WEBVTT 00:01.490 --> 00:03.650 Prologue, Mountie, 019. 00:05.030 --> 00:10.650 A field somewhere in Northern Ontario, Canada, December 26, 2020. 00:12.110 --> 00:15.870 I'd never flown in a plane before, much less a helicopter. 00:17.090 --> 00:20.670 When I was 16, Mateo and I took the train to Toronto 00:20.670 --> 00:21.810 to see a Leafs game. 00:22.730 --> 00:24.290 Even for the grade eight trip to Quebec, 00:24.510 --> 00:27.030 we traveled in one of those two-story coaches 00:27.030 --> 00:28.150 with the tinted windows. 00:30.290 --> 00:32.230 Now, strapped to a yellow cot, 00:33.070 --> 00:37.750 wrapped in some sort of emergency, crinkly, sub-zero sleeping bag, 00:38.610 --> 00:40.910 I stared at the air ambulance that awaited me. 00:41.770 --> 00:48.210 It was painted orange with the letters O-R-N-G-E on the side, 00:48.850 --> 00:50.870 as if they left out the A to save money. 00:52.050 --> 00:54.510 From above, its windshield extended a metal spike 00:54.510 --> 00:55.750 like a unicorn's horn, 00:56.410 --> 01:00.390 except this orange flying unicorn had only three legs, 01:01.070 --> 01:03.530 two in the back and one in the front, 01:03.830 --> 01:05.750 disappearing into a foot of snow. 01:06.990 --> 01:08.410 Through the haze of pain, 01:08.790 --> 01:11.170 I could barely see the evergreen trees 01:11.170 --> 01:12.350 that surrounded the field, 01:12.870 --> 01:15.570 serving as a barrier against the howling wind. 01:16.390 --> 01:18.750 The dark night was lit by the headlights 01:18.750 --> 01:19.950 of many police vehicles 01:20.610 --> 01:22.790 and the red and blue light bar of an ambulance. 01:24.330 --> 01:27.030 Overhead, the blades of the medical copter 01:27.030 --> 01:28.290 were whipping in circles, 01:29.350 --> 01:31.710 making the cold December air even colder, 01:32.930 --> 01:36.050 at least at none the excruciating pain in my chest a little. 01:37.030 --> 01:38.390 On the unicorn's tail, 01:39.110 --> 01:41.670 a tiny vertical propeller was also spinning 01:41.670 --> 01:43.270 like a windmill in a hurricane, 01:43.930 --> 01:46.710 proving how the seemingly inconsequential 01:46.710 --> 01:50.370 can alter the direction of the large and powerful. 01:51.510 --> 01:53.810 Those are the dramatic opening paragraphs 01:53.810 --> 01:57.370 of the prologue to Much A Do About Corona, 01:57.950 --> 02:02.230 which is a book by Canadian author John Manley, 02:02.770 --> 02:05.090 which builds itself as a novel about real love 02:05.090 --> 02:08.050 and a fake pandemic that tells the fictional story 02:08.050 --> 02:10.090 of a very unusual, 02:10.150 --> 02:12.430 well, I suppose, romance that occurs 02:12.430 --> 02:15.450 during the lockdowns in Ontario, 02:15.750 --> 02:18.370 in a fictional town in Ontario in 2020, 02:18.370 --> 02:19.450 going into 2021. 02:20.250 --> 02:23.670 And it is an incredibly interesting novel, 02:23.770 --> 02:25.550 especially I would imagine for my readers, 02:26.090 --> 02:27.310 listeners I should say, 02:27.370 --> 02:32.910 who are interested in exploring the madness of the world 02:32.910 --> 02:34.670 from a different lens 02:34.670 --> 02:37.610 and one that is sympathetic to the worldview 02:37.610 --> 02:40.250 that I imagine many of my viewers share. 02:40.810 --> 02:42.810 And if you are interested in that, 02:42.950 --> 02:44.310 I will commend this to your attention. 02:44.530 --> 02:46.110 It's a book, as I say, 02:46.230 --> 02:47.530 set in a fictional town in Ontario 02:47.530 --> 02:50.970 during the lockdowns as the world descended into madness 02:50.970 --> 02:51.810 in 2020. 02:52.770 --> 02:56.930 And it follows a regular Joe named Vincent McKnight 02:56.930 --> 02:59.770 who travels down the rabbit hole, as it were, 02:59.890 --> 03:03.690 and ends up engaging in a romance with a baker 03:03.690 --> 03:05.570 who's attempting to keep her bakery open. 03:07.310 --> 03:10.250 No summary that I give of this story 03:10.250 --> 03:13.030 can really do justice to it in its fuller details. 03:13.510 --> 03:15.670 But it is an example of a phenomenon 03:15.670 --> 03:17.970 that I would like to think that my viewers 03:17.970 --> 03:20.350 are probably well situated to understand by now, 03:20.550 --> 03:21.650 but let's talk about it. 03:22.110 --> 03:23.490 Resistance fiction. 03:24.470 --> 03:25.090 Yes, that's right. 03:25.250 --> 03:26.990 Of course, recently here on Solutions Watch, 03:27.110 --> 03:28.790 I was talking about resistance cinema. 03:29.570 --> 03:31.050 And of course, you can go back in the archives 03:31.050 --> 03:33.610 for that podcast exploration. 03:33.810 --> 03:35.670 But today I want to talk about resistance fiction, 03:36.450 --> 03:38.070 which as I say is something that I have discussed 03:38.070 --> 03:38.890 a number of times. 03:39.050 --> 03:41.870 So I would imagine my viewers are already 03:41.870 --> 03:43.470 well situated to understand it. 03:43.470 --> 03:45.670 But here on Solutions Watch, for example, 03:45.750 --> 03:48.090 I've talked about writing a new narrative 03:48.090 --> 03:51.570 and how important narrative is to shaping not just 03:51.570 --> 03:55.110 our worldview, but then how we act in the world 03:55.110 --> 03:57.050 based on that worldview. 03:57.610 --> 04:00.510 You can look at subscriber exclusive videos I did. 04:00.590 --> 04:04.070 I did one back a few years ago on The Ring, 04:04.610 --> 04:07.510 as in The Lord of the Rings and the allegory 04:08.070 --> 04:10.230 that exists or doesn't exist in that book 04:10.230 --> 04:12.410 and what it teaches us about resistance. 04:13.310 --> 04:16.730 I've talked about 1984, of course. 04:16.990 --> 04:19.550 You'll remember my episode 114 on Newspeak 04:19.550 --> 04:20.670 is Double Plus on Good. 04:21.570 --> 04:24.090 And of course, there is the entire film literature 04:24.090 --> 04:26.430 in the New World Order podcast series, 04:26.930 --> 04:30.710 the raison d'être of which is or was or may be 04:30.710 --> 04:34.430 to introduce people to works of, well, 04:34.610 --> 04:36.350 resistance fiction, resistance cinema, 04:36.470 --> 04:39.910 as well as dissecting some propaganda from time to time. 04:39.910 --> 04:43.330 So yes, I take it as a given that people out there 04:43.330 --> 04:46.250 understand the importance of fiction 04:46.250 --> 04:51.210 in shaping our worldview and thus shaping our reality. 04:51.490 --> 04:53.290 And especially when there are enough people 04:53.290 --> 04:55.710 who have reached a certain threshold of consciousness 04:55.710 --> 04:58.250 along these lines, it can be the ripple effect 04:58.250 --> 05:01.070 that truly changes the world around us. 05:01.690 --> 05:05.750 So if narrative does change the world, 05:05.810 --> 05:08.230 then who are today's myth makers? 05:08.230 --> 05:09.790 Who are writing the narratives today 05:09.790 --> 05:11.310 that will shape the world of tomorrow? 05:11.710 --> 05:15.610 Well, as I say, this is one example of such a phenomenon. 05:15.830 --> 05:19.370 It's Much Ado About Corona by John C. A. Manley, 05:19.430 --> 05:22.030 who also has another book called 05:22.030 --> 05:24.030 All the Humans Are Sleeping. 05:25.190 --> 05:29.990 And this book is set in a different fictional universe 05:29.990 --> 05:31.250 than the Much Ado About Corona, 05:31.250 --> 05:33.190 but perhaps a related one, 05:33.250 --> 05:34.990 or maybe just further down the road, as it were. 05:34.990 --> 05:36.750 This one takes place in the near future 05:36.750 --> 05:40.390 after a nuclear apocalypse of sorts 05:40.700 --> 05:42.810 sends people scurrying into the metaverse 05:42.810 --> 05:46.230 to escape the dreary, horrible reality of existence. 05:46.810 --> 05:49.550 And it talks about a couple of the lonely 05:49.550 --> 05:52.950 and lowly human survivors of that event 05:52.950 --> 05:56.990 who decide, well, who are or are not 05:56.990 --> 05:58.150 going to go into the metaverse. 05:58.350 --> 06:02.870 And again, it's a fictional telling of a tale 06:02.870 --> 06:06.230 that is already happening to a certain extent in real life, 06:06.290 --> 06:09.650 just not obviously to that far of an extent. 06:09.850 --> 06:13.090 So it allows the reader to see and explore 06:13.090 --> 06:15.790 the consciousness of what is coming down the road, 06:15.910 --> 06:19.690 what we are stepping into, why so many people 06:19.690 --> 06:22.370 are blithe to the real dangers 06:22.370 --> 06:24.110 that these technologies represent, 06:24.230 --> 06:26.890 and what should people be thinking about that? 06:27.550 --> 06:30.490 And I think both of these books do a good job 06:30.490 --> 06:34.790 of giving a fair view to the other side of the equation 06:34.790 --> 06:37.630 to real human beings who have their qualms 06:37.630 --> 06:41.710 about, for example, the virus spreaders 06:42.050 --> 06:44.710 or people who are, you're just an old funny dude 06:44.710 --> 06:45.670 who doesn't like technology. 06:46.030 --> 06:48.790 The people in these stories are not two-dimensional characters. 06:49.090 --> 06:50.770 They are fully fleshed out human beings 06:50.770 --> 06:53.510 with their own backgrounds and stories and motivations, 06:53.530 --> 06:55.990 which I think makes it a rewarding read. 06:56.410 --> 06:58.430 So obviously the links to both of those stories 06:58.430 --> 07:02.190 will be in the show notes for today's episode of Solutions Watch, 07:02.330 --> 07:04.190 so you can go and purchase copy, 07:04.330 --> 07:05.790 explore these books for yourself. 07:06.210 --> 07:09.130 But I had the chance to talk to John C. A. Manley 07:09.130 --> 07:13.850 about his writing, about the concept of resistance fiction, 07:14.190 --> 07:17.370 and about the line between resistance fiction 07:17.370 --> 07:19.450 and predictive programming, 07:19.950 --> 07:22.290 to what extent our writers who are warning 07:22.290 --> 07:23.430 about a possible future 07:23.430 --> 07:26.210 are actually helping to conjure that possible future 07:26.210 --> 07:27.850 into existence with their words. 07:28.310 --> 07:29.990 Some very interesting topics. 07:30.670 --> 07:34.470 So I started by asking John about Much Ado About Corona. 07:36.090 --> 07:38.390 Well, I mean, with Much Ado About Corona, 07:38.670 --> 07:41.410 it was, well, March, I guess March 2020, 07:42.370 --> 07:46.110 I remember sitting there watching the Prime Minister of Canada 07:46.110 --> 07:47.890 announce that we all had to go into lockdown. 07:48.810 --> 07:52.210 And that immediately to me, I was just, 07:52.630 --> 07:54.330 every cell in my body screaming, 07:54.330 --> 07:57.610 this is a forest, this is a authoritarian takeover. 07:58.270 --> 08:03.070 I didn't believe for a second that it had to do with viral epidemic. 08:03.570 --> 08:05.870 I was willing to believe that some of the politicians 08:05.870 --> 08:09.010 and other players on the lower level were actually believing it, 08:09.070 --> 08:11.050 but at the top I didn't think it was very likely. 08:11.990 --> 08:14.590 And I felt very scared, not of a virus, 08:14.770 --> 08:16.230 but of where this was leading 08:16.230 --> 08:18.710 when they're telling people they have to all be locked up. 08:19.230 --> 08:21.010 I remember the Prime Minister getting up 08:21.010 --> 08:23.450 and criticizing people for meeting on the beach 08:23.450 --> 08:25.370 and how they had, you know, 08:26.810 --> 08:29.210 just criticizing people for getting together in public. 08:29.910 --> 08:32.250 So I decided I was going to, I just decided to start, 08:32.390 --> 08:34.670 I was actually in the midst of writing another urban fantasy 08:34.670 --> 08:36.250 that I'd been working on for about a year. 08:36.730 --> 08:38.330 I decided just to put that down for a day, 08:38.370 --> 08:40.770 I wanted to write a short story about where I saw this going. 08:41.330 --> 08:43.810 So I typically write on the wall, 08:43.950 --> 08:46.250 so I taped a few pieces of paper to the wall 08:46.250 --> 08:48.730 and started writing a short story. 08:48.930 --> 08:52.850 And that short story continued day after day after day. 08:53.490 --> 08:56.050 Where I was putting in about one to two hours every day 08:56.050 --> 08:57.950 and I decided I'm just going to have to finish this. 09:00.190 --> 09:01.690 If it was interesting, like I was saying, 09:02.050 --> 09:07.150 the Machadoobo Corona was originally set in 2030, 09:07.810 --> 09:09.550 like far in the future where I thought that, 09:09.610 --> 09:10.650 well not that far in the future, 09:11.310 --> 09:12.470 where I thought this was going. 09:12.610 --> 09:13.870 And I started writing flashbacks 09:13.870 --> 09:15.770 and the flashbacks were set in 2020, 09:15.770 --> 09:17.630 which ended up being what the book became. 09:18.850 --> 09:20.530 Yeah, that's an interesting approach. 09:20.530 --> 09:22.730 So you already know where this story is going. 09:22.950 --> 09:24.250 For people who haven't read it, 09:24.330 --> 09:25.730 it sort of ends on a cliffhanger. 09:25.950 --> 09:27.650 So there is more to this story. 