CZM Book Club: "The House of Surrender" by Laurie Penny

Margaret reads Shereen a story about a time traveler sent to a very strange prison.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Whole Zone Media.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
This episode gets a content warning. This episode it deals
with some themes that might be not what you're trying
to listen to and in which case catch us next week.
I believe that the author handles these themes respectfully. However,
this episode does describe sexual assault and self harm. Book

(00:28):
Club Club Club is back. Book Club is back. Everyone,
thanks for allowing me and unannounced three weeks I didn't
do book club or two weeks, I don't remember how
long it was, but book Club is back. I'm your USB,
Margaret Kilroy, and with me is Sharen Hi.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Seren Hi. You you're purposely going out of sync for
that chant in the beginning. You you set us up
for failure.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
I did. I did set us up for folks, We're
really I set you up for failure. Oh yes, yeah,
you knew what you were doing. Yeah yeah, yeah. The
book club is your science fiction and fantasy and probably
non those things, your fiction thing that happens once a
week in your ears on two different podcast feeds, on

(01:17):
Sharen's podcast feed and on my podcast feed. It could
happen here and cool people who do cool stuff. It's
a story. I'm going to read it to Sharen and
you can you can listen to listener. Y's the advantage
of podcasting as a format. This week, I have a
story I'm really excited about. This is a story that

(01:39):
has been on my mind since it was written probably
about five years ago or so.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
It's quite a compliment.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, no, it's it's a it's a neat. It's an
interesting idea and I'm excited to talk to you about
it at the end. It is a story that reimagines
prison and an anarchist society. Beautiful okay, And it was
written for us, well, it wasn't written for us, but
it was written by Lori Penny. Lori Penny is a journalist,

(02:09):
author and screenwriter. They can be found on Twitter at
Penny Read, Instagram at Lori Penny, and substack at Lori Penny.
This story is called The House of Surrender and it
was first published by a German magazine. Actually in German
was published in translation before I was published in English
by dear Freytag, which I don't know anything about. I

(02:30):
don't even know what that means.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Sounds badass though, just by nature, sounding like having the
word die.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, no, it's dr it's yeah. I don't even know
the difference between die and der I. And if you
do know the difference, don't write me up.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Tell us.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
I could look it up if I wanted to know.
But the story is really good. The House of Surrender
by Lori Penny. Not far from here and many lifetimes
journey away, there is a place called Sanctuary, where they
grow almonds and avocados, and the weather is a perpetual
late spring. The town and its hundred thousand happy folk

(03:10):
are watered by a wide, gray, treacherous river. And in
that river is an island where no trees grow. And
on that island is a house unlike any other. It
has many names, but the people of Sanctuary have forgotten them.
They call it the House of Surrender. To get to
the House of Surrender, you must cross the gray River,

(03:31):
although there are few boat captains brave enough to make
the crossing, not for all the gold and silver in
your purse. The river is full of hidden currents and
sudden whirlpools that appear to suck down on seasoned swimmers
and sailors to an icy grave in the grimy water.
And besides, nobody has to used money in Sanctuary for
a century and more the people of this town take

(03:54):
what they need and give what they can, and answer
to no ruler but the common good. So there is
no law to compel any sailor to take you to
the island in the river where no trees grow. If
one of them takes pity, you may pay your passage
with a promise, a gift, or a secret, although those
who travel to the House of Surrender have too many
of those, and precious few worth sharing. Pull yourself up

(04:16):
to the jetty and climb the steps into the cliffs.
Walk half a mile over the rocks, and you'll find
the house. Its walls are thick stone. Whether that's to
protect those inside from the outside world or whether it
might be the other way round is a question nobody
here cares to answer. The heavy doors are not locked.
Walk the halls. Nobody's going to stop you. Here you

(04:41):
will find the worst and the weirdest of men and women,
strange and dangerous creatures who cannot live among their fellow humans,
or else their fellow humans will not have them. This
one is a rapist. That one poisoned her husband and
infants in a fit of madness after the twins were born.
This one beat his wife until the heith flew from
her head. That one cheated as neighbors of all their harvest,

(05:04):
until the children sickened and starved. Had they stayed in
the sanctuary, these people would have had to face their
neighbor's justice. Instead, they come to the house of surrender,
where nobody will harm them, and they can reflect on
their transgressions and all the safety stone walls can offer,
which is less than you'd think, as most of them

