undergirded by all of these, you know, the mycelia, the fungus that is underneath the ground, which is really hard for people to study. Like, it's really challenging to get down under that top soil layer and say, just what are they actually doing and trading chemically? But there's a lot of studies that show some pretty significant sophistication of chemical communication, where you have these nets of mycelia that are communicating, you know, hey, this tree over here needs a little more nutrients or moisture and will actually funnel some of those nutrients from, you know, one place in the forest to another place in the forest to help various parts of the forest thrive,

because that in turn helps the fungus itself to thrive and to live and to spread. And there's a back and forth there. You have trees too that are giving, you know, I guess willingly giving up of their own energy that they've gotten from the sun in order to feed that mycelial net in order for their children, the acorns or the seeds or, you know, whatever it is that they drop

to have a, you know, lush place where they can grow and so they can continue their own genetics. And there's a real give and take there that can get very sophisticated and involve communicating across sometimes really long distances in this chemical way that we're only just beginning to understand just the tiniest bit, but that suggests a, you know, a level of problem solving sapiens that, that, you know, is just kind of mind-blowing when you try to apply it to, you know, fungus and trees. And yet really is rather sophisticated and interesting, but, but, you know, completely unlike any kind of, you know, thinking as we think of it, but very complex and interesting. Yeah, that's a great answer. Thank you for that.

Sometimes when I look at the root structure, like you can go outside and just look at any tree or whatever, but sometimes you'll see that root structure and you can see the mycelium that's wrapped around it and kind of helping it provide better connections. And then I've recently looked at some work coming out of John Hopkins where they showed people who are taking mushrooms and an fMRI. And it's so eerily similar to see the way in which the root structure looks like a neural network. And I'm like, wow, maybe the mycelium is working in this. same way. But this brings me to the idea of chemical communication. You know, the, the, the, the, what you just spoke about mycelium act using a chemical communication seems to pop up in the new book Living Memory, which is an amazing book by David Walden. It seems to pop up in that book as well.

So this idea of chemical communication seems to be something that's been on your mind for a, for a little bit now. And how are those two things related between the new book and mycelium? Or are there related at all. Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, I just have my brain and it has the inputs that come into it and, you know, feed my thought process. And so, you know, things that I think are cool and excited are and that I'm excited about, you know, I guess can tend to come back around in different ways. But yeah, it's just, it is interesting to think of, you know, our brains,

in their little box. Our brains live in this little box in the dark, right? Yes. Our brains don't actually, you know, experience anything. We just have these inputs that come into our brain, and it's dark little box that it interprets based on, you know, different things. And those inputs can come in a variety of ways, but, you know, it's not light, it's not sound.

It's not, you know, it's not the, you know, impact of touch with other things. That's not what's coming into the brain. You know, it's those electrical impulses. It's the, you know, chemical interactions of our, you know, flesh that is, you know, what we actually experience, that is an interpretation of what's around us. So, you know, lots of ways for that input to come in. And obviously in the genius plague, I explored that in various ways because you have a, a fungal mediator in there that is influencing how that input is coming in and how it's getting interpreted.

In this case, I'm just thinking of a different species and how they might, you know, interact with their senses in a different way and thus produce a very different brain and a very different way of experiencing the world than we would in their own little brain in its dark little box. Okay, so this makes me think When you say Its own little brain in a dark little box This makes me think of like a computer Like it's not really like

It's its own little brain in a dark little box You know, and I start getting into this idea of like Wow, maybe we're the chemical messenger for the computer You know, have you gone down that rabbit hole Of like this whole scintiate computer thing This whole what did you say? The whole like scintiate computer thing Oh, oh yeah

Well, I mean, that gets us to three laws lethal, which is the book we haven't talked about yet. Right. Let's talk about it. So, yeah, Three Laws Lethal was my previous book from two years ago. And yeah, it is a whole exploration of, you know, obviously a lot of people in the past have done various books thinking about artificial intelligence. And the very title of it, Three Laws Lethal, is a, you know, a reference back to three laws safe, you know, Asimov's Three Laws, and is a interaction with that. And, you know, and the book actually has dozens of references, some obvious and some not so obvious to all sorts of previous science fictional works dealing with the topic. But yeah, I take, I bring my own take to it from, the perspective of, or, you know, the situation of self-driving cars and developing, you know, AI to run self-driving cars and how a mind might be built up in that context, you know, just thinking through like, okay, I don't really think that the computers that, you know,

that I have on my desk or whatever are really in danger of suddenly turning around and, you know, coming alive and talking to me. But if that were to happen, how would it happen? How might that actually in a somewhat realistic way, you know, come to place and, you know, and how might that brain develop? And so a lot of that book is a, you know, as I said with a lot of my books, it's an exploration of who we are, ultimately, but it's an exploration of that through this question of, you know, how realistically might an AI develop.

that it is a person in its own right. Yeah, that was awesome. All of these books, everybody who's listening, you should do yourself a huge favor and just go to David Walton's website and just start picking them all up. You know, maybe every individual will probably have their own favorite.

I'm curious. So before this book came out, Living Memory, you did have three laws lethal. And in between, before this came out, there was this whole idea of the, the Google operator and Lambda. Were you familiar with that when it came out? Did you hear about that news story?

How this gentleman thought, hey, look, here's Lambda. And it is conscious. It is something that is conscious. What was your take on that? Yeah, you're talking about Le Moyne. Yes, yes. Blaine or Blake or I don't remember his first name. Something like that.