09:28.550 --> 09:31.790 Yeah, no, basically I haven't written to the end, 09:31.850 --> 09:33.370 but I got a lot of fillers 09:33.370 --> 09:36.410 and ended up adding so many characters to the originals 09:36.410 --> 09:37.770 that I have to find a home for them 09:37.770 --> 09:39.130 or kill them or something. 09:40.750 --> 09:42.990 No, I can imagine just keeping all those characters, 09:44.010 --> 09:46.490 all those balls in the air and sorting out who's who 09:46.490 --> 09:47.950 and oh yeah, this person over here. 09:47.950 --> 09:50.510 Anyway, beyond the logistics of writing it, 09:51.410 --> 09:54.410 obviously the question is how did people receive it? 09:55.090 --> 09:56.970 And was this a, you know, 09:57.110 --> 09:59.070 was this a surprise to people who already knew you 09:59.070 --> 10:02.230 in your writing or did this introduce you to new audiences? 10:02.510 --> 10:04.490 Did this gain you some new friends or enemies? 10:05.250 --> 10:07.450 Well, I definitely lost a lot of friends with that. 10:09.010 --> 10:11.550 It was, I took two years to finish the book, 10:11.550 --> 10:12.990 so it was kind of a progression, 10:13.050 --> 10:14.610 like when I was working on it originally, 10:15.410 --> 10:17.070 the criticism was extremely high. 10:17.830 --> 10:22.430 By, you know, 2022, the skepticism around COVID 10:22.430 --> 10:23.950 had grown significantly. 10:26.050 --> 10:29.290 I'd say, like, I had relatives actually telling me, 10:29.370 --> 10:30.230 do not publish this. 10:30.310 --> 10:33.290 This is very dangerous that you could get hurt 10:33.670 --> 10:36.290 or, you know, imprisoned. 10:36.570 --> 10:37.590 I don't know what they were thinking. 10:38.430 --> 10:40.110 I mean, the first year of the pandemic 10:40.110 --> 10:42.530 and so our scandemic in Canada, 10:42.670 --> 10:44.550 I found was pretty totalitarian 10:44.550 --> 10:48.630 and was going in an increasingly in that direction. 10:48.850 --> 10:51.670 Like I had, I was in addition to writing the book 10:51.670 --> 10:54.590 also publishing like an article a day 10:54.590 --> 10:56.770 trying to convince people that this was a hoax, 10:56.970 --> 10:59.270 which originally I thought was going to be all I needed to do 10:59.270 --> 11:00.550 was just provide the information 11:00.550 --> 11:02.730 because it was so obviously a far fetched. 11:03.270 --> 11:04.110 And I realized it was, 11:05.010 --> 11:06.870 most people's reaction to the pandemic 11:06.870 --> 11:08.350 was emotional, not intellectual. 11:09.130 --> 11:10.810 So that's why I kind of started 11:10.810 --> 11:12.570 veering more towards focusing on the novel 11:12.570 --> 11:14.330 because the novel is essentially in a lot of ways 11:14.330 --> 11:16.530 an emotional way to connect with people. 11:17.430 --> 11:18.750 I've been very surprised. 11:19.010 --> 11:22.810 Like for example, I get emails from nurses 11:22.810 --> 11:25.810 or PSWs who are working in the nursing homes 11:25.810 --> 11:28.030 during the pandemic and saying that I 11:28.950 --> 11:31.770 really captured what was happening in there, 11:31.870 --> 11:34.390 except if anything, I toned it down a bit 11:35.590 --> 11:37.830 because I had a lot of firsthand experience 11:37.830 --> 11:39.330 the nursing home in our town, 11:39.330 --> 11:41.610 the military came in because it was such a mess. 11:42.930 --> 11:45.590 There was, you know, residents who hadn't had 11:45.590 --> 11:47.290 their bed changed in like three days. 11:47.410 --> 11:50.170 They'd soiled their sheets and feeding tubes 11:50.170 --> 11:52.590 clogged, rotting food in the room. 11:53.210 --> 11:55.410 So I didn't want to make it that disgusting 11:55.410 --> 11:56.190 in my novel. 11:56.270 --> 11:57.410 So I toned it down a bit, 11:57.650 --> 11:59.590 but also just a contour, 11:59.870 --> 12:00.610 not the controversy, 12:00.710 --> 12:02.090 the conflict within the nurses 12:03.130 --> 12:04.690 about being in this environment, 12:04.710 --> 12:07.550 trying to do their best with staff disappearing, 12:07.550 --> 12:10.430 not being able to give a patient a bath 12:10.430 --> 12:11.830 for like one month. 12:14.450 --> 12:16.270 So I got a very good reaction 12:16.270 --> 12:19.130 and a surprising reaction from various nurses 12:19.130 --> 12:21.910 and people in the healthcare field 12:21.910 --> 12:22.710 who saw it firsthand. 12:22.850 --> 12:24.630 And I get messages like, 12:24.950 --> 12:26.070 I thought I was going crazy. 12:26.170 --> 12:27.210 There was something wrong with me 12:27.210 --> 12:29.390 because everything, you know, 12:29.830 --> 12:31.910 I'd have to shut down part of my brain 12:31.910 --> 12:33.730 to accept that what was happening around me 12:33.730 --> 12:35.490 was proper and normal and ethical. 12:36.790 --> 12:38.630 So on that side, I got that. 12:39.170 --> 12:41.730 I mean, mainstream media has told us they ignored me. 12:41.930 --> 12:43.970 I've had several times where interviews 12:43.970 --> 12:46.330 were being set up with mainstream outlets. 12:47.450 --> 12:49.130 And soon enough, because I said, 12:49.190 --> 12:51.010 I got a novel that really looks at both sides 12:51.010 --> 12:52.510 of the controversy. 12:53.230 --> 12:54.910 And I think I did a very good job 12:54.910 --> 12:56.670 in the novel of like the characters 12:57.130 --> 12:59.650 who were for the lockdown 12:59.650 --> 13:01.790 of actually giving them a real devil's advocate. 13:02.390 --> 13:03.490 Can I just interject here? 13:03.490 --> 13:05.190 I wanted to say that was one of the things 13:05.190 --> 13:07.110 I really appreciated about this novel 13:07.110 --> 13:09.370 is that people aren't just caricatures. 13:09.650 --> 13:11.170 It could have been very easy, I think, 13:11.230 --> 13:14.250 to write about the evil constable on patrol 13:15.070 --> 13:16.750 who's trying to lock everybody down 13:16.750 --> 13:17.850 for no reason whatsoever, 13:18.010 --> 13:19.510 just because he's a tyrannical asshole. 13:19.710 --> 13:21.250 But in this case, no, it's because he has 13:21.250 --> 13:23.370 a very, very personal, emotional reason 13:23.370 --> 13:24.810 for being attached to this narrative. 13:24.950 --> 13:28.270 And you drew that out in a way that really hits home. 13:28.430 --> 13:31.110 So I thought that was one of the greatest things 13:31.110 --> 13:32.850 about the novel is that people aren't just 13:32.850 --> 13:35.750 two-dimensional, you know, character cutouts. 13:35.930 --> 13:38.210 These are actual human beings who have fleshed 13:38.210 --> 13:39.470 out stories for motivation 13:39.470 --> 13:41.190 of why they're doing what they're doing. 13:41.850 --> 13:43.670 Yeah, no, I appreciate hearing that 13:43.670 --> 13:46.350 because a constable Corona was an interesting one 13:46.350 --> 13:48.090 because when I did write him the first draft, 13:48.610 --> 13:50.010 or about the fourth draft, 13:50.130 --> 13:51.630 he was still a very two-dimensional, 13:51.730 --> 13:53.470 kind of badass cop who just wanted 13:54.050 --> 13:55.690 delighted in the power trip on people. 13:56.150 --> 13:58.650 And I showed it, I had the draft 13:58.650 --> 14:01.470 shown to the cover artist, Jordan Henderson. 14:01.890 --> 14:03.670 And that was his response because he just 14:03.670 --> 14:06.510 seems like a 2D cutout, you know, it's just this badass cop. 14:06.910 --> 14:08.790 So I scratched him and, you know, 14:08.810 --> 14:10.350 this is part of the reason it took a thousand hours 14:10.350 --> 14:11.090 to write the novel. 14:11.470 --> 14:14.570 And I went back and I changed him. 14:14.650 --> 14:15.270 I made him older. 14:15.530 --> 14:16.910 He was just on the verge of retirement. 14:17.270 --> 14:18.890 He was kind of a thinner cop. 14:19.630 --> 14:21.710 But like you said, the reason that 14:22.250 --> 14:23.510 he is doing this 14:23.510 --> 14:25.730 get revealed slowly throughout the novel 14:25.730 --> 14:27.090 and his progression from 14:27.910 --> 14:30.390 basically probably being a real nice guy cop 14:30.390 --> 14:32.730 who was probably, you know, just trying to do his best, 14:32.890 --> 14:34.290 you know, I'm not saying he was an angel 14:34.290 --> 14:36.770 to what he becomes by the end of the novel, 14:36.770 --> 14:39.670 which is largely a result not of him 14:39.670 --> 14:42.470 but of the circumstances that he was put into 14:42.470 --> 14:44.830 by the, you know, the government 14:44.830 --> 14:46.990 and the measures that were enforced on them. 14:48.010 --> 14:49.690 Interestingly, another character that 14:49.690 --> 14:51.670 people are really like, 14:52.110 --> 14:53.810 I was really pleased to see that 14:53.810 --> 14:55.730 the response was so well to him was Raj, 14:56.390 --> 14:58.030 who is the one character in the novel 14:58.030 --> 14:59.470 who's kind of on the fence between, 14:59.470 --> 15:02.010 you know, the resistance and not the resistance. 15:02.450 --> 15:04.130 You kind of get the impression he doesn't, 15:04.250 --> 15:06.170 he kind of buys into the whole COVID stuff, 15:06.170 --> 15:07.650 but he doesn't like the fact 15:07.650 --> 15:10.130 it's being forced on his friends and his family. 15:10.870 --> 15:13.330 So that character who was right on the fence, 15:13.510 --> 15:15.250 I found I get so many people say 15:15.250 --> 15:16.490 he was their favorite character, 15:16.990 --> 15:17.890 even though he wasn't. 15:18.010 --> 15:20.110 He was obviously an interesting character. 15:20.270 --> 15:21.970 And yeah, I was trying to figure out at times 15:21.970 --> 15:24.310 like is he, is he on their side or not? 15:24.470 --> 15:25.990 I guess he kind of is, but not. 15:26.350 --> 15:28.350 Yeah, it was an interesting dichotomy. 15:29.530 --> 15:29.970 Yeah. 15:30.390 --> 15:32.590 And then, I mean, one of the biggest things 15:32.590 --> 15:34.430 that happened recently was the Kirkus Review, 15:34.630 --> 15:37.570 which is a very prestigious magazine 15:37.570 --> 15:39.570 in the United States for reviewing 15:41.090 --> 15:42.710 both mainstream published books 15:42.710 --> 15:43.450 and indie books. 15:43.550 --> 15:44.890 They did a review of the novel, 15:47.590 --> 15:49.130 which it's an interesting review 15:49.130 --> 15:52.230 and because they definitely, 15:52.530 --> 15:54.370 it sounded like they really liked the story 15:54.370 --> 15:57.150 and the drama of it and the characters. 15:57.370 --> 15:58.770 Like they actually referred to it as having, 15:59.110 --> 16:02.370 you know, really, I forget what they word, 16:03.050 --> 16:04.230 exactly they worded it, 16:04.310 --> 16:08.030 but that they had really good character-driven scenes 16:08.030 --> 16:10.130 and action and intrigue, 16:11.090 --> 16:14.110 but they obviously, the message behind the story, 16:14.290 --> 16:16.790 they were very on the other side of the fence. 16:17.030 --> 16:17.830 They had one line, 16:17.830 --> 16:20.670 and I've never heard before from a mainstream source, 16:20.750 --> 16:22.410 but they said the novel is about 16:22.410 --> 16:26.230 the fearful versus the vaccine ready. 16:31.270 --> 16:32.290 All right, yeah. 16:33.010 --> 16:35.330 The fearful versus the vaccine ready. 16:37.510 --> 16:39.390 That's one way of putting it. 16:39.890 --> 16:42.050 So anyway, it was an ideological review, 16:42.370 --> 16:43.110 is what you're saying. 16:43.590 --> 16:45.710 Yeah, they actually referred to it as, 16:46.550 --> 16:49.150 they said that the argument, 16:49.150 --> 16:51.750 the ideas got weighed down by the arguments 16:52.630 --> 16:53.590 with the characters, 16:54.070 --> 16:56.830 and I think to a degree they may have, 16:56.910 --> 16:57.650 I'll give them some, 16:57.830 --> 16:59.330 because I did feel by the end of it, 16:59.370 --> 17:02.170 I think the novel could have been just a little less didactic 17:03.630 --> 17:06.510 and done more through just the story itself 17:06.510 --> 17:09.170 versus some of the debates 17:09.170 --> 17:11.190 that some of the characters had between each other. 17:12.030 --> 17:13.270 So I'll give them that, 17:13.330 --> 17:16.270 that it may have just been a touch to on that side of the fence, 17:16.270 --> 17:19.170 but I could see that argument, 17:19.190 --> 17:21.610 but it's such an incredibly fine line to walk, 17:21.830 --> 17:24.490 and it's difficult to thread that needle perfectly. 17:25.130 --> 17:27.730 Of course, there is going to be some didacticism 17:27.730 --> 17:28.930 in a novel like this, 17:28.990 --> 17:31.710 but I thought it was refreshingly not 17:31.710 --> 17:33.130 just hitting people over the head, 17:33.470 --> 17:36.730 and there was enough, again, intriguing characters, 17:36.910 --> 17:40.510 even the main character who doesn't come into this 17:40.510 --> 17:41.830 from an ideological point of view, 17:41.930 --> 17:43.590 just comes in through it from the outside, 17:43.590 --> 17:45.530 which I think helps the average reader 17:45.530 --> 17:48.270 sort of enter this world and this idea 17:48.270 --> 17:50.350 that they probably hadn't contemplated before, 17:50.490 --> 17:51.930 so I thought it was a powerful way of doing that. 17:52.090 --> 17:53.970 But then you write this incredible, 17:55.150 --> 17:57.310 fleshed out, detailed, hefty tome, 17:57.630 --> 17:58.990 hundreds and hundreds of pages, 17:59.470 --> 18:00.950 and leave it on a bit of a cliffhanger, 18:01.270 --> 18:03.310 and don't worry, you're going to get right to the next one, 18:03.530 --> 18:05.950 and then the next one comes along, 18:06.130 --> 18:08.250 and it's not the second part at all. 18:08.410 --> 18:10.210 It is all the humans are sleeping. 