The Science in The Fiction – Details, episodes & analysis

Ned Beauman is the author of 'Venomous Lumpsucker', a biting satire which examines the environmental and social consequences of capitalism run amok, and the dangerous absurdities that can result from using free-market mechanisms to solve the environmental problems we face today.  We talk about the political and economic choices and mechanisms that determine which species are preserved and which species go extinct - hence 'necropolitics'. We talk about calibrating our economic and environmental values, about the importance of pragmatism and efficacy, about taking responsibility or fooling our selves and passing the buck to future generations. We also talk about what’s working, what’s going better than expected and having hope for the future.

Ned Beauman's Website

Venomous Lumpsucker : Beauman, Ned: Amazon.ca: Books

Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman | Goodreads

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Marty speaks with biochemist and astrobiologist William Bains on the topic of Dark Ecology, as a final chapter to our 4 previous episodes on this topic with Chris Beckett (Ep 56), Julius Csotonyi (Ep 57-58) and Adrian Tchaikovsky (Ep 59).  Dr. Bains is the author of “The Cosmic Zoo: Complex Life on Many Worlds”, and has earned degrees from the universities of Oxford, Warwick and Stanford, and has held positions at the University of Bath, MIT, Imperial College London, and in addition to founding a number of biotech start-up companies is now a senior research fellow in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Cardiff University in the UK.  William is exactly the kind of person we love to speak with on this show as his expertise really expands and deepens some of ideas we’ve been talking about in contemporary science fiction.  Some of his recent papers carry titles like  "Prospects for detecting signs of life on exoplanets in the JWST era" and  "Astrobiological implications of the stability and reactivity of peptide nucleic acid (PNA) in concentrated sulfuric acid".  So that’s the kind of thing we discuss in the following conversation.  In addition to expanding on the details of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s worldbuilding in Shroud, we talk about the WOW signal in astronomy, the incoming 3I/ATLAS extrasolar object, and new experiments in high throughput chemistry and biochemistry.

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This is one of those episodes that exemplifies what we try to do here on this show, going deep on some very big science ideas, and then going off the deep end to expand those ideas into the realm of fiction and making them even bigger! Marty has the great pleasure of speaking with Douglas Phillips, who has turned his wide range of scientific experience into the kinds of stories he’s always wanted to read​.  Douglas has made a name for himself with his Quantum series of 5 books: Quantum Space, Quantum Void, Quantum Time, Quantum Entangled and Quantum Chaos – along with the prequel Quantum Incident.  This is a conversation in two parts - in this episode we talk about Quantum Space, and in the next episode we'll talk about Quantum Void and mostly about Quantum Time.  The unifying theme here is extra dimensions, in both space and time (!) and our conversation is an intellectual romp through speculative ideas that push the envelope of modern physics.  To lay the groundwork we talk about the standard model of particle physics, superstring theory and neutrino oscillations, then we make the leap into the 4th dimension, and from there into the far reaches of outer space.

Douglas Phillips:

https://douglasphillipsbooks.com/

Quantum Space on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZY9T5Y5

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This is a rather special episode, and something of a delightful experiment.  Barron Wenham is on of the smartest and most well-informed 10-year-olds you are ever likely to encounter - especially on the subjects of particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology.  As an exercise in exploring big ideas, mind-blowing science and science fictional creative invention, Marty sat down with him to discuss the birth of the universe, the balance of matter and anti-matter, as well as some of the things we discussed with Dr. David Curtin in episodes 30 and 31 on Dark Matter.  We also cover the black holes, white holes, the standard model of particle physics - right down to neutrinos and strange quarks - and Barron explains the theory of strange matter, which is a real thing! Barron also presents his own cosmological model that accounts for the accelerating expansion of the universe as well as the balance of matter and antimatter, and also his theory of super-matter in a brain-structured universe.

