Escape Artists

Escape Pod => Episode Comments => Topic started by: eytanz on December 02, 2013, 06:11:51 PM

Title: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: eytanz on December 02, 2013, 06:11:51 PM
EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince (http://escapepod.org/2013/12/01/ep424-biographical-fragments-life-julian-prince/)

by Jake Kerr (http://jakekerr.com/)

Read by Heather Bowman-Tomlinson, Andrea Richardson, Bill Hollweg & Mat Weller

--

In the early twenty-first century, author Lesley Hauge wrote an essay entitled “we are what we leave behind” to little fanfare. In the wake of the Meyer Impact in 2023, amidst the coming to terms with the shock and loss, the essay was rediscovered and rose to prominence with a new understanding that all we may know about half the planet is what they left behind.

Literary giant Julian Prince examined what–and more importantly–who we left behind. So it is entirely appropriate to examine his own life the way he examined those of the millions that died on that fateful day in 2023, by what he left behind–the interviews, the articles, his own words, and the words of others.

These are the fragments that make up the whole.  For most of us that is all we have, and Prince knew that more than anyone.

So… Julian Prince…  Julian Samuel Prince.

He was born on March 18, 1989, and died on August 20, 2057.

Prince was an American novelist, essayist, journalist, and political activist. His best works are widely considered to be the post-Impact novels The Grey Sunset (published in 2027) and Rhythms of Decline (published in 2029), both of which won the Pulitzer Prize. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2031.

Prince was a pioneer of Impact Nihilism, a genre that embraced themes of helplessness and inevitable death in the aftermath of the Meyer Impact. His travelogue, Journey Into Hopelessness (published in 2026) outlined Prince’s return to North America, ostensibly to survey the damage to his home state of Texas. The book’s bleak and powerful language of loss and devastation influenced musicians, artists, and writers worldwide, giving voice to the genre as a counter to the rising wave of New Optimism, which sprang out of Europe as a response to the Meyer Impact and the enormous loss of life.

Not much is known of Prince’s early life. He spoke rarely of his childhood, and with the loss of life and destruction of records during the Meyer Impact, little source material remains. What is known is that Prince was an only child, the son of Margaret Prince (maiden name unknown) and Samuel Prince. He was born in Lawton, Oklahoma, but moved to Dallas, Texas, when he was eight years old. In an interview before his death, Prince noted:

“I was a good kid, a boring kid. I didn’t cause trouble, and trouble didn’t find me. I studied hard and planned on being a journalist, figuring that I was better at observing the world than shaping it. I graduated high school, and continued with my journalism classes via the net. Up until the Impact, I was thoroughly and utterly average.”


(http://escapepod.org/wp-images/podcast-mini4.gif) Listen to this week’s Escape Pod! (http://traffic.libsyn.com/escapepod/EP424_BiographicalFragmentsoftheLifeofJulianPrince.mp3)
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: skeletondragon on December 02, 2013, 07:11:51 PM
I didn't like it much. I was reminded of another story that focused on the aftermath of an asteroid impact, episode 407, "Mono No Aware." I liked that one more, because it had more of a plot, and I think it captured human emotion better. This story just seemed to go on and on and I never found myself relating to Julian, who was really the only character. The style of the piece was an interesting idea but it ended up being too close to what it was emulating, a rather boring profile of a pessimistic literary author.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Thunderscreech on December 02, 2013, 10:44:16 PM
I can't improve on what skeletondragon wrote, but I don't want him or her to be the only person saying it so here we are.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Max e^{i pi} on December 03, 2013, 11:27:37 AM
Fine. I'll fire the opening salvo for the opposition.
I liked it.
I've often toyed with the idea of telling a story through a fictitious research paper or lecture. This was mostly well done, and the full cast audio helped a lot. The only complaint I have is that whole interview thing. I think that in a full cast production we could have dispensed with the "he paused" "the audience laughed" "the what's his name followed up" stuff and just added the effects (you can get them at the Free Sound Project) so that it would seem much more like we were listening to a lecture and the lecturer played an entire clip from the interview for us.
The lecture device allows for a concentrated information dump (in before complaining about info dump) without throwing the reader/listener out of the story. Every story has a purpose, something the author wants to tell us. If the purpose of the story is an introspective piece on the human-race scale, then the actual story is less important. What's more important is the point that the author is trying to get across. I think that this was a wonderful way to do it.
As for the story, I loved it. A lot of post-apocalypse stories focus more on the physical survival of a few individuals and not enough on the survival of the human race and culture. Going through a worldwide cataclysm changes the way we view and shape the world. We saw a little bit of that in Pacific Rim, but here we see it even more. The story of the cataclysm is revealed to us through the eyes of someone who had lived through it, and had helped to shape the two most prominent philosophies upon which the human world rebuilt itself.
I belong to the camp which prefers good character development over good plot devices. Here we see the character development of the entire human race through the writings of a very well built character who undergoes similar changes, often the opposite of the human race character. It's as if the two personalities are building off each other from both friction and devotion.
It makes for a very interesting and thought-provoking piece. Thank you EP for buying this story.

EDIT: One more thing. Does Alasdair live in some alternate universe? Because he always gets the episode for feedback wrong by a week.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Moon_Goddess on December 03, 2013, 02:08:35 PM

EDIT: One more thing. Does Alasdair live in some alternate universe?

Would it surprise you in the least if he were?
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Alasdair5000 on December 03, 2013, 02:15:13 PM
What you mean you AREN'T watching live coverage of the Churchill crew landing on Mars?

...shit...

As you we're. Nothing to see here...
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: ElectricPaladin on December 03, 2013, 02:30:16 PM
So, I'm back from a long soul searching, and have decided to be more positive, and I'm finally ready to start commenting again, and the first story...

I couldn't even finish it.

I guess this will be an exercise in not overstating my point and coming across like a jerk. Here goes...

I had three big problems with this story:

1) From a craft perspective, I felt like it was quite slow. I come across a lot of stories written this way, and they almost never appeal to me - stories where even within the frame of the story, all the action is already over. I was about halfway through when I quit, and there was still nothing going on. It felt like listening to a very well written history textbook... but a history textbook nevertheless. And while it was certainly an interesting tone for the story to take, I can't say it was a very engaging one.