18:10.210 --> 18:12.410 Tell us about this work and how it came about. 18:12.410 --> 18:12.710 Yeah. 18:13.690 --> 18:16.250 That one I actually started writing 20 years ago 18:16.250 --> 18:19.810 was a short story I wrote before my son was born, 18:20.050 --> 18:23.150 so it was originally a reaction 18:23.150 --> 18:25.310 to that scene in the Matrix movie 18:25.310 --> 18:27.430 when you see Neo wake up 18:27.430 --> 18:30.150 and he realizes he's been living in this pod his whole life, 18:30.270 --> 18:32.270 and that image, that scene in the movie 18:32.270 --> 18:35.210 really, like, caused me to... 18:36.010 --> 18:37.510 I don't know, it hit me to the core, 18:37.690 --> 18:39.070 and that's what I love about stories, 18:39.070 --> 18:40.330 when you can get that feeling, 18:41.570 --> 18:44.170 and it's a hard to define feeling and hard to arrive at, 18:44.250 --> 18:46.530 but that scene in the movie had that feeling for me, 18:47.070 --> 18:49.310 which I think we've had over and over again, 18:49.890 --> 18:51.410 you know, both in the freedom movement 18:51.410 --> 18:52.650 or what we call the truce movement, 18:53.210 --> 18:54.590 like, you know, when you wake up 18:54.590 --> 18:55.990 and you suddenly realize that, 18:56.030 --> 19:01.390 oh, government is basically just a violent organization 19:01.390 --> 19:04.930 that threatens people's lives in exchange for their money, 19:05.430 --> 19:07.350 and we're all told to think it's this, 19:07.350 --> 19:10.330 you know, nice social welfare thing 19:10.330 --> 19:13.570 that's helping keep poor people off the street 19:13.570 --> 19:17.030 and make sure that drugies get enough heroin 19:17.030 --> 19:19.290 through a designated clinic, 19:19.490 --> 19:21.830 and, you know, I'm being a little fashisous there, 19:21.890 --> 19:23.730 but I'm also being accurate, too. 19:24.970 --> 19:26.550 And, you know, I had the same experience 19:26.550 --> 19:27.430 with the medical system. 19:27.590 --> 19:30.130 My late wife was very ill with kidney failure 19:30.130 --> 19:33.770 and died of type 1 diabetes since she was a child, 19:33.830 --> 19:35.350 and I went in kind of, at first, 19:35.350 --> 19:36.770 working with the medical system, 19:36.810 --> 19:38.330 and I just started to gradually realize 19:38.330 --> 19:40.610 that there is nothing here 19:40.610 --> 19:43.790 about trying to actually heal someone, you know, 19:43.890 --> 19:46.690 and that this is God's other ulterior motives 19:46.690 --> 19:47.630 and no one's getting better. 19:48.470 --> 19:50.350 So, you know, so anyways, 19:51.290 --> 19:55.610 all the humans are sleeping more directly was... 19:56.330 --> 19:58.350 I had this idea where... 19:58.910 --> 19:59.970 Well, we saw this kind of... 19:59.970 --> 20:00.870 This is 20 years ago, 20:00.870 --> 20:02.190 so the move to, like, the metaverse 20:02.190 --> 20:04.730 and the term metaverse I don't think was used 20:04.730 --> 20:06.490 at the time, but, you know, virtual reality, 20:06.870 --> 20:09.650 like we saw in the Matrix movie, was an off... 20:09.650 --> 20:10.870 future possibility. 20:11.970 --> 20:13.870 For the record, I kind of doubt, 20:13.950 --> 20:15.310 and I think I've heard you say this, too, 20:15.410 --> 20:17.890 I kind of doubt whether it's biologically possible 20:17.890 --> 20:19.790 to do some of this connection 20:19.790 --> 20:21.110 between humans and machines, 20:21.250 --> 20:23.990 but for the sake of the story and the metaphor, 20:24.490 --> 20:25.510 I went along with it. 20:25.550 --> 20:26.870 I'm also a bit skeptical of 20:28.110 --> 20:30.270 whether you can have a full-scale nuclear attack 20:30.270 --> 20:31.250 like I have in the novel, 20:32.310 --> 20:34.910 but again, it was a story device rather than 20:35.690 --> 20:36.650 trying to be factual. 20:36.810 --> 20:37.970 My son's very angry at me. 20:38.110 --> 20:38.310 He's like, 20:38.370 --> 20:40.470 but dad, you're like... 20:40.470 --> 20:41.850 I know you're very skeptical about 20:41.850 --> 20:43.750 whether nuclear weapons can do this type of thing. 20:43.790 --> 20:45.130 Why did you put it in the book, you know? 20:47.770 --> 20:49.430 So, but I wanted to give this option, 20:49.530 --> 20:50.810 like if we had the choice between 20:50.810 --> 20:52.710 going into a virtual reality paradise 20:52.710 --> 20:54.990 or living in real life, you know, 20:55.070 --> 20:56.850 a lot of people will take the virtual reality, 20:56.890 --> 20:58.030 a lot of people want real life, 20:58.250 --> 21:00.650 but what if you just make real life, 21:00.650 --> 21:02.490 you know, you basically blow it all up, 21:02.530 --> 21:04.210 which is what the novel presents, 21:04.390 --> 21:06.290 where there's a full-scale nuclear attack 21:06.290 --> 21:08.450 and the remaining survivors 21:08.450 --> 21:10.910 are basically living in silos 21:10.910 --> 21:12.050 underneath the ground, 21:12.610 --> 21:14.450 which is not a delightful way to live. 21:14.690 --> 21:17.030 And I thought it was parallel 21:17.030 --> 21:19.830 to what happened with the COVID vaccines mandates 21:19.830 --> 21:20.730 because it was like, 21:20.790 --> 21:22.290 you don't have to take the vaccine. 21:22.910 --> 21:24.210 You just can't go to a restaurant. 21:24.470 --> 21:25.130 You can't go to a movie. 21:25.310 --> 21:25.990 You can't get on an airplane. 21:26.290 --> 21:26.910 You can't leave the country. 21:27.390 --> 21:28.530 You can't fly around the world. 21:28.710 --> 21:28.990 Exactly. 21:28.990 --> 21:31.050 Yes, it's part of 21:31.050 --> 21:33.730 part and parcel of the general, 21:34.010 --> 21:35.910 you know, making the world crappier 21:35.910 --> 21:38.470 so that we'll want to escape into their digital 21:39.530 --> 21:39.970 nirvana. 21:40.590 --> 21:41.230 Question mark? 21:41.390 --> 21:41.770 Well, anyway. 21:42.110 --> 21:42.530 Yeah. 21:42.790 --> 21:43.530 So it's, again, 21:43.650 --> 21:45.690 another compelling gripping story 21:46.270 --> 21:48.010 with some people that, again, 21:48.110 --> 21:48.990 are fleshed out characters 21:48.990 --> 21:50.850 who have their own motivations, et cetera. 21:51.430 --> 21:53.170 But rather than talking about it, 21:53.270 --> 21:54.670 why don't you read a little bit about it? 21:54.770 --> 21:56.850 I was wondering if you could read a little passage, 21:56.850 --> 21:58.730 first set up maybe this passage, 21:58.750 --> 22:00.390 and then read a little passage from it, 22:00.390 --> 22:01.910 like this beginning farmer's chapter. 22:02.510 --> 22:03.430 This beginning farmer's chapter. 22:03.970 --> 22:04.170 Yeah. 22:04.810 --> 22:05.810 You want to play a part? 22:06.810 --> 22:08.850 Oh, I could follow along. 22:09.130 --> 22:09.710 Yes, sure. 22:09.830 --> 22:10.450 Well, no, I was wondering, 22:10.570 --> 22:11.610 do you want to read one of the characters? 22:12.210 --> 22:12.810 You want to be the robot? 22:13.790 --> 22:13.950 Yeah. 22:14.130 --> 22:14.970 Can you do a British accent? 22:16.490 --> 22:18.030 Do I have to do a British accent? 22:18.270 --> 22:18.290 No. 22:18.690 --> 22:18.930 Okay. 22:19.550 --> 22:20.010 I'll do my best. 22:21.170 --> 22:22.950 You lived in Ireland for quite a while, 22:23.070 --> 22:23.350 weren't you? 22:23.670 --> 22:25.330 I lived in Ireland for my parents. 22:25.330 --> 22:26.270 Did you get to an Irish accent? 22:26.650 --> 22:27.450 No, I don't know. 22:27.670 --> 22:29.450 I don't know about my accent ability. 22:30.110 --> 22:32.810 Well, I also suggested this chapter because 22:33.690 --> 22:36.070 I wish I had read reportage before, 22:36.230 --> 22:38.250 reportage before I had read 22:38.250 --> 22:39.070 All the Humans are Sleeping 22:39.070 --> 22:41.630 because this chapter deals with the doomsday vault. 22:42.230 --> 22:44.210 And I hadn't actually heard the theory 22:44.210 --> 22:46.290 that you brought up that the doomsday vault 22:46.290 --> 22:47.690 was actually, you know, 22:47.810 --> 22:50.170 possibly or very likely there 22:50.170 --> 22:52.630 to deal with a GMO fallout, 22:52.630 --> 22:53.730 you know, type situation. 22:53.730 --> 22:56.070 GMO fallout type situation 22:56.070 --> 22:59.270 where we just screw up our food supply so bad 22:59.270 --> 23:01.130 we need to unfreeze some seeds. 23:01.410 --> 23:02.970 To be fair, that's only one possible 23:02.970 --> 23:05.070 apocalypse for which this could have been created. 23:05.310 --> 23:06.730 I mean, take your pick. 23:07.530 --> 23:08.630 Well, I took a pick. 23:09.550 --> 23:10.210 Yeah, exactly. 23:10.690 --> 23:10.830 Yeah. 23:11.130 --> 23:13.450 So, all right. 23:13.630 --> 23:16.530 Well, each chapter starts with an epigraph 23:16.530 --> 23:18.350 by Dr. Marta Wink, 23:18.470 --> 23:20.630 which the story said in 2041, 23:20.630 --> 23:22.530 but the epigraphs are from 23:22.530 --> 23:24.210 2291. 23:24.930 --> 23:27.850 Yeah, just one of the many reasons 23:27.850 --> 23:30.950 for locating the Jakovari Agricultural Station 23:31.130 --> 23:33.630 in the Tromsø-Oxfinmark County 23:33.630 --> 23:36.030 in the northernmost tip of Norway 23:36.510 --> 23:38.390 was to put it as close as possible 23:38.390 --> 23:42.070 to what was popularly known as the doomsday vault 23:42.070 --> 23:45.530 located on the arctic archipelago 23:46.210 --> 23:49.070 of Svalbard, 1200 kilometers north 23:49.070 --> 23:50.290 of mainland Norway. 23:50.290 --> 23:53.970 This Svalbard global seed vault 23:53.970 --> 23:56.710 contained 930,000 varieties of crops. 23:57.770 --> 24:00.530 It had costs in the region 24:00.530 --> 24:02.430 government 45 million kroner 24:02.430 --> 24:04.190 to construct in 2006. 24:05.150 --> 24:07.850 By 2042, the seeds it preserved 24:07.850 --> 24:09.230 had become priceless. 24:10.270 --> 24:12.530 Dr. Marta Wink, Ph.D., 24:12.530 --> 24:14.810 the rise and fall of 21st century man. 24:15.310 --> 24:17.250 Volume 3, page 213, 24:17.250 --> 24:19.150 Rebirth Press 2291. 24:21.370 --> 24:22.870 Peter caught up with Rebecca 24:22.870 --> 24:25.470 just in time to see Domestika, the robot, 24:26.170 --> 24:27.670 usher her into her new room. 24:28.550 --> 24:29.170 She gassed. 24:30.150 --> 24:31.270 This is like a hotel suite. 24:32.550 --> 24:34.010 Domestika's stoic expression 24:34.010 --> 24:36.730 broke into another one of its silicone smiles. 24:37.650 --> 24:38.470 It looked authentic, 24:38.790 --> 24:41.930 but Peter knew it was a calculated response 24:41.930 --> 24:44.550 rather than a true expression of happiness. 24:45.290 --> 24:47.370 I went with a Victorian feel. 24:48.190 --> 24:50.430 Explained the robot as British accent 24:50.430 --> 24:52.510 making the room feel all the more Victorian. 24:53.750 --> 24:55.930 Domestika stepped silently into the room 24:55.930 --> 24:58.630 and pulled a golden cord on a lamp adorned 24:58.630 --> 25:01.170 with a red, jackered textured bell shade 25:01.170 --> 25:02.470 and black fringe. 25:03.510 --> 25:05.490 Its light revealed in a night desk 25:05.490 --> 25:06.630 made of polished wood 25:06.630 --> 25:08.850 and a framed video screen on the wall 25:09.370 --> 25:10.370 pretending to be a window. 25:11.170 --> 25:13.270 The window screen displayed palm trees 25:13.270 --> 25:15.390 hanging over a beach with ocean waves 25:15.390 --> 25:17.150 lapping around a sand castle. 25:18.330 --> 25:19.950 Rebecca sprinted through the doorway 25:19.950 --> 25:22.750 leaping onto the raised mattress of the queen-size bed 25:23.270 --> 25:24.550 in the center of the room. 25:25.250 --> 25:26.190 She rolled over her. 25:26.450 --> 25:28.030 She rolled over onto her back 25:28.030 --> 25:29.830 and stretched out her arms. 25:30.270 --> 25:32.530 I feel like a queen, she proclaimed. 25:33.590 --> 25:36.850 Peter smiled, leaned toward Domestika and whispered, 25:37.370 --> 25:38.890 nice job, butler bot. 25:39.730 --> 25:41.330 So, said Rebecca, 25:41.990 --> 25:43.310 do I get breakfast in bed? 25:44.510 --> 25:45.390 If you so wish. 25:45.990 --> 25:46.910 Answered Domestika. 25:47.390 --> 25:50.690 I have been programmed in 42 different cooking styles 25:50.690 --> 25:54.030 including Arab-British, Cajun, French, Indian, Italian, 25:54.390 --> 25:55.270 Mexican, Vietnamese. 25:56.010 --> 25:57.370 You mean you have real food here? 25:57.690 --> 26:00.930 Asked Rebecca as she fluffed the red pillow behind her head. 26:01.830 --> 26:02.370 We will. 26:03.190 --> 26:04.050 Said Domestika. 26:04.650 --> 26:06.550 Once we begin cultivating the greenhouse. 26:07.430 --> 26:08.850 Oh, said Rebecca, 26:09.610 --> 26:12.430 turning over onto her stomach and bearing her face. 26:13.090 --> 26:15.270 I guess that means we're stuck with loop-poop. 26:15.870 --> 26:17.970 She pretended to vomit into the pillow. 26:18.890 --> 26:20.290 Loop is available. 26:21.150 --> 26:22.330 Conceded Domestika. 