The SF Universe of Cadwell Turnbull's "The Lesson"

Daniel and Jorge talk about the connections between science and art and discuss the science and politics of Cadwell Turnbull's "The Lesson"

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hey, Daniel, I know you're a big fan of aliens. Well,
I haven't met them yet, but yeah, I'm looking forward
to it, right, But I wonder if you've really thought
it through them. What do you mean, I'm all set,
I haven't aliens have arrived. Go bag already packed? Really,
what's in it? An emergency kid and some bottled water
and toilet paper. Toilet paper? Good, idea hold on them
and put that in my lady, you're gonna eat that

(00:30):
if the aliens come. I guess all I'm saying is
that you don't really know how friendly these aliens are
ever going to be. Well, that's why I want to
meet the aliens. But I don't want to be the
first human to meet the aliens. Oh, I see. You
want to wait until that's even the first group of humans.
Then you want to talk to them when they're full.
That's my plan. I want to be dessert, not appetizer.
You don't want to be the aperitie. Instead, I want

(00:51):
to be the post dinner conversation. That's my plan. So
you can be the dessert. I'll be the one that
chills out with them. I am more handmay cartoonists and

(01:14):
the creator of PhD Comics. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a
particle physicist and I'm happy to be any part of
dinner with aliens. I think you're just very sweet, Daniel.
So you make a good dessert. I can be salty.
Watch out, well, I could be wanted those desserts. It's
savory and sweet. That's right. Would you like to meet Daniel.
He's a particle physicist and he's ummmy flavored. And they're
gonna be like, no, thanks, get me some cartoonists please.

(01:37):
They're much more out of shape. They're softer. But welcome
to our podcast. Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a
production of Heart Radio in which we take stock of
the shape of the universe. How squishy is it, how firm,
how fit is it? And how deep is our understanding
of the fundamental nature of this reality. We take you

(01:58):
on a tour of every being that's out there. From
the very biggest, oldest, most ancient questions about the nature
of this bizarre cosmos, we find ourselves into the newest,
freshest exploration of the tiniest particles that make up this reality.
That's right. We'd like to talk about all the delicious
and amazing facts about physics that are out there for

(02:18):
humans to discover and wonder about and feel amazed about.
But we also like to talk about the possible theories,
the maybes that are out there, the amazing possibilities that
are waiting for us to discover. That's right, because exploring
the universe requires a lot of creativity. We don't just
go out there and ask the universe, hey, tell us
how things work. We have to discover it. We have

(02:40):
to put together a story that explains all of the
clues that we have found, and that sometimes requires a
lot of mind bending creativity about what might be going on. Yeah, Daniel,
I wonder if there's a job out there where you
have to just think of possibilities about the universe and
think of interesting scenariosm and what could happen. That's called
theoretical physicist exactly make up. Yeah, you go. I wonder

(03:05):
if the universe works this way, what would that mean
and how would we check? Or like, how can I
tell a story about the universe that we'ves together all
these weird experiments that we've seen. It's all about coming
up with a narrative. I think that narratives are a
deep part of the way the humans think, and that's
essentially what science is. Trying to tell a story about
all the experiences we've had, and you get paid for it.

(03:28):
If you can get the job, you get paid for it.
You're also welcome to do theoretical physics on your own
time as an amateur. Interesting like a non paid theoretical physicist.
Can I put that in a business card? I think
that almost everybody who listens to this podcast is a
nonpaid theoretical physicist, because you guys like to think about
the nature of the universe, and you email me lots
of fun ideas about how the universe might work. So

(03:49):
in some sense, we are all theoretical physicists paid or not. Yeah,
even children, I guess you know. Children are trying to
figure out the world and trying to figure out what
the rules are, and that's basically what physicists are, right children.
This is our children that never stopped asking those questions exactly.
So on the podcast, we like to talk about the
theories that are out there and also the facts that

(04:10):
scientists have discovered, but we also like to delve into
the fictional side of science, in particular science fiction that's right.
I'm an avid reader of science fiction because while I
do enjoy our universe, I also like thinking about other
ways that the universe might be. And I think it's
really important for a scientist to sort of stretch their
minds a little bit and imagine that the universe might

(04:31):
be quite different from the ones that we think it
is today, because lots of times in the history of
science we have had to do exactly that, to toss
out our conceptions of how the universe works and accept
a completely different story that makes us feel really different
about the nature of humanity and our context and what
it means to be alive. And one great way to
do that is to have somebody else do that thinking

(04:52):
for you. My reading science fiction novels. Yeah, and sometimes
they're right, sort of right, Like sometimes they posit crazy
scenarios and they turn to be true, right, like the
internet was in the internet, or satellites one of those technologies.
Didn't those come from a science fiction novel? Yeah? I
think there are lots of example there, and they're not independent. Right.
I'm not the only scientists who read science fiction. And

(05:12):
so if you're a scientist and you read science fiction,
you go, oh, that's a cool idea. Let's make that real.
Then sometimes that happens and people start to work on
projects because they read about it in a novel. So
science fiction authors out there, you may be controlling the
future direction of human progress. Are they technically theoretical theoretical
physicists then, or imaginary theoretical physicists? How would you name them?

(05:36):
They are creative directors of theoretical physics. There you go,
the most important job obviously. Yeah. So we like to
talk about science fiction, and we like to interview science
fiction authors on the podcast and to talk about this
unique combination of physics and art. And speaking of this
interesting interplay between physics and r Daniel, you recently had
a great conversation with some physicists and artists that are

(05:58):
collaborating on a special project. That's right. As you may know.
I think it's a great idea for a scientist to
reach out and collaborate with people in the artistic creative community,
not just to benefit from their ideas, but to work
together as a way to communicate science. Is a way
to sort of make science more accessible. You and I
have had a lot of fun doing that, and I
recently ran across another pair of physicists and an artist

(06:21):
who used to be a mechanical engineer working on a
fun project together. Oh my goodness, it's like an alternate
universe version of us. Should we write a science which
novel about that is pretty implausible? Are they the anti
version of it? Are they like the cool, funny, attractive
versions of us? And if we touch them, we're all
going to annihilate each other. Well, they're definitely younger than
we are. I won't comment on our relative attractiveness. Yeah,

(06:45):
so you talked to him and they have a great
project that's going live pretty soon. That's right. So here's
a short conversation I had with Sophia gat Nasser, physicist
and Katherine Matchin, a space artist. So then it's my
pleasure to welcome too friends to the podcast. Sofia gad

(07:06):
Nezer and Catherine Machen Welcome. Can you guys begin by
introducing yourselves, tell us a little bit about you and
how you guys got to work together, Sofia, Yeah, so um,
I am a PhD candidate at the University of California
in Irvine, so I know you very well. Dane one

(07:28):
of the most awesome professors at the school. What I
do is like cosmology, sort of like astroparticle theory type
stuff with simulations. I work on dark matter, particularly, although
I'm interested in many other things, like you know, dark
energy and stuff like that, and inflation also is something