Le Moyne, yes. So, yeah, it's pretty interesting. I mean, essentially I think of that as being the Eliza effect, which if you, you know, people know what I'm talking about there, it's, you know, way back in the day with early, you know, what you might call AI, the, you know, the very simple kind of bot that was, you know, essentially just, you know, repeating back what you said in a question like your therapist might do. I'm feeling sad. You're feeling sad? Tell me more. You know, it's essentially the level of interaction that it had. And yet the person who wrote that, um, there was, you know, somebody there, a assistant or somebody, I'm probably, you know, mangling the story somewhat. But, you know, whose name was Eliza, or no, the program was named Eliza, wasn't it?

Anyway, as I said, I'm mangling the story. But the point is the Eliza effect refers to that ability for humans to read into the, you know, to anthropomorphize this thing that they are having a conversation with and, you know, assigned to it a lot more autonomy and intelligence that it in fact actually has because as humans were very good at doing that, whether it be with our pet dogs or with computers. And so, yeah, absolutely, you know, with Lambda and Le Moyne, you know, you read the whole, you know, transcript of his interaction with it. And, you know, from one, from one, you know, on the one side, It's pretty amazing.

I mean, the ability of these, you know, large language AIs to, to come up with very reasonable, believable sounding conversations and put together these responses. It's amazing.

The problem is that, you know, he was getting out of it, what he was putting into it. And if you had instead asked that very same bot, you know, Hey, I was on my spaceship today with my flamingo sidekick and we were, you know, flying around Venus. What, do you remember our experiences with that?

It would have very gladly, you know, gave, given you know, very believable and interesting responses based on all your adventures with your flamingo sidekick in space. It doesn't differentiate. It's just really, really good at putting together language. around the topic that you want to interact with it about. So when it interacted with it about, you know, topics like, you know, self-awareness and God and, you know, what it feels like to be a person, it could respond very convincingly. Yeah.

It was a fascinating time. And it just created so much buzz out there. And I like what you said about people getting out of something, what they put into it. Because I think that's a lot of life. I think that's a lot of the artificial intelligence. And I think that's a lot of relationships and even your job where you get out of what you put into it. But it's a fascinating idea. Another avenue that I think that you've kind of been exploring, at least in some of your tweets and stuff, is this idea of artificially generated artwork.

And that stuff seems pretty amazing. Yeah, it is pretty amazing. And really just, I mean, you look at just a couple years ago and, you know, what was possible was nothing like what is possible. now, it's just exploded and really just this year has exploded in amazing ways, how you can just put in these very simple prompts and get back extraordinary results. Not always the extraordinary results you were exactly looking for, but things that you're like, wow, I wish I was thinking of that, because that's pretty cool. So, yeah, I mean, it's a very interesting and controversial technology, of course,

because there are questions of, you know, is it going to put artists out of business? And, you know, is it truly art? You know, is it, you know, should we be appreciating the results of these, you know, mindless machines that are producing artwork? And, you know, there's a lot of different thoughts. And of course, you know, every technology changes things. It changes how people make their living. and it changes what's possible.

It brings more power to some people like me without our education and without art experience. It gives me more power to create things that I wouldn't otherwise be able to create. On the other hand, it potentially takes away from some people of the living that they can make, creating things that I previously couldn't make, but they could.

So I don't think it would, will eliminate the idea of art because people still are going to appreciate what humans are capable of doing and what humans can communicate through the work that they did. There's a human connection to be made there that people want. On the other hand, there's a lot of commercial art and there's a lot of things that people do with art that they don't care about the connection. They just want the effect. And I think you'll see a lot of that changing as AI art becomes more and more able to fill those needs. Yeah, I agree. It's such a fascinating time to be alive.

And I see it as a tool to be used. And I think it's opened so many doors for so many people to maybe get their first foot through a door of a field they've always wanted to be in, or allow them to see new landscapes, or allows them to explore their own imagination. And I think real, like, I bet you we both know some pretty talented art. And those artists that can draw well or paint well or it's not just that they can do that. It's that they see the world differently. They have a different perspective. So it may take away a little bit, but it's never going to diminish them because those people are gifted in so many ways.

I'm curious, since we're on the topic of AI and stuff, you know, I see this world of, I heard of theory. And I really want to get your opinion on this. So the idea is automation. And people were talking about how automation is this and auto. automation is that. But the theory that I heard is that if you're, if the room you're in, if I took, David, if I took out all the screens in your room, your phone, your computer, your television, that room would look a lot like a room in 1950. So is all this technology that we have, all this technology that we've been promised? Is it a false promise? Is that maybe why we're

at where we're at is that we have bet the farm on technology and it never showed up? It seems like they're always 20 years away. So I'm curious to get your thoughts. on that? Well, I mean, I guess it depends on what you thought you were promised. That's a great answer. If you're still waiting for your flying car to get to work, then, you know, you're still disappointed. But, you know, if what you were looking for was, you know, the promise of being able to ask the device in your pocket for any piece of human knowledge. that you might like to know and have it answer you, you've got that. So, you know, there are, you know, many, many ways in which technology has changed the world, changed human lives and experiences.

And I think basically all technology is dual use in a way. And what I, you know, obviously can have lots of uses. But what I mean by the dual use is, you know, for good or for ill, for, you know, for violent means or for means that accumulate power or for ways that help people and empower people who are powerless, etc., you know, basically every technology is going to, you know, have that change in a way that can be, you know, used for good and ill and will be used for good and ill. You know, it's not like, well, how will we use this technology? Will we only use it for good? Well, no, we will use it for evil as well. We will.