26:22.950 --> 26:25.650 But I've also secured a supply of wheat flour, 26:25.990 --> 26:28.450 basmati rice, an assortment of dried beans, 26:29.030 --> 26:31.470 semolina noodles, dehydrated mushrooms and tomatoes, 26:31.750 --> 26:34.530 tomatoes, and a wide selection of frozen fruits, 26:34.530 --> 26:36.530 vegetables, fish and meats. 26:36.870 --> 26:38.210 But if you prefer a loop. 26:38.690 --> 26:40.250 No, exclaimed Rebecca, 26:40.830 --> 26:43.230 lifting her face from the pillow and inhaling deeply 26:43.230 --> 26:46.370 and rather die than force down another loop shake. 26:47.170 --> 26:49.350 We do not want you to die, Miss Stevens. 26:50.630 --> 26:54.070 Peter cannot help but hear sincerity in the robot's voice. 26:54.950 --> 26:58.210 Of course, these things could be programmed to imitate any emotion, 26:58.650 --> 27:00.170 better than most human actors. 27:00.930 --> 27:04.290 But for the first time, Peter was willing to entertain the thought 27:04.290 --> 27:07.010 that this robot might truly be on their side. 27:07.910 --> 27:09.450 Tell me, said Peter, 27:10.230 --> 27:12.370 what kind of seed do we have to work with? 27:13.310 --> 27:16.190 We've been given full access to the entire inventory 27:16.190 --> 27:18.830 of the soil-bored global seed vault. 27:19.630 --> 27:20.750 Reply, Domestika. 27:21.250 --> 27:23.850 The doomsday vault, affirmed Peter. 27:24.670 --> 27:25.730 Domestika nodded. 27:26.470 --> 27:29.910 Thus we can grow just about every food crop known to man. 27:30.630 --> 27:33.830 Ha! said Peter, returning a lopsided grin. 27:34.770 --> 27:36.970 He'd read about the seed vault many years ago 27:37.930 --> 27:40.230 on the National Geographic website. 27:40.850 --> 27:44.030 It was buried in the side of some mountain in the Arctic Sea. 27:44.710 --> 27:45.750 Yes, that was right. 27:46.210 --> 27:47.510 The Norwegians had built it. 27:47.930 --> 27:48.770 Peter shook his head. 27:49.530 --> 27:52.370 Never in his most dystopian dreams would he have imagined 27:52.370 --> 27:55.090 he'd be the one who'd make use of his contents. 27:56.270 --> 27:59.310 Turning to Rebecca with raised eyebrows, he said, 28:00.250 --> 28:02.410 I guess that means we can grow just about anything. 28:03.350 --> 28:05.530 Rebecca rolled out of the bed onto her feet, 28:05.990 --> 28:07.530 skipped over to Domestika and asked, 28:08.450 --> 28:09.330 Can we grow pasta? 28:09.990 --> 28:11.650 I want to be a spaghetti farmer. 28:12.890 --> 28:15.130 Miss Stevens, spaghetti cannot be grown. 28:15.490 --> 28:17.550 But we can grow durum wheat, 28:17.910 --> 28:21.030 which in the base ingredient is the base ingredient in. 28:21.030 --> 28:23.390 I know, it was just a joke. 28:24.490 --> 28:25.170 Ah! 28:25.910 --> 28:27.210 The robot laughed, it was good. 28:28.690 --> 28:29.730 Very funny. 28:31.030 --> 28:32.190 It wasn't that funny. 28:33.370 --> 28:35.390 I apologize for my exuberance. 28:36.270 --> 28:37.290 You said there's pasta. 28:38.290 --> 28:39.650 Only macaroni noodles. 28:40.430 --> 28:40.970 Any cheese? 28:41.930 --> 28:42.450 Parmesan. 28:43.210 --> 28:45.130 Vinnie Simmel, exclaimed Rebecca. 28:45.470 --> 28:46.110 I'm starving. 28:47.110 --> 28:48.830 That's for sure, said Peter. 28:49.530 --> 28:52.350 Never fat, she had always been rather robust. 28:53.150 --> 28:54.930 Growing up on a farm does that to a girl. 28:55.670 --> 28:59.210 Living part-time in a human interface pod had done the opposite. 29:00.330 --> 29:02.950 His daughter approached him and put her arm around his shoulder. 29:03.790 --> 29:05.850 Mac and cheese dad, you want some? 29:06.590 --> 29:09.750 If you're cooking, he extended his arms embracing her. 29:10.210 --> 29:12.370 To a surprise, she didn't retreat. 29:13.610 --> 29:15.750 For the first time since the blast, 29:15.750 --> 29:19.550 he felt a flicker of happiness and a sliver of hope. 29:20.130 --> 29:21.630 He knew it wouldn't be easy, 29:21.770 --> 29:23.990 but he knew they could make it together. 29:25.070 --> 29:27.390 She squeezed him back and turned to domestical. 29:28.390 --> 29:29.790 I guess you don't eat, eh? 29:30.710 --> 29:31.690 That is correct. 29:32.690 --> 29:33.310 Too bad. 29:34.510 --> 29:35.710 All the more for you two. 29:36.710 --> 29:38.590 All right, she clapped her hands together. 29:39.390 --> 29:40.950 Take me to your doomsday kitchen. 29:41.670 --> 29:42.450 Of course. 29:43.470 --> 29:45.930 Said the robot and stepped out into the corridor, 29:46.490 --> 29:48.730 extending his arm and gesturing to the left. 29:49.490 --> 29:50.810 This way, if you please. 29:51.930 --> 29:52.950 A minute later, 29:53.670 --> 29:57.390 Peter was still smiling as he listened to his daughter singing her new hit single 29:57.390 --> 29:59.410 No More Loop Poop For Me. 30:00.150 --> 30:02.370 While they followed domestical down the long corridor. 30:03.230 --> 30:06.250 On the right, the sun streamed through the panoramic window. 30:06.990 --> 30:09.110 Below the window, for the length of the corridor, 30:09.110 --> 30:13.010 ran a railing which Rebecca was using for support. 30:15.450 --> 30:16.930 Is she that out of shape? 30:17.250 --> 30:17.750 Thought Peter. 30:19.130 --> 30:21.410 And any more time in that pod, 30:21.650 --> 30:22.690 and she deemed a wheelchair. 30:24.450 --> 30:25.210 Ahead of him, 30:25.530 --> 30:26.390 sorry, ahead of her, 30:26.570 --> 30:30.370 she saw an approaching spider bot racing towards them along the floor. 30:32.470 --> 30:34.470 Before scurrying up and along the wall 30:34.470 --> 30:35.670 to avoid being trampled, 30:35.670 --> 30:39.850 his magnetic pincers clamped softly as it passed Peter at shoulder height. 30:40.470 --> 30:41.970 He turned, walking backwards, 30:42.370 --> 30:44.070 to see a disappearance of the greenhouse. 30:45.150 --> 30:47.290 Turning forward again, he glanced out the window. 30:48.010 --> 30:50.210 The peak of neighboring Mount Valesfari 30:50.210 --> 30:51.910 was carrying an enormous, 30:52.290 --> 30:55.610 was casting an enormous shadow over the countryside below. 30:56.690 --> 30:58.370 Suddenly, Rebecca spoke out, 30:59.570 --> 31:00.970 Don, what's this? 31:02.170 --> 31:04.350 She was pointing to a metal door with a button 31:04.350 --> 31:07.050 in the shape of a downward pointing arrow. 31:07.990 --> 31:10.570 Normally, Domestical's responses were instantaneous. 31:11.510 --> 31:14.410 This time, Peter noticed a pause before it spoke. 31:15.990 --> 31:16.670 It's an elevator. 31:17.630 --> 31:19.390 Domestical finally disclosed. 31:19.990 --> 31:21.030 I figured that. 31:21.630 --> 31:22.230 Shot back, Rebecca. 31:23.190 --> 31:23.850 Where does it go? 31:25.650 --> 31:28.410 The lift descends fifteen stories into the mountain, 31:28.830 --> 31:30.290 providing a protected bunker. 31:31.150 --> 31:31.890 Another pause. 31:32.610 --> 31:35.650 With twenty-four human interface pods. 31:36.370 --> 31:37.790 What? Peter exclaimed. 31:38.270 --> 31:40.130 What do we need those damn coffins for? 31:41.690 --> 31:43.190 Simply as a precaution, 31:43.370 --> 31:46.310 in case of a physical or psychological distress. 31:47.250 --> 31:49.990 Peter was about to recommend dumping cement down the shaft, 31:50.230 --> 31:51.350 but Rebecca spoke first. 31:52.150 --> 31:54.190 You mean you can reconnect me? 31:55.010 --> 31:56.230 She asked the question quickly. 31:57.110 --> 31:58.810 Domestical tilted his head and said, 31:59.470 --> 32:01.610 I beg your pardon, Miss Stevens. 32:02.590 --> 32:04.210 I'm just asking, she repeated. 32:04.990 --> 32:07.610 You're saying that you have human interface pods down there 32:07.610 --> 32:08.810 that are connected to the Metaverse? 32:10.210 --> 32:12.250 Well, said Domestical. 32:13.050 --> 32:14.890 They are offline right now, 32:15.050 --> 32:18.170 but yes, they can connect to the Metaverse at any time. 32:18.930 --> 32:20.870 She put her hand on the door of the elevator 32:20.870 --> 32:23.810 and turned to face its metal surface. 32:25.170 --> 32:27.310 That's good to know, she said. 32:27.310 --> 32:29.750 You know, for emergencies. 32:30.870 --> 32:33.030 Peter realized he was holding his breath. 32:33.990 --> 32:36.370 Rebecca turned back to him and smiled. 32:37.610 --> 32:39.270 Let's go have some mac and cheese. 32:40.250 --> 32:41.390 She reached out her hand. 32:42.190 --> 32:44.330 Peter exhaled and clasped it. 32:45.010 --> 32:46.750 Then she let go and pulled back. 32:47.670 --> 32:49.110 Racia, she said. 32:49.710 --> 32:52.450 She started running, letting out a happy yelp. 32:53.270 --> 32:54.210 Peter laughed. 32:55.250 --> 32:57.130 Everything's going to be alright, he thought. 32:57.990 --> 32:59.970 Or at least, good enough. 33:00.970 --> 33:03.050 He turned to Domestical and repeated the challenge. 33:03.910 --> 33:04.970 Racia purple-bot. 33:06.010 --> 33:07.150 Peter launched forward. 33:07.550 --> 33:08.390 His legs felt stiff. 33:09.410 --> 33:10.970 His lungs felt weak, 33:11.250 --> 33:13.150 but for the first time in three months, 33:13.470 --> 33:14.150 he felt alive. 33:15.410 --> 33:18.030 Up ahead, he saw Rebecca suddenly halt. 33:18.730 --> 33:20.590 Sway side to side for a second 33:21.210 --> 33:22.590 and then reach out to her right. 33:23.330 --> 33:25.910 Only the tips of her fingers brushed the railing 33:25.910 --> 33:28.450 before she collapsed on the floor. 33:31.430 --> 33:33.470 Yay! Thank you. 33:34.110 --> 33:35.270 Very nice. Yes. 33:35.290 --> 33:36.470 Very nice robot. 33:38.270 --> 33:39.930 I think I need to work on it. 33:40.110 --> 33:41.990 Everyone in the comments, please comment on my 33:41.990 --> 33:44.610 absolutely terrible and offensive English accent. 33:44.790 --> 33:48.610 But yes, an intriguing little bit of the story 33:48.610 --> 33:51.410 and well, as all I can say is it makes sense 33:51.410 --> 33:52.770 once you read it in its context. 33:53.490 --> 33:56.690 But I think that gives a sense of what this story is like 33:56.690 --> 33:57.810 and what it's about. Obviously, 33:58.530 --> 34:00.570 generally speaking in the science fiction realm 34:00.570 --> 34:02.530 and in fact, I believe it has been 34:03.210 --> 34:04.930 honored with an award 34:04.930 --> 34:06.250 or at least a nomination. 34:06.930 --> 34:07.990 Tell us about that. 34:08.450 --> 34:11.010 Yeah, it's been nominated for the Prometheus Awards 34:11.010 --> 34:13.010 which is a specific, 34:13.450 --> 34:15.170 I think it's considered the third most 34:16.050 --> 34:17.410 well-known and successful 34:17.410 --> 34:20.810 or popular science fiction award 34:20.810 --> 34:22.710 for fiction novels. 34:23.230 --> 34:25.110 But it's specifically for science fiction 34:25.110 --> 34:27.830 or fantasy or kind of supernatural novels 34:27.830 --> 34:30.130 that have a pro-liberty 34:30.130 --> 34:33.630 and anti-authoritarian theme to them. 34:34.390 --> 34:36.050 It's been around for, I believe, 34:36.170 --> 34:38.050 about 27 years now. 34:39.150 --> 34:41.810 So each year they nominate... 34:42.650 --> 34:44.510 Right now this year we have 14 nominations. 34:45.270 --> 34:47.470 I have two of the novels other than... 34:47.470 --> 34:48.890 Well, all the humans are sleeping, of course. 34:51.050 --> 34:52.970 Powerless by Harry Turtle Dove 34:52.970 --> 34:56.230 which is an alternative fiction set. 34:56.490 --> 34:57.890 It's kind of hard to tell the date 34:57.890 --> 34:59.650 around probably 1960 California 34:59.650 --> 35:02.650 but it's an alternative history 35:02.650 --> 35:05.170 where the United States had joined the Soviet Union. 35:06.690 --> 35:09.710 So there's a really cool opener to this 35:09.710 --> 35:12.890 because the man, he's assigned a flower shop... 35:13.470 --> 35:14.770 No, sorry, a vegetable shop 35:14.770 --> 35:15.670 where he sells vegetables 35:16.750 --> 35:19.610 and each year they give them a new poster 35:19.610 --> 35:21.470 they have to put on the window of their store 35:21.470 --> 35:23.330 promoting true communism 35:23.330 --> 35:24.590 and that type of thing. 35:25.010 --> 35:27.170 And this guy who's never been very rebellious 35:27.170 --> 35:28.370 he just doesn't like the system 35:28.370 --> 35:30.770 he just couldn't put the poster up that time 35:30.770 --> 35:35.250 and that ricochets into so many things 35:35.250 --> 35:36.690 which is similar to what I had done 35:36.690 --> 35:37.570 with Machadoo about corona 35:37.570 --> 35:39.210 because no one really did anything 35:39.210 --> 35:40.850 to harm anybody in that novel 35:40.850 --> 35:43.110 but the retaliation from the police 35:43.110 --> 35:45.990 which escalates to a point 35:45.990 --> 35:49.230 that if I wrote that novel back in like 19... 35:49.230 --> 35:52.530 even 2010 you would say that was too far-fetched 35:52.530 --> 35:55.110 and then, you know, now it's like... 35:55.110 --> 35:57.310 So yeah, they got Turtle Dove 35:57.310 --> 35:59.130 I got another Storm Dragon 35:59.130 --> 36:02.310 which is more kind of science fiction 36:02.310 --> 36:03.710 it's set on another planet 36:03.710 --> 36:05.370 this is actually a young adults novel 36:05.830 --> 36:07.510 set on a planet where they got a settlement 36:07.510 --> 36:09.930 where the government's very totalitarian 36:09.930 --> 36:11.530 and it's about a boy and his dragon 36:11.530 --> 36:15.110 who helped overcome the... 36:15.110 --> 36:17.130 problematic forces in charge 36:17.130 --> 36:19.690 so the sites run by the Libertarian... 