It’s the 20th anniversary of Blindsight! David and Rachel sit down in Rachel’s living room with marine biologist, critically acclaimed author, and enemy-of-the-state Peter Watts to drink two bottles of wine and talk about theories of consciousness, cigar-shaped harbour seals, the climate collapse, and why dystopian sci-fi authors are in fact childishly optimistic.

Additional audio engineering by Rick Innis.

Show Notes:

• Rifters
• The Collapse Is Coming. Will Humanity Adapt?
• The Sheep Look Up, John Brunner
• The Limits To Growth
• Philosophical Zombie
• Consciousness and its function, David M. Rosenthal
• Michael Timothy Bennett
• Erik Hoel
• Mirror Test
• The Hidden Spring
• Arthur Jafa

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The podcast is part of the oral tradition, and joining us to talk about ancient epics, living texts in dead languages, Babylonian Pride parades, and how all of this relates to sci-fi, fantasy, and horror is writer, translator, and cultural historian Sophus Helle.

Show notes:

• Sophus’ website
• Electronic Babylonian Library
• Babylonian Myths, Sophus Helle
• Critical Antiquities, including Human: Babylonian Reflections on Labour, Sophus Helle
• Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, J.R.R. Tolkien
• Beowulf: A New Translation, Maria Dahvana Headley
• The Complete Mahabharata (online)
• The Mahabharata (Penguin Classics)
• Ovid's Metamorphoses: A New Translation, C. Luke Soucy
• Query, Zilla Novikov
• The Ur-Pisode: The Queer Heart of the Epic of Gilgamesh, ft. Julian Gunn

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A contract with one of the five big publishing companies means placement in bookstores and libraries, reviews in major publications, award nominations, and a huge advance—even a chance to get on the bestsellers list. But is this actually the case? Joining us to talk about how the sausage gets made is Jeremy Szal, author of the Common Trilogy.

• Show Notes:Jeremy’s website
• Follow him on:Bluesky
• Instagram
• TikTok
• “Everything is random in publishing. Success is random. Bestsellers are random. So that is why we are the Random House!”
• Are there more libraries or McDonald’s?
• Author (and professional chef) Rohan O’Duill trying out one of the recipes from the Sad Bastard Cookbook

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