(07:49):
that I'm interested in. But like, my current project is
working on taking dark matter halos and using them to
explain how the seeds for super massive black hole were
formed in the early WHOA, very cool? So do you
think that dark matter haloes can't explain how we got
supermassive black holes so early in the universe. It really

(08:09):
depends on the model. It's highly dependent on the model,
Like certain models would not be able to do it,
and so if you have self interactions that's a consequence
of it, and so it's entirely model dependent. Very cool,
Very cool. And Catherine, I'm Kat. I'm a deep space
artist currently based in Sydney, Australia, but I get around

(08:30):
a little bit and I've been making basically anything related
space artwork over the last five years. But prior to that,
I made video games for a living my real job,
I like to call it. And I actually studied mechanical
engineering as a degree, and uh, that definitely didn't suit me, because, yeah,
I was too creative in a way for the rigidity

(08:52):
of engineering. So well, I am a big fan of
collaborations between physicists and artists, actually artists who were once engineers,
as Jorge was a mechanical engineer once as well. But
tell me how you guys darted working together and what
you guys have in store for us. And we've both
been prevalent in like the online science Steam community as

(09:14):
far as I content, Yeah, I get some steam on
the go. Um. I just getting people excited about space generally.
I'm trying to get people to connect to the universe
in the same way that Sofia is trying to pick
it apart. And we're just trying to share as much
as possible, and our paths inevitably crossed when I joined
Twitter a couple of years ago and I just found

(09:36):
Sofia and it just was enthralled by all her content.
I mean, I've been doing this for about five years now,
and a couple of years ago I reached out to
actually was it a year ago? I reached out to you,
Sofia and said, I really like to draw some book
dark matter stuff if you could tell me how it
works and then try and visualize some of her research

(09:57):
a year ago. That's happy anniversary, baby. But you just
can't find, you know, I mean unless you go to
very specific space artists, of which there are not that many.
You know, if you go into any store, any gallery,
you know, the one thing you won't find is beautiful
pictures of the cosmos or beautiful pictures that describe, like

(10:20):
you know, dark matter and its interactions and nothing. You know,
you'll find a lot of abstracts and landscapes and bowls
of fruit. And that is obviously some people's cups of tea.
But there's a lot of us out there that we
want stuff on our walls that actually means something to
us and gives us the chills because it reminds us
that we're part of this incredible phenomenal universe. I mean,

(10:43):
maybe someone gets that from a bowl of bananas, but
don't discampananas. So what do you guys have planned? What
do you guys putting together? Can people expect to see?
We're basically putting together a series of really high quality,
like very luxurious artwork prints based on Sophia's research and
other aspects of dark matter that you know, she's very

(11:05):
fascinated with, and also they're still also involved in my research. Yes,
so we're creating a series of these artworks and then
making them available to the public to purchase, and obviously
they can go into the store order them, but it's
only open for three days, so it is a very

(11:26):
short span. But you know, we hope to maybe do
something like this again in future, because I think what
I realized is the overwhelming amount of support from the
public that, like I, have been desperate to get something
like this, and no one's doing it, and even if
there is a visualization available, it might not be guided

(11:46):
by science. It's really special because it's not a simulation.
A simulation is based on literal, fundamental equations and sort
of turnout like if you have everything right as you think,
you know, I mean, at least right with whatever model
you're using, it will turn out a certain way. But
this is so much more beautiful because you get an
extra touch of creativity from the art that goes into it.

(12:09):
And so what I want people to take away from
this is I want them to take away the science
and the creativity that it takes to put together something
that is abstract that you have visualized before where you're
using like physics, and then you're trying to sort of
use an interpretation of what that would look like and

(12:32):
put it on paper, and it's a really beautiful thing.
So I so what I want people to take away
from that is that as well as to support and
bring you know, to a forefront steam like the merging
of science and art together, because I think it's super
important that we move in that direction. Wonderful. Totally agree.

(12:53):
So I know that you guys had something open in
June by the time folks are here in this podcast
that will have clothes already. Let people know where they
might be able to find and your future works and
collaborations if they go online, which they type in the Google.
I think that it's pertinent just to go to all
our social media channels because everything is really linked there
and obviously the specific you or else do change every
time we run something, so um, but I would definitely

(13:16):
head over there Astro Party Girl and at Katherine ma
Chin which is dreadfully hard to spell, so probably just
google it and it will try and recorrect it. For
I wanted those names, and my mom was like, I
would like you to be unique, and I spend my
whole life trying to spell it to people. You know. Well,
we'll put links to your social profiles in the show

(13:36):
notes so people can find it there. Thanks to both
of you for coming on and telling us about it,
and congrats on your awesome new collaboration. Can't wait to
see what you guys put together. Thank you so much
for having us all Right, pretty cool. I like that
she's a space artist. Does that mean she does art
in space or her artist space or well, she had
a zoom background, so I couldn't tell if she was

(13:58):
on the International Space Station at the time or just
in Australia, which I think it was equidistant for me anyway,
so it's just as alien really, who knows. Maybe she
was in her art space. Yeah, but it was pretty cool.
She told me that five years ago she didn't even
know how to paint, and now she makes a living
as a space artist. She used to work in video games.

(14:18):
She has a background as a mechanical engineer. So it
just goes to show you that people's lives can't take turns,
and you can start out in one field and end
up being quite successful in another. As you well know,
anyone can be a space artist. You just need a
little space and some art. But anyways, back to our
conversation about science fiction and how they really expand our
minds about what's possible and what could be out there

(14:40):
in the universe and what would happen if we run
into some of these amazing things. We have today a
pretty interesting interview with a new author. Right, that's right.
This is a science fiction book by debut author just
broke into the scene, and a really fantastic book, and
it takes a sort of a new look at the
idea of first contact, what it would be like if

(15:01):
aliens came to Earth? Right? And does it have a
happy ending? I'm not going to ruin it for you,
but there's definitely a lot of suffering along the way,
you know, that's what makes it feel real. All right? Well,
then today on the podcast, we'll be talking about the
science fiction universe of cat Will turn Rolls the lesson.

(15:24):
It's right, it's a super fun book, and I don't
want to give it with the ending, but I guess
I'll just say that it's unlikely that Disney is going
to option this for a family movie. What about Disney
plus I think Fox owns Disney now, right, can it
be like a Marvel movie. I don't have to be
Disney like plus plus plus I think Disney x Disney Max. Yeah.

