hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr2478.txt

Episode: 2478
Title: HPR2478: City Of Masks - HPR_AudioBookClub
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2478/hpr2478.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 03:55:35

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This is HBR episode 2478 entitled City of Max, HBR or the O-Book Club, and in part of the series, HBR or the O-Book Club.
It is hosted by HBR or the O-Book Club, and in about 86 minutes long, and can in an explicit flag.
The summary is, the HBR or the O-Book Club renews City of Max with author Mike Green McMillan.
This episode of HBR is brought to you by an honesthost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HBR15. That's HBR15.
Better web hosting that's honest and fair at An Honesthost.com.
Good evening, and welcome to another edition of the Hacker Public Radio Audio Book Club.
For long-time listeners, you might notice that I am not the intrepid Pokey.
He should be joining us later this evening. I am your host for the evening, or panelist or
something. I don't really know what I am. X1101. Tonight, we're going to be discussing
a book called City of Masks, and we're joined by actually the author of the book, Mike,
as well as semi-autic robotic. How you doing?
Hey, evening to both of you, Mike. Thanks so much for being here. This is a real pleasure.
Seems like we've lost Mike for the moment, so we'll hold off to he joins back up.
Mike, welcome back. You have some connection issues there?
Sorry, I'd accidentally mute it on hardware, so that was why you couldn't hear me.
Oh, we've all done it. Anyway, thank you very much for joining us. It's a real pleasure.
I don't know how... I don't think we've had very many authors join us for a book club.
Well, my pleasure to come and join in. I'm looking forward to hearing what you had,
what you thought about the book. Both for you, Mike, and for the listeners,
any listeners at home unfamiliar with our format, I'll just go over it again. We'll usually
spend a little bit of time going over what we thought about the book without spoiling any of the
plot, so we'll talk about general themes, general impressions, recording quality, sound quality,
things like that. Then we'll break for a little bit and do a beverage review. We do deliberately
call it a beverage review. We've got people who review beer, wine, hard liquor, tea, coffee, water.
We've got all types. Then after that, we'll jump right in and the kids eat gloves come off and
we'll rip into the plot and spoil a crap out of it. Sounds good. So, semiotic robotic. Let's start
with you. What did you think? I really enjoyed this book. I had to read the book instead of
listen to the audiobook because I couldn't get the audiobook to work on my particular stereo setup,
but I really enjoyed it. It was just a fantastic read. I just couldn't believe
the finesse that Mike displayed here. I mean, the language was antiquated without sounding
hokey. So many times I read books. I think that tried to sound antiquated and try to mimic a
sort of older style and they don't succeed or they just sound a little forced, but there was
something so natural about Mike's writing that I was floored. I was impressed.
Yeah, I mean, I thought the language felt very natural as well. I didn't even really
occur to me that it was anything other than appropriate for the time period. Did this book
seems to be set in? I was curious about that. I had a question for Mike. If he had a particular
time period in mind, if this was supposed to be a sort of alternate dimension, if there was some
kind of like what he kind of conceived is the space and time of the novel. Well, it's kind of
Shakespeare's Italy, but not really. It's more or less like medieval early Renaissance,
but with lower technology and the language itself is probably more 18th century with one or two
medieval expressions in it. So I wasn't going for a particular place or a particular time,
but it has hints of early Renaissance, Venus being kind of the inspiration. It's kind of a
Hollywood inspired by rather than a stone. Right. That makes sense. I get you.
As a story consumer, so I can't really speak much at all as an author, but it seems like it would be
easier. You could take more liberties if you're targeting a fictional time and place rather
than trying to write a novel set in a specific time and place because you have more liberty to
take the bits and pieces you like from this time period in that location where if you were trying
to say this was 14th century Florence, you have some pretty to be accurate. You've got some tight
guidelines to follow there, whereas you can borrow this from this century and this from that location
and gives you a broader playground. Is that sound about right or am I off the mark there?
No, no, you're quite right. I'm very lazy about research and so it's much easier just to make
things up rather than try to be strictly historical. But it also gives you, so go ahead.
Carol, I think if this is kind of a fantasy novel without magic in the setting is like
a made up fantasy setting, a secondary world setting, but there's no actual magic or not.
That was the, so why choose it then? I'm curious what, I mean, in any time period you could have
masks in contemporary England, you could have masks in the 23rd century, so I'm just curious why
you selected that particular epoch. I enjoy Shakespeare. I try to go to a live place whenever
there's one on and masks to me suggests Venice, so those two things kind of came together
and suggested a setting. It's not like Venice and it doesn't have canals, but it is a
harboursity and a trading city. Well, these many layers of walkways and layers of the city almost
stands in for the canals in some ways. Yes, that's true. That's a good point. I hadn't thought
about that. You've got the low roads that are kind of below ground level and the high roads
that are up the sides of the buildings and yeah, that it is kind of like that. As I was listening
to it, both times, I listened to it both right after our last audio book club and then just
last week. I kept wondering a lot of these things, specifically like the, specifically the genre
your description of it's just about right. It's a fantasy setting without most of the typical fantasy
elements. Yeah, one of the things that Max had to mark is that it doesn't have a clear genre.
It's it's speculative fiction is about as clear as you can go. Hey guys, sorry, I am late.
Just earning your nickname once again. If I haven't earned it yet, how are you doing guys?
And Mike, nice to meet you. Thank you so much for joining us this week. That's that's great
of you to do. Oh, no problem. And Poke, can you recall offhand how many times we've had other
authors on? I would say three times, but only one other time was the author there for their own book.
Okay, that's Cristiana. Yes, sir. Cristiana Ellis came on for her own book and then two
others came on, specifically didn't want to be on for their own book, didn't want to alter the
conversation. I don't think they would have anyway, but either way. I feel like a pioneer,
but what now? A pioneer. Oh yeah, right on. Poke, we were just talking about Mike's decisions
with regard to setting and style. And he was explaining to us sort of what he had in mind for
his what he sort of had in his imagination regarding, you know, the setting of the book.
Oh, man, the setting. May I can I jump in then?
Please do, please do. I just thought setting was was beautiful. I like a picture
when listening to this was just this, you know, gilded and white lacy world and, you know,
very tidy people, you know, of course, that all being just the veneer over over the surface,
but it was always beautiful and I was able to picture it beautifully. I don't have a very
active imagination, as I've said before in the show, when it comes to visualizing settings,
but in this one, I think I could. It felt very much like kind of like a mass,
no, a casque of a Montiago. I think I'll tell you pronounce it in Montiato. By Po, it kind of
had that feeling to it the whole time, but deeper. It was just it was fantastic. I loved it. I loved
every moment of this audio book. I believe it's casque of a Montedalo. I think you're word for
thanks. I'm looking it up for the show notes. Yeah, I don't know. I thought the setting itself,
just especially the three different layers of the city, the three different layers of setting,
just did a real good job of shifting gears when gears needed to be shifted without grinding them
too bad or slipping the clutch too bad if it's a strange metaphor. I apologize. I think a lot of
what I was doing with that was as well as with the masks was making, making things that are usually
internal and hidden, open and visible. The class structure in the city is reflected in the
physical structure of the city. The low people use the low roads and the high people use the
high roads as well as the masks revealing something about who people are, as they're walking around.
And of course, you sound like you're a personalist. Yeah, well. And the way in which masks
reveal person or the person if you prefer, that was that was kind of the seed from which the book
grew. And there's an Oscar Wilde quote about how a mask is not there to hide somebody's identity
but to reveal it. Something that I kind of had turning over in my mind as I was riding it.