(05:24):
bring the terror with them across the Gray River. In
my two score years as warden of this place, I
have known them all, the wicked and the warped, the
tortured and the repentitant, and those too far beyond the
sphere of decency to contemplate redemption. But none were as
strange as Robert Schmidt. And you know what else is strange, Charen.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
It's strange that we have to beg for money.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
That's what's strange. It is. Yeah, but don't worry. We're
not begging for your money unless you want to subscribe
to Cooler Zone Media. That flstead is brilliant. We're begging
for the money for the following advertisers, which you can
press forward a bunch of times to get to the
rest of the story, and we're back. He arrived one

(06:28):
cold June morning, courtesy of a boatswain who had been
too shocked at his appearance and obvious distress to consider
turning him down when he begged passage. The coins he
offered her, which he also tried to press upon me,
were as strange as he was, different shapes and shades
of corrosive metal, all emblazoned with the faces of stern men,
great buildings and motifs of war and conquest that were

(06:51):
chilling to look at, though I did not look away.
I took one as a gift, a silver that he
said was called a quarter. Although its shape was perfectly round.
He was a thin, frayed string of a man, this Schmidt.
His skin pale as boiled fish, so much that anyone
who saw him knew that he had come from far away.
That was all we knew at first, as he would

(07:13):
not speak to us beyond demanding to be released, and
no records could be found of his birth or previous life,
only of the report we had received from the assembly
of the village that sent him here. We took him
to Room fourteen, where he yelled for three hours. First
he yelled to be released, Then he yelled in his
strange foreign accent for his mother. Then he just yelled.

(07:38):
I could hear the screaming from down the corridor as
I went over the morning's reports. I gritted my teeth
at the dumb beast noise and decided to do something
about it. The corridors of the main asylum were light
and airy, even on a cold winter morning, with the
sun floundering in an ash gray sky below the wide
wooden walkways. Some of the other wardens were setting out

(07:58):
bowls and spoons in the muno area, ready for breakfast.
The murderer in Room thirteen put his head up to
the grill of his cell as I passed, Can you
ask him to stop? He whispered. I'll try, I promised.
Do you want music? The murderer, who had strangled his
own brother in a rage twenty years ago, nodded hard, Yes,

(08:21):
he did want music. I fingered my tablet. A few
seconds later, a gentle rhythmic tune started spooling from the
speaker in the corner of his cell. He smiled and
closed his eyes and started to rock gently back and
forth on his sleeping pallet. I took a deep breath
in front of the door to Room fourteen. Then I
pounded on the grill. That's enough, I yelled. You're upsetting

(08:45):
your block mates. If you don't control yourself, there will
be consequences. The screaming stopped, two blissful seconds of quiet,
heavy breathing. Let me the fuck out of here, Schmidt said,
You people have no idea the mistake you're made. I'm
sure there's been no mistake, I said, but if you've
got an issue to raise, why don't you talk to

(09:06):
me or one of the other wardens about it instead
of screaming. I heard a shuffling noise as Schmidt dragged
himself up to the speaking hatch. Then his face appeared.
I stepped back, alarm fisting through my guts. I had
forgotten quite how strange looking this Schmidt truly was, with
his wild beard and ice blue eyes. I don't know
why I'm being kept here, he said, in his languid,

(09:28):
long ago accent. But when someone works out who I am,
you're going to be in a world of trouble. So
I suggest you open this door right now. If you
value your job, I can't open the door I said,
on whose authority am I kept here? It was truly confused.
Where did this man come from to ask such a thing?

(09:49):
And nobody's authority? I said, nobody has the authority to
keep you here against your will. You chose to come
here for your own safety and others. Then why am
I locked in? You aren't locked in. I can't open
the door because it locks from the inside. If you
want to get out, you have to unlock it yourself.
You're lying. There's a bolt underneath the door and another

(10:11):
one up top. They're a little stiff sometimes, but I
promise you you're free to leave. I must warn you, though,
I said a little louder, that if you try to
harm me or anyone else in this building, I'm going
to have to use my shock stick on you, and
I don't want to do that. Silence. Then the slow,
resentful funk of two bolts drawing back. Can I come in?