36:20.070 --> 36:23.110 or the wards are run by the Libertarian Future Society 36:24.430 --> 36:26.930 You know what? Let's pick up on that thread 36:26.930 --> 36:30.370 because that's an interesting sort of junction 36:30.370 --> 36:32.250 of what we're talking about here 36:32.250 --> 36:34.430 resistance fiction but also speculative fiction 36:34.430 --> 36:36.330 science fiction and I have certainly noticed 36:36.330 --> 36:39.290 there's, you know, there is a Libertarian anarchist 36:39.290 --> 36:40.910 bent in a lot of science fiction 36:40.910 --> 36:43.390 and the sort of freedom spirit 36:43.390 --> 36:45.850 has been preserved there perhaps more strongly 36:45.850 --> 36:49.070 than any other particular genre of writing 36:49.070 --> 36:51.190 A, if you notice that yourself and B, 36:51.830 --> 36:53.570 why on earth might that be? 36:54.670 --> 36:55.830 That's a good question 36:56.690 --> 36:58.790 I'm kind of split down the line on it 36:58.790 --> 37:00.690 because in some ways it is 37:00.690 --> 37:02.570 in some ways it isn't like probably one of the biggest, 37:02.730 --> 37:04.470 you know, examples of science fiction 37:04.470 --> 37:05.870 most people know Star Trek 37:05.870 --> 37:08.470 and that one you could go almost either way with it 37:08.470 --> 37:10.650 sometimes it looks like a communist utopia 37:11.270 --> 37:12.210 where it's like 37:12.830 --> 37:15.470 though it's definitely always from a military angle 37:15.470 --> 37:18.270 which actually kind of fits on the communist utopia angle 37:19.530 --> 37:21.290 you know, they kind of talk about 37:21.290 --> 37:23.170 but then they got like the Debord 37:23.170 --> 37:25.010 which is supposed to be like the super communist 37:25.010 --> 37:28.670 to make the regular communist utopia look kind of good 37:28.670 --> 37:30.330 like I kind of almost wondered why 37:30.330 --> 37:31.590 they didn't want to get assimilated 37:31.590 --> 37:33.710 because it was kind of the direction they were all going 37:35.750 --> 37:37.310 but then on the other hand 37:39.910 --> 37:40.810 it's interesting 37:40.810 --> 37:41.710 because some of the 37:42.930 --> 37:45.290 like a really good science fiction series 37:45.290 --> 37:47.910 I'm not sure if you've heard of the Silo series 37:47.910 --> 37:48.810 by Hugh Howie 37:50.510 --> 37:52.950 In fact, yes, I know the 37:54.370 --> 37:55.970 TV adaptation of it 37:55.970 --> 37:56.870 I haven't read the books 37:56.870 --> 37:59.870 You've seen The Apples? I think it's Apples done a version? 38:00.450 --> 38:02.010 Yeah, because originally that was 38:03.150 --> 38:05.190 interestingly the origin of that was 38:05.190 --> 38:06.830 the author was 38:07.730 --> 38:08.170 retired 38:09.310 --> 38:11.410 boat charter guy and he ended up just getting a kind of 38:11.410 --> 38:12.470 a day job at a bookstore 38:12.470 --> 38:15.430 and he was writing these short stories publishing them on Amazon 38:15.430 --> 38:17.190 he wrote this one story called Wool 38:17.190 --> 38:19.490 and I think it was about 10,000 words 38:19.490 --> 38:21.090 and he started to notice it was selling like 38:21.090 --> 38:23.070 3,000 copies a week all by itself 38:23.870 --> 38:25.390 so then he decided well I'm going to 38:25.390 --> 38:27.090 write a few more chapters to this 38:27.090 --> 38:29.750 and eventually became this three-part Wool trilogy 38:29.750 --> 38:32.450 which you know, it's very much a 38:32.990 --> 38:35.010 top-down controlled government where 38:35.010 --> 38:37.690 everyone's living in these silos underneath the ground 38:38.210 --> 38:40.350 and if you read the entire story 38:40.350 --> 38:42.150 because they control people through deception 38:42.150 --> 38:44.530 not through force which you know 38:44.530 --> 38:46.210 it's kind of the direction everything's going 38:46.210 --> 38:47.690 the kind of fifth-generational warfare 38:48.490 --> 38:50.530 which I think is partly why we see that 38:50.530 --> 38:52.230 seem emerging in science fiction in particular 38:52.230 --> 38:55.430 because fifth-generational warfare is a lot easier to do 38:55.430 --> 38:56.390 with technology 38:56.390 --> 38:58.750 it's a lot harder to do in the Middle Ages 38:59.830 --> 39:01.530 Yeah, you could do it somewhat 39:01.530 --> 39:03.730 with belief systems and so forth 39:03.730 --> 39:04.790 but it's a lot more work 39:05.370 --> 39:06.830 people are just better connected 39:07.310 --> 39:09.050 but it's interesting because Hugh Howie 39:09.050 --> 39:10.590 the author to that was like 39:10.590 --> 39:12.630 totally 100% behind 39:12.630 --> 39:15.230 the COVID mandates and I'm saying this 39:15.230 --> 39:16.590 because you can just go to his blog 39:16.590 --> 39:19.210 and he has long essays explaining 39:19.210 --> 39:21.110 why it was good to force people 39:21.110 --> 39:23.250 to take vaccines and to wear masks 39:23.890 --> 39:25.410 which I think you know gets into 39:25.410 --> 39:27.370 the whole issue of how much 39:27.370 --> 39:29.370 of this fiction is resistance fiction 39:29.370 --> 39:31.090 and then predictive programming 39:31.090 --> 39:33.850 or is it reflective programming 39:34.770 --> 39:37.990 You know that's such a fascinating question 39:37.990 --> 39:39.630 because as soon as you mentioned for example 39:39.630 --> 39:41.270 the matrix in that scene that yeah 39:41.270 --> 39:43.070 I'm sure a lot of us can relate to 39:43.070 --> 39:44.790 from our own rabbit hole experiences 39:44.790 --> 39:47.190 and waking up to the matrix and jacking out 39:47.190 --> 39:48.950 and oh my god where am I 39:48.950 --> 39:50.190 what's really happening 39:50.190 --> 39:52.070 is this what real life is like 39:52.070 --> 39:54.770 is a powerful and emotionally resonant 39:54.770 --> 39:56.850 scene because it obviously represents 39:56.850 --> 39:58.730 an experience that a lot of people have 39:58.730 --> 40:00.050 of waking up to reality 40:01.030 --> 40:02.910 but again there's so many things 40:02.910 --> 40:04.770 around the matrix not only 40:04.770 --> 40:07.530 of course NEO's passport expiring on 9-11-2001 40:07.530 --> 40:08.950 but many many other 40:08.950 --> 40:09.970 things in the matrix 40:11.350 --> 40:12.310 Yes someone 40:12.730 --> 40:14.910 figured out if you pause at the right moment 40:14.910 --> 40:16.830 as they're showing his passport you can 40:17.310 --> 40:18.890 you have to zoom in you have to 40:18.890 --> 40:20.210 have the you know blue ray addition 40:20.210 --> 40:22.150 and like rotate the screen but it's 40:22.150 --> 40:24.330 literally NEO's passport expires 40:24.330 --> 40:26.170 on September 11th 2001 40:26.170 --> 40:28.390 anyway there's beyond that 40:28.390 --> 40:30.010 there's a lot of things that clearly 40:30.010 --> 40:31.990 in that movie speak to 40:31.990 --> 40:34.490 what we all went through in the process 40:34.490 --> 40:36.530 of 9-11 and there after 40:36.530 --> 40:38.330 falling down that rabbit hole and 40:38.330 --> 40:40.310 waking up to the matrix but it 40:40.310 --> 40:42.170 really does that is one of those 40:42.170 --> 40:44.410 works that really does beg the question 40:44.410 --> 40:46.570 of is this predictive 40:46.570 --> 40:48.210 programming is it resistance fiction 40:48.210 --> 40:50.190 is what is the line between the two 40:50.190 --> 40:52.090 and I go back 40:52.090 --> 40:54.390 for example to Orwell 40:54.390 --> 40:55.970 and Huxley and 40:55.970 --> 40:58.070 just knowing what I know about 40:58.070 --> 40:59.710 Huxley and his family and 40:59.710 --> 41:02.090 everything that he was involved in the eugenics 41:02.090 --> 41:02.690 and all of that 41:03.450 --> 41:05.210 I hear him talking 41:05.210 --> 41:07.930 about the scientific dictatorship that's now 41:07.930 --> 41:09.690 possible and the ability to make people 41:09.690 --> 41:11.610 enjoy their own servitude and all of that 41:11.610 --> 41:13.690 and obviously the warning that was 41:13.690 --> 41:14.530 Brave New World 41:15.350 --> 41:17.810 but at the same time I feel like he was 41:18.910 --> 41:19.850 slobbering a little bit 41:19.850 --> 41:21.810 salivating at the thought of this 41:21.810 --> 41:23.670 scientific maybe I'm reading 41:23.670 --> 41:25.270 into that but it seems to me that 41:25.850 --> 41:27.390 Huxley was more on the predictive 41:27.390 --> 41:29.790 programming side of it whereas when I 41:29.790 --> 41:31.130 read Orwell and I read 1984 41:32.450 --> 41:33.850 I see that 41:33.850 --> 41:35.890 as resistance fiction 41:35.890 --> 41:37.950 and I see that as again setting 41:37.950 --> 41:39.910 the template for so much of 41:39.910 --> 41:41.910 what we now understand in reality 41:41.910 --> 41:43.930 and double think in all of these concepts 41:43.930 --> 41:45.430 that he introduced to the vernacular 41:45.430 --> 41:47.750 but I'm sure people 41:47.750 --> 41:49.450 could and I have heard people 41:49.450 --> 41:51.650 make the argument that no 1984 was 41:51.650 --> 41:53.250 predictive programming too as well 41:53.250 --> 41:55.410 rather than resistance fiction where 41:55.410 --> 41:57.670 where do we draw that line how do we 41:57.670 --> 41:59.550 draw that line how do you draw that line 41:59.550 --> 42:00.610 in the work that you're doing 42:01.810 --> 42:03.390 well my work specifically 42:03.390 --> 42:05.510 it was through the characters like I'm 42:05.510 --> 42:07.570 the characters in extension of me 42:07.570 --> 42:09.670 in a lot of ways like they say you know everybody 42:09.670 --> 42:11.270 you dream about in your dreams is 42:11.270 --> 42:14.090 extension of yourself in the same way I think the characters were 42:14.590 --> 42:15.070 and 42:15.070 --> 42:17.070 you know I despise totalitarian 42:19.170 --> 42:21.050 ism in any form 42:21.050 --> 42:23.050 like even when it's to make 42:23.050 --> 42:25.090 people be better and good 42:25.090 --> 42:26.430 and that kind of shaky stuff 42:27.290 --> 42:28.410 so I 42:29.010 --> 42:31.150 but at the same time it can become 42:32.610 --> 42:33.170 I 42:33.170 --> 42:35.410 I honestly don't have a really good 42:35.410 --> 42:37.130 answer for it like I was finding 42:37.130 --> 42:39.290 it interesting when we were fighting the covid stuff 42:39.290 --> 42:41.270 I remember one of the people in our local group 42:41.270 --> 42:43.170 saying to me it's like how do people 42:43.170 --> 42:45.250 love the hunger games like there's 42:45.250 --> 42:47.150 all these people all these kids and teenagers 42:47.150 --> 42:49.130 love the hunger games and yet they're 42:49.130 --> 42:51.010 strapping on their mask and getting the shot 42:51.010 --> 42:53.290 and hiding at home and I can't they see 42:53.290 --> 42:55.010 that this and 42:55.010 --> 42:57.150 sometimes I'm concerned too especially when 42:57.150 --> 42:58.790 it's more in the cinema 42:59.410 --> 43:00.810 arena versus a novel 43:00.810 --> 43:02.050 fiction is that 43:02.990 --> 43:04.970 you can see these characters 43:04.970 --> 43:07.290 resisting and it kind of 43:07.290 --> 43:08.750 fulfills it for you 43:09.690 --> 43:11.270 so you feel like oh I 43:11.270 --> 43:13.210 it's almost like with sports you know a lot of people 43:13.210 --> 43:15.170 watch sports they don't feel the need to actually play 43:15.170 --> 43:17.190 sports because they're watching people play 43:17.190 --> 43:19.290 sports all the time so you know 43:19.290 --> 43:20.990 you see Katniss with her 43:20.990 --> 43:23.290 you know mighty arrows blasting 43:23.290 --> 43:25.250 tyranny out of the sky and then you 43:25.250 --> 43:27.110 feel like you've kind of done it I don't know 43:27.110 --> 43:28.990 that's it because there is something 43:28.990 --> 43:31.270 already in a way isn't that kind 43:31.270 --> 43:33.070 of yeah clearly 43:33.070 --> 43:35.530 people experience that perhaps more viscerally 43:35.530 --> 43:37.170 when they're engaged in a movie in the cinema 43:37.170 --> 43:39.190 but in a way that's the similar to what 43:39.190 --> 43:41.210 you would take out of a book as well 43:41.210 --> 43:43.230 and isn't that an indictment of all 43:43.230 --> 43:45.170 fiction well and all of it is just 43:45.170 --> 43:47.230 our trying to live through these things so that 43:47.230 --> 43:48.230 we don't have to do it ourselves 43:49.210 --> 43:51.310 what what is the space then for 43:51.310 --> 43:53.350 resistance fiction to actually provoke 43:53.350 --> 43:55.170 real world action 43:56.390 --> 43:57.330 I feel it's 43:57.330 --> 43:59.170 it gets inspiring it also gets 43:59.170 --> 44:01.190 to face the fears and that's what I tried 44:01.190 --> 44:03.310 to do in that and actually actually do it in a fun 44:03.310 --> 44:05.270 way because I 44:05.270 --> 44:07.190 I cover it especially in much ado about 44:07.190 --> 44:09.330 corona it gets there's some very dark 44:09.330 --> 44:11.370 scenes in the book and not as dark as it 44:11.370 --> 44:13.030 could have been but there's also a lot of 