I love the idea that whatever, whatever mood you were in that day or perhaps whatever job
you had to get done that day. You just, you put that mask on and everyone around you was
required to treat you the way that that mask dictated. And at the same time, you were required to
behave as the mask dictated. So it was a very sort of liberating prison.
Good way of putting it. Yeah, as the book went along, I did have this idea kind of question.
And what Poki said kind of jog my memory there. If each person's given masks that they're permitted
to wear at some point, you start to develop as a person contrary to your mask. And you know,
run the risk of the very serious crime of being unmasked for exploring who you might be
contrary to the masks that you currently possess. Yes. Yes. And in fact, a couple of the characters
do kind of scare that. And yeah, yeah, that's very much pace that as well as there, it's a mechanism
of course of social control in that you have to decide who you are and then only be that person.
And that tends to flatten out by that people play out their identity. And you can only be,
you can only have an identity that's socially approved of. Again, I was kind of
making out with explicit rules. City for things that we have unspoken unwritten rules about in our
that kind of speaks a little bit to the concept of double speak and double think as, you know,
introduced by or well, whereby controlling the language people can use not just to communicate
but to internalize thought. You really control what people think. And this is kind of a an
externalization of that same concept it seems like. Yes, yes, it is. But again, back to
Pokey's point about how it's a liberating prison. At the same time, you can only be the mask
you're wearing. But to be a different person, you have simply to change masks. A concept that I
came across in one of Philip K. Dick's novels is a German word. The word is mash and fry height,
meaning mask freedom. And it's the the freedom that you have when you're wearing a mask that you
can you can be that identity without you can be that identity without without anybody
contradicting it in a sense. Yeah, and I think that's really interesting. But what X1 X1101 was just
saying strikes me as a little more nuanced in the book because there's the characters don't
really have the freedom that they would all desire to switch masks or change masks. Whatever
they'd like because there's not only an entire government apparatus set up around regulating
control of masks and who can wear what mask and under what conditions. But there's a giant
book of masks that catalogs and controls and keeps tabs on the amount of masks and the kinds
of masks that have been distributed throughout the city and to reduce redundancy or to be sure
that no one is masquerading as someone they shouldn't be or to keep appearing at the same time.
So what started out as a sort of fanciful or farcical sort of tradition turns into a very
stringent apparatus of governmental control. Yes, very much. Yes, it started out as play and it
started out as as freedom and license and then it was co-opted as a as a mechanism of control.
All right, so I thought the one thing about it, it seemed so liberating that you could throw
on a mask and just be who you wanted to be. But it seemed like a nightmare that you had to pretty
much leave your mask on even when you're home. It said that many lovers didn't see each other
unmasked. So yeah, just it seemed that part seemed almost prison-like where you go home and you
have to leave your mask on. You could be completely undressed, but your mask is still on for most
people and that part of it seemed a little prison-like like your own identity is just kind of
in the coat closet and never can come out. It also seems like a lot of trouble because half the
time I came to be bothered to have pants on. We didn't need to hear that. Yeah, it's pretty much
old mask all the time. Once you're once you're in the city of masks and I was definitely
making a point with that. So the other thing is it felt like, I don't know, it kind of
place was the city supposed to be. Was it like an Italian type of carnival scenario? Or
what you guys already talked about this? Yeah, I kind of saw Shakespeare's Italy as my inspiration
and Shakespeare's Italy specifically because I get some twins in there, a couple of points and
there are a few other Shakespearean bits to it, but it's more or less Venice which is traditionally
associated with masks only without nails and even the two factions, the personalists and the
two factions and then the characters. There we go. You guys have read it more recently than I have.
Probably not as many times. The characters and the personalists were loosely based on the
Guelphs and Gibelines if I'm pronouncing that correctly of Renaissance Italy who were
political philosophical factions but would have straight vites about it. That is cool. Now I just
want to say, Mike, to you, I want to thank you personally for this audiobook. It's been one of my
favorites since I found it and I listened to this audiobook a long, long time ago, the first time
and I've been holding off until it could be an audiobook club book and I was holding off
on that until we had a good crew that I knew would stick with a book because I remembered it.
The audio being a little muffled and maybe a little more bassy than it should have been so I
held off but I do want to say that when me and another guy started the audiobook club several
years ago, this book was one of the reasons that I started it is just because I wanted to get people
to give this one an honest listen and an honest discussion about it. So I thank you for the book
and for coming on with us. And I have to say, Pokey, either your memory of the quality of the book
was off or a new version has been uploaded because after you mentioned that last week I went
or last month rather. I went in, you know, intending to, you know, slog through it because it sounded
like you thought it was a really good story and I only noticed a few little corners that were
a little odd. It was not, I was expecting not good audio and I thought the audio was pretty good.
Yeah, I wasn't using very expensive gear and I did have feedback from at least one person that
they had some difficulties with the audio but I think it may have been partly their gear.
I listened to it on headphones and fairly cheap headphones when I was editing it and it sounded
fine to me but if you're putting it through certain kinds of speakers possibly, you might have
not quite so good at sound quality. Yeah, that's what happened to me unfortunately but it was my
issue. I don't think anything with the book. It may just be the headphones that I'm using now and
I think the headphones that I had before were probably worse because it wasn't nearly as bad as I
thought I remembered it being, I mean, it was a little muddy at some points and I noticed it
more towards the end of the book than the beginning so it might have been a fatigue thing as well
but it will, like I said, it was not nearly as bad as I thought I remembered it being and it was
even more enjoyable the second time through maybe just because I had better headphones that were
a little clearer. While we're on the subject of the audiobook as an object, Mike, I'm wondering if
you might speak a little bit about your decision to publish the book the way that you did. As you
might suspect, our audience here is very interested in issues of free culture and related issues
like that and so I'm wondering if you might talk a little bit about your adventure in
pushing it and your decision to release the audiobook the way that you did. Yeah, that's it really.
I know I'm personally curious and I suspect our listeners would be as well.
Well, it's going back a few years now. I think it was 96 so they did the audio book. I can't
actually remember why it was that I wanted to do an audio book. It just seemed like a good idea
at the time and I thought now podcasts are a thing. Surely you could do an audio book as a
podcast and I did some quick googling and discovered that I was not the first person to think of this
and in fact there was a whole community over at pottyabooks.com of people who were doing that
and so I hopped on that train and I really enjoyed doing the audio book, had great fun doing
the voices and although the other thing was somewhat tedious and what pottyabooks provided
was a platform to make the work a bit better now and I knew that it was going to be a minority
interest. It wasn't going to be something that was widely popular because how do you even describe
it but it was a way to reach some wider audience and that's one thing that pottyabooks is good for
and they have a great community as well. People are very helpful. It's all moved on to Google Plus
now and in fact it was Eva Terra from pottyabooks who moved me onto Google Plus because he basically
said our forum keeps getting hacked. We're moving to Google Plus who's with me and I've met
lots of other writers including non pottyabook people over there and found it wonderful for my writing
and as a source of support so that's all worked really well. In those days I don't think
well ACX wasn't operating the audible service where you can either do your own narration or get
somebody to do it and I don't know that audible was really that open to people kind of coming out
of nowhere and saying here's my book so pottyabooks was really the place to be and but I think even if
I was doing it today I probably would go pottyabooks rather than audible because even though there's
a smaller market and it's specifically free although they do have a donation button of course.