(10:32):
I said, Silence. My name is Gorman Rain, I said,
I'd like to come in and talk with you, but
I need to know you're not going to attack me,
because I don't want to have to hurt you. It
has been a pleasant morning so far, and I don't
want to end it with your vital fluids on my shoes.
Come in if you want. I came in and sucked

(10:53):
in a breath through my teeth. The man in the
room fourteen had overturned all his furniture and thrown his
food tray across the room. There were dabs of blood
on the wall where he'd been pounding. He sat, curled
like a question mark in one bare corner. Is there
any way I can help? I asked. I need you
to tell them. He said that I haven't done anything wrong.

(11:15):
If there's been a misunderstanding, I'm sure you can explain yourself,
I said, but there's rarely misunderstanding in cases like yours.
What reason, after all, would the girl have had to lie?
I could see that Schmidt was going to be difficult
to reach. Do you even know who I am? Only
what you told us and what you told the people
of the village you came from. Your name is Robert Schmidt.

(11:38):
You say you are a scientist, but there are no
records of where you practiced or where you were born.
I'm from here, Schmidt said, I'm from here three hundred
and thirty years ago. I took a deep breath so
how did you come to be here now, I asked
in a time machine. I am a scientist, well, a researcher.
It's one of the first multi century journeys. My lab

(11:59):
is made, and I need to be allowed back to
the place I came through why, so I can tell
them it worked. I asked a junior warden to keep
a subtle eye on Schmidt for the next few days,
to check that he wasn't hurting himself. Inside, I was
cursing my own foolishness. I clearly made a mistake in
my initial diagnosis. I had assumed that Schmidt was merely

(12:22):
uneducated and lacking an empathy. He appeared instead to be
quite mad. I wanted to help him, this young man.
I wanted to know the ghosts that haunted him, so
that together we might banish them and find him some
measure of peace. I am old, and in forty years
I attended to so many lost creatures on this substemious rock,
and most I have been able to stretch out a
hand to. Though not all come here hoping for peace.

(12:46):
MY place is not to judge them, but to help them,
to protect them whatever harm they have done in the
lives they left behind. This is my work, has been
the work of my life, since I came here on
my own rickety midnight boat so long ago, to reach
the unreached with soft words and offer them a bridge
back to the world. I felt certain that, however, Schmidt
had transgressed, however mangled his mind by suffering. I could

(13:08):
not guess at I could help him. Perhaps I was arrogant,
I see that now, But there was more. What I
did not could not admit to myself was that Schmidt
frightened me. And the most frightening prospect was the idea
remote but impossible not to consider when you looked at
that strange white face, heard that odd high voice, that

(13:28):
he might be telling the truth. The next day I
returned to speak to Schmidt. I brought fresh rolls and coffee,
and we took breakfast together. He had restored order to
his room during the night, and perhaps it was in
repentance for his previous rudeness that he answered almost immediately
when I asked if he was feeling better, I'm not crazy,
he said. You must see that it's not my place

(13:51):
to pass judgment on how you see the world. I said,
which was quite true. I'm merely anxious that you caused
no further harm to yourself, for or any other citizen.
I'm not like the lunatics in here, he said. I
didn't even hurt that girl. It was a misunderstanding. They
say you violated her autonomy. I said, they sent a report.
It wasn't like that, he said. He was looking away

(14:13):
from me and eviscerating his role with his hands. Besides,
it seems so primitive here, I assumed. I don't know
what I assumed. He started in on a second roll.
I suppose I was excited to be in a new place.
That night, I reread the report that had arrived as
Schmidt on the solar tablet I reserved for official communications.

(14:34):
It was long enough that the village assembly had clearly
thought it important to inform the house of the full facts.
He came to us in the last week of May.
It ran. He appeared at the door of a farmstead,
badly bleeding and disoriented. The people of the house, after
they tended his wounds, brought him to the town square,
where he explained that he was a traveler from another time.

(14:55):
We have heard news of such things happening, but we
would not have given them credit if it were not
for the strangeness of his behavior. Schmidt was from the
start rude and unsocial, which was put down at first
to his evident foreignness. He insisted on being brought to
the head of our community, and it took some time
to explain to him that no such position exists. He
thinks in an extremely hierarchical manner, and though he claims

(15:16):
to be a scientist, he cannot seem to credit the
evidence of his own senses. For this reason, many of
our young people remained convinced that he was playing a
practical joke on us. Schmidt spent a great deal of
time in the tavern, and also in the library as
his strength returned, taking notes on parchment, which he used
freely from the central stocks, apparently unaware of its great expense.