(15:46):
So the book is called The Lesson and it's a
science fick and novel and the author's name again is
cat Will Turnbull. And it's a pretty interesting novel because
you're saying it kind of re imagines first contact, right,
because I guess usually first contact still worries are either
really good or really bad. Right. There's the et version
where the aliens are friendly, and then there's the Independence

(16:07):
Day version where the aliens are just here to destroyers. Yeah, exactly,
And it reimagined it in several ways. You know, usually
when the aliens come, they like land on the lawn
of the White House, or attack New York City or
something here. Instead, he centers the aliens in the Virgin Islands,
not in like the financial or population or political center
of the United States or of the world, but in

(16:29):
this sort of like off the beaten path place. And
he does something really cool with it, which is that
he uses the arrival of aliens to sort of cast
a light on or make us think more deeply about
something that already exists in our society, and that's the
sort of colonial power structure. And he's from the Virgin Islands,
so he knows a lot about the history and the
you know, colonial mistakes that were made in the waves

(16:51):
of the you know, the Spanish and the Danish and
then the Americans sort of coming and taking over and
making use of it for themselves. And so he imagines
this alien arrival sort of like the latest in waves
of colonization of the Virgin Islands. That's pretty cool. I
guess if I was an alien, I would also land
in a tropical paradise, probably like it in New York City.

(17:11):
It's terrible there in the winter. Well maybe for an alien,
New York City is a tropical paradise, right, maybe they
like to lounge on the beaches covered with snow. You know,
who knows where they're alien planet is like, right, I
guess New Yorkers are pretty um exotic. They are, in fact.
And the cool thing is that he imagines this spaceship
itself also sort of looks like a shell, you know,

(17:32):
it's not like some weird mechanical object or even like
a tic tac like we've seen in those Navy UFO videos.
It looks like a shell. It's like a massive seashell
descends and hangs out on the top of a mountain
and the Virgin islands. Interesting, like a giant clamshell. No,
more like a nautilus shell, one of those like round
ones with the many loops in it, like the kind

(17:52):
of spirally. Oh, that's pretty cool. And that's how they land.
It's like it floats, it lands, it crashes, what does
it do? It gently floats and lands on the top.
And then the aliens come out and they greet humanity
and they come bearing gifts. Initially, obviously, these aliens are
much more technologically advanced than we are because they can
get here from where they came from, and they have
very powerful technology. And initially they're just like bestowing gifts.

(18:15):
You know. They cure diseases, and they give us technology,
and they solve our energy problems and all sorts of stuff. Interesting.
They bring good things at first, they do. They're like
dinner party guests, you know, they show up with chocolates
and wine and everything. They have very good manners in
the beginning. And these aliens have a name, right the
aliens of the name. They're called the Inna. It's spelled
y n a a and pronounced the ina. And they

(18:39):
sort of can look like humans underneath, there's something different,
right they but they can sort of like put on
this facade so they look more human, but they never
quite human. They're always like a little bit weird, a
little bit different. You can tell when one of them
is around. They don't blend in perfectly smoothly into the
human population like New Yorkers. Basically, I'm gonna leave that alone.

(19:01):
But it's like a costume, like a hologram or like
are they like piloting you know, human like you know,
bio robots. So they have this technology in them called reefs,
which are like little nano robots which they can use
to you know, repair their bodies or make their bodies
look different, or controller bodies in all sorts of ways,
and the sort of under mental control. And so they

(19:22):
have this technology where they can basically sheath themselves and
these nano robots to give themselves another appearance. And you know,
Cantabal I think is more interested in the emotional intellectual
response and the relationship that is built rather than like
the details of the technology of how this works. So
he glosses over that a little bit. He glosses over
how the technology works. All right. So there they come

(19:45):
in bearing gifts and they solve all of our problems.
But soon, um, things are not quite what they seem. Yeah,
they are more powerful than we are, and they are
here for a reason, right, They're not just like on
a tour of beaches of the galaxy. They came looking
for something and they have their own interests. And you know,
when a more powerful visitor comes to your shores wanting

(20:07):
something your resources or something from your civilization, then they
do what they need to to get it. And that's
sort of the history of the Virgin Islands. You know.
People come and they take advantage of the resources and
the opportunities that are there. And so when the interests
of the humans and the ena conflict, then the humans
find out what happens, which is that the Nail respond

(20:27):
with casual but overwhelming violence. Wow, they're salty, and they
are salty. They're sweet and salty, that's right. As we
meet more of the Email, we find some of them
are less interested in being friendly with the humans and
even like casual disrespect, you know, stepping in front of
them or brushing against them can be met with violence,

(20:47):
like being torn in half. And it becomes pretty clear
that the Inna don't see the humans as equals. They
see them sort of lookin to the way we see
dogs or cows. You know, they're like, they're they're fine.
You want to keep them half be if it's convenient,
but as soon as it's inconvenient or annoying, you know,
you don't think about their rights. We're just like means
to an end for them, we are means to an end.

(21:09):
And again, there's a really nice sort of parallel here
to colonial structures, right. You know when colonists come sometimes
they have a very patronizing attitude like we're gonna bring
new technology and we're gonna bring our culture, and this
is gonna be good for everybody. But really it's just
good for the colonists, right. They think they're there to
save the people that are already there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
So that's meant to sort of mirror the colonial history

(21:31):
of the Virgin Islands kind of. Yeah, as a lot
of really good science fiction does, it's written in a
way to make us think about what's already going on
in our society by exaggerating it, by accentuating it, by
throwing a light on it, you know, from a science
fiction point of view. And so he does a great
job of doing that, and it's really interesting. He's a
he's a great writer. And a lot of the characters

(21:51):
respond in interesting ways, you know, some of them like
rebel against the Ina, and some of them are collaborators,
they work with the Ina. Some of them even form
like romantic relations and ships with the alien. WHOA, So
I guess there's variation not just in the humans, but
maybe also in the aliens, Like some aliens fall in
love with the humans and some are maybe more sympathetic
and some less. Yeah, just like in every colonial story, right,

(22:12):
you have a whole spectrum of people with different attitudes
and different responses. So it's quite realistic and really quite engaging,
I stated reading this book. All Right, well, let's get
into the science of the Lesson by cut Will Turnbull
and then let's get to your interview with the author.
But first let's take a quick break. Alright, we're talking

(22:42):
about the science fiction universe of cat Will Turnbulls. The
Lesson debut science fiction novel kind of about colonialism, but
more like space colonialism exactly. Galactic colonialism. Galactic colonialism. Yeah,
I think that anytime you use that word, it doesn't
sound great. And this is sort of a topic that
is in the conversation right now in our culture right now,

(23:04):
when we talk about going to Mars and maybe colonizing Mars,
there's people sort of on both sides of the issue
and saying that that's a good thing or that's a
bad thing, right, Yeah, exactly. People talk about the need
to move humanity off of Earth, so we have our
eggs in more than one basket, but other folks think
that we shouldn't just treat the rest of the galaxy

(23:25):
as like baskets for the taking places to put our eggs.
You know, there's a long history of human colonialism and
a lot of it has led to a lot of
pain and suffering, and a lot of mistakes were made
sort of in the interests of capitalism or the interest
of spreading our culture. So there are folks out there
who want us to take a pause and think about,
like should we let private companies like SpaceX lead the

(23:47):
way to Mars and build colonies on Mars and sort
of structure it in a explorational, colonial capitalistic way, or
should we take a more measured approach. So there's a
lot of discussion on both sides of this issue, right,
And it's not just sort of about whether there are
aliens or Martians there on Mars that we will be
taking over. So I think it's more about sort of
preserving the Marsnis of Mars also, right, not sort of