I just kind of like the open feel of it and in the indie ethic that's around pottyabooks
as opposed to the commercial ethic of audible who profit pretty heavily from your work.
They take quite a large whack out of whatever your book makes. So for all those reasons happy
that I went with pottyabook. So talking about the open ethics and culture can you tell us what
licensure book is under because I don't remember seeing that and I don't remember hearing
is it an all-right reserved or is it one of the creative commons licenses that you licensed it under?
the text the both the pay for back and the ebook are all rights reserved but the recording is
released under creative commons I think it's about 2.5 in those days and it's a non-commercial
the one where you can't modify it for your own purposes. No derivatives. No derivatives. Yeah,
non-commercial neither derivatives. It's amazing what you can do with a open framework like that
and a good community surrounding it. So did you discover Mike? Did you discover
pottyabooks after you'd written the book? Why you were writing it before because I know that books
are typically divided into chapters but your story reads like a play. It has a dramatic pacing
to it and so I was wondering if your decision to go on pottyabooks and release the book episodically
like that in some way influenced your writing and the way you conceptualize the writing process and
how you segmented the book. No, I wrote it first and then found pottyabooks afterwards. The way
the book is structured as a series of mostly diary entries actually in some ways is not ideal for
pottyabooks. Chapters really work better because most people when they're listening to a pottyabook
they want at least 20 minutes and preferably half an hour even longer as an episode and
methodally my diary entries are quite short but it wasn't always easy to find the right place to
break between them. It was a lot of fun doing the style with the documents, the letters, the
diary. It's a style that's been around for a while Dracula uses it. Yeah, it's just thinking of Dracula.
Yeah, I hadn't actually read Dracula at the time that I wrote. I only read Dracula last year and
really enjoyed it. It's very well done. There's a reason it's classic. I agree. It's an interesting
way of being able also to have multiple first person points of view. The diary of Sally, for example,
the sister of the man servant. I went through and put those in actually after I'd done the main book
of the right hand kind of as an alternative voice and I had a lot of fun doing Sally as
punctuated, misspelled, rambling diary entries and just in contrast to the very precise and
stuffy main character who does his diary entries in a very formal way. I thought that her diary entries
were particularly interesting and amusing. A lot of our longer term listeners will know or
might remember. I listen to all my audio books at about 1.8 speed simply because I want to listen to
a lot of stuff and I don't have as much time as I'd like to do it and that's the way that I get my
content in. Listening to her at 1.8 was always amusing and entertaining. Yeah, she's kind of at
1.8 to start with. Yeah, yeah. I thought that she came across brilliantly. You got so much of her
character out of how her diary entry was read. It was great. Agreed. I was really surprised to
reach the same mic that you inserted those in when the novel, when you had come to the conclusion
in the novel because it's Sally that her voice concludes the book. Yeah, it might not have been
when I was all the way finished, but it certainly was not something that I planned from the beginning.
That's weird because wow, it just happened. Everybody left the room. It almost looked like a net split
except we're on mumble. Yeah, I was wondering what the heck what that was.
I might have clicked on the wrong place. No, you clicking on the wrong place wouldn't have
kicked semiotic robotic out like it did. You can take yourself out that way but it wouldn't take
someone else out. Not unless you're administrative. I'm back. I don't know if it's weird, I guess.
Oh, no, we're not hearing you now, Mike. Peter? Yeah, I can hear you. There we go. Okay. Yeah, it's
strange to hear you say that about Sally that you didn't write her until the book was almost done
because earlier parts of the book seemed like they were, geez, I don't want to, it seemed like they
were written around maybe the mystery of her. I don't know. I don't want, I can't spoil it yet.
I'll get back you later. It's art, it's stuff with this book. Yeah, actually, the book took me,
I think it was about 10 years from beginning to end. And most of that time was the first
three entries, probably sitting there waiting for what happened next. And it was only when I
got a big piece of paper and drew a diagram of who was connected to whom and who was in conflict
and who was who was in love and where all of the factions lay that I found a way forward into a plot.
Oh, that is cool. So you didn't have like an outline of the story when you started?
Oh, not at all. I have gradually become more of an outliner. The book I'm working on at the moment
I've outlined pretty thoroughly, but to start out with total pants, no idea what was going to happen
next. Oh, that's fantastic. Are you, so you're not a professional writer then? No, no, I work in IT,
don't we all? And I write in my spare time, but I enjoy it. Well, I should say that I do have
some training and I have an email in English mostly language, but some 16th and 17th century literature
as well, which is kind of where the feel comes from, I think, for the way the book comes together.
And I was also a professional editor for a few years and then a technical writer. So I do have
a background, but I don't as yet make my living out of writing. It's always amused me going down
that rabbit hole for just a moment, seeing people of kind of almost a generation ahead of me who
didn't set out to be an IT set out to do something else and then ended up in IT. Whereas people
more my age and I'm late 20s start out knowing they're going to be an IT and I just find that
very, the differences are interesting. Yeah, well, I'm 47, so when I was at school, IT hardly
existed. We were the first class, I think, that actually had computers in the classroom and they
were the old Commodore, the grantees. And so I did English because it was what I enjoyed and
and what came easily to me and with no real idea of what it was going to lead to. And then went
into publishing because that was the only job I knew that you could do with an English degree
that we're teaching. And since both my parents were teachers out of West when I never would be.
And then gradually, other thing became more technological during the 90s and I started to work
with databases and ended up creating what in retrospect was almost a small ERP system for the
department that I was working for in Access 95 with VBA. And gradually, what I did became more
and more technical until I kind of gave up and admitted that I was working on IT.
And let me guess they're probably still using that ERP system written in VBA and Access 95 to
this day. It wouldn't surprise me. There's a reason that we use the word legacy as off as we do.
Though actually that publishing company has now more or less closed down, it was bought by
an international company which has now basically shut down its New Zealand operations
except for distribution and take a little to Australia. So it really doesn't exist anymore.
But if they were still going and they probably would still be using the database.
Or if they were still using the database, they'd probably still be going.
Well, they're also responsible.
So how about your audio chops? Did you, this is the first time you've picked up a microphone
or was this the first time you picked up a microphone and did any voice work?
Had you had any prior experience with audio editing and engineering and recording?
Acting classes and that kind of thing, but apart from a radio play recorded on to cassette when I was
at school, it was the first time that I tried anything like this. I just used, I think I used
audacity to record it. Yeah, audacity.
If it wasn't that, it was something equally straightforward and I got myself a $50 clip on
mic and sat down and read the book. It's a wonderful time to be alive and you can do what used to
be very high end creative work that used to require a lot of fancy gear that cost thousands of
dollars for really very cheap and it's not that hard to do. No, there's a fairly steep learner,
but there's also plenty of people willing to help you. I don't know about back then,
they probably weren't as many YouTube videos showing you how to get it on stuff like that.
But, um, we didn't any other produce like IRC or anything like that?
Not, not that kind of community now, I was in a gaming forum, but, um, yeah, in fact,
I think that was before YouTube. Difficult as it is to believe, YouTube hasn't really been around
that long. So, yeah, I think I got a couple of books from the library about audio editing and,
um, and I have to do recordings and podcasts, but most of it I picked up from, um,
from Googling around and from making the mistakes and listening to the result and realizing that
it hadn't worked very well. Well, and Poke mentioned the learning curve at this point.
It's a learning curve rather than a financial hurdle. You know, the challenge now to producing and
recording decent sounding audio is spending the time to learn a piece of software and to some extent
buying decent equipment, but it's not, it's maybe hundreds of dollars of equipment, not thousands
or tens of thousands of dollars of equipment and audio engineers time and, you know, rented resources.