And so, you know, as technology advances, does it make the world better? Well, in some ways it does, and in some ways it doesn't. Does it make human beings better? No, probably not. So, you know, the fact that you've given human beings, you know, individual human beings more power to accomplish things means they can accomplish some amazing. amazing things and have. It also means that they can accomplish some pretty awful things and have and will. So, you know, it's, it's always a, I think it's always a double edged

sword. Okay, staying in that vein, I was, if we, if we reach way back into the, into the phaedrus, into Plato's phaedrus, you know, they talk about language and it be, I think, I'm going to paraphrase this, I'm probably going to butcher it, but it's, I don't know, when do I get to talk to David Walton, so let me just throw this out here. So, you know, I think it was Toth, and he's speaking, Toth is speaking to his mentor or the guy that

is in charge. I know the bitch of death. And he says, Toth, my paragon of inventors, what is it that you bring me? And he says, my lord, I bring you the technology of writing. This particular technology is going to make mankind better than he's ever been before.

For now, he no longer needs to memorize. For now, he no longer needs to go through the hardships of experience. He'll be able to record his thoughts for the previous generations to learn. And the Lord says to Toth, Toth, my paragon of inventors, you are so intelligent. However, the technology that you have created will do the opposite for mankind. It will not make him better. It will make him worse, for he no longer needs to have the experiences. He will forget what he went through and no longer be able to recall why he did the things he did. So the premise of that story is that technology, for everything it gives us, it takes something away, for everything that it makes, something

atrophies. And if you look at the way, I mean, you can see the way in which people from World War I would write letters to their loved ones and have this beautiful flowing handwriting and express themselves. And I think there's something to be said about writing and getting your thoughts on paper that allows you to communicate more effectively. So if we can take this idea, I think even Marshall McLuhan talks about how the printing press may have changed the way people interpret ideas from hot and cold mediums. If you are not, if you have a medium like television that gives you your ideas instead of reading something and interpreting for yourself, these ideas of technology have taken away from mankind in some ways. Do you think that today's

modern computers may be, you've already said that in some way, ways they're good, some ways they're bad, but do you think that maybe we are losing a little bit of what it means to be human by participating so much in the digital world? Yeah, I mean, it's certainly an interesting question and a really big question, and you know, McLuhan certainly had plenty of ideas about technology. But yeah, I mean, I think the question has, the answer has to be, you know, yes and no in a lot of ways, because, you know, there are, you know, yes, absolutely, you know, everything that technology gives us, in a sense, takes away.

Because, you know, if I have the power to do something more easily or more readily or more powerfully or to impact more people, I'm not going to do it the old way anymore. And so I lose my ability to do it the old way. And so the question has to be, well, what was the value of the old way? Because, you know, obviously, you know, if people aren't doing it the old way anymore, it's because they'd rather do it the new way. So, you know, so I don't, you know, yearn to go back to the days when we had to wash our clothes by hand in the river. That is, that's not something that I feel is a lack in my life that is robbing my life of the quality that it could have if I had to, you know, spend a lot of my time, you know, just so. surviving, you know, the fact that a lot of the things that are required to simply survive are

taken care of by a combination of technology and the organization of our civilization, means that I can do things like write books and read them. So, you know, there's a lot of value in those things to say that, you know, we are empowered to be able to choose how we spend our time and what we pour our energies into. And there are still people who, you know, learn to write beautiful, flowery letters by hand. And there are still people who do, you know, exquisite carpentry work, even though, you know, a lot of that is not in demand anymore, or, you know, whatever it is. That's still an option available to you. And many people don't. And so, you know, are there ways in which you say, well, you know, you have this nostalgia of saying,

well, wasn't it better when people, when more people could do this or more people did it that way? And, you know, to a certain extent, it is or was. You know, there is a loss. There is a feeling of, you know, there was a beauty in something, things that's gone. But I think it's also very easy for people to look back and see the beauty and nostalgia and forget about the work and the pain and the hardship and the, you know, the things that you couldn't do. because, you know, you just feel the loss of that thing. But are you actually going to choose to go back and do it that way?

Some people will, but most people won't. Yeah, that's a great answer. It is easy to look back and romanticize that which you have heard about or that which you as an individual look back and think about. And maybe that's what inspires. Maybe that can be used to inspire just as much as it is. to retire the ideas. David, I want to be mindful of your time.

We're coming up on an hour. How are you doing on time? You got some projects you got to talk to, or do you have a little bit more time? I'm enjoying this. Yeah, me too. Okay. We'll keep this dream alive then.

Okay, so who are, if you had to pick between, let's say, Captain Kirk or Captain Picard, who would you pick? Well, I have to start with the heresy that I have never been all that much of a Treki. I have certainly seen plenty of episodes, especially from the older ones, but I've not tracked with all of the newer shows. That hasn't necessarily been my science fiction of choice. But I'd have to say definitely Picard as a character and also as an actor. Just in my thinking, you know, far superior of a character actor and an interesting person. So what I'm hearing is that you're not going to be translating living memory into Clingon anytime soon.

Is that true? Well, it's kind of funny because, I mean, no, not really, but I am friends with Lawrence Stone, who is the founder of the National Klingon Society. I'm probably getting the name wrong. But he is actually behind the translation of quite a few books into Klingon, including his own, but a lot of classic works into Klingon and is the founder of a society of people who have advanced and learned to read

and published Klingon books and all of that. So if I wanted to get it published to get it translated into Klingon, I know the guy I'd talk to. You know, I bet you, I bet if you had a spot on your website where you would for a fee have your books translated into Klingon,

I bet you'd have plenty of people that would say, sign up. I would be one of them just to have it. I'm not even sure I can't. Let me shift gears though and talk about, so crazy. Okay, let me shift gears and talk about the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. You know, there's so much that happened there. And, you know, I am curious as to, you know, when I think of that meteor, for some reason I think of Francis Crick and I think of life itself. I think I must have read this somewhere where, you know, why wouldn't the idea if panspermia happened.