(15:38):
He was from the start dismissive and unsocial towards the
female and non binary among us, seemingly unable to hold
true conversation with them. One of our young men offered
to have intercourse with him, at which point he became
angry and violent. The young man was injured and Schmidt
had to be restrained. One young woman in our research
team took an interest in Schmid's work, gifting him freely

(16:00):
with her time and attention to help further his studies.
She reported to us that he woke to find a
drunken Schmidt attempting to have intercourse with her. She communicated
clearly that she did not want to be part of
intercourse with him, but he did not appear to understand.
In his culture, signal of interest by a woman permits
the man to use her body to relieve himself of
his need at any time thereafter, and this is what

(16:21):
Schmidt proceeded to do, using his strength to force her submission. Thereafter,
I clicked the tablet shut. I had read enough. Schmidt
had clearly fooled this rural assembly into accepting his wild
story of time travel to avoid taking responsibility for his
own empathetic defects. He would not fool me. I would

(16:42):
reach him, even if I was determined not to be reached.
After reading that, I don't really want to make a
snarky ad pivot, so I'll make a regular ad pivot

(17:09):
and we're back. It was autumn and high harvest, the
time when everyone with the strength and skill to farm
lends themselves to the almond groves. A fresh breeze trembled
from the plantations, and I longed to be among them,
to drink hot cider and taste roasted almonds at the
evening celebrations after the gathering inn. But I have not
joined the harvest. Since I came here to work at

(17:31):
the House of Surrender. No one could compel me to
stay away, just as no one could force people of
the town to bring in the fruit before it rots
on the trees. There is an awkwardness, though, among those
who know my duties. Sanctuary is not a large community,
and after a while, everyone's business is the subject of
common gossip. Instead, I walked about the grounds of Schmidt,

(17:54):
sometimes talking, more often in silence. We had come to
an agreement for the time being. He would stop demanding
to be released and complaining that he did not belong here,
and in return I would behave as if I believed
his time travel story. In truth, I was not sure
whether he believed it himself. Still, I allowed him to
question me, as if you were truly from a long

(18:15):
ago world with laws and customs ailing to our own,
Why do you do this? He asked me once, Why
do you work here if you don't have to work
at all. Most people work if they can, I said.
We do the work we feel we're best suited to.
There can't be a lot of applications for this place,
said Schmidt, Not too many, I admitted. It takes a
certain mindset. Most people worry about being around antisocial, violent

(18:37):
individuals all day, don't you. I closed my eyes looked
down at my broad, blunt hands, so much like my father's,
though I have kept myself from using them to hurt
another human being, of course, I said, But even more,
I believe that those who can't live with others need
a place to go. Rehabilitation if it's possible, asylum if

(18:58):
it isn't. What about justice? What about it for the
real monsters here? Not like me? The murderers. They're victims,
and their families won't They want to see them punished, perhaps,
but would that bring their loved ones back? That's not
the point, then, What is the point? Sometimes the families
will demand men. Sometimes, when the inmates return to their communities,

(19:21):
they work the lands of those they have wronged, or
find some other way to prove themselves reformed. And if
they don't, then they lead very lonely lives, or they
come back here and you think that's acceptable. Most people
think being shut out of the community is punishment enough. Otherwise,
we're no better than me, I held as eyes. Then

(19:43):
the world you're from, yes, Schmidt was certainly from another world,
if only in spirit. You think you're better than me, No,
I said, I think you can be better than you are.
What if I don't want to be? Visitors, especially official ones,
are an unusual event on the island. So when a
science history councilor from Sanctuary itself arrived by a barge

(20:06):
along with not one but two assistants, I knew that
the matter was of the utmost importance. I'm here about Schmidt,
said the councilor, whose name was Sophia. She wore well
cut overalls and could not have been more than thirty five,
but she wore her hair in the half shaved style
traditionally adopted by those who have already rotated through their
senior levels of the science councils and have the authority

(20:27):
of learning. Thank you for coming all this way, I said,
pouring coffee for us both not at all. Robert Schmidt
is of great interest to the Science Council. I have
been hoping to make a personal visit. Is he settling
in Well, we had some problems at first, I said.
He claims that he is no foreigner, but is in
fact from here many centuries ago. He does not seem delusional,

(20:49):
merely troubled. It's perfectly true, said the councilor. It's been
happening more and more, these people arriving from the first
era of time jump technology, back when there were no guidelines.
I felt a bubble of excitement expanding beneath my rib
cage and buried my face and my coffee mug to
contain it. Schmidt is the first from his time to