(24:11):
like going there and just completely, you know, turning it
into Earth. Yeah, the question is, you know, are there
martians on Mars And if we come and we aggressively
terraform it, could we be wiping out Martian life, which
would be scientifically a tragedy of course, but also from
the point of view of like the value of life,
could be effectively genocide of an entire new, potentially independent

(24:31):
form of life. And then there are people who take
it a step further and say, even if there isn't
life on Mars now, there could be life on Mars
in a million years, and if we go and we
turn into Earth, that could be preventing independent life on Mars.
So there's a whole fascinating spectrum of ideas there. There's
a lot of interesting subtleties there in real ethical and
moral decisions we should sort of make consciously rather than

(24:53):
just sort of like steamrolling because it sounds cool, rather
than just letting Ela Musk do whatever he wants. I
don't do you want him to be president of Mars.
I mean, he's done some cool stuff. I think he's
president of planet right now. Anyways, Another really interesting question
is the whether the same issues applied to exploration of
the Solar System and the galaxy as they did to

(25:15):
exploration of Earth. You know, a lot of colonialism and
conflict on Earth is born from limited resources. Everybody wants
gold or people are looking for places to grow crops
or etcetera, etcetera. But you know, when it comes to
the Solar System, it is so rich with resources. There's
so much water out there and platinum out there, and
so many planets. I'm not sure we necessarily need to

(25:37):
fight over resources. Well, I think that's the dream, right
The dream is not just to get more, to get more.
The dream is to get more so that we stopped
fighting over more. Yeah. And one question that Kendbell raises
in his book is whether that's possible, whether species that
sort of came into existence out of conflict out of
this struggle for survival on the gravity well of one planet?

(25:57):
Can ever break free from that and live in a
poor scarcity society? In science fiction is a whole like
set of books that deal with like a post scarcity
society like Ian Banks culture novels where everybody has everything
they ever want and can get it instantly. What is
life like in that kind of utopian society? And then
folks who think that that's never going to happen. And
the humans are humans and we will always be fighting

(26:19):
even if we have you know, planet sized blobs of platinum,
there still will be people who want more or want
it all for themselves, right, Like, are our humans inherently greedy? Like?
Will never ever be enough? And maybe not? Right Like,
maybe there's something about humans that we'll always want more
than the other person. Yeah, Jeff Bezos is an argument
that humans will always be greedy and want more. Whoa, Well,

(26:43):
he's going to be an astronaut soon and he might
be president of Mars. Daniels watch out, what about what
do you say? Yeah? Well, I don't know if he's
a listener to this podcast, but if the president of
Mars is a race between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
I might not even vote Daniel is your galactic duty? Well,
back to the novel, you know, that's something that he
focuses on. The name of the book is the lesson,

(27:06):
and the lesson. Without spoiling the book, I can tell
you that the lesson the Aliens come to teach us
is that there is always struggle, that every society has
to fight and struggle to survive. And then that's just
sort of the way of life. And as you hear
me talk to Cadwell about it in our interview, he
thinks that humanity will never be able to throw off

(27:27):
those shackles and change and grow into a utopian society,
even if we have mountains of platinum and you know,
entire planets of water for everybody. Interesting, Yeah, I guess,
you know, we like that's what life is, right. It's
a struggle, it's a competition. That's how it evolves. And
it's hard to turn that off. It is hard to
turn that off, I suppose. But you know, we live
differently now than we did a thousand years ago and

(27:48):
twenty tho years ago and fifty thou years ago, and
I have hope that humans can evolve, that we can
change the way we live, that we won't always be
struggling and have massive economic inequality. You know, I don't
want that if we become a space bearing species, that
I have one person owns and nine of the planets,
and you know, the rest of humanity is crowded onto
one little one. You know, that's sort of an extension

(28:09):
of the Jeff Bezos style gathering of resources. I hope
that we can, you know, lift everybody out of poverty.
That's the idea. But we'll see. I think the lesson
I'm learning here is how much you hate Jeff Begers. Daniel,
I had no idea, you see, the sort of the
pitome of evil these days for you. No, I don't
know the guy at all, But I don't understand why

(28:29):
anybody needs that much money. Well that's because you've never
had it, Daniel. I have never had it, exactly, and
in that situation, I don't know how I would act,
So I shouldn't judge the man. All right, Well, let's
get into some of the science in the lesson by
Capital Turnbull. There are a couple of interesting science technologies
here that he has in his book. There's this idea
of nanobots called reefs, and whether or not aliens can

(28:52):
even get here or whether you know, first contact is
a possibility for us, and if they come, what they
actually be superior to us or not. Yeah, I think
there's a lot of really interesting science here. One of
the coolest science fiction things he has in his book
are these things called reefs. So these are like little
nanobots that the aliens can control with their minds. So

(29:12):
they basically, you know, they tell them to enter human
body and repair it. For example, so when one alien
wants to help a human, they can just like send
these reefs sins they fix this problem, or that's how
they cure a lot of human diseases. They share these
little nanobots around and have them like go inside the
body and do little repairs, and that's pretty awesome. Of course,
it also has other consequences. I mean, if the aliens

(29:34):
have filled your body with nanobots under their control, they
can do things like you know, kill people at will,
because they basically are in total control of your bodily functions.
So not something I would necessarily sign up for. Yeah,
don't drink the nanobots exactly, but you know, is it realistic?
Could you actually do this? I mean I think this
is the kind of thing people are working on, you know,

(29:56):
synthetic immune systems, things like that, tiny little robots that
can find and attack cells. I don't know how you
would accomplish like actual like mind control of these robots,
telling them, coordinating them somehow to do things. But it
doesn't seem impossible to me. I mean, you're the engineer.
Tell me, do you think nano robots are the future? Well?
I always wonder if with anything robotics is like where

(30:18):
do they get their power? Like what you know, it
takes energy to move these things, for these things to
do things like do they have little tiny nano batteries?
Do you see that as being possible? Or how do
you recharge? Do you know what I mean? Or how
do you build them? That's another thing I always wonder about,
Like I guess if you have nano bots, then you
can have them build other nana bots. But how do
you build the first nana box. Maybe you need like

(30:41):
a microbot to build the nano bot, and you need
a millibot to build a microbots. You just get smaller
and I stop with nano or I guess maybe a
nano you start getting into atomic limits, like, are these
like robots with individual atoms? Yeah? Yeah, I suppose you
could build them out of individual atoms, but that would
limit their complexity in terms of the power. I always figured,

(31:02):
you know, they could power themselves the way our cells
power themselves. Our cells don't have little batteries. They you know,
live along a flow of energy from our blood. So
I figured, you know, nano bots could like sip energy
from our blood just the same way everything else does.
I mean, that's how I would design it. That's even
more terrifying. They sit inside you, sucking up your here blood. No,