44:13.030 --> 44:15.030 friendly banter and stuff I really liked 44:15.030 --> 44:17.450 Josh Whedon who did the firefly 44:17.450 --> 44:19.050 series I don't they ever seen the firefly 44:19.050 --> 44:21.310 series but it's 44:21.310 --> 44:23.190 interesting series because it was only it 44:23.190 --> 44:24.550 got canceled after like 44:25.190 --> 44:27.230 six episodes it was so anti 44:27.230 --> 44:29.370 government anti tyranny 44:29.370 --> 44:31.170 it's set in the far future where 44:31.170 --> 44:33.450 this tyrannical government has one 44:33.450 --> 44:35.270 and it's about a small band of 44:35.270 --> 44:36.990 people who are still resisting 44:37.690 --> 44:39.270 and they they purposely tried 44:39.270 --> 44:41.230 to get that show off the air because they put it like 44:41.230 --> 44:43.290 one week at one time in the next week 44:43.290 --> 44:45.150 they changed the day and the time it was on 44:45.150 --> 44:47.570 and just kept on doing that it got canceled 44:47.570 --> 44:49.290 and they just they didn't even show 44:49.290 --> 44:51.030 all the episodes they threw it all the episodes 44:51.030 --> 44:53.190 onto a dvd and said if I just put it on the internet 44:53.190 --> 44:54.970 or on Amazon to make some money 44:54.970 --> 44:56.750 the things sold like crazy 44:57.310 --> 44:59.150 so much so that they got a movie 44:59.150 --> 45:01.410 to finish the series up like a movie 45:01.410 --> 45:03.110 that followed a canceled TV series 45:03.110 --> 45:04.950 hasn't happened since Star Trek but 45:05.850 --> 45:07.430 but Josh Whedon's attitude 45:07.430 --> 45:09.270 with that he says he says make it dark 45:09.270 --> 45:11.290 make it grim make it 45:11.290 --> 45:13.250 real but then for the love of God tell a joke 45:14.490 --> 45:15.190 so I 45:15.190 --> 45:16.970 tried to get that in there but also 45:16.970 --> 45:19.250 I think I had to face the fear of 45:19.250 --> 45:21.230 like what's the worst thing that I could do to 45:21.230 --> 45:23.170 these characters especially the main 45:23.170 --> 45:24.930 character you know without killing him 45:25.970 --> 45:26.990 and I don't know 45:26.990 --> 45:29.130 I think if you can have people go through 45:29.130 --> 45:31.090 all the fear and emotions that they're going to 45:31.090 --> 45:32.550 feel when they're trying to resist 45:33.090 --> 45:35.030 and come out the other side then 45:35.030 --> 45:35.490 I think 45:37.090 --> 45:38.990 you have some hope of inspiring 45:38.990 --> 45:39.350 them 45:41.390 --> 45:43.130 and that's the beautiful thing about 45:43.130 --> 45:44.950 the novel over the screen is you can get inside 45:44.950 --> 45:46.630 the characters head you can do that 45:46.630 --> 45:47.770 with the screen 45:49.670 --> 45:51.190 so that's always been 45:51.190 --> 45:53.130 the biggest difference with novels over 45:53.870 --> 45:55.150 not to put down movies 45:55.150 --> 45:56.990 movies have their own benefits 45:56.990 --> 45:57.630 and so forth 45:57.630 --> 45:59.330 yeah like 45:59.330 --> 46:01.390 the jones plantations a masterpiece 46:01.390 --> 46:02.190 for example 46:03.870 --> 46:05.390 but you can get inside 46:05.390 --> 46:06.610 people's heads you can become 46:07.470 --> 46:09.110 the character can reflect back 46:09.510 --> 46:11.090 and forth between the reader and the character 46:11.090 --> 46:13.790 and you have multiple characters so there's one that they're going to latch on 46:13.790 --> 46:14.510 to more so 46:15.610 --> 46:17.510 so yeah I think that's 46:18.270 --> 46:18.910 I think 46:18.910 --> 46:21.370 if you can get them through the emotional 46:21.370 --> 46:22.650 journey that's going to happen 46:22.650 --> 46:24.930 and inspire them to get out the other side 46:26.670 --> 46:27.510 this is it 46:27.510 --> 46:28.410 I mean there are characters 46:28.830 --> 46:30.510 in books that I've read over the years that 46:30.510 --> 46:33.050 sort of inhabit my mind in ways that 46:33.050 --> 46:34.870 I'm sure I'm not even consciously aware of 46:34.870 --> 46:36.910 but you know that start to form 46:36.910 --> 46:38.930 your perception of the world 46:38.930 --> 46:41.010 and the way that you can live and I think 46:41.010 --> 46:42.990 at its best that is what resistance 46:42.990 --> 46:44.670 fiction can do is at least implant 46:44.670 --> 46:46.430 the sort of the idea 46:46.430 --> 46:49.090 for how a hero acts in the world 46:49.090 --> 46:50.490 not necessarily 46:50.490 --> 46:52.610 you know killing the dragon with your sword but 46:52.610 --> 46:54.630 at any rate how you stand up to 46:54.630 --> 46:56.490 tyranny and can provide that template 46:56.490 --> 46:58.610 so I'd like to put the question to you 46:58.610 --> 47:00.870 what is some resistance fiction that has inspired 47:00.870 --> 47:02.370 you in your 47:02.370 --> 47:03.650 reading over the years 47:04.810 --> 47:05.750 well I have to admit 47:05.750 --> 47:08.950 I don't know if it's going to sound cliche or not but to kill a mockingbird 47:08.950 --> 47:10.570 was a big influence on me 47:10.570 --> 47:11.270 and you 47:11.270 --> 47:14.550 you know and I think that 47:14.550 --> 47:16.790 novel in the same right it had that same 47:16.790 --> 47:18.590 effect where you know specifically talking 47:18.590 --> 47:20.210 about the discrimination against 47:20.710 --> 47:22.130 the black population 47:22.130 --> 47:22.990 in the south but 47:23.790 --> 47:26.170 it did it all through a story from the point of view 47:26.170 --> 47:28.230 of a little girl I mean the amount I think 47:28.230 --> 47:30.070 it took her like ten years to write the book so it was 47:30.070 --> 47:31.610 it was an intense dense 47:32.490 --> 47:33.790 extremely well written book 47:34.490 --> 47:35.890 so that that's one of them 47:35.890 --> 47:37.870 I mean I know there's a lot of controversy over 47:37.870 --> 47:40.050 Harper Lee and her motives and all that kind of 47:40.050 --> 47:40.550 stuff but 47:41.850 --> 47:43.630 as a stand alone it was good 47:44.170 --> 47:44.970 Amar Tows 47:45.610 --> 47:47.630 a gentleman of Moscow I had 47:47.630 --> 47:49.770 a quite a bit of influence on it 47:49.770 --> 47:51.270 you know that's a story about a man 47:51.830 --> 47:52.230 who's 47:53.190 --> 47:54.890 after the Bolsheviks 47:54.890 --> 47:56.810 I'm not sure exactly the dates on it but 47:57.650 --> 47:59.610 basically when the Russians kind of went full 47:59.610 --> 48:01.090 capitalism they took all the 48:01.570 --> 48:03.410 people with money and they kind of locked them up 48:03.410 --> 48:05.490 and house arrest basically locked down for 48:05.490 --> 48:07.330 the rest of their life and it's about this one man 48:08.530 --> 48:08.930 who's 48:09.450 --> 48:11.350 told that he's not allowed to leave a hotel 48:11.350 --> 48:13.370 till he dies so he's basically 48:13.370 --> 48:14.710 put in lockdown in a hotel 48:14.710 --> 48:16.710 and he lives there for 48:16.710 --> 48:18.230 I can't remember 20 years 48:19.230 --> 48:20.550 and you see him 48:20.550 --> 48:22.590 resisting in every which way 48:22.590 --> 48:24.970 he can he never any I don't want to ruin the ending 48:24.970 --> 48:25.930 very good novel 48:26.710 --> 48:28.770 one of the ones I has a lot 48:28.770 --> 48:30.610 of impact on me was and it's comes 48:30.610 --> 48:31.590 from a total communist 48:32.410 --> 48:34.610 was the Shawshank redemption by Stephen 48:34.610 --> 48:36.630 King because Stephen 48:36.630 --> 48:38.750 King is like full I don't know if 48:38.750 --> 48:40.570 he's full-blown communist but he's if you 48:40.570 --> 48:42.130 ever sat there and listen away there 48:42.130 --> 48:44.350 yeah yeah I 48:44.350 --> 48:46.310 I mean I got a little clip just recently 48:46.310 --> 48:48.070 with him just saying how 48:48.070 --> 48:49.890 disgusted he was with people in Florida 48:49.890 --> 48:52.030 during the lockdown just going out and walking 48:52.030 --> 48:53.910 around you know it's like what kind of example 48:53.910 --> 48:56.090 is this but the Shawshank 48:56.090 --> 48:58.110 redemption which was a short 48:58.110 --> 48:58.910 story originally 49:00.250 --> 49:01.310 to me is 49:01.950 --> 49:04.250 you know it's about a man who's been captured 49:04.250 --> 49:06.090 by the state he's been 49:06.090 --> 49:07.930 thrown in prison for a crime he didn't commit 49:08.570 --> 49:10.230 and it's about how 49:10.230 --> 49:10.870 he fights 49:12.170 --> 49:13.550 what little he can 49:14.070 --> 49:16.010 and he has a very long-term plan 49:16.010 --> 49:18.310 and he just perseveres every day 49:18.310 --> 49:20.170 with this very small effort 49:20.170 --> 49:22.350 that he can make and I don't want to 49:22.350 --> 49:24.170 ruin it for anyone who hasn't read the 49:24.170 --> 49:26.210 book or seen the movie both of which I think were excellent 49:27.610 --> 49:28.050 so 49:28.910 --> 49:30.250 so that feeling 49:30.250 --> 49:32.050 at the end of that movie when you know you 49:32.050 --> 49:33.910 figure out what he was really doing 49:34.630 --> 49:35.410 and that 49:36.590 --> 49:38.210 that's what I you know it's a story 49:38.210 --> 49:40.330 can capture that feeling because I when I read 49:40.330 --> 49:41.090 Brave New Normal 49:41.590 --> 49:44.150 I did not feel uplifted by the end of that book 49:44.610 --> 49:46.010 I did not feel hopeful 49:47.470 --> 49:48.350 I found 49:48.350 --> 49:50.130 it kind of weird it was almost kind of like a really 49:50.130 --> 49:52.310 like twisted version of the Jetsons 49:53.130 --> 49:54.610 you mean Brave New World 49:54.610 --> 49:55.430 or Brave New 49:56.070 --> 49:57.590 sorry did I say normal yes 49:58.050 --> 49:59.410 sorry I meant Brave New World 50:00.010 --> 50:01.410 yeah sorry yeah Brave New World 50:01.990 --> 50:04.130 my next book is actually called Brave New Normal 50:04.130 --> 50:04.870 ah 50:06.630 --> 50:08.190 yeah sorry Brave New World 50:09.430 --> 50:10.870 the whole thing is just 50:10.870 --> 50:13.190 it's a disturbing story I found 50:13.190 --> 50:14.410 and I didn't feel 50:14.410 --> 50:16.910 like you know it's kind of like this is 50:16.910 --> 50:19.330 it's like watching instead of watching Star Trek 50:19.330 --> 50:20.690 just watching the Borg show 50:20.690 --> 50:21.490 yes 50:22.630 --> 50:23.910 no you know what 50:23.910 --> 50:26.550 it reminds me of 50:27.210 --> 50:28.050 I'm sorry 50:28.050 --> 50:31.070 I should have pulled this off my bookshelf before we talked 50:31.070 --> 50:31.450 but 50:31.450 --> 50:31.550 it's 50:32.310 --> 50:33.870 B.F. Skinner's 50:34.990 --> 50:35.850 Walden 2 50:35.850 --> 50:37.990 which I did on my film literature 50:37.990 --> 50:39.850 and New World Order series several years ago 50:39.850 --> 50:41.650 if you haven't read that it's again 50:41.650 --> 50:43.950 such a creepy creepy book 50:43.950 --> 50:46.110 but clearly to me that is 50:46.110 --> 50:47.970 an attempt at predictive programming 50:47.970 --> 50:50.130 not resistance fiction but people can 50:50.130 --> 50:52.350 hear my film literature in the New World Order podcast 50:52.350 --> 50:53.270 for more about that 50:53.270 --> 50:55.630 but yeah same sort of creepy feeling about 50:55.630 --> 50:57.870 the Jetsons future that they want 50:57.870 --> 50:59.910 us to be excited about 50:59.910 --> 51:01.650 I think but my god 51:01.650 --> 51:03.370 does it not sound exciting but 51:03.370 --> 51:04.190 you know what 51:04.190 --> 51:05.530 is this about Thorough? 