2) I found a major plot hole. I don't understand why they didn't just relocate North America's entire population. It would have been rough, sure, but the rest of the world could carry them for the year it would take for the dust to settle, and then you could make them all go home. There was nothing in the impact that made North America uninhabitable - just wrecked everything. It would have been cruel. There would have been a lot of conflict, a lot of Americans and Canadians applying for permission to stay in South Africa or France or China or whatever, and maybe there would have even been violence, or sad photographs of displaced Americans being herded back onto the ships at gunpoint... but it would have cost fewer lives than saving a small number and leaving the rest to die.

I could accept if the story dealt with that possibility and explained why it had been eschewed, but failing to even mention it made the rest of the story feel contrived.

3) Finally, I didn't have too much patience for the main character and his post-impact nihilism. Maybe it's the Jewish in me. My people lost practically an entire generation, too. Looking back, we didn't survive because of the ones who gave into nihilism - we survived because of the ones who hung on to hope. Saying that you refuse to be happy because of the dead is saying that you may as well have been one of the dead.

The story definitely has a lot to recommend it. The descriptions are very powerful, and the author does a good job of aping the Nobel/Pulitzer-winning style in the quotes. The theme is certainly potentially very compelling. Unfortunately, the plot hole, the lack of drama, and the main character's nihilism killed it for me.

So... how'd I do?
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: chemistryguy on December 03, 2013, 03:04:18 PM
So... how'd I do?

Your pessimistic optimism gives me wings.  ::)

Anyway, I'm taking sides with Max on this one.  It was nihilistic and depressing, but that's how I like my coffee sometimes.  The view of one person through a series of "photographs" was interesting enough to keep me listening. 

I also agree that this could have been much better if the audience were added instead  just being referenced.  Freesound.org is my database of choice and offers a wide selection of sound bits under a Creative Commons license. 
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: matweller on December 03, 2013, 03:08:35 PM
Fine. I'll fire the opening salvo for the opposition.
I liked it.
I've often toyed with the idea of telling a story through a fictitious research paper or lecture. This was mostly well done, and the full cast audio helped a lot. The only complaint I have is that whole interview thing. I think that in a full cast production we could have dispensed with the "he paused" "the audience laughed" "the what's his name followed up" stuff and just added the effects (you can get them at the Free Sound Project) so that it would seem much more like we were listening to a lecture and the lecturer played an entire clip from the interview for us.

I agree, and I actually produced it this way and ended up scrapping it because I wasn't 100% happy with the way it sounded and because I really wasn't happy with how it sounded when I broke it up to insert the narrator bits. We generally don't deal in adaptations, so it didn't occur to me that it might even be an option to change any text until it was well too late. However, I think we could have gotten much more out of it with a couple small tweaks, and I think if/when we get something uniquely formatted in the future, I will see if we can talk to the author about adapting. That thought makes me wonder what more could have been gotten from Mantis Wives if we did some adapting and put it in a setting of some sort. Regardless, for not having changed the source material at all, I think we did pretty well for building a lecture scenario around a piece that isn't really in one.

I'm aware of Freesound. It's where all of our sounds come from and always gets credited in the show notes: ;)
Quote
Sound effects for this story supplied by the following Freesound.org contributors: driet, lonemonk, Littleboot, klankbeeld, stevelalonde, blouhond, alexmol, bulbastre, Corsica_S, and gmarchisio
  See more at: http://escapepod.org/2013/12/01/ep424-biographical-fragments-life-julian-prince/#sthash.jsnuFUDn.dpuf (http://escapepod.org/2013/12/01/ep424-biographical-fragments-life-julian-prince/#sthash.jsnuFUDn.dpuf)



EDIT: One more thing. Does Alasdair live in some alternate universe? Because he always gets the episode for feedback wrong by a week.

I apologize for that. There were 20 minor crises surrounding this project that pushed it late, and in the frenzy to get it out the door and into your ears I forgot to delete that mention in Alasdair's bit. I'll try not to miss it again.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Max e^{i pi} on December 03, 2013, 04:15:08 PM
2) I found a major plot hole. I don't understand why they didn't just relocate North America's entire population. It would have been rough, sure, but the rest of the world could carry them for the year it would take for the dust to settle, and then you could make them all go home. There was nothing in the impact that made North America uninhabitable - just wrecked everything. It would have been cruel. There would have been a lot of conflict, a lot of Americans and Canadians applying for permission to stay in South Africa or France or China or whatever, and maybe there would have even been violence, or sad photographs of displaced Americans being herded back onto the ships at gunpoint... but it would have cost fewer lives than saving a small number and leaving the rest to die.

That was actually pretty clear to me.
1) It's a logistic nightmare to relocate ~400 million Americans and Canadians. In 10 years that number will probably be much larger. And you can get an even bigger number if you think that Central America should be evacuated as well.
2) Neighboring countries simply won't let you do that. South American (a large-ish country) would only accept 1 million expatriates. That sounds like a drop in the ocean, but a million new citizens is a tremendous strain on a country's infrastructure. Most countries probably could only afford to accept a few hundred thousand people.
3) When Prince went back to North America years after the asteroid hit (I'm not clear exactly what year he went back, but it doesn't matter. It's at least 2 years later) he describes the country as devastated. Nothing grows. The land is ruined. Even when the expatriates try to go back decades later a lot of their settlements fail.
Maybe you quit listening before this crucial information, but it was all there.


EDIT: One more thing. Does Alasdair live in some alternate universe?

Would it surprise you in the least if he were?
Not a bit.  ;D

EDIT: One more thing. Does Alasdair live in some alternate universe? Because he always gets the episode for feedback wrong by a week.

I apologize for that. There were 20 minor crises surrounding this project that pushed it late, and in the frenzy to get it out the door and into your ears I forgot to delete that mention in Alasdair's bit. I'll try not to miss it again.
Not your fault. He consistently got it wrong the past 4 or 5 times he hosted.  :P
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: matweller on December 03, 2013, 04:27:14 PM
EDIT: One more thing. Does Alasdair live in some alternate universe? Because he always gets the episode for feedback wrong by a week.