(31:24):
it's like a diet. Now I can eat as much
as I want because the nanobots are using all the calories. Yeah,
but if the aliens want to eat is wouldn't that
be counter productive? Oh that's true? Yeah exactly. Maybe. Well,
I guess the other part is the mind control, Like
how would you transmit your thoughts to these things? And
I guess you need it like an amplifier, and then
how would you decode your thoughts? Does the book get

(31:46):
into any of that. It was just sort of magical.
It's just sort of left unspecified. I don't think it's
tended to be magical, But I don't think Cadwell's interest
was like figuring out the technical details of how that worked.
But you know, you could imagine you have a bout
the brain that can read your signals, and maybe they
don't have to be all directly controlled. You can like
pass messages from Nana bat to Nana bat. They have

(32:08):
effectively like our network, and so they can communicate sort
of like in lots of little leaps, perhaps so to
the way the internetworks. So, I mean, I don't have
a solution to this, but I imagine that it could
be possible. When I was reading this, I didn't think, oh,
that's implausible. It didn't take me out of the story.
I just thought, well, that would be pretty cool. I
guess as a physicist you're like, sure, why not. But
maybe it's an engineer. Someone might be like, but how

(32:30):
do you make that work exactly? How are we going
to fix these things? How are we going to repair
these things? How we're going to produce software upgrades? You're like,
I'll leave it to the lesser beings, the engineers. Thanks
your words, all right, Well, the other little bit of
science here is about aliens coming to Earth and is
that realistic or not? Yeah, And this is a question
that really has popped up a lot recently because we've

(32:52):
seen these alien UFO videos and people are wondering, like,
is it even plausible for extraterrestrials to come to Earth?
You know, we know that there are a lot of
other planets out there that might potentially harbor life like
on Earth, but we don't know if there are any
near enough to come visit us because even the nearest
stars are pretty far away. The closest star to Earth

(33:13):
is almost four light years away, and any reasonable kind
of travel that's not FTL would take decades to get here,
and so exploring the galaxy feels like it would take
a long time. So without some sort of FTL travel
like a warp drive or a wormhole, it does seem
sort of implausible that aliens would come here, because how
would they even know that we are here? Our signals

(33:36):
have been broadcasted very far. We haven't put out very
powerful signals, so you have to be really near by
our solar system to even detect us to know we're here.
But FDL you mean faster than light, right, Yeah? Exactly,
because the galaxy is pretty big, the distances between stars
are large, and we have this speed limit of light speed,
and so without being able to go faster than light ftl,

(33:58):
it seems pretty difficult to explore the galaxy and find
all the glorious beaches for aliens to hang out on, right,
I guess one question I always have is why would
they come here? I mean, like, if the Solar System
is so full of resources and water and metals and
minerals and materials, Like, why even make a stop on
Earth with these you know, locals, Why not just like

(34:18):
take what they need from the Solar System and leave. Yeah,
that's a great question, and I can answer that question
about this book without spoiling it. But these aliens are
hunting for something specific, and they have been exploring the
galaxy for a long time without finding it, and they
think they might be able to find it on Earth.
And that's the reason they are here, which isn't revealed
until late to the book and super fascinating and pretty creative.

(34:40):
So I don't want to spoil it for our listeners,
But it might be that Earth does have something rare.
You know, what if life is pretty rare in the galaxy.
Then Earth represents something like a jewel, you know, billions
of years of evolution working to solve a problem of
highly evolved complex little biological machines that are maybe otherwise
difficult to figure out. You can look at, evolution is

(35:01):
sort of like a big computation, you know, solving a
problem very slowly over billions of years, finding a solution
through all this repeated mutation and evaluation. In some sense,
it's extremely valuable information just to know, like, here's a
potential solution to the life problem. Yeah, and potentially delicious
as well, which is maybe the problem in this case.

(35:22):
I don't know. I haven't read the book, but it
sort of seems like that's where here maybe leaning, But
I guess folks will have to read the book to
find out. Yes, folks will have to read the book.
All right, Well, then let's get to your interview with
author cat Will Turnbull, who wrote the book to The Lesson,
available now wherever you can find books. Here's Daniel's interview.
All right, So then it's my absolute pleasure to welcome

(35:43):
to the podcast. Cadwell Turnbull, author of The Lesson, Welcome
to the podcast. Hey, yeah, I'm glad to be here.
Thank you, thanks very much for joining us. I really
enjoyed your book. Congratulations, And I'd like to hear first
about how you got into science fiction writing or speculative fiction.
Tell us a little bit about background, where you came from,
how this happened for you. So I grew up in

(36:03):
the Virgin Islands. I grew up once Si comments and
my mom was a science fiction nerd, but mostly films,
so she watched we had like a collection of our
Trek films. I had not watched any of the show,
just the movies and a bunch of other like science
fiction movies. So you know, she had time tops I
would watch that with her serenity. Um, thank jeez, I'm

(36:30):
trying to I'm spacing on the name of this movie.
And I watched it like a million times Wow to
kick with my mom. It's um Dennis Quaid because the
guy that played Jesus. Is it the time Trouble one
where they communicate back and forth yes yes or something
frequency yes? So frequency was you know, another one. And

(36:54):
then we also with TV, we watched star Gate together.
And so when I was, you know, in high school,
I was really into start Gate as you one, and
that was the thing that I watched a lot, and
you know, I was the one that was watching it,
and my mom was said and watching me. So yeah,
that's how I got into you know, science fiction, you know,
in a in a general sense. But at school, you know,

(37:16):
in high school, they would occasionally assigned us to read
things that were science fiction adjacent, so like you know,
Great New World, and I always found those stories more
interesting than the more literary stories, and so I would
actually finish those books and be able to you know,
talk about them, and I would write about them for school.

(37:39):
And then once I got to college, I um, I
just started reading a lot of science fiction on my own,
you know, getting recommendations from friends in that on St.
Thomas that wasn't really like the community of science fiction readers,
and so it was whatever I stumbled across. And then
once I like you know, went to Pittsburgh for undergrads,

(38:00):
who met some other people that was into it, and
they gave me books to read. And so that's how
I got into the literature. You know. One of the
earlier books that a friend handed me was a lot
of Heaven Quinn and I love this so much, and
I just continued reading her books, and now she's like
my favorite author, she really favorite author to this thing wonderful. Well,

(38:20):
then I'd like to ask you some questions to sort
of orient you in the universe of science fiction authors.
These are questions we ask all of our science fiction
author guests so we can sort of calibrate. So you're
very familiar with Star Trek and the technology there, what's
your opinion on the philosophical question of whether a Star
Trek transporter kills you and clones you, recreating you somewhere else,
or actually transports your very atoms to another location. Oh wow, Okay,

(38:47):
so this makes me think of It's not like the transporter,
but it makes me think of think like a dinosaur.
By Jim Kelly. It was a story that he wrote
in response to an older story called The Cold Equations.
It's about a teleportation machine. Got of I's you are
transferred to another place, but I'm gonna spoil the whole story.