Now, I mean, I'm here with, I upgraded to a $40 microphone and headset and I've got software
that's freely available to anyone producing, uh, recording and producing. I would think decent
sounding audio. Yeah, you sound great. People often compliment me on the way I sound. I have a
$15 pair of headphones that I bought in the mid 90s and a RCA stick mic that I pulled out of a
trash can somewhere. So, yeah, it's, you're absolutely right. It's not the financial wall. It's,
it's just that learning curve and you can learn it. It's awesome. You've had an iPhone
law along the show, haven't you? No, I wish we'd, I wish I'd do them. We've, we've done one of
his books. I think, and I think we've also done some books that he's read, not the ones that he's
written, but ones he's read. Yeah, that's right. We did crown conspiracy. Yeah, that was my, yeah.
He, um, he did love his recordings and his car because that was
somewhere that he could go and it was quiet. I think he drove to a park in the early hours of
the morning or something and sat in his car and recorded. And those recordings, of course,
launched his career and he's now making quite a decent living selling his books. But it's
good to hear. I wasn't sure because I hadn't heard from him in a while, but that's, that's still
good to hear that he's making a living at it. Yeah, I haven't heard from him for a while. It's
true. Maybe, maybe he's rotting. I'm going to have to spoil some stuff soon. Yeah, I was going to
stay X-101's point about microphones is making me thirsty. Yeah, I, I think that, unless anyone
objects, I think it's, it's time for a beverage break. Hey, you're to boss tonight. It's up to you,
man. All right. Well, I'm going to run upstairs and pour my beverage so people can either hang out
and wait for me to get back or you guys can start your own. Oh, I can wait. Oh, wait till these
guys get back. I get one that that X-101 will like and he's always got something interesting. I
don't know where that guy finds his beers. He's always got good stuff. Okay, I'm back. All right,
now we're just waiting for X-101. I'm back. All right, awesome. All right, I cannot wait to hear
what Mike has got for a beverage in New Zealand. It's very dull. I have water. It's pretty much all I
drank apart from fruit juice and milk. So I just have some nice filtered water. It's rain water
from our local health. We live up against the hills where the water for the city is collected and
in in the storage dams and treated and it comes right down the hill to our house, excellent pressure
and we filter any chemicals out of us and it's it makes for a very pleasant drink. This
is a dull, this New Zealand water. Do you know how exotic that is to us? That's like Harbaton water.
Yeah, really. No ants have been involved in making of this water. Oh, that's
Stiotic robotic. I bet you have something equally exotic in the other direction.
I don't know about exotic, but I have my usual cup of tea here. I'm sitting tonight's tea
selection was Celestial Seasonings Sleepy Time Tea with Valerian Roots. So it's got it's got a nice
chamomile blend with a little Valerian mixed in trying to be mentally alert and have a book
conversation and drink Sleepy Time Tea at the same time was an interesting dilemma I put myself
in this evening. Wait, Valerian Root, is that real? That sounds like something out of Star Trek.
Hold on a moment. I don't know if it's a root. I think it's a root, but somebody can correct
me if I'm wrong. It sounds like a brandy that Captain Kirk might have served to a diplomat or
something. I have it's a nice Valerian brandy. No, Valerian is it's an herb that is supposed to be
relaxation inducing and I don't know. It could be it could be welcome, but it tends to work for me.
To arch. What is up, fellas? Poke, if you check the chat, I've thrown in where I've heard Valerian
root before and that's totally going in the show notes too. Okay, good. Oh, okay, so semiotic robotic.
We had the tea versus not the conversation that that Christmas dinner at my wife's parents
house as well because we got a big box of Chinese food for everybody and they my wife's parents
paid for it and I picked it up and it was way too much food and I couldn't believe what the bill
came to and I told I asked the guy said you throw in a box of tea with this order or something
and he did and he threw in a box of tea and it was not tea. It wasn't it's on. Exactly and that's
we had that conversation at the dinner table and normally my in-laws my mother-in-law especially
who would look at me like I'm a BS artist it was about to and then my sister and law went no he's
right I just read the ingredients there's no tea in here. So what are you drinking Poke? Oh
you're going to love this I brought this just for you and saved it just for you. I have a bottle
of Kentucky bourbon barrel stout. Oh wow it is not nearly as good as it was on tap when we had it
at the Linux Fest I was surprised at just how much I cannot taste the bourbon in the bottle of it.
It's still very good don't get me wrong it's still fantastic but when we had it in that beer pub
and had it on tap it was almost like they poured a shot of bourbon at the bottom of it just just
to get the flavor into it. It was basically drinking about a 10-proof bourbon is really what it was.
Yeah that's what it what it tastes like. Now this is a damn good stout and their label says it all
it's a stout brewed with coffee and aged in oak barrels with Haitian coffee and it says it all
it's very stouty it's very dark very creamy it's not very thick but it does have a nice smooth
coffee flavor to it and not that like bitter like black coffee or burnt coffee it's just a nice
light relaxing type of coffee flavor to it and it's still very enjoyable but I'm missing the bourbon
flavor that I was expecting. What about you Taj you got anything interesting for us tonight?
Well I just got done sitting through a three hour online seminar course so there will be no
beverages so I could make it through it without my bladder exploding so I am beverage less
yeah well oh you cut out semiotic robotic right your punchline we missed it. That's a good
reason to go beverage less. I don't know all that dry talk would make me thirsty.
All right and I have a put it in the show notes so I wouldn't have to remember what it is.
It is a it's a black IPA from Stone Brewery which if stone makes it a beer and you like that
style of beer buy it because I have not had anything out of stone that wasn't excellent.
This is called sublimely self-righteous ale and it is a black IPA. That's an awesome name.
I almost bought that one it was it was right next to the bourbon barrel stout and the bottle
looked fantastic and the beer looked dark and then I saw it was in IPA and I was like I can't do it.
Well and anyone not familiar black IPAs tend to have the the same kind of body as a stout but then
you get that sucker punch of hops there and and this is you know it looks like I've got a glass
of cola sitting beside me it's so dark it wasn't very heady but very hoppy and very delicious.
Cool very very cool so yeah I couldn't believe when what was your name again the girl talked real
fast. So yeah yes I couldn't believe when Celia didn't do it I thought for sure she was the
waiter. I'll be honest with you I wasn't entirely sure for a long time who was the murderer either.
Apparently Agatha Christie was the same way so I don't feel so bad and I've read a lot I've
read a lot of things that Stephen King has said and at least with some of his stories he's
hearing it as he writes it for the first time sorry. Yeah Stephen King has a very famous
panzer that's one of the reasons why his stories often have kind of inconclusive endings.
And sorry to the Stephen King reference I live in in Maine up here in the US and so he's
by most people's standards he is just my neighbor about two hours up the road. So he's kind of
considered a local hero around here. I would imagine he looks like when the murderer was revealed
to be the Countess I have to admit Mike I was sort of let down because I was expecting that just
made so much sense you know that just made that made it was so it so there was such a good fit
there and so I thought oh boy is that going to be the is that going to be the opportunity for the
twist the great reveal and that was it that seems such a natural obvious fit I was thinking somebody
like Celia or even Corius but then there's a double twist at the end that just totally knocked
my socks off so I you know got my enjoyment later on so you sort of I love I love the way
that you've written the book to sort of I don't know you in a murder mystery like that one would
expect the the revelation of the murderer to be the great reveal at the end of the book but it is
not right there's two more twists at the end that seal the deal. Yes the first twist is the
last night twist and then there are the two twists. Yeah that's what I perfectly said yes exactly
right. That's what I was going to say is I I thought for sure the Countess couldn't have done it
because it would be way too obvious but then the reason why it wasn't obvious was not obvious so
that was that was very well done. Yes it displayed a very subtle hand it was excellently done.