I apologize for that. There were 20 minor crises surrounding this project that pushed it late, and in the frenzy to get it out the door and into your ears I forgot to delete that mention in Alasdair's bit. I'll try not to miss it again.
Not your fault. He consistently got it wrong the past 4 or 5 times he hosted.  :P

I'm not exactly required by law to leave what he says completely unedited.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Cutter McKay on December 03, 2013, 05:44:43 PM
I have a love/hate relationship with this story. Overall, I think I liked it. I enjoyed the nontraditional exploration of life after near apocalyptic disaster, especially seeing how it shaped mankind as a whole, as Max said.

On the other hand, I fully agree with ElectricPaladin that the textbook/research paper format was terribly difficult to get in to. It was so dry and boring in so many parts that had I been reading this rather than listening on my commute where I'm stuck in the car with nothing else to do anyway, I probably would not have finished it. I tried writing a story in this style once, where everything was presented as a military investigation including excerpts from personal journals and official reports. And although I liked the story I told, it didn't sit well with others. The biggest problem with this style of story telling, as Paladin noted, is that all of the action has already happened. You never feel like you're a part of the story. In essence, this is a long, very well crafted, info-dump.

But I think the biggest problem I had with this story, which ties into the fact that it's a boring research paper, is I so desperately want to read the books that Prince wrote. Every time the narrator ran through a synopsis of one of Prince's books I found myself saying, "That! That's what I want to read. I don't care about all this drivel about the philosophies of men after the world ended, I want to read about the people that lived through it, even if it's just a fictional story within a fictional story. That sounds so much more interesting than this stuff." And by then five minutes of the story had gone by and I hadn't listened to any of it.  :-\

EDIT: One more thing. Does Alasdair live in some alternate universe? Because he always gets the episode for feedback wrong by a week.
I apologize for that. There were 20 minor crises surrounding this project that pushed it late, and in the frenzy to get it out the door and into your ears I forgot to delete that mention in Alasdair's bit. I'll try not to miss it again.
Not your fault. He consistently got it wrong the past 4 or 5 times he hosted.  :P
I'm not exactly required by law to leave what he says completely unedited.

You know the simple fix for this, right? And this is by no means a critique of Alasdair who does a fantastic job hosting every time. But Alasdair, just stop referencing which episode Nathan is going to review. I mean, it's kind of redundant anyway, saying: "Now here's Nathan with feedback for episode 423 Arena." "Greetings Escapodians, I'm Nathan with the feedback for episode 423 Arena..."

You know what I mean? Just say, "And here's Nathan with feedback. Take away Nate!"  ;)
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Devoted135 on December 03, 2013, 09:23:30 PM
The association that I couldn't get out of my head was of course PodCastle 269: Selected Program Notes From the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer. (Why do such stories always have crazy long titles?) I found this story to be about as successful as the PodCastle episode was in its use of this sort of format, which is to say that I enjoyed it but didn't fall in love with it.

Obviously there is an inherent risk in using this style because it is necessarily distancing. I think it would feel more justified if we were able to see how the presenter is reacting to Prince's story and how she or her culture are different as a result of Prince's work. I think this was hinted at with the production of one of his stories - the director (?) mentions that he is sure that Prince would hate his interpretation. However, this is pretty sparse and makes the lens of the presentation seem unnecessary.

Great job with the reading and the production though! I particularly appreciated how the sound quality of recordings of Prince's speeches and interviews changed according to the setting they were supposed to have originated from.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: PotatoKnight on December 03, 2013, 10:29:42 PM
I disagree with the sentiment that this story takes place "after the action."  The action in this story isn't an object smashing into North America. The action is a global civilization coming to terms with an unprecedented catastrophe. That's very interesting to me, and very relatable. The (fortunate) reality is that more people have to come to terms with surviving catastrophes than actually get killed by them.

Unrelated, but I can't resist the opportunity to tease out some of the logistics of a continent-wide evacuation with six months to prepare.

How many people are we talking about? Well, per Wikipedia the population of North America is 538 million today. Reasonable projections put the population in 2025 somewhere in the 600 million range. We have six months to get 600 million people off a continent.

First, let's try ships. According to this article: http://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/News.aspx?ElementId=984ef639-7f94-4d62-88a9-f80b3ecc6fb9 the gross tonnage of the world's commercial fleet is 1.01 billion (note that despite the confusing name gross tonnage is a measure of volume and carrying capacity). The last time that a government undertook to move people from one continent to another en masse without a lot of concern for comfort was a World War. So I looked into gross tonnage to passenger ratios for troopships. Now, it turns out that the US sends troops overseas in planes most of the time these days. But during the Cold War, the US built the SS United States, a passenger liner with the theoretical capacity to become a troop carrier. It's gross tonnage was 53,333 and it could carry 15,000 troops. That ratio comes out to 3.55 gross tons per person.  So if you converted the entire shipping capacity of the planet to carrying people, it looks like could stuff about 284,000,000 folks on ships.  But we only have six months to do it and we still need to feed everyone and move fuel around (the project of moving a continents worth of people is going to eat a lot of fuel). I would be surprised if the world, however united, could muster a third of that capacity for the task.

How about planes? Well, in 2012, 815 million US passengers flew an average of 1,389 miles each, for a total of 2.2ish trillion miles. So let's say for roundness that in the half year we have to get people out, we can get 1 trillion passenger miles of evacuation travel. (This is basically ignoring any travel within North America, say to get people from the middle swath of the continent o ports where all those ships are waiting).  I suspect the mean center of population of North America is somewhere south of the current mean center of population of the US, Wright County, Missouri. So let's arbitrarily decide that the mean evacuee has to fly from Little Rock, AK. That's about 4,500 miles from either Europe or West Africa, 5,000 miles from Rio de Janeiro, and 6,500 miles from Tokyo. Let's figure the average evacuee has about a 5,000 mile trek ahead. Based on our 1 trillion passenger mile estimate earlier, that's another 200 million people, give or take.