(21:10):
appear on the West coast. However, said Sophia. We were
dismayed to learn that he has been obliged to surrender.
Sophia continued, dismayed, but not surprised. The time from which
he comes, well, there was a great deal of savagery.
It does not seem like a savage man, I said.
After he learned he was free to leave, I found
him courteous, if a little strange. Have you begun his therapy? Yes,

(21:33):
I said, He's very receptive, although still in deep denial
of why I had to come here. That's to be expected,
said Sophia. The moral codes of his culture were very
different from ours. She pursed her lips over the coffee cup.
As a young man, I might have desired her greatly,
a woman of such wit and elegance. I reprimanded myself
for thinking such coarse thoughts about someone who was, however

(21:55):
briefly my superior a decade in society. She went on,
her bright black eyes, holding my own a violent, authoritarian
world of class, racial and sex hierarchies, a culture that
drove itself to destruction and pursuit of profit for the
very few. We can't just understand it through the lens
of our own society. I nodded. Now that I had

(22:17):
been given permission to believe Schmidt, it all made sense that,
in fact, is the substance of our visit, said Sophia.
Schmidt could help us a great deal in understanding the
culture and technology of his time. But for his safety,
we feel, the Council feels that would be better for
all concerned if Schmidt were to remain here in the
House of Sprender on a permanent basis. Are you saying

(22:41):
that Schmidt is in danger? I'm saying that Schmidt is dangerous,
and there are people who would, if it came to it,
judge him too dangerous to live as part of this
society because of what he did, because of what he is,
said Sophia, Through no fault of his own, he happens
to come from the most frightening place imaginable. What place
is that? The past? I was silent. You must insure,

(23:05):
she said, that Schmidt does not come to any harm.
Break the news to him gently. Can he not be
returned to his time? I asked. Impossible, said Sophia. We
cannot return a time traveler to a culture without any
sense of the common good. His leader set the future
on fire before the first leap engine was even in use.
Who's to say he wouldn't do the same. He needs
to be kept somewhere out of the way, or who

(23:26):
knows what he'll do, or I thought what he might
do to himself. When I told Schmidt that he would
not be allowed to return to his own time, he
said nothing. He did not rage or argue as I
would have expected. Instead, he locked his door and did
not emerge for three days. Eventually I had the guards
break down the door. There was blood everywhere. He had
tried to open his wrists with a broken spoon and failed.

(23:49):
He cannot bring himself to end his life, not alone.
I understand now he kept saying. That was all he said,
poor soul. There could never be peace for him here.
I wrote to the Science History Council, but received no reply.
So I have made my decision. To night, I will
go to Room fourteen and bring Schmidt his supper in person.

(24:12):
We will eat together and talk together. In the course
of our conversation, I will mention casually the small cove
hidden between the rocks on the north side of the
Bear Island, where I keep my own boat, the boat
that took me here forty years ago, when I came
to this place to surrender, after I woke in the
night to find my hands, the thick, blunt hands I
had for my father, closing around my lover's neck. I

(24:36):
had planned to return one day when I could be
sure that I was old and frail enough to be
of no more danger to any one I cherished. Now
I know that I will never leave this place. Schmidt, though,
will choose what he will choose. Perhaps he will go
down to the cove and take the boat out of
the Gray River and cast out on its treacherous waters,
all alone towards the land, and perhaps the currents will

(24:59):
not pull him down, and perhaps the people of Sanctuary
will spare him. Or perhaps they will give him when
he could not give himself, not forgiveness, redemption. They will know,
of course, and they will want to come for me,
But what can they do. I will take my bunch
of keys and find a door to lock behind me.

(25:19):
There are always more rooms in the House of Surrender.
That's the story. It's done now.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Well, I almost didn't want it to end. I feel
like that's such a rich world to pun but no,
I mean, it's such a interesting world I would have
liked to have been in for a little longer.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
I know. I hope Lori writes more in this world.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
I mean, what incredible writing. I can't stop thinking about
skin described as boiled fish, Like that is just so good?

Speaker 2 (25:58):
Right, Wow?

