Welcome to Show #15!
Summer, Joe and David reach into the wayback machine and grab an old one off the shelves: More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon. A winner of the International Fantasy Award, this story is broken down into three novellas from different perspectives of the creation, growth and maturation of a different kind of human. Whether it’s the next step in human evolution or something else entirely is a question left up to the reader.
Aaron from the Weekly Anime Review has a review of Astroboy, the original Japanese TV series from 1963.
Listener feedback: Tim leaves us a voicemail with his theory on why the DVD of the 1980 Flash Gordon movie may have gone out of print.
Books mentioned:
Promo: ScapeCast: Your Guide to the Wonders of FarScape
Promo: Typical Mac User Podcast
Link: Wikipedia: Theodore Sturgeon
Link: Theodore Sturgeon Award: Best SF Short Fiction (yearly award)
Not dead. Resting? I’ve...
RE: Tim’s voicemail
Doesn’t really explain why the movie is still easily available in Europe. According to Amazon, the Special Edition DVD was released in the UK on 10th October 2005. I doubt it could have been released if KFS had really objected.
As Joe mentioned maybe an obscure rights issue (that effects the US only) or it just may not have made enough money when it was originally released on DVD.
Happy Birthday Joe! Two days late
Great show as usual. Listening to your discussion brought back memories of the novel… and some aspects I missed.
Vanamonde, I didn’t take into account Europe, cuz Europe doesn’t count. – (I’M JUST KIDDING!!!!)
…and don’t worry, David. You haven’t heard the last of me, Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas!!!! ah-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
One thing I didn’t hear mentioned was discussion of the quality of each novella…I have to say I enjoyed the first much more than the others. It was Faulkner-like prose that really worked, and the introductions to the characters were amazing. This was incredible stuff for any science fiction novel, and all the more so for one done at that time.
Then the second novella starts…and it’s a smart-ass kid voice and dialogue that is much more reminiscent of the time. I couldn’t really click with it.
The third worked better and had some nice twists…but I’m still very partial to the first part of the book.
This was an interesting show. I have not read this particular book, but I would really like to now. It sounds fasinating.
Nigel.
Where else has the idea of a “hive mind” individual been explored at depth?
The only instance that I can think of off the top of my head was in “A Fire Upon the Deep” where Vinge explored the society of the “Tines”, a canine-like pack mind race.
I really liked the Tine character names such as Peregrine Wickwrackrum or Scriber Jaqueramaphan.