And if it can happen, might it have happened when an asteroid hit our planet? And might, I mean, if I'm going way out on the what if barrel, wouldn't that have been a great time

for this particular piece of DNA or this seed or whatever it was to almost impregnate the mammals of some kind or infect the mammals via a spore or something like that? It kind of seems like it fits. But what's your take on meteors hitting the earth and maybe bringing life

the earth. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's certainly a fun concept to consider. And if you want a good possibility for panspermia, yeah. Fungus is certainly an excellent candidate. Yes. Right? Because, you know, fungal spores are able to survive in quite harsh situations. And in fact, we, you know, there are, I mean, both bacteria and fungal growth that is, you know, on Voyager and, you know, other space trap that we have sent out. So we're generally trying to be as careful as possible to eradicate such things before we send it out because we don't want to be the agents of pan sphermia somewhere else. And, you know, but that, you know, that idea is certainly a possible one. It's certainly, you know, we're, you know, when you come down to it seems like a fairly unlikely one, given the vastness of the galaxy and the distances to be traveled and the amount of life that we have thus far discovered anywhere about our own planet. But, you know, from a scientific standpoint, it is not an impossible concern. And when it's not impossible, that means we can write stories about it, right?

That's right. So we can imagine what would happen if. And that's often a fun thing to do. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. And it just seems that there's something so cyclical about our life, our daily routine in the world we live in. You know, whether it's the Earth spinning around its axis, spinning around the sun, the sun's spinning around the galaxy, the galaxy is spinning around the universe. Like there seems to be this idea of the cycle that permeates not only everything in us, but everything that we do. And if we can, if we just take that particular pattern of cycles and we apply that to, you know, collisions with the earth, it makes me think that this happens quite often, you know, like we probably get hit.

If you look at the moon, if you look at Jupiter, like if you look at all these planets, they're all. pocked. Like, it just seems like we are, at some point in time, going to get hit again. And that's, that's kind of one thing I was thinking about when I read your book. Is that something that you thought about when you were writing the book? Yeah, I mean, there's a fence in which you'd say were due, right? Yeah. For a, for a big impact. But, but yeah, I mean, I think some of what I'm exploring in the trilogy at large. And, you know, just to be clear, there is not an asteroid impact that is, you know,

for going to wipe out humanity in the book. But there's plenty of, plenty of stories that have done that, but, or, you know, had that threat. But the idea of extinction, the idea of, you know, there's something really tragic about the story of the dinosaurs as we look back, because, you know, there's, you know, so many different species and such variety and, you know, such fascinating forms of life. And then so much of it just, you know, gone in an instant. And, you know, to, you know, I kind of upped the tragedy there a little

bit by having, you know, right at the very last sliver of the end of the Cretaceous, which of course they wouldn't have known was the end of the Cretaceous. They have, you know, this burgeoning of intelligence and civilization, and then, you know, it's snuffed out. And so, you know, part of what the book series is doing is considering, you know, that experience and looking back and, you know, kind of experiencing that through the memories and minds of those people. and then having to come to terms with the dangers there are to our own civilization

and thinking of how easily in a sense we could be snuffed out and learning from that experience of theirs in thinking about ourselves. There's certainly a comparison being done. our civilization and theirs in a lot of different ways in the books. Yeah, there really is. And it's really well done. I hope everybody goes and checks it out. I mean, for people who may not have seen the cover here,

it's Living Memory by David O'Alth, and you should check it out. Speaking of catastrophes, speaking of, you know, things that have happened in the past, have you ever given any sort of thought to like the idea of catastrophism, like Charles Hapgood's, the path of the polls, or Emmanuel Velikovsky's ideas about how, you know, we have cycles of cataclysms that happen, and that is kind of the alternative to evolution. An alternative to evolution.

What do you mean by an alternative to evolution? So maybe evolution is not the right word. Like, instead of it being like continental drift, it's this idea that the planet goes through cycles of catastrophic events where, you know, whether we either get, we get hit by, we get hit by a comet or we go through, we go through seasons in the galactic year that have like galactic hurricanes or something like that. Like, you know, doesn't it kind of make sense if we have seasons on our planet, why wouldn't we have seasons as we go through the galactic year? And might, according to, like, God, I hope I don't butcher, but according. I think it was Velikovsky talking about how, you know, we can come into contact with other solar systems that kind of cross the streams or a little bit. And, you know, maybe our solar system was once, you know, a binary star system with Jupiter and Saturday being the suns.

And we came into contact with this solar system. And that's why you see the whole chaos that was there. And it's these kind of catastrophes that shape the planet instead of maybe Charles Darwin's idea. of what shapes the planet? Well, you know, we certainly have, you know, a number of different catastrophes to look back at, some of which we have a pretty good idea of how they happened and some of which we have, you know, less of a clear idea

of, you know, what caused it and how they happened. And, you know, certainly lots of ways in which catastrophe can happen. I guess one of the big unanswered questions, or hard to answer questions is the effect of those catastrophes on life. You know, so, you know, if you just take the end-cretaceous asteroid as an example, you know, it cleared out the non-avian dinosaurs. And after that, you see, you know, mammals coming to the fore and, you know, diversifying, taking up some of those, you know, large land animal niches and creating new niches

and all that kind of development. And so people kind of think of it in a simplistic way as like, you know, okay, the asteroids cleared out the dinosaurs and then the mammals came. But, you know, mammals were living for the entire time that the dinosaurs were alive. Mammals were developing their uniquely mammalian traits. And so, you know, there's some question of, well, what if the asteroid didn't land? You know, would we be, you know, peopled now by tricerastops and Tyrannosaurus?