51:06.450 --> 51:07.010 no 51:08.990 --> 51:11.150 it's about B.F. Skinner wanting to 51:11.890 --> 51:13.170 puppeteer people like their 51:13.790 --> 51:15.390 pigeons in his Skinner box essentially 51:16.450 --> 51:17.970 please do read it if you 51:17.970 --> 51:19.310 are interested it is 51:19.310 --> 51:21.930 it's creepy and disturbing and exactly what 51:21.930 --> 51:23.870 Skinner would probably write about anyway 51:23.870 --> 51:25.350 I should say just the last one 51:25.350 --> 51:26.830 the author which I think 51:27.070 --> 51:28.910 deserves good mention was Ayn Rand 51:28.910 --> 51:31.390 ah alright interesting 51:31.390 --> 51:33.110 yes I you know the funniest 51:33.110 --> 51:35.350 thing is and I hesitate 51:35.350 --> 51:37.390 to tell this story but back 51:37.390 --> 51:39.250 in university I did have a friend 51:39.250 --> 51:41.530 who who highly recommended 51:41.530 --> 51:43.350 Ayn Rand and so I did 51:43.350 --> 51:45.570 read the fountain head and I 51:45.570 --> 51:47.250 was so unimpressed 51:47.250 --> 51:49.410 with her as a fiction writer 51:49.410 --> 51:51.250 that I couldn't get excited about the 51:51.250 --> 51:52.910 philosophy I then 51:52.910 --> 51:54.990 you're gonna write philosophy just write philosophy 51:54.990 --> 51:57.030 that's fine I can read that but this fiction 51:57.030 --> 51:59.090 was not I didn't I did not like 51:59.090 --> 52:01.110 it I did not think those were fully fleshed 52:01.110 --> 52:02.510 out characters I thought they were 52:03.130 --> 52:04.470 tropes and ideas and 52:04.470 --> 52:07.110 you know two dimensional cutouts 52:07.110 --> 52:08.790 one of the problems of Ayn Rand 52:08.790 --> 52:10.970 philosophy about fiction like I actually 52:10.970 --> 52:13.010 have her it's not here I 52:13.010 --> 52:15.030 got a whole book on her oh yeah here it is 52:15.970 --> 52:17.010 Ayn Rand like you 52:17.010 --> 52:18.930 know she she had a very um she had 52:18.930 --> 52:20.870 a philosophy about everything in life but 52:20.870 --> 52:23.090 she she had this theory that she had 52:23.090 --> 52:24.830 to make these characters like her main 52:24.830 --> 52:26.590 characters these perfect human beings 52:26.590 --> 52:28.830 she did want very black and white 52:28.830 --> 52:30.790 characters and that I think was a bit of 52:30.790 --> 52:32.170 a flaw 52:34.030 --> 52:36.890 but but I appreciate that a lot 52:36.890 --> 52:38.710 of people have garnered something 52:38.710 --> 52:40.870 from those stories and hey who am I to get 52:40.870 --> 52:42.870 in the way of that but you know what John 52:42.870 --> 52:44.710 you have inspired me today because 52:45.790 --> 52:46.710 obviously I 52:46.710 --> 52:48.970 I mean I am a reader I've always 52:48.970 --> 52:50.710 been interested in reading and fiction 52:50.710 --> 52:53.050 but as people know I did do the 52:53.050 --> 52:54.890 film literature and new world order podcast series 52:54.890 --> 52:57.030 for many years until I found that 52:57.030 --> 52:58.930 I just wasn't comfortable 52:58.930 --> 53:01.070 with the way that it was being received or 53:01.070 --> 53:03.030 not received by the audience and 53:03.030 --> 53:04.970 I questioned whether 53:04.970 --> 53:07.370 and how to do a book club 53:07.370 --> 53:08.770 in podcast 53:08.770 --> 53:10.890 form with people listening in who 53:10.890 --> 53:13.050 99% of them haven't read the book and never 53:13.050 --> 53:14.910 will what what is the point of this 53:14.910 --> 53:16.950 what are we doing so I have 53:16.950 --> 53:19.270 I have put that podcast on hiatus 53:19.270 --> 53:20.710 for many years now but 53:20.710 --> 53:23.070 you are inspiring me to give it another 53:23.070 --> 53:25.070 try and to see if the audience 53:25.070 --> 53:26.790 will be along for the ride if there is 53:26.790 --> 53:29.110 actual worthwhile engagement to be had 53:29.110 --> 53:31.010 from such a series so I would like to 53:31.010 --> 53:33.070 invite you John Manley would 53:33.070 --> 53:34.830 you be interested in being 53:34.830 --> 53:36.390 the first guest on the 53:36.850 --> 53:38.810 revivified film literature new world order podcast 53:38.810 --> 53:39.790 I'd be honored 53:40.490 --> 53:42.790 well then we will have to set a date for that 53:42.790 --> 53:44.770 and think about 53:44.770 --> 53:46.550 what book resistance 53:46.550 --> 53:48.830 fiction predictive programming or other type 53:48.830 --> 53:50.250 of book we would like to talk about and 53:50.670 --> 53:52.410 we'll talk about that off air but anyway 53:52.410 --> 53:54.870 thank you very much for your time for all 53:54.870 --> 53:56.730 of this writing this efforts 53:56.730 --> 53:58.970 that you've gone to I know 53:58.970 --> 54:00.710 it is probably more of a compulsion than 54:00.710 --> 54:02.250 something that you're doing out of just the 54:02.670 --> 54:04.770 the the niceness of your heart 54:04.770 --> 54:06.950 because that is the only reason people actually 54:06.950 --> 54:08.730 do put the pen to paper 54:08.730 --> 54:11.050 usually but I appreciate it nonetheless 54:11.050 --> 54:12.750 and obviously 54:12.750 --> 54:14.090 this is going to touch a lot of people 54:14.910 --> 54:16.010 yeah I remember when 54:16.010 --> 54:18.670 we were all kind of worrying whether we're all going to end up in 54:18.670 --> 54:20.690 COVID concentration camps or you know just 54:20.690 --> 54:22.770 be shot or in lethal injection or all 54:22.770 --> 54:24.650 that kind of thing the main thing 54:24.650 --> 54:26.870 keeping me up at night was I haven't published a book yet 54:26.870 --> 54:28.810 I haven't finished the novel so I kind 54:28.810 --> 54:30.930 of just combined the two well I can fight this 54:30.930 --> 54:32.910 and you know let's give it a try 54:34.350 --> 54:36.670 it works well tell us about Blazing 54:36.670 --> 54:38.750 Pinecone Publishing what 54:38.750 --> 54:39.830 is Blazing Pinecone 54:41.710 --> 54:42.490 well Blazing 54:42.490 --> 54:43.530 Pinecone was supposed to be 54:44.290 --> 54:45.850 kind of a metaphor there's a theory 54:45.850 --> 54:47.530 that the pineal gland in the brain 54:47.530 --> 54:49.710 helps produce a lot of creative 54:50.290 --> 54:52.050 ideas and so forth so that's 54:52.050 --> 54:53.910 in the pineal gland in the brain looks 54:53.910 --> 54:55.030 like a pinecone so 54:56.450 --> 54:57.950 I kind of find when I get 54:57.950 --> 54:59.850 my best idea it kind of feels like that part 54:59.850 --> 55:01.610 of the brain so obviously it's a nice metaphor 55:01.610 --> 55:03.690 and I didn't want to be one of those authors 55:03.690 --> 55:05.750 to just use their name you know just John Manley 55:05.750 --> 55:08.090 so I wanted something like that 55:08.090 --> 55:09.890 so I 55:09.890 --> 55:11.870 realized especially with much to do about corona 55:11.870 --> 55:14.030 there's just no point trying to get this published by a 55:14.030 --> 55:15.910 mainstream publisher because that was 55:15.910 --> 55:17.190 not going to happen 55:17.990 --> 55:19.750 so I did 55:19.750 --> 55:21.850 went in the publishing 55:22.670 --> 55:23.930 which I don't regret 55:23.930 --> 55:24.390 at all 55:25.690 --> 55:28.270 and so BlazingPinecone.com 55:28.270 --> 55:29.810 if people want to go there I have 55:30.670 --> 55:32.030 the first 27 55:32.030 --> 55:33.650 chapters of all the humans are sleeping 55:33.650 --> 55:36.210 available like e-book and audio book format 55:36.210 --> 55:37.890 so you can just go and listen to like 55:37.890 --> 55:39.810 one third of the book and I say well 55:39.810 --> 55:42.230 if you don't want to continue then it's not your book 55:43.310 --> 55:44.250 and then I'm doing 55:44.250 --> 55:45.750 the same with much to do about corona 55:46.530 --> 55:46.930 so 55:46.930 --> 55:50.310 and that that site originally was called 55:50.310 --> 55:52.190 much to do about corona.com you may remember 55:52.190 --> 55:54.030 at the time because I remember you gave me a mention 55:54.030 --> 55:55.210 in one of the Dino Awards 55:56.430 --> 55:58.310 because I originally I was a site was just 55:58.310 --> 55:59.990 focused on every day I was 55:59.990 --> 56:02.190 putting out a new article whilst I was writing this 56:02.190 --> 56:03.730 novel trying to 56:03.730 --> 56:05.790 stop the COVID oppression 56:06.330 --> 56:06.810 and 56:07.670 --> 56:09.730 eventually once the novel came out I decided 56:09.730 --> 56:11.690 I'm going to go from the different 56:11.690 --> 56:13.490 I appreciate it reading in your 56:13.490 --> 56:15.670 in your book James because you started 56:15.670 --> 56:17.890 off as a novel would be novelist 56:17.890 --> 56:19.010 and you turned journalist and 56:19.510 --> 56:21.810 I sort of started off as a journalist and I 56:21.810 --> 56:22.950 went novelist so 56:23.450 --> 56:25.490 now the world's all balanced and everything 56:26.490 --> 56:28.470 now we have to go back the other way 56:29.290 --> 56:29.770 okay 56:30.350 --> 56:31.970 I'll start the manly 56:31.970 --> 56:33.230 report yes 56:33.230 --> 56:35.490 and I'll start blazing 56:35.490 --> 56:37.450 your other place yeah can you write this 56:37.450 --> 56:37.710 equal 56:40.450 --> 56:41.110 well I 56:41.110 --> 56:43.450 if I do I'm going to be doing 56:44.070 --> 56:45.810 of all the humans are sleeping 56:45.810 --> 56:47.950 now wherever it is all the 56:47.950 --> 56:49.710 humans are sleeping I'm going to be doing a 56:49.710 --> 56:52.010 second edition of that slightly because 56:52.010 --> 56:53.890 one of the criticisms I got over and over 56:53.890 --> 56:56.070 again was people were upset that Brent wasn't 56:56.070 --> 56:57.970 in the story enough so 56:57.970 --> 56:59.850 I did feel I kind of jipped it there 56:59.850 --> 57:02.110 now so maybe instead 57:02.110 --> 57:03.830 when if I do the second edition 57:03.830 --> 57:06.050 when Pete's Peter says you know he's 57:06.050 --> 57:07.550 read about the doomsday vault on the 57:07.550 --> 57:09.470 National Geographic website I'll just 57:09.470 --> 57:10.650 change it to the corporate report 57:11.890 --> 57:12.370 I 57:13.470 --> 57:15.430 I appreciate it you know 57:15.430 --> 57:17.390 the corporate reporting every book 57:17.910 --> 57:18.990 well we should mention 57:19.610 --> 57:21.510 fans of the corporate report will be 57:21.510 --> 57:23.390 happy to see if you when they read much 57:23.390 --> 57:25.550 about Corona there is a I think an amusing 57:25.550 --> 57:27.170 scene in there with the characters 57:27.170 --> 57:29.030 referencing the corporate report and 57:29.030 --> 57:30.590 the QAnon phenomenon 57:31.130 --> 57:33.030 I appreciate it being contrasted 57:33.030 --> 57:34.310 to the QAnon people 57:35.010 --> 57:36.250 not like those people 57:37.350 --> 57:38.310 yeah yeah 57:39.510 --> 57:41.130 excellent well John thank you again 57:41.130 --> 57:43.030 for your time for your work for doing 57:43.030 --> 57:45.250 what you do keep at it we're all rooting 57:45.250 --> 57:47.250 for you for whichever sequel comes out 57:47.250 --> 57:49.170 first I'm assuming all the humans 57:49.170 --> 57:51.210 are sleeping well actually as a 57:51.210 --> 57:53.170 prequel to much to do about Corona is coming out 57:53.170 --> 57:54.890 next it's almost done is called COVID 57:54.890 --> 57:56.570 disobedience and I think 57:56.570 --> 57:58.250 in particular you might find that 57:58.810 --> 58:00.690 it's set three months before 58:00.690 --> 58:02.390 what happened in much to do about Corona 58:03.390 --> 58:05.210 it's set well it's set in two periods 58:05.210 --> 58:06.150 it's set in 2020 58:06.710 --> 58:08.690 right at the beginning of the lockdown and it's set in 58:09.530 --> 58:10.890 1846 July 23rd 58:11.750 --> 58:12.910 I'm not sure if that date brings 58:12.910 --> 58:14.930 the bell July 23rd that's 58:14.930 --> 58:16.830 the day Henry David Thoreau got thrown in prison 58:16.830 --> 58:18.110 for not paying the poll tax 58:18.690 --> 58:20.790 and I'm what has emerged with 58:20.790 --> 58:22.370 originally it was just a short story 58:22.370 --> 58:23.710 again of 58:24.250 --> 58:26.310 with Stephanie because I wanted to do I had this 58:26.310 --> 58:28.470 story in my mind for quite a while 58:28.470 --> 58:30.390 because it happened in Toronto well 58:30.390 --> 58:32.390 Brampton near Toronto where 58:32.390 --> 58:34.210 they were actually locking 58:34.210 --> 58:36.510 kids in their room for like three four 58:36.510 --> 58:37.670 weeks at a time like 58:38.530 --> 58:40.530 because they had a positive PCR test 58:40.530 --> 58:42.430 no access with the rest of the family 58:42.430 --> 58:44.710 so I wanted to do a story about 58:44.710 --> 58:46.490 that so I have a story with Stephanie 58:46.490 --> 58:48.570 and that and that oddly enough 58:48.570 --> 58:50.550 Henry David Thoreau came into the 58:50.550 --> 58:52.570 story at one point and so 58:52.570 --> 58:54.550 now what I have is two stories parallel 58:54.550 --> 58:56.770 chat one chapter set in 1846 58:57.390 --> 58:58.590 telling the story of 58:58.590 --> 59:00.530 Henry David Thoreau being arrested for not paying 59:00.530 --> 59:02.510 the poll taxes and incarceration and 59:02.510 --> 59:04.530 eventually being let out whilst every 59:04.530 --> 59:06.450 other chapter is telling the story with Stephanie 59:06.450 --> 59:08.030 trying to help this girl in lockdown 59:09.070 --> 59:10.350 and then the two stories 59:10.350 --> 59:12.790 come together so that's 59:12.790 --> 59:13.470 going to be out soon 59:14.630 --> 59:16.490 I can't wait looking 59:16.490 --> 59:17.810 forward to it and how do people 59:17.810 --> 59:20.430 follow you again BlazingPineCone.com 59:20.430 --> 59:23.310 Yeah go to BlazingPineCone.com 59:23.310 --> 59:23.810 they can 59:23.810 --> 59:25.530 enter their name and email address 59:25.530 --> 59:27.630 well just their email address I don't want their name 59:28.250 --> 59:29.610 I don't mind but 59:29.610 --> 59:31.530 I just thought it would save time 59:32.410 --> 59:33.870 I have a newsletter 59:33.870 --> 59:35.790 that goes out three times a week and 59:35.790 --> 59:37.890 they get free copies of 59:37.890 --> 59:39.790 the previews for the audio book and 59:39.790 --> 59:41.130 the print book and 59:41.710 --> 59:42.970 lots of other fun stuff 59:44.570 --> 59:45.490 BlazingPineCone.com 59:46.510 --> 59:47.070 Excellent 59:47.070 --> 59:49.390 John Manley let's leave it there thank you again for your time 59:49.390 --> 59:50.530 Thank you very much 59:51.850 --> 59:52.410 Okay 59:52.410 --> 59:55.530 I hope you guys were as captivated 59:55.530 --> 59:57.490 and interested in that conversation as 59:57.490 --> 59:59.170 I was I think it's 59:59.170 --> 01:00:01.150 an incredibly interesting idea 01:00:01.150 --> 01:00:02.750 to think about resistance fiction 01:00:02.750 --> 01:00:05.170 where does