Just from a raw carrying capacity standpoint, it is not only not unrealistic for the death toll in this scenario to be hundreds of millions, it is more likely than not. In the real world, with limited resources about to get a lot more limited when North America's food and oil production come to an abrupt halt, I think we could count it a major global accomplishment to get 50 million folks out.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: skeletondragon on December 04, 2013, 12:44:02 AM
Well, if we're being realistic, wouldn't an impact with the power to kill everyone on a continent cause climate-wide devastation worse than the K-T extinction?
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Jen on December 04, 2013, 07:46:56 AM
I'm going to be the odd one out and say I absolutely loved this - the story, the format, the narration, everything. It's my favorite EscapePod episode in recent memory. I didn't find the research paper frame boring at all - I thought it was a great way of introducing the info dump parts. Julian Prince's voice was spot-on for a jaded famous guy who keeps picking at that Impact-shaped scab. And what I especially liked about the plot was that, for once, America *doesn't* save the world. For someone in Europe who watches and reads a lot of US-centric fiction, Americans having to ask for help from Africa of all places was refreshing.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Max e^{i pi} on December 04, 2013, 07:51:30 AM
Well, if we're being realistic, wouldn't an impact with the power to kill everyone on a continent cause climate-wide devastation worse than the K-T extinction?

Of course. I was thinking this as well during the story.
The thing is, we don't really hear a lot about what the physical conditions of the planet were after the impact. Because that is not the story.
We mostly hear about the human condition, the mental makeup of the world population and the philosophies of the post-impact culture. Obviously there was a lot of climate damage and it must be much harder to grow food than before, but that is not really what the story is about. It's not about the physical survival of some people, but the cultural survival of the worldwide human population.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Unblinking on December 04, 2013, 06:59:39 PM
Well, the story made me feel like the events in the story happened, and that Julian Prince was a real person.  So that's something.

But the best way I could describe listening to this story was watching a History Channel documentary about an author who I don't really care about but whom everyone else tells me I should care about, whose books I have little interest in reading other than possibly so that I can provide some tangible specifics to everyone who tells me I should care about the author so that I'm not just saying so out of the general impression of overyhype that I get from everyone.  And the documentary is also, probably, the length of a Lord of the Rings movie (I realize the episode wasn't, but this was what it felt like).

I'm sure that a lot of it had to do with the fact that I'm just not really interested in nihilism as a philosophy.  I can understand the basis of the philosophy, and can understand why some people especially faced with traumatic events, would find it fits their mindset well.  But as philosophies go, I don't feel that it really has much of value to say.  Which is rather fitting with its focus of meaninglessness, which I find interesting.  In general it feels to me not that different from narcissism, despite the very different stated focus.  I'm not exactly sure why because it does seem contradictory--I guess because the statement that nothing really matters seems to often have the effect of turning inward upon yourself as narcissism does. 

The format, as a documentary about a nihilist writer, didn't make anything better, as it was so dry as to render any real emotion I might've gotten out of it null and void.

In the end I didn't care about Julian.  I felt bad about all the trauma the survivors have gone through, but that's not enough to carry a story of this length by itself.  So, for me at least, I think the story failed to connect with me the way the author was trying to connect.

(I agree that the interview could've done with some small edits, just a small thing. I found that distracting, especially as a full-cast recording where it was clear who was speaking by the change in voice)
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Jompier on December 04, 2013, 08:38:48 PM
I liked this story if only for the challenge that it undertakes: using biography as a way to tell the story of how culture survives or doesn't survive after some catastrophic destruction.

The only flaw is that this biographical vehicle needs a bit more room to play out, especially in fiction. As a genre, the biography seems to work best when we know something about the biographee (is that a word?) or have strong opinions about that person and his/her world view. The subject of the biography becomes the filter through which we want to understand events in that person's past or in a past that we collective shared. To make the subject of this biographical story a fictional character creates more work for the author because you can't rely on readers knowing something about the subject, enough to make him/her the focal point. So, this is my only real quibble with the story -- it wasn't long enough. I didn't feel like I knew Prince well enough to appreciate how his world view filtered the zeitgeist.

Regardless, I found the story compelling and the narration to be quite good.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Just Jeff on December 05, 2013, 03:16:44 AM
I deleted it within the first minute. With the opening ambient noise and the low level on the first speaker, plus the threat of an ensemble cast, I figured this was another anti-earbud episode and moved on. Pity.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: DerangedMind on December 06, 2013, 09:07:15 PM
I think I'll join with the minority opinion on this one, and say that I really enjoyed the story.  I found myself feeling like I was hearing a presentation at a conference, and found myself immersed in the setting.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Raymond on December 07, 2013, 01:43:45 AM
There were a number of good ideas in the story, plus a good effort to make the full-cast production.
But I'm surprised that the word "pretentious" hasn't appeared in people's comments.  To me, this story felt like an alternative history inside-joke for graduate students.  I just gritted my teeth at the nth reference to Pulitzer prizes, and at yet another big build-up to an uninspired quote.  Those things could be cheerful bits in a history paper, but no one comes to Escape Pod to find such a paper.

To the extent that everything in the story was a reasonably foreseeable set of reactions to a catastrophic event, I just wonder, why torment us with it?  There is a lot of bad decision-making happening today all around the world.  I'm in favor of stories that help us view modern problems through the distance of fiction, but this just felt like detailed information about a writer's specific reaction to bad things that didn't happen.  Ugh.  My bias is in favor of science fiction stories that don't make me feel as irritated as I do with the day's actual news. 

Thanks to all for the big effort, anyway.

Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Jompier on December 07, 2013, 05:04:34 PM
I'm surprised that the word "pretentious" hasn't appeared in people's comments.  To me, this story felt like an alternative history inside-joke for graduate students.  I just gritted my teeth at the nth reference to Pulitzer prizes, and at yet another big build-up to an uninspired quote. 

I think I get what you are saying. Those bits did come across as a little ham fisted. But, I also get that they were somewhat necessary to making the biographical part of the story work. We don't tend to write biographies about nobodies and so the story had to make some effort to establish that Prince was a somebody. Perhaps this could have been done with more subtlety.

Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: PotatoKnight on December 07, 2013, 05:19:43 PM
One thing I actually liked about the story was the mention of the Pulitzer prize specifically.  Not sure if this was intentional but the Pulitzer for fiction specifically is given for "For distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life,' which is a poignant definition in the circumstances described in the story.  Makes it more meaningful than, for example, the Nobel prize (which the character also received, of course, but that has its own purpose in the story of getting us the "primary source" of his acceptance speech).
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: adrianh on December 09, 2013, 01:20:00 AM
I'm going to go along with the minority opinion and say I rather liked this one. The ensemble reading was also excellent.

It reminded me of some Ballard stories, or maybe John Wyndham. Not a tale of the disaster. Not a tale of the heroic saviours of humanity. Because nobody could save everybody.

Instead a tale of the aftermath - a tale of the recovery. Not something we get to hear about very often. Especially one that is about what everybody apart from the USA is doing - because north america isn't there anymore. And despite that it ended up feeling pretty optimistic to me. Prince might have been the pioneer of Impact Nihilism - but the world in general doesn't seem to have followed along.

Something else that nobody else seems to have commented on is that Prince, to my ears, is obviously an unreliable narrator. For example - none of the evacuees mentioned the people left behind? Seriously? That sounds much more likely to be a reflection of Prince's attempt to block out the people he left behind.

Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Max e^{i pi} on December 09, 2013, 12:42:22 PM
Something else that nobody else seems to have commented on is that Prince, to my ears, is obviously an unreliable narrator. For example - none of the evacuees mentioned the people left behind? Seriously? That sounds much more likely to be a reflection of Prince's attempt to block out the people he left behind.

Of course.
Have you ever heard of objective reporting? Me too. Have you ever actually seen it? Me neither.
It looks like I take it so much for granted that I didn't notice until you pointed it out. You are of course, absolutely correct.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: matweller on December 09, 2013, 02:34:28 PM
I'm surprised that the word "pretentious" hasn't appeared in people's comments.  To me, this story felt like an alternative history inside-joke for graduate students.  I just gritted my teeth at the nth reference to Pulitzer prizes, and at yet another big build-up to an uninspired quote. 

I think I get what you are saying. Those bits did come across as a little ham fisted. But, I also get that they were somewhat necessary to making the biographical part of the story work. We don't tend to write biographies about nobodies and so the story had to make some effort to establish that Prince was a somebody. Perhaps this could have been done with more subtlety.

I guess I didn't think much about it because historically, those people have always been pretentious. I mean, the real discoveries happen by people doing the work, but history books get filled by people who write press releases, and dandies write press releases. Even think of someone more in Prince's line like a Hemmingway or Warhol. Haunted and disturbed to be sure, but still "Look at me! Pain is real because I'M feeling it" pretension.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Unblinking on December 09, 2013, 03:54:06 PM
I'm surprised that the word "pretentious" hasn't appeared in people's comments.  To me, this story felt like an alternative history inside-joke for graduate students.  I just gritted my teeth at the nth reference to Pulitzer prizes, and at yet another big build-up to an uninspired quote. 

I think I get what you are saying. Those bits did come across as a little ham fisted. But, I also get that they were somewhat necessary to making the biographical part of the story work. We don't tend to write biographies about nobodies and so the story had to make some effort to establish that Prince was a somebody. Perhaps this could have been done with more subtlety.

I guess I didn't think much about it because historically, those people have always been pretentious. I mean, the real discoveries happen by people doing the work, but history books get filled by people who write press releases, and dandies write press releases. Even think of someone more in Prince's line like a Hemmingway or Warhol. Haunted and disturbed to be sure, but still "Look at me! Pain is real because I'M feeling it" pretension.

Yeah, I wouldn't say the tone of the story wasn't pretentious, but I think that pretention is appropriate for the format (though still not endearing to me).
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Sgarre1 on December 09, 2013, 07:18:56 PM
Quote
or Warhol. Haunted and disturbed to be sure, but still "Look at me! Pain is real because I'M feeling it" pretension

That doesn't sound anything like the Warhol I know.  But then, as a qualifying statement, I struck pretentious from my vocabulary many decades ago and have been much the happier for it.  It's all just work, people producing work.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Devoted135 on December 09, 2013, 11:54:21 PM
Something else that nobody else seems to have commented on is that Prince, to my ears, is obviously an unreliable narrator. For example - none of the evacuees mentioned the people left behind? Seriously? That sounds much more likely to be a reflection of Prince's attempt to block out the people he left behind.

I actually interpreted this differently. It seemed obvious to me that everyone was lying about not having left anyone behind, probably as a coping mechanism for dealing with that much grief and guilt. I thought that Prince was purposefully highlighting these claims in order to call attention to how impossible (and ridiculous) they were, not because he actually believed anyone when they said they didn't leave anyone behind.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Varda on December 10, 2013, 12:18:13 AM
I'm going with the minority to say that I straight-up loved this story. The lecture-y, literary format reminded me of my English major days, so wasn't a barrier to me getting into the story. I could see how this might be very alienating for people not acclimated to it, the same way scientific papers are hard to read for people not used to that format. Jargon does come across as pretentious if it's not your jargon, but I thought it was used quite cleverly in this story.

The jargon worked for me because the story’s about an author who has recently entered the literary canon because of the unique way he captured the experience of a generation. Sure, you could have written the story as one of his books, but you'd miss out on the nifty way an SF lens has been applied to literary criticism. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that done in an SF story before.

But what I really fell in love with was the exploration of expatriation, and what it means to be without a home. That really struck a chord with me. I’m American, but spent the lion’s share of my childhood in Europe. While I wasn’t a refugee like the people in this story, I remember the feeling of being a perpetual guest in someone else’s home, except that home was a whole country. And the United States took on a sort of mythic quality. It was where I was “from”, and yet it wasn’t my “home”. But neither was Europe. When I finally came back to the US, it didn’t feel like “home” either, and certainly wasn’t at all like it had been in my head. So you’ve got a contrast between Prince’s first book, the optimistic “Coming Home” and the attitude of acceptance by the nations of Africa, and his pessimism at the end of life when the Americans want to go “home” but don’t recognize that “home” is where the people who have accepted and loved you are, not where you were born or where you grew up. The pessimism comes from an understanding that the place they were returning to was dead and changed from what they knew. That’s really sad.