Baron Montu let's Gregory Assistant or let Brought and he doesn't okay now maybe this this didn't
come across in the text but when he was reading his journal entry the way it's the way he said his
own name he didn't sound like he liked himself very much he almost said it would disdain or
self-loathing but then I didn't get that out of the text but I don't know maybe he doesn't think
as highly of himself as he does his friends for sure but he also does. No he definitely doesn't
he when they're talking about stature and and station and he deliberately self-deprecates and
he's self-deprecating all the time but when he deliberately lowers himself to make a point
about being equal. You cut out there real bad you said equal and you got about half the word out
you back. I'm back. All right you said that he was self-deprecating to make himself equal and
that was the last thing we heard. Then I just said that that's sort of a moment where you know you
see his his opinion of himself shine through. Yeah all of pretty much all of my heroes are
outsiders and best is he's physically and mentally the opposite of me in many ways but
that I took a lot of personal experience of being a bit of an outsider and and use that to depict
how he felt about himself and how he felt about the people around him. Oh I had a really good
point to make about the way his sister recognized him and now I can't remember what I was going to say.
At least I thought it was a really good point. I don't know maybe it'll come to me. It was really
interesting how she like right at the beginning pointed out that you know he would be something
if only he were ever challenged and no one has ever challenged him because no one thought much
of him and no one thought much of him because he didn't put on a good face and he didn't put on a
good face because he was never challenged so she she knew that it was just an opportunity that he
looked back to that that it was all there inside him and I think that was great how that played out
slowly I mean so slowly that that the fact that turned out to be a hero in the end really really
simmered throughout the whole book. Yeah it's it's no challenge really to have the big square
George good-looking guy be the hero having the overweight guy who's not too bright be the hero
is it's a lot harder. I believe the only appropriate comment here is Excelsior. I was going to say
wait it sounds nothing like Hollywood. I don't know John Candy played plenty of heroes. I
sorry go ahead mate. No no go. I was going to say I hate to skip so far to the to the back of the
story. I hope we can come back if somebody else has a point from earlier on but I was a little
disappointed. I can't help it. I was a little disappointed that Gregorius was not more mournful
of Corius even though he never really knew Corius. He it's still to me it felt like a loss and I was
kind of surprised that he didn't respond that way. Well as a saying so soon which he hasn't lost
Corius. Yeah exactly in the in the sense of the the masks of course Corius has never changed
to him but it it was strange. I don't know how else did it sorry. Well I had just a logistical
question there is when Juliana is relating the story of how Corius had died and she kind of assumed
his role but she was I didn't really catch her profession but I got that it was something akin
to a tailor but then Corius went on this seafaring journey got to ended up coming back and then
Juliana just kind of slipped back into her life did nobody notice she was missing there was no
I didn't catch any explanation of her being gone. Yeah I didn't attempt one. I kind of saw her
as being freelance rather than employed and if somebody disappears for a while in the city of masks
you just assumed I've been not wearing a different mask I guess. Well I guess that does make sense
I hadn't thought about it in that respect. Which was of course the guy some and those guys. I liked
how how the Countess had doubles for a while she could be off somewhere else that that never
occurred to me and it should have but it didn't and it didn't occur to any other guys that it could
happen that way or or he was blindsided to as I was it oh look there's a double to someone wearing
her mask while she's off murdering. No I thought I didn't see it coming and I thought it was
perfect. Yeah that really floored me. For me it was one of those things that you you hear him say
that and you're like of course that's what they do why didn't I think of that. One of the fun
things about any speculative fiction is to work everything out to the ultimate logical conclusion
and I spent quite a bit of time thinking about if you have this system of masks what does
that and I will what does it prevent how people going to guine up. Well kind of like that. Yeah I'd
love to see not maybe not a sequel but like another story in the same setting where where you have
people you know wearing masks for for which they do not have license I think was was Gregorious's
words on the subject but I'd like to just you know hear a story of people who who did that often
enough that they could actually change their station life or improve it or you know somehow be
different or maybe like the the criminal underground getting away with stuff like that I thought
that was I mean even just the when he asked about people committing crimes in the
was it the ununcast mask because I would have I forget what it was called now. Yeah even that
was real interesting. Yes it was. So since I missed the beginning I don't know if this guy brought
up or not and probably did because we're all pretty smart. Did anybody else just hear the ideas
about anonymity that we were talking about a few books back just like in the back of your head
the whole time a metaphor for the internet. No it's a good point. Well I was near at the beginning
either but that's a really good point. No we know one touched on that yet but now that you say it
I'm smarter than everybody that's what you're saying. Yeah pretty much. Well you are the teacher
so we would hope so. Maybe semiotic robotic could touch you. You're too kind but no I can't
touch. He does have that smooth voice. Mike did that go through your head at all when you were
writing it? Not that I remember. It almost seems like based on when Mike said he wrote it it
seems more like a metaphor that fits after the fact rather than during because the internet
becoming a real place of purposeful anonymity seems to be a more recent thing than in the early
90s. People were anonymous there simply because you were. It wasn't people didn't go there to be
anonymous. Yeah but then how do you make the more recent the the tearing down of all the anonymity
fit ads? I didn't say it was a perfect metaphor. The personalists. I went to I went to make a YouTube
comment the other day and my YouTube name is gone. It's it's only my real name there. Any more
and I can't find a way to change it back or change it. And for the past two years I've been
telling YouTube I don't want to use my real name. I like to handle. I have a new it's just gone.
So we can't look on YouTube anymore for space Pokey? No I was never space Pokey there.
That was a missed opportunity. It was something that never occurred to anyone but you guys.
Speaking I'm glad you brought up. We're talking about the politics of masking and I'm asking but I'm
I really like the sermon about well just the the sermon that whoever who who was it again that
was that ended up putting on the the mask of the the Sun God. Well it was the Sun God.
Thomas is that what is his name? I'm so bad with names in these books too. Yes, Thomas. And I
agree it was an excellent sermon. The way that it was and it's so strange too because I didn't
I didn't listening to that. I didn't picture you sitting in your study
laboring over that sermon for hours and hours and how it would fit the story but I did I did picture
Thomas sitting in his study laboring for for hours in how to make his point sort of mask his point
as the case may be in you know within the the construct of another point and
that I did picture and I totally bought into it. I just I love that that sermon was fantastic.
Yeah, what are the inspiration? What were you trying to say there Mike? What would you say
motivated your construction of the of the sermon? Hmm. I think it was just what went some
that place or or put another way. Did you plan that thing out for days in advance for you just
trying to make him sound like a pompous windbag? No, I I think by that point I had a pretty good
handle on who all of the characters were and the kinds of things they would say and that was the
kind of thing Thomas would say. I didn't mean to say he sounded like he sounded like he was
pretending to be a animal or what I meant to say but you got the point. But yeah, it's really
cool. Yeah, it's a strange phenomenon with characters and authors talk about how characters take
over and refuse to do things or insist on doing things and we know that they're just parts of
our own minds but it is quite spooky how we've constructed this. Well, it's it's theory of mind
isn't it's our basic social ability to to imagine how other people are going to react and authors
just happen to be quite good at that particular social skill of imagining how a person who was
like this would think and act and speak. So would it make sense to say that the upper class is more
likely to lean characteristics whereas lower classes are more likely to lean personalists?