it what is it how does it 01:00:05.170 --> 01:00:07.070 function where does the line between resistance 01:00:07.070 --> 01:00:09.090 fiction and predictive programming lie 01:00:09.090 --> 01:00:10.970 how can we more effectively 01:00:11.490 --> 01:00:12.910 use narrative 01:00:12.910 --> 01:00:14.970 to help get people 01:00:14.970 --> 01:00:16.770 to understand our point of view 01:00:16.770 --> 01:00:18.870 and who are the people out there who are doing it 01:00:18.870 --> 01:00:20.930 all valuable and important questions to 01:00:20.930 --> 01:00:23.130 be exploring so I'm glad there are people like John Manley 01:00:23.130 --> 01:00:24.950 out there who are exploring them of course 01:00:24.950 --> 01:00:26.870 you can find out more about him 01:00:26.870 --> 01:00:28.810 at the BlazingPineCone website link 01:00:28.810 --> 01:00:30.410 in the show notes as always 01:00:30.410 --> 01:00:33.010 and there of course you can find links to his works 01:00:33.010 --> 01:00:34.890 and start exploring that but I think 01:00:34.890 --> 01:00:36.850 the question of resistance 01:00:36.850 --> 01:00:39.010 fiction and how it works and 01:00:39.010 --> 01:00:41.070 how it can be done more effectively 01:00:41.070 --> 01:00:43.590 and who is effectively doing it is an important one 01:00:43.590 --> 01:00:45.170 and obviously along 01:00:45.170 --> 01:00:46.210 those lines yes 01:00:46.730 --> 01:00:48.250 here you've heard it here first 01:00:48.250 --> 01:00:49.930 Film Literature New World Order 01:00:50.850 --> 01:00:53.150 revived shall we give it another go guys 01:00:53.150 --> 01:00:54.570 let's try 01:00:54.570 --> 01:00:56.970 and I'll see what the feedback is like 01:00:56.970 --> 01:00:59.110 on this series and whether it is worth continuing 01:00:59.110 --> 01:01:00.390 it but I think I'm going to 01:01:01.050 --> 01:01:02.470 try doing this 01:01:03.050 --> 01:01:04.930 crazy internet book club 01:01:05.610 --> 01:01:07.170 with the general audience that 01:01:07.170 --> 01:01:09.210 generally has not read the book and see how that 01:01:09.210 --> 01:01:11.390 works and see if there is anything good that can come 01:01:11.390 --> 01:01:13.250 of it but I'm excited at any 01:01:13.250 --> 01:01:15.230 rate because I always 01:01:15.230 --> 01:01:17.130 am excited to read good 01:01:17.130 --> 01:01:19.110 fiction and to explore these ideas 01:01:19.110 --> 01:01:21.210 so I hope people out there 01:01:21.210 --> 01:01:23.170 are similarly interested and exploring 01:01:23.170 --> 01:01:25.030 and also helping to 01:01:25.030 --> 01:01:27.310 support those writers who are out there attempting 01:01:27.310 --> 01:01:29.150 to put this in narrative form 01:01:29.150 --> 01:01:31.310 of course you will know that I am such a writer 01:01:31.310 --> 01:01:33.130 although my book is 01:01:33.130 --> 01:01:34.650 not fiction obviously 01:01:34.650 --> 01:01:36.230 I have the non-fiction 01:01:36.230 --> 01:01:38.230 reportage essays on the 01:01:38.230 --> 01:01:40.490 New World Order which as you know by now 01:01:40.490 --> 01:01:41.250 20 essays 01:01:42.050 --> 01:01:44.290 collected from 15 years of 01:01:44.290 --> 01:01:46.190 writing and those essays 01:01:46.190 --> 01:01:48.190 are now available in hard 01:01:48.190 --> 01:01:49.790 cover and paperback 01:01:49.790 --> 01:01:51.910 and there is an audio book download 01:01:51.910 --> 01:01:54.030 there is an e-book download all of those 01:01:54.030 --> 01:01:56.150 formats all of those versions 01:01:56.150 --> 01:01:57.450 are available of course at 01:01:58.100 --> 01:01:59.330 reportagebook.com 01:01:59.330 --> 01:02:01.730 and or wherever fine books 01:02:01.730 --> 01:02:03.570 are sold and 01:02:03.570 --> 01:02:05.010 as you may have seen 01:02:05.430 --> 01:02:07.130 with my recent announcement also 01:02:07.130 --> 01:02:09.590 reportage is now available only 01:02:09.590 --> 01:02:11.730 for Corbett Report members only for paid 01:02:11.730 --> 01:02:13.550 subscribers to the Corbett Report 01:02:13.550 --> 01:02:15.350 you have the opportunity to get a 01:02:15.350 --> 01:02:17.170 special collectible audio 01:02:17.170 --> 01:02:19.250 book data CD 01:02:19.250 --> 01:02:21.370 of the reportage audio book 01:02:21.370 --> 01:02:23.330 so it's the it's the whole audio book 01:02:23.330 --> 01:02:25.210 all 8 plus hours on a single 01:02:25.210 --> 01:02:27.050 CD but of course it's not a regular 01:02:27.050 --> 01:02:29.250 CD it's a data CD so it can be 01:02:29.250 --> 01:02:31.030 read in a CD ROM or may 01:02:31.030 --> 01:02:33.170 perhaps by certain mp3 01:02:33.170 --> 01:02:35.030 CD compatible CD 01:02:35.030 --> 01:02:37.150 players if you happen to have such a thing 01:02:37.150 --> 01:02:39.050 otherwise it just makes a good collectible 01:02:39.050 --> 01:02:40.690 and helps support this work 01:02:40.690 --> 01:02:42.690 so if you are interested in that 01:02:42.690 --> 01:02:44.990 the link to that will be in the show notes 01:02:44.990 --> 01:02:46.950 remember you will have to be a member 01:02:46.950 --> 01:02:48.710 of the website logged in 01:02:48.710 --> 01:02:50.830 in order to purchase that special 01:02:51.510 --> 01:02:53.010 collectible data CD 01:02:53.910 --> 01:02:55.110 anyway other than 01:02:55.110 --> 01:02:56.870 that I hope you are 01:02:56.870 --> 01:02:58.350 all as excited about the 01:02:58.350 --> 01:03:00.410 revived film literature in New 01:03:00.410 --> 01:03:02.270 World Order as I am I'm trepidatious 01:03:02.270 --> 01:03:04.030 about as well but we'll see how it goes 01:03:04.690 --> 01:03:06.310 but I think narrative 01:03:06.310 --> 01:03:08.290 is incredibly important 01:03:08.290 --> 01:03:10.270 more important than we tend to give it credit 01:03:10.270 --> 01:03:12.230 for in our haughty geopolitical 01:03:12.230 --> 01:03:14.450 discussions we don't tend to think 01:03:14.450 --> 01:03:16.310 about the ways that people's narratives 01:03:16.310 --> 01:03:18.330 are shaping their world views and what 01:03:18.330 --> 01:03:20.310 they see and don't see and the way 01:03:20.310 --> 01:03:22.190 that they act in the world so let's 01:03:22.190 --> 01:03:24.070 see if we can explore this 01:03:24.070 --> 01:03:26.610 idea in greater detail as always 01:03:26.610 --> 01:03:27.970 I'm interested to hear your comments 01:03:27.970 --> 01:03:29.750 so corporate report members please log in 01:03:29.750 --> 01:03:31.990 leave your comments on corporatereport.com 01:03:31.990 --> 01:03:33.050 in the post below 01:03:33.050 --> 01:03:35.910 but in the meantime and finally here today 01:03:35.910 --> 01:03:38.550 I'm going to leave the last words to William Faulkner 01:03:38.550 --> 01:03:40.370 I know I've played them here on the podcast 01:03:40.370 --> 01:03:41.970 before but I think they are 01:03:41.970 --> 01:03:44.570 as apt now as they ever were 01:03:44.570 --> 01:03:46.490 and I think we all need 01:03:46.490 --> 01:03:48.610 to hear and reflect on them at this 01:03:48.610 --> 01:03:50.510 particular juncture in world history 01:03:50.510 --> 01:03:51.170 so these 01:03:51.690 --> 01:03:54.110 this is the recording of William Faulkner reading 01:03:54.110 --> 01:03:56.230 his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize 01:03:56.230 --> 01:03:56.870 in Literature 01:03:57.590 --> 01:03:59.470 we'll leave it there for today James Corbett 01:03:59.470 --> 01:04:02.150 corporatereport.com thank you for joining me for today's exploration 01:04:02.150 --> 01:04:03.690 I'm looking forward to talking to you again 01:04:03.690 --> 01:04:04.550 in the near future 01:04:24.110 --> 01:04:25.430 it is only mine in trust 01:04:26.550 --> 01:04:28.030 it will not be difficult 01:04:28.030 --> 01:04:30.170 to find a dedication for the money part 01:04:30.170 --> 01:04:32.250 I would commensurate with the purpose and significance 01:04:32.250 --> 01:04:33.250 of its origin 01:04:33.950 --> 01:04:36.070 but I would like to do the same with the acclaim 01:04:36.070 --> 01:04:37.950 too by using this moment as a 01:04:37.950 --> 01:04:40.050 pinnacle from which I might be listened to 01:04:40.050 --> 01:04:42.170 by the young men and women already 01:04:42.170 --> 01:04:43.990 dedicated to the same anguish and 01:04:43.990 --> 01:04:46.110 travail among whom is already 01:04:46.110 --> 01:04:48.050 that one who will someday stand here 01:04:48.050 --> 01:04:49.070 where I am standing 01:04:49.790 --> 01:04:51.890 our tragedy today is a general 01:04:51.890 --> 01:04:53.590 and universal physical fear 01:04:53.590 --> 01:04:55.970 so long sustained by now that we can 01:04:55.970 --> 01:04:56.670 even bear it 01:04:56.670 --> 01:04:59.230 there are no longer problems of the spirit 01:04:59.230 --> 01:05:01.950 there is only the question when will I be blown up 01:05:01.950 --> 01:05:04.070 because of this the young man 01:05:04.070 --> 01:05:05.890 a woman writing today has forgotten 01:05:05.890 --> 01:05:07.550 the problems of the human heart 01:05:07.550 --> 01:05:08.890 in conflict with itself 01:05:09.750 --> 01:05:11.690 which alone can I make good writing 01:05:11.690 --> 01:05:13.670 because only that is worth writing about 01:05:13.670 --> 01:05:15.390 worth the agony and the sweat 01:05:15.970 --> 01:05:17.430 he must learn them again 01:05:17.430 --> 01:05:19.350 he must teach himself that the basis 01:05:19.350 --> 01:05:20.990 of all things is to be afraid 01:05:20.990 --> 01:05:23.170 and teaching himself that 01:05:23.170 --> 01:05:25.510 forget it forever leaving no room 01:05:25.510 --> 01:05:27.350 in his workshop for anything but the old 01:05:27.350 --> 01:05:29.110 verities and truths of the heart 01:05:29.110 --> 01:05:31.310 the old universal truth 01:05:31.310 --> 01:05:33.470 lacking which any story is ephemeral 01:05:33.470 --> 01:05:35.330 and doomed love and honor 01:05:35.330 --> 01:05:37.090 and pity and pride and compassion 01:05:37.090 --> 01:05:37.870 and sacrifice 01:05:39.590 --> 01:05:41.470 until he does so he labors 01:05:41.470 --> 01:05:43.110 under our curse he writes 01:05:43.110 --> 01:05:45.390 not of love but of lust of deceits 01:05:45.390 --> 01:05:47.650 in which nobody loses anything of value 01:05:47.650 --> 01:05:49.570 of victories without hope 01:05:49.570 --> 01:05:51.490 and most of all without pity or compassion 01:05:52.190 --> 01:05:53.630 his griefs grieve on 01:05:53.630 --> 01:05:56.030 no universal bones leaving no scars 01:05:56.030 --> 01:05:57.450 he writes not of the heart 01:05:57.450 --> 01:05:58.310 but of the glands 01:05:59.490 --> 01:06:01.270 until he relearns these things 01:06:01.270 --> 01:06:02.950 he will write as though he stood among 01:06:02.950 --> 01:06:04.350 and watched the end of man 01:06:04.350 --> 01:06:07.010 I decline to accept the end of man 01:06:07.010 --> 01:06:09.450 it is easy enough to say that man is immortal 01:06:09.450 --> 01:06:11.110 simply because he will endure 01:06:11.630 --> 01:06:13.570 that when the last ding dong of doom 01:06:13.570 --> 01:06:15.330 has clanged and faded from the last 01:06:15.330 --> 01:06:17.070 worthless rock hanging tideless 01:06:17.070 --> 01:06:18.930 in the last red and dying evening 01:06:18.930 --> 01:06:21.290 that even then there will still be 01:06:21.290 --> 01:06:23.090 one more sound that of his puny 01:06:23.090 --> 01:06:24.910 inexhaustible voice still talking 01:06:24.910 --> 01:06:27.150 I refuse to accept this 01:06:27.150 --> 01:06:29.310 I believe that man will not merely endure 01:06:29.310 --> 01:06:31.170 he will prevail he is immortal 01:06:31.170 --> 01:06:33.270 not because he alone among creatures 01:06:33.270 --> 01:06:34.850 has an inexhaustible voice 01:06:34.850 --> 01:06:36.850 but because he has a soul 01:06:37.590 --> 01:06:39.630 a spirit capable of compassion 01:06:39.630 --> 01:06:41.250 and sacrifice and endurance 01:06:41.250 --> 01:06:43.430 the poet's the writer's duty 01:06:43.430 --> 01:06:44.890 is to write about these things 01:06:44.890 --> 01:06:46.910 it is his privilege to help man endure 01:06:47.410 --> 01:06:49.250 by lifting his heart by reminding 01:06:49.250 --> 01:06:51.110 him of the courage and honor and hope 01:06:51.110 --> 01:06:52.750 and pride and compassion and pity 01:06:52.750 --> 01:06:55.250 and sacrifice which have been the glory 01:06:55.250 --> 01:06:57.090 of his past the poet's voice 01:06:57.090 --> 01:06:59.330 need not merely be the record of man 01:06:59.330 --> 01:07:00.530 it can be one of the props 01:07:00.530 --> 01:07:02.230 the pillars to help him endure 01:07:02.230 --> 01:07:03.070 and prevail 01:07:06.550 --> 01:07:07.750 The Deep State 01:07:10.270 --> 01:07:12.050 False Flags 01:07:12.050 --> 01:07:14.570 9-11 Truth 01:07:15.890 --> 01:07:18.010 The Federal Reserve 01:07:19.690 --> 01:07:21.750 Secret Wars and Hidden Histories 01:07:23.370 --> 01:07:24.930 Fake News 01:07:25.430 --> 01:07:26.830 Medical Martial Law 01:07:27.750 --> 01:07:29.110 Ceaseless Propaganda 01:07:31.250 --> 01:07:33.050 James Corbett 01:07:33.750 --> 01:07:34.930 Repertage 01:07:35.770 --> 01:07:37.810 Essays on the New World Order 01:07:38.850 --> 01:07:40.730 Available where books are sold 01:07:40.730 --> 01:07:42.570 Until they're not