Speaker 3 (26:02):
No, I really I really like that. I I mean
I love sci fi and I love like subtle sci fi,
if that makes sense. It's not like off the top,
it's more just like, oh, this kind of sounds like
it can happen. Yeah, yeah, I really I really like that.
A good twist at the end with the main character
having like also gone him taken himself to the House

(26:25):
of surrender.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
I thought that was totally a good way to close.
But yeah, I mean, like the story has been on
my mind, like off and on for so long, just
because the central concept this idea of like the prism
with the locks on the inside. Yeah, as like like

(26:45):
I don't I'm not advocating this, but I'm not not
advocating this. It's just a really interesting concept of, like, well,
what do you do with people who people very justly
want to hurt if they choose to, they can choose
to be safe and away from those people who want
to hurt them, you know, in this like sort of

(27:07):
exile place. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:11):
Yeah, no, I I'll be honest. When when that I
first heard the line of like the locks are in
the inside, I had had a feeling he was going
to be this like mental thing, like an existential like
a like a you know what I mean, Like I
thought it was going to be more like I wan
don't know what the word is, like the metaphorical or something,
but it's literal and I and I think you make

(27:31):
a good point because there is this huge question of
like rehabilitation versus like being ostracized, and like what hope
do we have if like people are unable to be
rehabilitated back into society or if they're even Like it's
just like there's so many questions when it comes to
the proper way to execute whatever the hell justice is.

(27:53):
But no, I'm glad it was like an actual literal
way of it was like I thought that the prison
of your mind, it's actually just like it's an actual, no,
totally prison with locks on the inside.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Yeah, it is.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
It's it's it's a fascinating concept because I think as
advanced as we think we are, we're extremely primitive in
a lot of ways. Like when you think it's just
like more shiny like we it's like we have like
a fancier version of the guillotine, but it's still a guillotine,
you know what I mean. It's just like a I
don't know, humans are really not as cover as I

(28:25):
think they are.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
But and I really like that it's showing that like
one of the things that has evolved in the future
is specifically like social norms, right like hmm, Like you know,
the time travel part of the story is necessary, it's
like not a I mean, it's a time travel story,
but it's not. It's also not a time travel story.
It's a way to say, like, something that is normal

(28:48):
in our society is sexual assault, and right, right, it
is completely normalized. And so here's someone who's doing something
that like he's not from a time where that's what
he did was wrong.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
You know, he's probably done it a million times before. Yeah,
gone about his life.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
And so like the ability to look at that from
a you know, future perspective of being like, whoa, can
you believe that this was normalized the way that like,
m you know, there's lots of things in the past
that were normalized that aren't good.

Speaker 3 (29:25):
Yeah, And back then it was very normal to have
like a slave even like anything that's like now it's
just like we would never It's like what at a
time people were not batting an eye.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah, but I did.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
I did wonder about that gap the centuries in between
Schmidt's time and with that his.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
Name, Schmidt, yeah, Schmidt.

Speaker 3 (29:46):
Yeah, I was wondering about the gap between like the
centuries between his time and the time he jumped to,
like how society had to have changed and the processes
had to have gone through or even the idea that
like time travel was like disbelieved by a lot of people,
so like maybe they stepped away from technology like all

(30:08):
this stuff where it's just like what is the answer
for our actual progress and actual progression as like a species.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like those like missing centuries
in Star Trek, which they later go back and describe.
But there's like the like Earth sucked and then we
figured out space communism exactly, you know. Yeah. And then
one of the other things that I really like about
Lori's writing, I'll go out and there's a book that

(30:35):
Louri wrote. The novella is published by tour dot Com,
the same publisher who put out my novella that The
Beginning a Book Club opened with, and it's called Everything
Belongs to the Future, and it's another like anarchist sci
fi novella that But one of the things that Laurie
does that like really impresses me but sometimes also like

(30:57):
drives me crazy as a reader is that they like
protagonizing real problematic people. You know, like the protagonist of
this story is a murderer, and the main character that
they're talking about is a rapist, you know, and it's

(31:18):
like I'm too nervous of a writer to like touch
that shit as like, I mean, I'll write about characters
who act like that, but it's like it's it's impressive
to write from those perspectives, and especially to do it
in ways that don't just do it in like shitty
edge lord ways where it's like ha ha haa, my
hero is a bad guy, you know.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
Yeah, so yeah, that's a good point. It is a complex.
Characters are always the most interesting, but that's like a
different level of like, oh, this person actually did a
terrible thing. Do you still root for them? Do you
still think they're as interesting as they were ten pages ago?
I don't know, but I mean, for this story, it
feels like it works only because it's talking about this

(32:01):
idea of rehabilitating yourself and like choosing to step away
until you think you are ready to re enter anciety
and if maybe that never happens. So yeah, yeah, I
don't know. I mean, I feel like there are lines
that are more egregious than others, at least in my mind.