Given that, the bit where no-one claims to have “lost” anyone is quite realistic, too. That’s a coping mechanism to deal with loss and grief. You see that sort of behavior in the families of the terminally ill, where you withdraw from the person before they’re even dead because you’re already protecting yourself from the pain. It’s a common pattern in people who move a lot, too, for similar reasons. I remember very consciously choosing to do this with my old friends whenever we went to the next “home”. I reasoned that I would never see my old friends again (this was pre-internet), so it was easier just to let contact fade over the course of a few months and throw myself at my new life instead. It doesn’t come from a place of heartlessness - just a coping mechanism to protect yourself from repeated loss. If you knew that most of your country was about to go up in flames, you might rather pretend you’re on a long, indefinite African vacation and just try not to think about the fact that they place and people you left behind aren’t there anymore.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: InfiniteMonkey on December 10, 2013, 05:18:51 AM
Well, THAT certainly was bleak.

I'm wondering if Mr. Kerr has "issues" with the U.S. and perhaps Western Civilization. I think it's no mistake that most of the after-action takes place in Africa. Culturally Australia is a lot closer to the U.S. than most of Africa, and just as far from the impact (and with lots of empty space). I'd expect more Americans to head there.

But be that as it may, it was a good character piece, a good description of a grief-stricken man's evolving mindset.

I would have liked to have heard more about the "new optimism"; I couldn't really figure it out in my head.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: adrianh on December 10, 2013, 04:06:36 PM
I actually interpreted this differently. It seemed obvious to me that everyone was lying about not having left anyone behind, probably as a coping mechanism for dealing with that much grief and guilt. I thought that Prince was purposefully highlighting these claims in order to call attention to how impossible (and ridiculous) they were, not because he actually believed anyone when they said they didn't leave anyone behind.

That was absolutely the point that Prince was trying to make. However I doubt that in "reality" everybody would deny the existence of knowing people who were left behind. For me it beggars belief. Some certainly - but not everybody.

I took this, and other elements of the story like the sketched out neo-optimism movement, that Prince's perspective wasn't universal or necessarily accurate. Impactful and important certainly - but not necessarily "truth".
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: adrianh on December 10, 2013, 04:19:33 PM
I'm wondering if Mr. Kerr has "issues" with the U.S. and perhaps Western Civilization. I think it's no mistake that most of the after-action takes place in Africa. Culturally Australia is a lot closer to the U.S. than most of Africa, and just as far from the impact (and with lots of empty space). I'd expect more Americans to head there.

You can fit almost four Australia's into Africa - it supports more that forty times the population. Very little of the free space in Australia is particularly conducive to supporting large populations of folk.

Africa is a much better choice than Australia!
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: DerangedMind on December 10, 2013, 07:18:55 PM

You can fit almost four Australia's into Africa - it supports more that forty times the population. Very little of the free space in Australia is particularly conducive to supporting large populations of folk.

Africa is a much better choice than Australia!

As well, in a mass evacuation scenario, Africa is also much closer than Australia... 
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Prophet on December 10, 2013, 07:55:25 PM
I'm going with the minority to say that I straight-up loved this story. The lecture-y, literary format reminded me of my English major days, so wasn't a barrier to me getting into the story. I could see how this might be very alienating for people not acclimated to it, the same way scientific papers are hard to read for people not used to that format. Jargon does come across as pretentious if it's not your jargon, but I thought it was used quite cleverly in this story.

Ditto, though for me it was History not English. :)

Loved it, from the format to the story to the production. I really like aftermath stories, and this one felt more realistic than most. I also liked that it wasn't the end of the whole world. Just the end of North America as we know it.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: littlepossum on December 12, 2013, 12:14:46 PM

I'm wondering if Mr. Kerr has "issues" with the U.S. and perhaps Western Civilization. I think it's no mistake that most of the after-action takes place in Africa. Culturally Australia is a lot closer to the U.S. than most of Africa, and just as far from the impact (and with lots of empty space). I'd expect more Americans to head there.


*cough* And while I don't particularly want to get too political Australia isn't super great at accepting refugees. Our current intake of refugees is something like 30,000 a year. So, we could take in, one small American city...assuming there were no other refugees in the world at that time. Which there absolutely would be.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: benjaminjb on December 12, 2013, 04:48:48 PM
This is the kind of thing I should love--it's like one of Borges's essay-reviews of fake books, with a touch of Alain Resnais's Night and Fog (Specifically the part of the documentary where the narrator tells us that the concentration camps are places of permanent death and darkness while the camera shows grass and trees in an almost bucolic scene, which is a sort of horror/hope mix: life goes on past trauma, which is great, but on the downside, life goes on past trauma.)

And yet, while I like the experimental form and the investigation of cultural survival post-(limited-)apocalypse, so much of this leaves me cold, and I think it's because Julian Prince's representation doesn't work for me, primarily because what we see dramatized and what we hear doesn't quite match up. I mean, we hear that he's so great and interesting, and then we get fragments of his work, and it's OK but not mind-exploding. Or take the talk show scene, where we hear his banter, which is OK, and then we hear how the audience laughed at the things he says that aren't actually all that funny or interesting.

It reminds me of the end of Napoleon Dynamite, where we see the kid dance awkwardly and then see the crowd go wild. It seems more like fantastic wish-fulfillment than reality.

The association that I couldn't get out of my head was of course PodCastle 269: Selected Program Notes From the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer. (Why do such stories always have crazy long titles?)

I think part of the answer can be found here (http://www.themillions.com/2012/10/literary-fiction-is-a-genre-a-list.html), with the increasingly long and complex titles of literary fiction. (Since these pieces are sort of literary views of speculative issues.)
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Unblinking on December 12, 2013, 05:13:56 PM
The association that I couldn't get out of my head was of course PodCastle 269: Selected Program Notes From the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer. (Why do such stories always have crazy long titles?)