(39:09):
What happens is that the machine actually, because you know,
the aliens that created don't believe in like creating more stuff,
You'll be copied and transported to that new place where
you'll be recreated and then that original version of you
will basically be murdered, you know. It's it's like the
Prestige let, It's basic. I just love that story because

(39:30):
it asked that same question, right, It's like, it is
the person that is recreated on the other side you
or is that another you? And wouldn't matter to me
being copy? If my copy lives on, I'm dead, you know,
And I think you know, Star Trek I think tries to,
you know, hide that fact by the fact it's like

(39:50):
it's the same particles. But like even if you are
sit apart into particles and recreated in another environment, and
my suspicion is you died, you know, that's where my
mind goes. I have a pretty dark reading on it.
It's I don't think you can just like be blown
apart and pull back together. And that's the same contest,
that's the other right, So then would you be willing

(40:13):
to step into a Star Trek transporter somebody shows up
and says, hey, no more commuting for you. Would you
be willing to do that? Or is that essentially signing
up for your own murder? I think it's signed up
for my own murder. I think I like the idea
of a portal more than a teleporter, you know, like
two areas in space being connected by me from kind
of the right thing to walk through that makes me

(40:34):
feel like I'm not dead. But the teleporter, I think,
if it requires me to be blown apart and pull
back together, I am not for it. So then what
technology and science fiction would you like to most see
actually become reality? What should a scientists be working on?
What's our number one priority? I mean, I feel like
the first question set me up for this, the portal,

(40:56):
Like I really want to be able to like right now.
So it was like it about this. So I just
kind of new job at all Kalinda State University, you know,
teaching creative brading and thank you so much, thank you.
And my wife is a scientist and she's finishing off
her PhD at Harvard and basically had to you know,

(41:17):
separate for you know, for me to take this job,
for her to continued to her work, and she's coming
down at the end of the summer. But it would
have been really great if there was just a door
in my apartment that I could open up and walk
through and I can meet up there hang out with
you know, my wife and go to work. That would

(41:38):
just be fantastic, And so I think a lot about
it. It It is, um, I just finished the edits to
my second book, and there's something like that in this book.
Because I've been thinking a lot about it. It's like
the next step in zoom technology. Right, you could actually
just go through and be in a room together without
having to commute. That would be great. So then let
me ask you one more generic question before we dive
into your book, which is what's your personal and swerve

(42:00):
to the Fermi paradox. If there are so many amazing
planets out there, the team like they could harbor life,
and the galaxy is quite old and doesn't take that
long to get across, why haven't we been visited by
aliens yet? Okay, so two thoughts for this. The first
thought is that maybe we have. And you know, like
I remember it was just earlier this week. I opened

(42:21):
my phone, I went on Twitter, and I just saw
trending that the Pentagon is going to release, you know,
the classified documents about your post, and it was all
of the legitimate news sources. I was just blowing my
mind because I'm like, I was like, we're in the
middle of a sci fi you know story right now

(42:43):
with you know what's going on, And then I'm reading
about u POS and it's being taken seriously, it's news.
Obama is talking about it right right right, Obama is
talking about it, you know, high, high up officials are like,
this is a conservative? Is the sperity? I was like,
is this them? Seems like they've been chilling out, So
maybe maybe they are and we just can't even understand it,

(43:04):
Like they are visiting us, but they're like, well, why
even bother trying to have a conversation with us? We
we clearly can't talk to them, and we're clearly not
even you know, remotely close to us as bad as
they are. The probably just kind of just hang out
and then they go back and they're like, well, you know,
there are things are doing, okay, I guess, And that's
pretty much it. The other answer I have is that

(43:26):
I really like the second book, where I like is
the wrong word for it, but I really enjoyed the
second book for to the Remembers the First Past by
six and Loup the Dark Chorus, and that book posits
that the reason why no one's talking is because everyone's
smart and we're quite dumb and we're trying to talk
to aliens aliens and like, yo, and should shut up

(43:49):
because you know, there's we might not kill you, but
there's some super advance you know, you know, you only
and somewhere else they are going to just be like,
let's just take care of that problem before it becomes
a problem. You know, if we're advanced enough to try
to communicate with aliens, I imagine aliens being other aliens
being self protective, you know, might preemptively respond to that

(44:10):
in an aggressive and negative way. And that's nice marrish,
but it seems plausible, sort of like we moved into
a dangerous neighborhood and we're inviting everybody over for brunch,
right right. The analogy that the book uses is that
like it's a forest and every day is on pers
in it, and we're the ones that like the fire.
We lit the fire, and now everyone knows where we are,

(44:30):
you know. Basically, Yeah, So I think both of those
answers boils down to they're being careful. That's why we
can't really confirm it, because aliens aren't establishing first contact
in the way that we might imagine it being. Either
they're you know, laying low, or they're researching us. They're
just like checking up from awesome. Thanks, all right, wonderful.

(44:51):
I have lots more questions for our guest author, but
first let's take a quick break. Okay, we're back and
we're talking to Cadwell Turnbull, author of The Lesson. So

(45:14):
let's turn to the subject of your book, The Lesson,
which is an awesome first contact story. When I read
really good science fiction, I love when it sort of
shines a light on something that already exists in our world.
It makes us think about something we're living but not
really paying attention to by accentuating it. And in your book,
something you highlight is the power dynamics of society and
the structures that enable it and support that and categorize

(45:37):
people into sort of different classes of rights and privileges,
especially in a colonial setting. And so when the aliens
arrive in your book, they sort of fit in at
the top layer of this power structure. Did you write
it in this way on purpose, intentionally adding this new
alien layer to sort of shine a light on the
colonial and historical power structure as we have here on earth.
Answers yes. By the end of it like eventually the

(46:02):
book was doing that on purpose, but I don't think
I started that way. So the novel as a whole
was inspired by a dream that I had several years
back at this point, because it took me several years
to write this thing. And it was set in a
small town and there were aliens in that small town,
but they looked like people. There was something off about them,
and you could just tell that they were aliens pretending

(46:24):
to be people. And they acted just like the na
in the book They, you know, is the alien raised
in the book, and they anytime they felt threatened or
disrespected in a way that made them worry for their
safety at all, they would respond with, like you know,
egregious acts of violence. That dream had a character very

(46:46):
much like the Ambassador character in the book Mirror, and
she was starting to feel guilty about her specific responses
the threats because she was living among humans long enough
to kind of incorporate some of human or y. And
there was a character that was very much like the
Derrick character in the book. And the dream was so
memorable to me that I thought that I should definitely

(47:09):
do something with this. When your subconscious gives you something
that good. You know, I feel like you're obligated to
at least try, and so that first. The very first
thing I tried was that story transplanted to the US
Virgin Islands and having it was pretty much the same
kind of set up. But the more and more I
worked on it, the more and more I had to

(47:31):
change it to fit the context. Because the dream that
I had was like Middle America somewhere. It was somewhere
in some small town. All the characters were white. I
don't know why, you know this, that's just what came
to me. And so when I transplanted it into the
context that made sense to me. St Thomas, you know,
mostly predominantly black. All of these other themes started coming up.