Yeah, I think that's probably true. Well, aside from characteristic being the official
religion, it also acts to prop up the existing system because. Right, that's what I'm thinking.
You know, you are the mask you wear and you know, that you always have been and always will be that
kind of idea inherently props up an existing system rather than being a catalyst for, you know,
growing a new system. Oh, I don't know if I can agree with that. I think any system is going to
prop up the existing system. The people at the top want to stay at the top and they're going to
manipulate constructs and do so. So I can see where if you were the lower class, you would certainly
see it as the system that's holding you down but it's not the system itself. It's the manipulation
of the system. So, you know, I think it's kind of a false positive. I agree completely. I was just
saying that the specific structure of that specific system lends itself to doing that particularly
easily. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it does show, you know, good writing that the people at the top
used it as efficiently as they did. Yeah, to be able to contort a system of play and turn it
into an entire mechanism of social control. Again, as we were speaking about a little bit,
a little bit ago, you know, that takes Guile. Yeah, it just seemed like the so again, the sort of
thing that people in that position would be liable to do. I really like the whole assassination attempt
that this all gets built around because I mean, only in this story can you have that type of
assassination happen. It's okay. You put on that mask. You become God. I killed God. Come at me,
bro. I don't know. I thought Douglas Adams did it pretty good with the Babelfish. Fair point.
The Babelfish is just awesome. So maybe it was the masks then that when these characters put on
the mask, they became the character of the mask. And the same is true for the city where the city
put on the facade of the glorious city. And it became this glorious city. Maybe that's why I
could visualize it so much better than I could in I can in other stories. Just knowing that it's all
a construct, even to the people in the construct, then they all know it. And maybe that's why I was
able to go along for the ride a little easier than I can with with some other books. As far as
setting is concerned, as far as the characters, God, they were they were very well written characters.
And I thought they shown through their masks no matter what. Well, I think that it's interesting
that an entire city makes not just a social, but a social and political stance out of the willing
suspension of disbelief. And this would differ from anyone else. How? Yeah. And I wouldn't say it's
a willing suspension of disbelief. It was just a suspension of disbelief. They, I mean, it was
mandated, but that doesn't mean you're willing. They're plenty of people who believe all kinds of
crazy stuff because it's a suspension of disbelief on their own. They don't need anybody telling
them to do it. Yeah. I mean, I drive 55 miles an hour in the highway all the time. It doesn't
mean I'm willing to at 55 miles an hour. It's because the man's keeping you down. It's right,
man with a mask. Suspension of disbelief is tougher to leverage against the characters, though,
because folks like that. Well, I shouldn't say that. I was going to say they believe wholeheartedly
and they're completely invested in the system that says when you're wearing a mask, you hold
nothing in reserve. You literally are that person. And so there is, there's no reason to believe
otherwise, but there is a little bit of a a hedge there because Mike says that, you know, sometimes
the unmasked or the uncast rather can do things that they become seen, right? So to go from
scene to unseen leads me to believe that there's a moment when somebody can break
character and point someone else out, even when they're uncast. Oh no, if you break character
to point someone else out, you're unmasked and that's a problem. And that was, I liked how
the law in this book was so closely tied to the religion that they practiced. So if you
broke character, not only a criminal, you're a heretic as well. And that, you know, it weighs even
more. Yeah, if you become unmasked, then you're in all of the trouble. Well, I also found, since we
haven't really brought it up yet, I also found the there were almost two dichotomies of religion.
There was the personalists versus the characteristics, but then there was also the sun versus the moon
worshipers and bring that other element in was very interesting as well. Yeah, I kind of like
wanted to introduce a gender aspect and the sun versus moon does that. Yeah, I hadn't really
thought about it that way. X 101, but there is a sort of matrix where you can say like, it's almost
like D and D matrix, where you can be like chaotic neutral, chaotic good. You can be
characterist moon worshipping, personalist moon worshipping, you know, characterist sun worshipping,
you can sort of plot the different characters and their motivations on that grid.
What's that touch? It said take a drink. We had a D and D reference.
We waited that you could be true neutral and wear the mask of the innocent man.
And we waited just for you to make that too, Tosh. I'm not even the one that made it.
No, but we couldn't do it out here. We hung on to it. That's the truth.
It's been in the show notes for over an hour. Damn it. Why you keep dropping off semi-autical
body because that something going on with your network or what's up with that? Yeah, that's my
network. For some reason, my neck, my neck connection keeps dropping me and my Wi-Fi connection
must be spotted tonight. Sorry about that. It comes back quick enough. I did take a sympathy when
I was supposed to take a drink for a obligatory D and D reference though. Thank you, sir. I reached
for an empty glass. My beer was too good. I don't know how we're going to get our Star Trek or
Star Wars references in here though. That's what the post shows for. I already got the Star Trek
reference in when you were chewing Valerian root. Yeah, that was already. That's just been ticked.
You see, but that was really a fight call of reference. Okay, here we go. Star Trek Star Wars,
Marvel DC, Doctor Who. I can't think of anything else. We talk about BSG. So say we all.
In fact, fly. Oh, man. So Mike, what do you know about fencing?
What if what anybody knows? I've never faced. So I just know some of the terminology and what
anyone knows from watching movies. Yeah, okay. Because it did seem to play a fairly big role,
but it wasn't. You didn't go into a lot of detail. So I thought that might have been the case,
but I do enjoy good fencing scene. That was one of the scenes I knew fairly early on was going to
be in there. There was going to be a chase across the rooftops and there was going to be a sword fight.
Oh, touch. I mean, semiatic robotic just had to leave and we didn't get a chance to say goodbye to
him audibly. Well, here it is, semiatic robotic. Thank you so much for being with us. It's always
awesome having you on the show. Yeah, a chase across the rooftop is another one of those things where
where early in the book, I should have said, hey, there's a chase in the rooftops coming.
And I just didn't. I didn't know who was going to be chasing home or why. I just knew that
there would be one. Well, you know, it was going to be glorious chasing, but yeah, who he was chasing,
you're right. Well, the architecture of the city is too perfect not to. Well, it's kind of the
other way around, if anything, but because I knew there was going to be a chase across the rooftops,
I had to put the, I had to put the bridges up there. Oh, right, right. Oh, man, it's had another
point and lost it again. I'm doing not good to know that the beer must have been really good.
Yeah, it's like eight percent. And that was my second one. Fortunately, I'm out. There's no more.
So I'm not going to get any worse, I hope. Of ideas or beer? Ah, it feels like both at the moment.
Oh, let me check my notes. I think there was one more thing I thought I didn't see getting wrapped up
and I wanted to ask about. So they resolved the characters and versus personalism debate,
but they didn't really resolve the moon worshippers still being a legal debate,
or they did it in such a way that I didn't see it. But it's a good point. Yeah, I think that
probably falls in the same basket as
characterist first nor Stanley Lesso in that Thomas now has a voice in the ear of the ruler
and so can at worst suggest that the persecution against the moon worshippers be
quietly dropped. It sounds like the answer to all the problems in Bon Vidal is going, by the way,
what a fantastic name. Excellent to hear it every time. It seemed like all the problems in Bon Vidal
can be solved by just giving the people a little more freedom. Yeah, what I've come to discover,
as I've continued writing, is that the the seeds of the conflict, the seeds of the next conflict
exist within the resolution of the previous conflict. So all of the things that are
in solutions to the conflicts in this book, if I ever write a sequel, those are going to be
the causes of the conflicts in the next book. Oh, man, if you ever write a sequel, I want to email.