Well, I mean, those species wouldn't be around anymore. Species don't last that long. You know, would the mammals have, you know, ended up taking the four anyway? And we would just still have a few, you know, dinosaur-descendant species in our zoos, would, you know, and we would just look a little different. or would it be, you know, do catastrophes make a dramatic,

obviously they're dramatic and they make a dramatic change for those particular species living right then? But is that, you know, considering the amount of convergent evolution there is, you know, how many times have hooves developed and flight developed and eyes developed and, you know, like all of the different things that, you know, you see happening again and again, would they just, just happen again in a different way, or do those catastrophes cause, you know, dramatic changes in what would have been? And of course, we can never rewind the clock and see what would have happened.

So we can never really answer that question effectively. But, you know, it's interesting to think about. Yeah, it's super fun. I spend a lot of time just in my own imagination thinking about these things. And, you know, I sometimes I wonder, let me ask you this, do you ever wonder about like the constellations? and like, like, sometimes I think, and maybe this is an overactive imagination, but, you know, when you look at like, the age of Aquarius, there's a lot of literature that talks about the age of Aquarius being a time of floods. And the reason I got to this is that there is a, I don't, I think it was, what is it, A.T. Famenco wrote a series of books called History, Fiction, or Science. And they're really fun to read. And the way he gets to his idea of what happened in the past is by looking at constellations in the past. And he uses biblical text to kind of triangulate where people were telling their story and then what's happening astronomically in the stars.

And he uses this measurement of moon eclipses, particularly parameter D. I guess parameter D is this mathematical problem that says, hey, the moon always has an eclipse every. eight years at this time. How come it didn't happen for 40 years? This is a weird anomaly. And he's like, yeah, it's not really an anomaly. It's just that people didn't record it because this happens more than this is very accurate. You know, when we look at time, here is this thing that always happens.

And so in his books, he talks about the age of Aquarius, like, okay, isn't it an interesting coincidence that here is this constellation of a giant pouring water onto the earth? Doesn't that kind of seem like a flood's coming? Wouldn't that be a great way to tell the people in the future, hey, look up. There's a giant flood coming when this happens. It's the age of Aquarius. And that kind of stuff just gets my imagination running. And it's fun for me to think about.

Have you ever thought about maybe the constellations being signs of what's to come? Well, I can't say that I have. So we'll start with that. Okay. So, you know, that seems to be putting a tremendous amount of knowledge and impressions into the minds of people who came up with the constellations way back. But, I mean, I will give you the interest from a, you know, from a science fictional standpoint of, you know, that idea of, you know, that idea of, you know, passing on these messages to the distant future, you know, and things like that is, is pretty fun.

And there have been some interesting books in the past that have taken that idea. And of course, you know, to some extent, you're referring to living memory because, you know, when it goes back to, you know, the dinosaurs and when Kit is, you know, in this hallucination, it's like, oh, it looks like, you know, the Cretaceous period. and he sees the constellations and he's like, wait. And he goes and looks up and figures out. And he's like, wait, those are actually the constellations from the Cretaceous period. Right, right.

This isn't a hallucination. This is actually a memory, a vision of what it actually looked like then from somebody's perspective. And that's how he can tell that it's what's going on. Yeah, I thought that was fascinating how he was able to go back and then come back and verify by looking at the app. that showed him exactly what it was like that. That's an amazing, that is an amazing sort of way to get the individual involved in it. You know, I admired that part. And there's something to be said about our history with hallucinations.

You know, whether it's the people in times of Greece going to see the muses or people in different states like mystics mystic traditions throughout time. There's something that pulls us in to someone who can see the future. And I like the way in which that the kit was able to do. Was it no, it was pray that was able to do it, right? Well, it was it was Kit that was seeing the past, right? He was inhabiting the memory of Fred. Yeah.

Yeah. Have you ever in any way inhibited the memory of somebody else? I inhabited the memory of somebody else. Like I've got to see from their vision, you know what I mean? Right. Well, I'll, I guess, you know, I take a lot of your questions and I, you know, just tell you what it makes me think of. But, you know, it makes me think of, you know, to a large degree, what the purpose of

fiction is, right? Okay. So, you know, when you're writing fiction, you're more specifically when you're reading fiction, you are inhabiting somebody else's mind. You are being put into the mind and experiences of somebody else, which is something we can't do, right? You know, like I'm always only ever me. I only see things from my perspective.

I only live my life. I only see out of my eyes and experience my own senses. But by reading fiction, I can, you know, for a time, especially if it's, you know, written well, inhabit the senses, the experiences, the thinking, the point of view, of somebody else, which is one of the things, kind of one of the great things that I think fiction brings to the world is that idea to inhabit somebody else's memory

or somebody else's perspective by, you know, and thus being able to understand all of these other, you know, conscious people around us who are not me. Yeah, I guess a better way to put it would be to be able to share a vision with somebody else. You know, it's, it seems like that's when we're most closely bonded, when we experience with something. Okay, here's another one for you. Do you think that that is maybe what rituals do?

Like if you look back to, say, the times of elusive, or even if you go and watch a great play or something like that, the ritual of sharing experience with somebody else, do you think that that is something that is almost, do you think that that is something that is lost in today's world is this idea of rituals, this idea of sharing real experiences, not only maybe with someone else, but with the group. Because you don't see it the same way, but you see the same thing.

And sometimes you can get the same feeling. That seems to me to be something that fiction does for people, even though you and I are in different parts of the world, we could read the same book. And though we don't have the same image in our mind, we are aware of a similar feeling about that story. Would you say that maybe that's kind of what good fiction does to, is allows people to, it's almost like a ritual. Would you say it's almost like a ritual? Well, I certainly never thought of it that way.

I mean, I can see to some extent, you know, like if you are, you know, saying a liturgy in church, and it's the same. same liturgy that people said a thousand years ago or however long when that was created and you feel a kinship with those people of a thousand years ago that you never met because you are, you know, avowing the same things, saying the same things and thus, you know, part of a movement that has been, you know, since that earlier time. You know, I guess there's there's a lot of degree to which, you know, humans want to be part of something that is larger than themselves. That's part of what we're, you know, kind of universally motivated to do. And we want to have connections with people about those things.