(47:52):
You know, it's like, if this is transplanted to the
Virgin Islands, this is how the Virgin Islands people will
read this thing. You know, if they either show up
and they're super powerful and they have all of these
great gifts, but they respond to any you know, threat
with you know, this kind of like violence that will
be memorable, that will remind the virginal as people of colonialism,

(48:16):
things that have happened in the past. You know, like
how the Danish treated, you know, the slave society of
that time, right, And so it seemed to me that
as soon as I made that transplant, it became about
colonialism as well as power. So their dream was about
what do you do with power? And you know, how
do you challenge beings more powerful than you? But because

(48:37):
I made this decision, it also became about how does
that also map onto you know, things that have happened
in our past. How does it map onto colonialism and
powerful you know, societies on our own world going to
new places and subjugating the people there, or bringing people
to be subjugated. So then when you wrote the story,

(48:57):
is it necessary for them to be aliens? I mean,
could you have written a similar story with like some
overwhelming human army that comes and decides to recolonize or
subjugate the people there. What about it makes it necessary
for them to be aliens? I mean, I love aliens.
I'm glad they were aliens. I mean, and that's that
would be my My most basic response is just like,
I love aliens. That's fine, But I think it would

(49:20):
be a really different story if it was just another empire.
You know, I wouldn't be able to do two mappes
so closely to our present, and do you know, have
the Virgin aledge remained the same? I would have to
create a justification for why there's a new empire somewhere
on earthcoming and subjugating the virginality because of originalitis is
it belongs to the US. And so we're in a

(49:43):
pretty stable state of colonialism, you know what I mean.
It's like the US if we misbehaved, shows up, you know,
and they're like, what are you guys doing? Otherwise we're
kind of like left to you know, to the most part,
our own devices, and our structure is pretty much like
any American state. And so I would have to create

(50:03):
a context for to make that possible for another human
nation to come there and subjugate did us Virgin Islands
without the U s say hey, no, that's ours. But
the other the other aswer to that is I just
think that there's some really interesting things to do with
aliens that are not just colonialism. And so so the
book plays with that question of colonialism, but I also

(50:26):
wanted to ask more existential questions about like how far
would you go to make yourself improvious to harm? It
is like the whole motive for the Eena is a
really important aspect of their culture and their belief system.
That they believe that the universe is this like, you know,
ancient enemy that they have the vanquage the universe itself,
you know, So you imagine that the humorous of a

(50:48):
species like that their goal is to become more and
more powerful so that nothing can hurt them, And that
to me seems like something that I think is also
true of humanity. Like I would argue that any person
seeking power, you know, if I look back at like
empires of any kind, I think that there's a fundamental
insecurity that motivates great men or great people to be

(51:14):
the most powerful thing in the world in the environment
around them, so that maybe they might be spared, is
what I think. And so I think the Ena are
kind of embodiment of that thinking. They're like, if we
make ourselves impervious, we will be spared. And I think
that that Aliens needed to come and represent that ideology. Yeah,

(51:34):
I think that's really interesting and I understand where it
comes from. Here on Earth, we are all competing for resources.
There is something of a survival of the fittest, you know,
not everybody makes it, not every society makes it, not
every person survives. I wonder though about whether that really
maps onto the situation of a interstellar galactic empire. You know,
if you can conquer space, if you can travel through space,

(51:56):
isn't there enough room for everybody? Aren't there enough planets,
enough asteroids filled with platinum and have frozen water, enough resources,
enough stars forever to have whatever they need. Isn't it
possible we could end up in a post scarcity society?
Is it colloquial to imagine that will have the same
sort of conflicts on the galactic scale that we've had
on the planetary scale. What do you think about the

(52:17):
future society in that way? So there's two answers to that, right.
I think that sure that that should be true, that
everyone can live, and that if we have a universe
worth of resources at our disposal, we should all be fine.
But I do think that cultures are built before realities change,
and that cultures are slow to change in the face

(52:38):
of new realities, you know what I mean. And so
my feeling is that right now, if we wanted to,
we could be okay on Earth, you know, like everyone
could have all the resources that they need. We could
live you know, in relative peace and security with some
measures taken, you know what I mean. But I think
right now we could do it. But cultures are slow

(52:59):
and is a lot of conflicts intentions that create you know,
it's not just the resources, it's ideologies, it's interests that
create this kind of scarcity. And so my thinking with
the NA at the very least is that their core
motivation isn't that they need more resources to be more secure.
Their motivation is fear. They worry that there's something out there,

(53:21):
bigger and stronger that will take whatever they've gained from them,
you know, and so their response is reactive. It's like,
we continue to look for these, you know, solutions to
our insecurity so that we can be completely secure. I
don't think it even occurs to them that, you know,
there's enough for everyone. It's it's like they believe that
the universe, and some of this has to do with

(53:43):
the history that I imagine for them, they believe in
the universe picks different centiate beings against each other that
it's like you have to strike first in order to
be the one that maintains. And it is not a
very utopian idea, balistic vision, you know, and there's characters
in this book that try to challenge that belief because

(54:05):
they think differently. But you know, because you know, have
a long established culture, it's really hard for to shape that.
It sounds like they have had a bad experience in
the dark forest and and now they're more careful. So
then let me ask you if you don't mind to
weigh in on some of the current debate about human
plans for colonization. You know, Elon Musk wants to do

(54:26):
private colonization of Mars, and a lot of folks in
the science community are saying, hold on, that's built on
a colonial structure, which has led to like all sorts
of terrible things in human history. Maybe we should take
another approach. What do you think should we let Elon
Musk be the new Dutch East India Company and colonize
Mars or should we leave Mars for the Martians? I
would say no. I think that we've seen on our

(54:48):
own planet, you know what runaway, you know, capitalism has done,
and I think that it's dangerous to just extend that
outward without thinking about regulating it. You know, I don't
think there's anything necessarily wrong or harmful about space exploration.
But I do think that, you know, it's legitimate when
people talk about, well, there's problems here that we haven't solved,

(55:11):
why are we doing that? And I think that at
the very least these things should be moving at similar paces,
or space exploration should be slower than the work that
we're doing on our own planet. If our own planet
is a mess, why would we extend that out to
other planets? Like why would we make other messes? And
so that's my feeling. I don't think that it should

(55:32):
be elon Musk. If we do it, it should be
the public. It should be a collective process, and it
should be subject to a lot of slow collective decision making.
So I like to imagine a scenario talking about power structures,
about what happens when aliens come to Earth. And you know,
in your book, the aliens, for example, they don't see
any difference in the value of a human life and

(55:55):
an Earth dog's life. So we're in sort of like
a second category below the aliens. And you know, for
me as a human, this feels shocking when I read it,
but it's sort of a natural extension of our own
moral structure here on Earth. We don't value the lives
of pigs and cows the way we do humans. We
raise them for meat. So do you think if aliens
come to Earth and they're vastly superior to us the