Well, I have a mailing list. Oh, right on. I'll get right on that. That's excellent.
I know what I was going to say is that I think that's one of the things that I love about audio books
so much is when I'm reading a book, I'm kind of a slow reader. So I tend to think about it a lot
while I'm reading it. And I might have been able to, you know, pick a lot of these things out,
you know, the things that, you know, might have been obvious or whatever. When I'm reading an audio
book, it's more like being a kid again, where I'm just kind of, you know, sitting on the blanket
on the floor in my mom's room and she's sitting up in bed reading to us as kids and you just kind of
hanging out, listening and taking it all, taking it all, maybe for granted as opposed to
overthinking too much of it. And it just a lot of times, I don't know, maybe it's not every audio
book. You might not even be a majority of them, but this one certainly was that way where I could just
listen. The suspension of disbelief was no problem throughout this whole book for me. I just
was able to listen and take it in. And yeah, it's one of the, one of those experiences where
storytelling becomes what storytelling should be. And man, thanks so much for that.
Well, thanks for saying that. Has anybody brought up the structure of the narrative,
like how it's been done in journals? We did, but I'm sure you'll have some interesting
and new points to make. So go for it. I just, for me, I don't know, I kept wanting it to be
more narrative and less journal. And that's just that maybe that's just a preference for me.
I see why you would make that choice. It gives you some tools and some things to play with,
but at the same time, like me, I kept wanting just for to, I don't know, it felt like it didn't
flow for me. Like it was, it was a very stop start, which obviously because it's journal entries.
But I think that that was, if I had one big criticism of it, that would be for me.
Personally, what it was is that I didn't really like the journal format that much. Not to say
that the story is not awesome. I love this story. To me, it seems very visual. So I kind of think
of it more cinematically in my head than the journal kind of, I don't, it's kind of a step removed
from that. So it was kind of hard for me to get into it. Once I got into it, I was fine. But it
took a while for me to kind of get the gist of what was going on and kind of get into the
characters to do the journals. Wow, I couldn't disagree with you more. I don't think I've ever
disagreed with you this strongly. I thought that their construct of the journal totally walked
me into this one with like through the character. You, wow, I couldn't have asked for a better way
to be told this story. I'm sorry to disagree with you, but I, I loved it. You also don't like
curfewing it too. Oh, that's right. And co incidentally, no do I? That's the secret. Yeah,
journals, in a sense, that was a creative constraint. It was one of those things,
it's the same as writing in first person as a creative constraint. You can only show what
that character sees. And because Gregorius who tells most of the story is kind of an unreliable
narrator in the sense that he doesn't always get what's going on, that was almost a deliberate
creative constraint for me to make it a little bit more of a challenge to
convey what was going on. Right on. I mean, my, obviously, for me, it's a taste thing, I think,
more than anything. Like I said, not to diss the story at all. I love this story. I really dig
the book. It was just that, that was my one little nitpicky thing. And it's obviously me. That's
the problem. And like you said, it does. It gives you some a different way of tackling the story,
which is cool. It just wasn't my cup of tea, I guess. That's absolutely fun. Now I liked
the journal entry bit, not only because you only saw it through his eyes. And he was the only
character who you were, well, he was the most interesting character for sure. But also that when
the journaling was done through other people, it didn't reveal anything of the plot, which I really
appreciated. And a lot of it was, most of it was just external views of the main character,
who's journal you were reading. So it gives you some insight into how his reality is, is,
you know, slightly, I don't want to say altered, but I mean, everybody's reality is altered,
gives you a little better foothold to find out where his perspective is, I guess. That's
probably a really poor way to say that. Yeah, the extra documents in a way add-ons to enrich
the story. Celios journals, the letters back and forth, the play, which is a flashback,
the play was really fun too. It was amusing in its simplicity and how the guys thought they were
getting away with telling a story when it was just so obviously real people. Yeah, I really
loved the play. I thought that was awesome. Like, oh, that's what happened to us yesterday,
but it wasn't really us. My friend has this thing. Yeah, he met this girl.
She listened to Canada, you wouldn't know her, but she was there. It was so in context that all
these people and masks need to tell a story from within a play. It was great. It was perfect.
I also really liked the journal entries, because even though I just said I didn't like it,
I can't remember the character's name, the girl that talks really fast, because the running
thing is, as I listened to everything at twice or three times the speed, and I got to her point.
I was just like, what is going on? I felt like my MP3 player messed up. I didn't know what was
there. Yeah, I made the same point earlier, Taj, because I listened to stuff about 1.8,
and it's the same thing. If you read the written version, the journal entries are completely
unpacked to items and just one long run on sentence. I would almost expect them not to even have
spaces or anything in them, the way that things just fell out of her mouth.
I was going to say it would be excellent if in the text version you had control over the
kerning and that kind of thing, where you could space the letters out a little oddly or maybe
have some of them just be slightly higher or lower than they ought to be.
That had to take a lot of talent to voice record, because I know I would have messed it up
20 times trying to get through it. Was each one of those done? Did you have to splice it together
or were those one full read? It must have been several takes to get it, but did you nail each one
a whole time once? I think I did some re-tax. What I did when I was recording was if I
messed something up. I'd just start again from before I messed up and that ended out afterwards.
A lot of it was continuous takes once I got in the momentum of it. How long do the recording
process actually take you? I don't remember now. It was a few weeks I think. That's fast for a
book that length. A lot of people say it's many months. Yeah, I think I had some time off and
spent a few hours a day doing the recordings. Are you married your family? What does your family
think of this? I'm married no kids, so I think my wife is happy for me to be out of her hair
says every wife ever. Yeah, and what is she? Has she listened to the audiobook or read the book?
She's read the text here. I had quite a few of my friends read it before I published it. They
had some really good comments as well. I have some very smart friends and we had kind of a book
club discussion, I guess, when everyone had read it and they made their suggestions and said,
oh, it would be cool if I incorporated some of those things. I don't remember what they were
at this distance in time, but I know that I didn't incorporate at least a couple of suggestions
of things that the thought would be cool. That is really cool. I thought for sure you're going to say
you had them all read it before you showed it to your wife. I don't know. Most of everything I do
when I go to show my wife I'm so proud of myself and hear how he check it out and she just
can't. Yeah, uh-huh. I don't get it. That's nice. Yeah, uh-huh. That's good.
You're your online friends will get it right, honey. Trying having a wife who's an academic,
she just eviscerates anything I have right. Oh, everything you have is marked in red.
Looks like somebody went on a stabby spree on my paper.
My wife is a teacher and for a year and a half my sister lived with us and she was a teacher.
I'm sorry, bro. I was just wrong about pretty much everything. How is it different than
every other day? Well, when I go to work, I'm not wrong as much. My wife's a professor and
nothing makes her happier than if she shows me something if I put like a star sticker on it or
a smiley face. That's awesome. Yeah, when I show her stuff, she goes, yeah, okay, that's nice, honey,
and it just doesn't get it. Man, I hate to say it, but I can't think of anything else to discuss
about the plot of this book. We had such a good conversation pre-spoiler and we've spoiled everything
and I hate to think it's over. I love this one. It's one of my- it's absolutely one of my favorite
books. I know I've said it three times already, but I'm not exaggerating. It's, I mean top three
of all my favorite audiobooks. I'm deeply flattered. Well, and you know what, if that isn't
enough to flatter you, I'll tell you, you're up there with, oh shoot, now I can't remember the name
of the book, the Lester Del Rey book that was one of the first that we did on the audiobook club.