And so, you know, shared experience is a big part of what we want as a species. And, you know, and certainly books are a way that we do that. You know, I love talking about, you know, I love recommending books to people. I love talking people about the books that we're both reading because, you know, that's a shared experience. You know, it's a lot of the way that I end up, you know, relating to my kids is through all the books that that were, you know, the stories that we are experiencing together or, you know, that we've both experienced that I can say, yeah, I love when that happened. You have kind of think the same thoughts have the same ideas and that experience something together. Yeah, that's an awesome answer. I enjoy it.

If we were going to extend the world in which these dinosaurs live in living memory, What are some of the, like, in a lot of societies, it seems that religion kind of underpins, or at least an idea of religion, underpins a lot of societies today. When I read this book, The Living Memory, are there some, even though it may not be specifically stated in the book, are there some rituals that this particular group does that bonds them together? Hmm. Interesting. It, yeah. I mean, it, it makes me think of, I don't know if you're familiar with Noah Harari's books. Yeah, I have. Homo, yeah, and Homo Deas. And, yeah. So, you know, one of his big ideas is, you know, that sense that, that idea that storytelling is, you know, one of the, one of the cheap things that makes humans humans. you know, that has, you know, and looks at, you know, religion looks at just the organization of society, the ability to, you know, say that, you know, we have all kinds of constructs in society that are not real. They don't exist, you know, like the McDonald's Corporation doesn't exist. It's not a thing.

It's this story that we all tell each other about how we should react and interact, you know, as far as that's concerned. We all follow the same story. But, you know, so I would think that that is something that would, you know, probably be true of any, any sapient society, any, you know, even something as dramatically different in experience as, you know, the dinosaurs that we're talking about or, or as an octopus intelligence or, you know, whatever it would be where, you know, just the mind and experience and an environment is so utterly different. And yet I would think that ability to tell stories and thus, you know,

shape experience around an idea of meaning, of purpose, of a shared meaning and purpose, of a shared, you know, like you're going to organize a million people to do something together, right? They all need to have a shared story or a similar story of what it is that we're doing together. And thus, you know, I believe that when you have this amount of money in the bank, that means something to me because we all believe it. And so, you know, in order to organize people at the scale that's required for civilization, you know, I would think, you know, if we're thinking about our dinosaurs, yeah, they would have, they would have stories, they would have religion, they would have concepts of society and rituals associated with

them that would enable their society to work together. together in, you know, lockstep, not necessarily that there aren't conflicts because there are always conflicts, but, you know, that you're coming from the same place in terms of how to get everybody to work together in what constitutes a civilization. Yeah, that's a great answer. I got a part, I just want to say one note on Harari. Like, I don't know if I love that guy. I feel like his first book just ripped off Gunjurms and Steel.

Like I read it and I'm like, do you just copied this book, man? You took a national best sell and you copied it, man. You got these people to buy it. But that's neither here nor there. I wanted to say that. So on the concept of the underpinnings of religion or society or telling stories, I see this and I don't know how the second or third book is going to go. I'm really excited to read them.

But I see this almost passing on from the dinosaurs and to the women characters of the story. It's like almost, I can almost see them becoming dominant. I can almost see them becoming something. So it's like this, there's like this almost inner species sort of ritual that's happening between the two species right there. I'm excited, man, to read the next two. And what was it that made you decide that this story should be a trilogy? Yeah. So, I mean, as you kind of point out from that, a lot of my stories aren't, right?

I have a number of standalone books. And in general, I tend to gravitate towards standalone books because of, you know, what I described at the very beginning that I get excited about, you know, some idea that I'm doing. And so I write a book about it. But then I don't want to just stick with that idea. I have new ideas that I want to explore. So I want to write something new. You know, for me, a lot of the excitement and fun of writing a novel is,

the, you know, that world creation and that, you know, taking some science or technological idea and running and doing something new with it. So with living memory, I originally intended to write a single book. That was, that was the plan to write a single book. But then I found as I was as I was getting into it that there was just more story that I wanted to tell than I could reasonably fit in a single book. and kind of the way the story was falling out for me, it kind of divided into three sections neatly. And so I was like, well, I guess it's going to be a trilogy because that's the story I want to tell.

And I don't want to create a 400, you know, this huge tone that's a doorstop. You know, I'm going to break it up and have it as three separate books. And I think each part has it. own shape to it and, you know, resolves, to some extent, you know, the story that, you know, so in living memory at the beginning, they've got their exciting fossils that they find and the fossils are taken away from them, right? You know, they're thrown out of the country. They're losing this, you know, scientific discovery. And by the end of the first book, that has, you know, been to a large degree resolved. You know, we obviously not going to spoil it, but, you know,

there's a, there's a shape to that. But there's still quite a bit that is still going on and not yet resolved. And that, that, you know, brings you through to the, to the whole story of the trilogy. Yeah, it's a, I'm excited to get to play a small part in getting to read your first trilogy and being here talking to you while it happens. So this sets up my, this next question is a, is a two-parter. It's not quite a trilogy, but, you know, it's a two-parter. And so have you, as an author, sometimes I have, found that authors look back on their books and be like, oh, you know what, I wish I would

change just one little thing. Sometimes they don't want to, but sometimes they do want to. And so the first part of the question is, have you ever looked back on some of your work and maybe wish you could have made some changes? And if so, what would those be? The second part of the question is, now that you have a trilogy, does that allow you, are you able to look back at that idea of wanting to change in the past and apply that to this new trilogy going forward? Are there new ideas being born while this trilogy is being done? Yeah. So a couple different questions in there.