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Marty speaks with Dr. Henry Erlich, whose research career gave him a front seat to the development of DNA sequencing technology from its infancy in the 80’s, to the development of forensic applications in the criminal justice system in the 90’s and through to it’s maturity in Next Generation Sequencing methods now used to study evolutionary biology and the deep history of human and hominid evolution. His book is called 'Genetic Reconstruction of the Past - DNA analysis in Forensics and Human Evolution ', and its unifying theme is how we can now use DNA sequencing technology to study historical events, from the recent past in the case of forensic investigation of crimes, to the ancient past in studies of fossil remains to understand the evolution of the human species and the relationships among contemporary and extinct populations.  We talk about the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), detecting sequence and length polymorphism, how DNA tests are used to identify individuals in forensic investigations, how they can be used to track relationships among human populations both ancient and contemporary, and how what we've learned using this technology may help us grow bigger, better, faster brains in our science fictional future.

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Marty talks to Alan Smale, a professional astronomer and author of hard science fiction, alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy, and horror. We talk to him about his most recent book 'Hot Moon' - an alternate history set in 1979 where the USSR won the space race to land the first man on the moon, changing the balance of power during the cold war and accelerating the space race to push both the Americans and the Soviets to have permanent moon bases, orbiting space stations, and manned spy satellites.  We talk about the kind of warfare that would have been possible with the technology available following the first moon landings, what happens when you shoot a bullet in space, the geopolitics of the cold war as well as relations with Russia today.  We also discuss spy-craft in space, whether there may be a hidden base on the far side of the moon, and Alan also tells us a little about his research career at NASA studying X-rays from black hole binaries and other extreme space events, and how that research translates to applications on earth. 

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Holly and Marty speak with science fiction author Micaiah Johnson about her absolutely incredible 'Ashtown' duology.  This isn't really an episode about the Multiverse so much as it is about the deeply human and social themes in Micaiah's books, whose writing is laden with literary pearls and deeply human insights about complex characters, social and economic structures, and the interplay between science and spirituality. She uses science fiction as a lightning rod for discourse of social dynamics, power and justice, privilege and grace and ambition. We talk about choosing your monsters, the vacuous rich and the authenticity of the poor, community care, and crying from beauty, with stories about allowing people the chance to to love you in the way that you love them, and how giving and receiving are two sides of the same miracle.

https://www.micaiahjohnson.com/

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Marty and Holly speak for a second time with Mike Carey in the first installment on our new topic: The Multiverse.  Mike has written comics for many big titles in both the DC and Marvel universes, and has also written 19 books including his most recent 'The Pandominion' duology which is comprised of 'Infinity Gate' and 'Echo of Worlds'.  The idea of parallel universes arises from an interpretations of quantum mechanics which posits that the wavefunction never actually collapses, just branches into new, independent universes for every possible outcome. It’s a mind-boggling idea offering rich and unique narrative possibilities for science fiction.  We discuss some of the ideas which support the existence of the Multiverse, dark matter, the evolutionary history of alternate worlds, colonialism and slavery, sentience and necropolitics.

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Marty speaks with Hollywood writer and director James Kerwin about Quantum Consciousness in his sci-fi film noir ‘Yesterday Was a Lie’, as well as in Robert J. Sawyer's books 'Quantum Night' and 'The Downloaded.  We do a bit of a deep dive into the role of consciousness in the foundations of quantum mechanics, discussing the Copenhagen interpretation, the Many Worlds theory, and the Penrose/Hameroff Orchestrated Objective Reduction theory.  We go all the way from the quantum superposition of subatomic particles to the possible emergence of collective consciousness, and the possibility of consciousness playing a central role in creating objective reality.  We also talk about James’ favorite books and movies, as well as his current project – a new film he is developing called Contre-Coup.

James Kerwin:

Webpage:
https://www.jameskerwin.com/

Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kerwin

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/jameskerwin/

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/thejameskerwin/

IMDB:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0450123/

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Robert J. Sawyer is one of the world’s science fiction luminaries, and a great source of Canadian pride as one of our most prolific, successful and decorated science fiction authors.  In the following conversation Rob discusses his book 'Quantum Night', which explores the social and philosophical consequences of an empirical test for consciousness, self-awareness and conscience.  He tells us about the science of evil i.e. the science of psychopathy, and we discuss philosophical zombies as well as the very timely political consequences of blind followers and psychopathic demagogues. We also talk about the disappointing and negative effects of artificial intelligence, the multi-dimensional landscape of the human psyche, and the use of science fiction as an early warning system for the future.

https://www.sfwriter.com/

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