Oh, I have to go look that up now and like Nathan Law and Scott Siggler's stuff. I mean those
are- that's the company that you're in. When I talk about, you know, audiobooks that are so much
fun to listen to and, you know, they're even say Mark Twain. There's a lot of Mark Twain stuff. I've
heard in audiobooks that this ranks right up there with it and I'm not exaggerating or blowing
small. Can I say that? Have you ever considered clowning yourself, Parkie? My life would
would kill me twice if I tried. Good good. Well, I have a number of other books. They're not
very like this one though, but then what is? Yeah, okay, that does bring up something before you
go too far there. For our show notes, where can people get this book, some of your other books,
and I don't just mean freely available like they're on audio books, but where can we buy
your books and where can we find your other work? All the most stuff is on Amazon. Most of it is also
on Cabo, Bounds & Noble and the like. I'm a city of masters on Smash words. The easiest way to
find everything that I do is to go to my Google Plus profile because that's where I'm most active.
So if you go to gplus.to slash micrm mikrm, that'll take you to my Google Plus profile and
everything else is linked from there. Well, axon, I'll definitely get that in the show note and so
our listeners can have a link to check that out. I appreciate that. If you do that,
x1101, I was just trying to tape while he talked, but I seem to have lost my cursor in either
pad page and I'm not sure what I have to do to get it back. I'll try closing it and re-open
in the page because I can't get a cursor in there, but and also thank you for finding a badge of
infamy. It was the name of the book I was grasping for. That was another book that, I mean,
these two books gave me sort of the same kind of feeling where the story was really interesting.
The characters were really well built and well developed and the whole time was this
overarching feeling of politics being the master of everyone's decisions ultimately and just
the conversation that ensues when you talk about speculative politics. It was great. It was a
real thinker. It's a real fun one to have a conversation about. Oh, good. I seem to always end up
with politics in my books. I'm not sure why. I'm not even I don't think particularly political.
I'm certainly not involved in real world politics, but it just seems to be something that keeps coming
up. I guess I'm just interested in the different ways that people organize themselves.
That's a really good way of putting it. I like that. Well, one thing I've learned from working
on projects for basically 20 years is that when people join together, they can do really interesting
stuff that no one person could do. If you think about free and open source and how people build
on each other's contributions and so forth, there's a lot to be said for collective effort of various
sorts. The thing about politics is that it recognizes that that's important, but it isn't actually
very good at it. And when you're doing something that's important in a way that's
kind of not working very well, that's great story fodder. Wow. That was a really good way to
put that out of politics. And also welcome to Hacker Public Radio. You sound like you've been here
the whole time. Yeah, I kind of I'm not deeply involved in open source or anything like that,
but I should be sure that it exists. So Mike, I guess the last question left to ask you is
what is the next audio book we have to review? Well, I'm going to suggest a book that's also
on party at books. It's by I'm going to have to look it up. It's by Mary Holland. And the title is
make a rules. Okay, cool. That's not one that I've heard of. Can you give us a
a brief overview of what we can expect. You know, like I said, without spoiling too much. I mean,
obviously it's it's coming as a recommendation on good authority. So I'm all in.
Sorry, I got the title wrong. It's actually match a rules. The concept is that it's a colonized
planet. It's a space opera without the space. In other words, it's more like one of
fusula liquids books in many ways. It's sociological speculation. And on this planet, they've discovered
an alien or alien device or something. It's never quite clear, which links up people who are going to
who are going to do well together into effectively families. And sometimes they're couples,
sometimes they're groups of three. And it's not initially, you might think that it's it's
polyamory, but it really isn't. It's more about people working together and fitting together in
order to to achieve things than it is about family being being multiple people married to each
other. And it's the usual conflict of the central authority doesn't understand and ascending
somebody to investigate what's going to happen next. So that's Mary Holland maker rules. And it's
very different from a lot of what you'll read it. As I say, it's not in space. It's on a planet,
but it's not earth. And it's not a lot in the way of technological speculation, but this sociological
speculation is definitely there. The other author that reminds me of slightly would be Sherry Tapper,
maybe rising the stones or one of those, one of her books like that in the way that it deals with
the way that people interact, which as I've said, there's something I'm interested in.
Cool. That it sounds like another deep conversation for the audio book club. It's my favorite.
Yeah, the premise sounds awesome. Government's screwing up. Yeah, it's I can relate.
And in fact, the local government has kind of become corrupt and has been
taken captive by narrow interests and, you know, the usual stuff.
Sounds powerful, the course. Government's doing what governments do.
All right, we shouldn't say any more about it till we read it. Or listen to it, rather, excuse me.
Thanks for that suggestion, too, Mike. That's great. I can't wait. So does that wrap it up, guys?
You had any clothes and thoughts? Anything else?
I think I've said all I have to say. Other than thank you very much, Mike, for coming on,
taking time out of your day to sit and chat with us. And how is tomorrow?
Oh, time travel jokes. It's not too bad, reasonably sunny in Auckland, New Zealand anyway.
That's the local time you have there. Three o'clock.
Damn, PM. In the afternoon. All right, cool.
And Klaatu has nearly no excuse for not joining us.
Maybe he's working. That's the only reason we'll excuse. He's got a nice job.
I was about to make that same joke. I've been waiting all day to make that joke.
You can explain the joke to Mike while my wife blows her nose here. I can't really key up.
Well, the joke being that it's Tuesday here and Wednesday there. So you're in the future, man.
Was it the time travel joke you wanted to explain with the Klaatu joke?
No, the Klaatu joke. My wife just pinched this shit out of me.
Sorry, Mike. Yes, we have a good friend who's from the States. He's probably, I think,
from the East Coast, but he moved to New Zealand for work. And he was an audio book club member
early on and he came back later as an author. And then did he come on and review another book
after we reviewed his? I don't know. I don't think so. But anyway, he's a good guy.
He's not been on since Taj and I started it, I don't think.
Yes, well, I normally would be at work, but I have a cold, so it kind of worked out well,
although I had cleared with my project manager that I could sit off in a room and talk to you guys.
But in the event, I was home anyway. It's really nice of him. Thank him for allowing you to do that.
If you hadn't been sick, I'm sorry to hear you sick. Yeah, I've had a cold now for three and a half
weeks. I'm getting a bit tired of it. Oh, that's a long cold. Yeah, stuff at the beginning of my
Christmas prank. Yeah, I had to get out of work. And I want to have early tonight to make it
here. I switched my job and I don't get out till 7 p.m., which is normally when we we've always
started the show. So yeah, when when next 101 wraps us up, we'll have to talk about that, guys.
No kidding. Speaking of wrap-ups, does anyone have any final points to make?
I'd like to reiterate that I love this audio book. I'll be listening to it again.
I'm not going to wait as long between listens this time because the first time I heard this
just years ago, I'll probably listen to it again soon. Oh, and my mom loved it too when she
listened to it. I just want to thank Mike again for coming on. It's always nice to have the
author on so you can we can pick your brain about what was going on. My pleasure. Well, then thank
you everyone for listening. This has been the audiobook club for Hacker Public Radio.
Join us sometime and enjoy an audio book.
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