Yeah, yeah. So for the initial part of it, it's kind of funny. My wife laughs at me because, you know, she says, you know, artists are supposed to be, you know, conflicted and they're supposed to hate their old work, right? You know, it's like it's just terrible, you know, like nobody's just, should read that because, you know, it's this new thing. The new thing is the thing. And I've really never been that way. Like, I go back and I read the short stories that I got published, you know, years ago and that I, you know, half forget what I even wrote in them and I'll go back and read

them. And I'll be like, you know, that's a really good story. I really like that. So, you know, to some extent, you know, I'm obviously, am and should be, you know, dead. And center in the demographic of people who should like my stories, you know, right? If there's anybody that they're written for, they're written for me and the things that I like can think are exciting and interesting. So hopefully, you know, I like them and they last for me. But I really find that I do. It's kind of, you know, it makes me feel a little sheepish, but I look back and I'm like,

I wouldn't change that. I really like it. So, you know, there's not a lot that I look back and regret, particularly about the stories that I've written. At the same time, I do feel like there are ways in which I get better as I go, you know, just with practice and with, you know, continuing to, you know, get books under my belt and refine the craft and, you know, learn how to do things that work well. You know, I always, I always tend to feel like my, you know, if you ask, oh, what's your favorite book? It's always the last, you know, the one that I've most recently written because, you know, that's the one that I'm

closest to and most into it and whatever. So it will, one thing that will be interesting to me as far as this trilogy is concerned is, you know, it's always true that as I write a book, it changes as I go. You know, I have some initial ideas and initial outline, but as I go, I'm like, oh, what about this? Oh, what about that? And so it, you know, it changes as I go. Well, with the trilogy, I have the kind of unique situation where I can, I will be getting the reactions of other people like yourself as they read my book for what they found really exciting. I'm like, oh, well, I better make sure I put more of that in, you know, or that's a good idea. Yeah, yeah, it should definitely, you know, shift things that way. So we'll see the degree to which the, you know, the interactions of other

people about the first book affect where I go with the remaining two. Yeah. It's, it's interesting. Like when I was growing up, you know, I remember the first, my first introduction to a trilogy was Star Wars, you know, and I'm like, oh, look, they did three of them right here. This is amazing. And then, you know, for me, it was, it was almost like the anticipation was something that built up inside me that made me want to go and see the next one. And you could really see the growth of the characters. And you got, it's cool because you got to grow. and the characters got to grow. So it's almost like even though the characters were the same,

you were a little bit different because you got to be a little bit older too. So I think that the trilogies tend to age well, especially when they're written well, and when the author cares enough to put a lot of integrity into them, like you do, I'm really looking forward to the trilogy, and I think a lot of other people are as well.

And so, you know, it's always fascinating to me, people that can operate on the edge of imagination. And we had spoken a little bit about how you come up with some of the ideas that get into your books. But I'm curious how the technologies or the ideas evolve throughout your books. Like evolve in the trilogies. Do you take the same technology and continue to move on to it? Or are there outside forces that come in and change what the technology might do? Like, let's say, there's nothing set in stone except Excalibur, but is the idea of what's happening in this book Living Memory, is the drugs, is the characters, are they going to change radically based on what might happen tomorrow?

Or is it already kind of set? Yeah. No, I, there, there are, there will be new, new revelations and new ideas and new shifts of, uh, of what is possible and, and where things might go. Um, that's, uh, that's definitely, uh, you know, part of what I'm, part of what I'm doing here. It's not just that, you know, okay, we've, we've set the idea and now, uh, you know, everybody's just going to fight over it. We'll see who wins. Uh, it's, uh, we, you know, that definitely have, uh, you know, new things that are coming to. Um, you know, we, you know, we, you know, we, you know, we know, you know, new things that are coming in. play, you know, new, new investigations that discover new things that impact your ideas of, you know, who we are and how things work. And, yeah, new stuff coming. Nice. When you look at your, your, your, a series of work, if you look at all your books in the past, have you thought about translating them into film or short stories or even like graphic novels or anything like that?

Yeah, so I mean, I do have a film agent and he is, you know, my agency is actually the same agency that represents George R.R. Martin, so you know, they're connected and know what they're doing in that industry.

But it's really, really hard to, you know, the funnel is incredible. And with superposition, We actually got, you know, somewhat far along where, you know, there was a director hired and there was a writer hired and they were, you know, they had put together screenplay and what it was going to be like and a treatment and they were going around and there was some interest and, you know, some people were getting on board. But what kind of happens, at least as it's described to me by my film agent, is that, you know, it's kind of like a magnet where, you know, you have something and, you know, you have something, and, you know, somebody says, oh, that's interesting idea. And they're like, you know, but I'm not sure if I'm interested unless, you know, I'm sure that this is going to succeed because of other good people that are involved in this project, you know. So if somebody else starts to show a little interest and they show a little interest and, you know, suddenly, all right, everything starts coming together because there are big, important people who are involved in this project and there's money and there's, you know, and because of that, that holds in more people and, you know, and there's a possibility of something getting made.

But sometimes that starts to happen and then, you know, there's something and somebody loses a little faith and they're like, you know, or they just get distracted with a new idea, you know, and suddenly, well, if that person's not involved anymore, I don't want to be involved anymore. And, you know, and so, you know, it's this, am I being associated with something that's going to happen or is it not going to happen? And then, you know, everybody flees the ship. So, you know, apparently that kind of thing happens a lot. And, you know, so it never actually came to fruition, which is, you know, by far the more common experience is that things don't come to fruition and only very occasionally they do. So, you know, we'll see. My film agent also, you know, kind of rolls his eyes and says, you know, what were you thinking writing a dinosaur book if you wanted to make a film out of it? you know, like the Jurassic Park franchise has that locked up, you know, there's no way that somebody's going to come in and make a non-Jurassic Park dinosaur movie or show, you know, like, you know, a,

so like, just forget about that one. That's not going to happen. That'll probably be the one that goes for sure. You know what I mean? I know some screenwriters and they, um, they write beautiful. Like the way they write seems to leap off the page. And not only that, but it just enters into you and makes you want to cry or get your skin like showing goosebumps and stuff. And I was asking them about their writing.