(32:23):
Like for whatever reason, I like, I like, a murder
is more digestible than like like hurting a child or something,
you know what I mean. So I wonder the degrees
of like what someone can accept a character to be
for something like this, or just like in general, when
you have a protagonist that's like really complicated. Yeahah, I

(32:43):
don't know, so something to think about.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
Yeah, no, absolutely, Yeah, that's why I play it safe
if not such, I mean, I don't always play it
safe with my writing. But I don't know. It's just
a piece that I mean, it's ballsy, it's really I mean,
I want to use a different word for that.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
It's gutsy.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah it is.

Speaker 3 (33:03):
Yeah. No, I'm glad I was. I was the audience
for this one.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
That was.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
I mean, I'm gonna think about it for a long
time now too. The prison of your mind.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Well okay, but then, like I mean, one of the
things that strikes me, by the way, when you're pointing
that out, I'm under the impression I haven't done like
a whole research episode about this yet, because the Quakers
are often like the heroes of the episodes that I do,
because there's some of the only white people in slavery
era United States that would like die to free people
right from slavery. They're also who brought us the modern

(33:37):
prison system because the concept of the penitentiary. Penitentiary is
a place to go be penitent, a place to go
like go be by yourself and learn what you did
is wrong. And so in a way, this is like
recreating that. But it is a fundamental difference when you're
saying which side of the door of the lock is

(33:58):
on matters so much.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
It really does. It's like an adult time out that
you're in charge of your time out. Yeah, but like
it sounds like not everyone. I mean, he doesn't know
because he's not from that time. But like what if
a lot of people don't know that they're capable of
unlocking it, you know what I mean? Like what if
they're just like it's something they've forgotten or just like
they've condemned themselves to just feel like, oh I can't

(34:24):
get out or I don't I don't know. I don't
know if that makes sense. I just think it's like, uh,
how much of it is like self condemnation versus just
kind of accepting yourself from being like on the outskirts
of society. I don't know, I don't know, I don't
know if that makes sense. I'm gonna be thinking about
it for a long time. I will, I will, I

(34:45):
will say that fair enough, But I think I think
time travel is dangerous. Is a takeaway? Don't do it, folks,
Yeah we should, we should advance to that point. I
think we should step away when we come to a
time machine.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Just yeah, you wouldn't go back? Would you go forward
or back in time?

Speaker 3 (35:05):
I would go forward. I'm so curious, not even just
that I think it's gonna be worse if I'm being honest,
but that's the pessimist of me. But I also I'm
just so curious how it's gonna all turn out, and
like what happens if we make it to space, and
like what if there's other like aliens or whatever it is.

(35:26):
I'm just so curious about the times that are gonna
happen when I'm not here. It must be I don't know,
Like centuries ago, no one would have guessed where we
are now, Like they probably couldn't even dream up of
this world. So I'm sure it's something like that where
you can't even dream it up.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
I don't know. That's actually that kind of blows my
mind because I'm like, oh, I could be like this
could be like that and like, oh right, we're not
capable of successfully imagining. You know, we're not gonna go
forward and it's not just going to be magically Star
Trek or Firefly or whatever. Yeah, but I don't know
how to transition is to plugs anything, to plug.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
Yes, let's talk about where you can find me in
the future. Sorry, that was my attempt.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (36:14):
I'm sure. Reena shiro Hero on Instagram is shiro Hero
six sixty six on Twitter. I'm also one of the
hosts of It Could Happen Here, also on cool Zone
and Yeah listen to Cool People who Do Cool Stuff,
which I also helped produce.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Yeah, also a nice one. So if you're listening to
this on one of the podcast feeds, go listen to
what's on the other podcast feed. Mine is history and
Shreen's is current events and history because it's everything. And
we'll be back next Sunday with another book club episode.
I almost said cool person who does coople stuff, but
that's not what's happening. I'm just gonna hang up now,

(36:52):
buy done, bank up.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
It Could Happen Here as a production of pool Zone Media.
For a more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our
website coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts,
you can find sources for It could happen here, Updated
monthly at coolzonmedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.