(56:17):
way we imagine we are to cows and pigs, that
we really have any right to object being treated like
farm animals, being you know, raised for human bacon, etcetera.
Do we have a moral leg to stand on there?
What do you think? This makes me think of a
really good story from Octavia Butler called Blood Child, where
we are cattle. It's complicated. We're not exactly cattle. We're

(56:38):
kind of like birth sex. So like the aliens, they
use us to help nurture their young, and they live
inside our bodies and then they burst out of our
bodies and hopefully, you know, the more progressive aliens try
to make sure that the humans are not egregiously harmed
in the process. But they're kind of like, well, whatever
if they get hungry. If these worms get hungry, you know,

(57:00):
they have to eat. They have to eat. But I
think there is a right to object. I think that
will have no choice but to object because it's us,
you know, and I think if we can make the argument,
we can make the argument. You know, if we can
convince the aliens not to just eat us, that that
would be great, or not to just use us as
their their birthday pots, that would be great. But I

(57:21):
think that in the same way that we make the argument.
You know, we talk a lot about all of us
becoming vegetarians, and not all of us will agree. I
think that we can't expect aliens to all come to
the same agreement on this. They some of them might.
We might be able to convince some of them, but
if it's to their advantage to use us in some
way that we feel is degrading to who we think

(57:43):
we are, I think the same rules apply. We'll have
to convince them or we'll have to fight, and you know,
we'll likely lose. But I think that there's something to
be said about gradually moving the ethics of another group
by continued engagement. But that group in whatever form right. Well,
there's lots of reasons to be vegetarian, environmental, ethical, etcetera.

(58:06):
But I suppose one of them is to gain moral
standing when arguing with our future alien overlords. So let
me ask you a last question. About the sort the
science and the physics of your novel in your book,
these aliens they can travel great distances between the stars.
How much did you think about, you know, how that
travel happens and how to make it plausible. How critical
is it to you that the science of your universe

(58:26):
be plausible even if it is in the science of
our universe. That is a very good question. And the
answer to that is it was not a huge concern,
to be honest. Some of the ways that I kind
of like convinced myself that it was okay. It's because
they are very old, and even if they travel you know, slowly,
they can do that just fine, and they won't really
you know, affect them because they live with thousands of

(58:47):
years already before the events of the book. But I'm
pretty sure in the back of my mind I justified
it the way that a lot of you know, really
trophy soft sites for should justifies it is the Ring Gate,
or they have FTL you know, you know, they jump.
I did not think about how far away their home

(59:09):
world was from Earth. Even I was much much more
concerned with the history of the Virgin Islands and how
the people were responding to them. And what what it
made them think about, and questions of faith and all
of these things that they brought up for the Virgin Islanders.
And I was also really interested in what the ships
looked like and model them off of, like reefs and

(59:32):
coral and seashells, because I thought, this is me the island,
you know, an Alan culture, see as seashell in the sky,
and so I just thought about the imagery of that
more than even the physics of how that would work,
you know. So I'm ashamed to say not a lot
of thought. That's all right, it was very compelling. Great.

(59:53):
We'll tell us if you can a little bit about
your upcoming book, your next project. So the title of
it is No Gospel Monster Earth. It's coming out on
September seven, you know, pretty soon. And it's fantasy. I
even less consideration about how things work, you know, it's magic.
So the way that I would pitch it, although how
I've talked about it in the past, it's imagine the

(01:00:15):
Civil Rights era but modernized and with monsters from popular
culture and Caribbean folklore and you know, other cultures. So
where worlds vampires, I have a monster in the book
called a Sukuyant, which is like a you know, local
Caribbean folklore monster. You know, a bunch of different islands
have it. It's kind of like a vampire that removes

(01:00:35):
its skin. It's kind of like a mix between a
vampire and a selky. All of these different monsters that
we recognize and then some made up monsters that I created,
and they're all advocating for their the human rights in
a world that has just learned of the existence. I
very much see it as like a in conversation with
a lesson. So the lesson is like, how does humanity

(01:00:55):
respond to a threat from without? And this one is like,
how does society respond to a threatful with him? Our
darkest nightmares are real, and how do we deal with that?
And are they really that nightmarish? Wow, it sounds like
a lot of fun. Well, congrats on the lesson, a
wonderful book, and best of luck on new gods, new monsters.
And thank you very much for coming on the podcast
and answering our awkward physics questions. Thank you so much

(01:01:19):
for having me. This is really fun, all right, pretty
interesting interview, fascinating author and book. I liked how he
said that the story came to him from a dream
he had about a man who has a relationship with
an alien. Sounds like a pretty racy dream there. Yeah,
I'm not sure every dream you have about like that
should turn into a novel, but this one, he told me.

(01:01:40):
He started writing it as a short story and then
just sort of grew and grew and grew, and he
sort of fought the idea that it was a full novel,
unill eventually he just gave in. He was like, all right,
let's turn this whole thing into a novel. And I'm
glad he did because it's a really good book. Interesting. Yeah,
I guess you never know, right, Like, if you have
a dream and it could turn into a book, yeah, actually,
if you can do that, if you can turn one

(01:02:02):
dream into a novel, then you're a good writer. But hey,
take notes of all your crazy dreams. They are your creativity.
And I also like the discussion you had about colonialism.
And it seems like he thinks that, you know, we
shouldn't maybe colonize Mars, Like he thinks maybe we should
leave Mars for the Martians. Yeah, Well, as somebody who
grew up in the Virgin Islands, I think he has
a different and very valuable perspective on the question of

(01:02:24):
being colonized. So yeah, right, yeah, leave Mars Weird would
be maybe the T shirt slogan keep Mars weird, keep
Mars alien, exactly. Send one of those two bezos and
Elon Musk and as excited as I am about exploring
the Solar System and getting answers to questions and it
just seems super fun to get out into space and

(01:02:45):
to build this technology, I think we do need to
think carefully about how to make these decisions, right, Yeah,
because they're planetarying scale right there, galactic and scale right.
We don't want to be like, hey, Mars seems really comfortable.
It's our new home, but then it turns out that
there are maybe you know, there's life kind of brewing
under the surface. Yeah, And do we want the head
of some technology company to make those decisions on behalf

(01:03:07):
of the entire human race. You don't get to unmake
them once you've made them, right, We definitely don't want
We definitely want maybe like a physicist making because they're
really in tune with humanity and struggle of everyday people. Right.
I'm not running for president of Mars for sure, definitely not.
Don't vote for me. Maybe just you could be the

(01:03:27):
first gentleman who knows right. All right, Well, we hope
you enjoyed that, and we hope you check out the
lesson the debut Nobble by author cat Will Turnbull. Thanks
for joining us, see you next time. Thanks for listening,

(01:03:48):
and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is
a production of I Heart Radio or more podcast For
my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite chips