I think part of the answer can be found here (http://www.themillions.com/2012/10/literary-fiction-is-a-genre-a-list.html), with the increasingly long and complex titles of literary fiction. (Since these pieces are sort of literary views of speculative issues.)

And more than just literary fiction, I think the title length fits very well with the research paper nonfiction format this particular fiction is mimicking.   Googled for reasons for that, found this list which I glanced at:
http://augmentedtrader.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/how-to-compose-a-title-for-your-research-paper/
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Devoted135 on December 13, 2013, 03:09:39 AM
The association that I couldn't get out of my head was of course PodCastle 269: Selected Program Notes From the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer. (Why do such stories always have crazy long titles?)

I think part of the answer can be found here (http://www.themillions.com/2012/10/literary-fiction-is-a-genre-a-list.html), with the increasingly long and complex titles of literary fiction. (Since these pieces are sort of literary views of speculative issues.)

And more than just literary fiction, I think the title length fits very well with the research paper nonfiction format this particular fiction is mimicking.   Googled for reasons for that, found this list which I glanced at:
http://augmentedtrader.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/how-to-compose-a-title-for-your-research-paper/

Great reads, and a possible explanation for why I generally can't handle literary fiction. Nothing happens! :)

I guess I can't say much though, since two of my recent author creds have the following titles:
"Impact of immune escape mutations on HIV-1 fitness in the context of the cognate transmitted/founder genome."
"Transmitted/founder and chronic subtype C HIV-1 use CD4 and CCR5 receptors with equal efficiency and are not inhibited by blocking the integrin α4β7."
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Devoted135 on December 13, 2013, 03:11:09 AM
I actually interpreted this differently. It seemed obvious to me that everyone was lying about not having left anyone behind, probably as a coping mechanism for dealing with that much grief and guilt. I thought that Prince was purposefully highlighting these claims in order to call attention to how impossible (and ridiculous) they were, not because he actually believed anyone when they said they didn't leave anyone behind.

That was absolutely the point that Prince was trying to make. However I doubt that in "reality" everybody would deny the existence of knowing people who were left behind. For me it beggars belief. Some certainly - but not everybody.

I took this, and other elements of the story like the sketched out neo-optimism movement, that Prince's perspective wasn't universal or necessarily accurate. Impactful and important certainly - but not necessarily "truth".

Ahh, now I see what you are getting at. I agree, there were many hints that Prince didn't speak for everybody, especially as people began to rebuild.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: evrgrn_monster on December 13, 2013, 03:34:46 AM
This episode reminded me of two things; PodCastle 269: Selected Program Notes From the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer and Behind the Music on VH1. I couldn't get either out of my head the entire story, and unfortunately, I think that worked against this story because it didn't really work for me. The story itself was alright, and the character well realized, but as well fleshed out and believable Prince was, I just found him boring and somewhat predictable. I only really perked up at the mention of a possible past family, but since that was so lightly touched upon, I didn't really find myself wanting to know anything about this sad, depressed writer who refuses to feel joy. Given the ending of the piece, which was lovely, actually, I believe the point was to walk away seeing Prince as a sad guy who couldn't get out of the past, and the only way to live is to see and accept the world for what it is and try to enjoy what life has to give, even if it isn't what it used to be.

So, basically, not a huge fan of this story, but I did like the ending leaving the world acknowledging the work that Prince did, but also admitting he may have been wrong.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: flashedarling on December 30, 2013, 03:53:14 PM
I can't argue with the criticisms of the story. The faulty science (how could an asteroid destroy ALL north america and not also cause a global ice age?), the someone unrealistic geopolitical situation (If the USA was threatened by an extinction level event I'd be a little shocked if we didn't go a bit crazy and try to conquer Australia or something), and the "inspiring" quotes that weren't actually that inspiring. I considered giving up on it several times

And yet I decided to stick through the story and for some reason I liked it. The story of this one man shifting between nihilism and optimism without condoning either was somehow potent. I think what might be important is that everything he does is in reaction to outside forces. His work is a reaction to this cataclysm, his attitude shifts to be more negative in order to counter a public opinion that is optimistic. When I realized this I saw that he was very literally a reflection of the times and that made it better for me at least.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: AM Fish on December 31, 2013, 11:39:59 AM
This episode reminded me of two things; PodCastle 269: Selected Program Notes From the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer and Behind the Music on VH1.

Yes!  Although, I am unfamiliar with the "Behind the Music."  The second thing this episode reminded me of was PodCastle 286: The Calendar of Saints by Kat Howard.  I felt that both "Selected Program Notes" and "The Calendar of Saints" were stronger stories than the "Julian Prince" story.  Perhaps this is because the narrative-through-archives is a better fit with stories that touch on the unknowable.  But the "Julian Prince" story was well done and a worthy listen.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Myrealana on January 15, 2014, 03:55:45 PM
This episode reminded me of two things; PodCastle 269: Selected Program Notes From the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer
That is exactly the first thing that came to my mind from the opening of the story.

I like the kind of distanced narration telling the story of an asteroid impact. I love the idea that the world went on, even though the US got blown up. I love the idea of a writer using the tragedy for fiction, since that's what writers do. I really enjoyed the narration/radio play. I likd that he started with one viewpoint, then became more cynical and got left behind by the masses as people pressed on.

Thums up.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: SF.Fangirl on January 31, 2014, 10:50:51 PM
Thumbs up from me too.  While I don't think this format could have supported a longer story the telling of a post-apocalyptic story by providing snippets from the life of a famous survivor worked for me.  I didn't particularly care for Prince - I don't know if anyone could because the story was told from a certain distance where you never got to know anything about him for sure and he wasn't heroic.  But a short story did not require that I like him to like the story.  (That might have been required for me to love the story.)  It was short enough that I did not to get tired of his nihilism before the end and the sketch of the cultural impact of the apocalypse was interesting enough for me to enjoy it.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: LaShawn on February 26, 2014, 11:00:42 PM
Coming late on this one.