And I'm like, you know, the question I had asked them is like, have you guys, what's the process like? And they were kind enough to allow me to watch one time. They wrote this beautiful script. And it was a, it could have been a beautiful story with like a great. ending, but they submitted it. And the person, whoever's in charge, the literary agent, or I'm not sure who's in charge of screenwriters that says, yeah, your name, but they sold it to this company. And the company looked at it and said, no, no, no, we want it to be this.

And they wanted them just to butcher the integrity of the story. Hey, let's take out all the beauty and put this ugly stuff in here. And it's like, I don't know if it's worth it sometimes. And I'm curious, David, like, let's say that you've got this option to sell your book to sell your script and then someone was like, okay, this is great, but we think it should be this. And like they just tear out the heart of it. Like I don't, would you be like in some ways it would be a travesty? What would you, would you be willing to give that up and sell your book to someone and then give them the rights to butcher it? So I'll tell you how I think about that.

Okay. So on the one hand, you know, I have no capability really of of making a TV show or a movie on my own, right? That requires a whole lot of people who have a whole lot of different skills and different imagination and creativity and things that they bring to the table that all have to come together in order to make something like that. Right. And so, you know, to some extent that like there's a large degree to which I don't necessarily feel this sense of, oh, you know, the story exactly how I've put it is sacrosanct and nobody must touch or change any, any iota of it in order to, you know, work it, make it work for a new medium. No, you know, there are people who are experts in that medium and in what works in that medium and, you know, things get changed. Now, sometimes they get

changed for the worse and, you know, sometimes, you know, things, you know, somebody tries to do something and it really tanks. Sometimes, you know, authors hate the show that was made from their work. You know, all of that is certainly possible. You know, on the other hand, nothing that anybody does with a TV show makes the books disappear, right? The books are still there. People can still read the books. In fact, more people will read the books if there's a show made out of it, even if it's completely different.

You know, David Bryn tells the story of the postman. I don't know if you're familiar with the postman the book and the postman the movie and how, you know, utterly different they are. And, you know, the book is, you know, one of my, you know, favorite books and the movie, you know, is not. And, you know, and I won't go into like, you know, his whole story of the experience of the making of that and, you know, and all of the interactions that went into that and going to the premiere and like, you know, sitting in the very back with his wife and nobody even knew who he was, you know. And it's, you know, it's a whole world and it's a whole experience. On the other hand, you know, you can still read the postman.

It's still a great book. And, you know, so nothing, like, in order to enter into that world, you have to some extent put your story into the hands of other people. And other people can do wonderful things with it. Or they can, you know, they can fall flat and, you know, not succeed in that. But I can't control that. I can't do it for them. It's not my skill set.

And so I would be, you know, happy, ecstatic to give other people the chance to try. and see what they made of it. And it might be wonderful and it might fail, but that gives them just the idea that somebody's going to take my story and is excited enough about my story that they're going to go pour all of that creative energy into making something out of it in a new medium.

I'm happy for people to do that if that's what they'd like to do. Yeah, that's a great way to put it. And I didn't think about it like that. But yeah, what better way, it's a huge compliment for someone to want to take your story and then add their creativity to it, especially when they're professionals in the field.

And I think that there's something beautiful about giving up something and allowing other people to build on top of it. I think that's progress. I think it's a beautiful thing. I'm glad you shared that with me because I was under the impression that, man, maybe this always happens. But you're right, it doesn't always happen. A lot of times beautiful things come out of it.

And nothing beautiful could come out of it unless you gave a chance for it to happen like that. It's interesting to think about. What about like, have you ever thought about like maybe because you could 3D print some dinosaurs or you could 3D print some mushrooms or something like that?

You know, like what about having like your own little line of like, you know, that would be awesome, right? That came with the book. Maybe you get like a package at Barnes & Noble with like four dinosaurs and like a fossil or something. That would be awesome. Sounds great. David, I want to tell you, I got to go drive a truck here in a little bit.

But I, this has exceeded everything I thought it would, man. I'm really thankful to get to spend time with you. And I'm really thankful to get to learn a lot about what went into the book. I'm thankful to get to learn about how you think. And I hope a lot of other people will take from this interview, what I took from it. And that's a whole lot of laughter and a whole lot of fun and a whole lot of who is behind. creating these amazing books. So thank you for doing it.

Do you have any speaking gigs coming up? Where can people find you? And what are you excited about? Yeah, well, I mean, obviously they can, you know, find me in my books. I am going to be at the Reeds and Company bookstore in Phoenixville this Saturday for anybody who happens to be local. But, yeah, it's been, I don't know how many people are going to listen to an hour and 45 minutes of us talking together.

But it's been a great fun time for me to chat with you about some of my favorite subjects. Yeah, me too. So ladies and gentlemen, one more time. If you're watching this, here's what the book looks like. If you're just listening to this, the book is called Living Memory by David Walton. And I suggest you pick it up. It's a really fun book to read. It's really insightful.

And if you're like me, it'll get your mind racing and thinking about everything from Francis Crick to graphic novel. to 3D printed fossils. So do yourself a favor and pick it up and reach out to Davey. You can find them on Twitter. The links will be in the show notes. Thank you to everybody who's taking time to listen to this. And that's what we got for today. Aloha.