Add me to the list of those who made comparisons with with Podcastle's 269 story. Ultimately I found the story more removed, more cold. In the Podcastle story, Theresa Rosenberg Latimer's depression and subsequent longing to see old friends revealed through her work and her art. You don't get that revelation with this story; you only get sound bites from interviews, which is not as interesting as the work itself.

There was also one thing that really bugged me. You have North Americans being evacuated to Africa and being welcomed with open arms. Really? No really? No outcry? No pushback? Considering America's history with Africa, I found that to be really unbelievable. More likely there would be demonstrations and anger, and even when the Americans do come, there would be a lot of resentment, prejudice and arguments over settlement vs occupation vs colonization. Things would definitely blow up.

Then I thought, actually, I would love to see. Would there be civil war? Would all the African countries band into one against the American 'colonists'? Would there be factions of Americans who would attempt to become African citizens? How would a culture that sees itself as a singular democratic entity exist among dozens of countries, each with their own democratic process?

Dang. That's the story I want to see. Not this. It's too remote.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: CryptoMe on April 10, 2014, 06:31:13 AM
Well, I wish I had gotten to this story sooner. There was so much that needed to be said about the science here!

1) As several have already mentioned, an impact that annihilated all of North America would have resulted in a global catastrophe.
     a) Large impacts wreak havoc on the atmosphere, creating a hole at the impact site and turbulence globally
     b) Material ejected from the impact site travels ballistically and heats up the atmosphere on re-entry causing global wildfires
     c) Dust created at the impact site is lofted into the stratosphere and distributed globally in a matter of days, reducing the total amount of sunlight reaching the surface and causing a "global winter".
So, the actual kill mechanism is not getting hit by the impactor or even the materials it ejects to the immediate vicinity, but rather all these global effects, which make your distance from the impact site irrelevant.

2) A globally catastrophic impact can be caused by a meteorite about 15 km (~10 miles) in diameter. The resulting crater would be about 200 km (~125 miles) in diameter and the area affected by thick deposits of ejected material would extend to about 1000 km (600 miles) in all directions from the impact point.  Everything beyond that would get pretty much the same effects as anywhere else on the globe (see point 1 above). For the catastrophe to be local instead of global, these numbers would all be correspondingly smaller - so we can consider these a maximum. For reference, the distance between New York and LA is about 4500 km, so there would be an awful lot of North America that was no worse off than Europe, Africa, or even Australia. If an evacuation is organized properly, people can easily drive out of the danger zone.

3) Once the global winter is resolved, there is no reason why the impact site and it's immediate surroundings would be unsuitable for farming (it's not a nuclear explosion with radioactive fall-out, after all). Also, impact ejecta deposits should make excellent soils. They resemble volcanic ash or glacial tills, which are both very good growing substrates. Organic fertilizer would be required to speed up recovery, but all animals produce that on a daily basis. ;)

4) A 200 km impact crater is not like a sudden hole in the ground. There's a rise towards the crater rim, then a descending slope inside, then probably another rise towards some kind of central structure, probably a peak ring. The slopes are mostly on the order of 20 degrees or less, so certainly walkable with care. Of course, that's an average and there will be the occasional very steep section, but if you can avoid those on the way in, you can avoid those on the way out, too.

5) There is nothing "unnatural" about an asteroid impact. It is a very natural process that has been going on in our Solar System for at least 4.2 billion years.

Now that I have that out of the way, I can honestly say I liked this story. It was very interesting to see the human aspect of a recovery from global disaster, even though the details of that disaster were way off.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: bounceswoosh on April 10, 2014, 02:27:59 PM
I liked this story a lot - and a lot better than Selected Program Notes. But to be honest, that one didn't work for me - I think I missed some key element of the story.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Windup on April 21, 2014, 02:42:41 AM
3) Once the global winter is resolved, there is no reason why the impact site and it's immediate surroundings would be unsuitable for farming (it's not a nuclear explosion with radioactive fall-out, after all). Also, impact ejecta deposits should make excellent soils. They resemble volcanic ash or glacial tills, which are both very good growing substrates. Organic fertilizer would be required to speed up recovery, but all animals produce that on a daily basis. ;)

Volcanic ash and glacial till are good starter materials, but it requires centuries (maybe millennia) of weathering, organic matter and the action of soil insects and bacteria to turn into fertile topsoil.  That's why soil erosion is such a big deal. 
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Gamercow on May 01, 2014, 09:14:12 PM
I was going to come along and science all over this thread, but I see CryptoMe has that handled nicely, as they usually do. 

Instead, I will just say this:  If you're an American, re-listen to this episode keeping in mind the devastation of Katrina, particularly with respect to the refugees and their stories. 
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: hardware on May 03, 2014, 12:40:26 PM
I'm proned to like this kind of literary experiments, and I did, although there were certainly parts that did not work that great. It's always difficult to write about a fictional genius, it you don't happen to be one yourself, and specially a genius at writing fiction. So, yeah, you can fall back on mentioning Pulitzers and then quote talk show appearances rather than what the genius wrote, but even that and the quotes didn't really sell what made him special.

Like LaShawn said., the political implications of millions of americans moving into Africa seems vastly underestimated, but it seemed that the author only really wanted the story to be about the americans and their reaction, and I guess he did not want to make that a factor.

But overall, I liked the exploration of the phases of collective shock and how his personal experiences mingled in the political issues. A somewhat flawed experiment of a story, but I'm glad to see these kind of things tried out in a sci-fi context.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: Gamercow on May 06, 2014, 01:46:45 PM
One final thought on this:  It seemed to me to be a short story about a novel that the author wanted to write.  It just had that feeling to me, that they had an overall plot line, and nuggets of story/dialog, but for whatever reason could not put them together.  After much suffering, they decided to get meta and write a story about their story.  I'm probably 100% wrong, but that's how it came across to me.
Title: Re: EP424: Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince
Post by: CryptoMe on May 14, 2014, 02:43:11 AM
I was going to come along and science all over this thread, but I see CryptoMe has that handled nicely, as they usually do. 

Thank you for the compliment ;)
By the way, my avatar *is* an impact crater....