The SFFaudio Podcast #862 – Jesse and Will Emmons talk about Project: Earth by Philip K. Dick

Talked about on today’s show:

Imagination, December 1953, copyright renewed, pirate your way, other stories, Rog Philips, Evan Hunter, Hal Annas, Salvatore Albert Lombino, The Last Spin by Ed McBain, initiation ritual, default, for Philip K. Dick, strong relationship with, rewarding, most adult relationship, Robert E. Howard fanboy, Conan fanboy, colour your relationship, a grown man’s passion, Robert E. Howard’s prose, unfiltered, infinitely rewarding, science and fantasy, which is it?, a trick question, a story of imagination, reasons for thinking it’s fantasy, references the bible, not a good criteria, what’s so funny about it, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, no implanted memories, who is Edward Billings?, intentional ambiguous, the agency for whom Edward Billings works, could be right, The Rapture (1991), David Duchovyn and Mimi Rogers, the rapture happens, being swingers, the rapture is real, hard to explain, not science fiction probably, the way Philip K. Dick did it here, Christian adjacent, evangelicalism, millinerian thing, popular in the 90s, weird Christian novels, some kind of subgenre here, fantastic, involve the supernatural, god’s agency in the world, peices of media, in an earnest way, a Dickian way, bristle, they ought, The Builder, building something in his garage, the guy’s two sons, build that thing, sickmyduck.narod.ru, a great person in Russia, 1954

“What makes it run, then? I don’t see any sails. What kind of motor is in it? Steam?”

Elwood bit his lip. Strangely, he had never thought of that part. There was no motor in it, no motor at all. There were no sails, no boiler. He had put no engine into it, no turbines, no fuel. Nothing. It was a wood hull, an immense box, and that was all. He had never thought of what would make it go, never in all the time he and Toddy had worked on it.

Suddenly a torrent of despair descended over him. There was no engine, nothing. It was not a boat, it was only a great mass of wood and tar and nails. It would never go, never never leave the yard. Liz was right: he was like some animal going out into the yard at night, to fight and kill in the darkness, to struggle dimly, without sight or understanding, equally blind, equally pathetic.

What had he built it for? He did not know. Where was it going? He did not know that either. What would make it run? How would he get it out of the yard? What was it all for, to build without understanding, darkly, like a creature in the night?

Toddy had worked alongside him, the whole time. Why had he worked? Did he know? Did the boy know what the boat was for, why they were building? Toddy had never asked because he trusted his father to know.

But he did not know. He, the father, he did not know either, and soon it would be done, finished, ready. And then what? Soon Toddy would lay down his paint brush, cover the last can of paint, put away the nails, the scraps of wood, hang the saw and hammer up in the garage again. And then he would ask, ask the question he had never asked before but which must come finally.

And he could not answer him.

Elwood stood, staring up at it, the great hulk they had built, struggling to understand. Why had he worked? What was it all for? When would he know? Would he ever know? For an endless time he stood there, staring up.

It was not until the first great black drops of rain began to splash about him that he understood.

Nanny, do you understand, as a child, prized possesion, Hannah Barbara time travel bible story cartoon, archeologist on Noah’s ark, child culture, fun animals, the time that god killed everyone, a rainbow, how primitive culture stories are similar to each other, the stories of the vikings, natives in north america, Raven plays a role in both, spirits that run things, Eric S. Rabkin, a dragon, a hero has to slay, making his bed for 10 years, the saga of the Volsungs, particular spin, specific spot, shave away the descriptors, the kinds of stories, people are the same all over, tapped into this stuff that no one else is, no one else is like him, what is this story about?, about the Fall and how it happens, the inevitability of the Fall, who is Edward Billings, a mandate from God, an alien?, he is God, people he needs to report to, he knows everything he’s got a book, the CIA World Fact Book, how big the army is, how much literacy there is, briefing people, the good purpose, a crisis over there, eat the kool-aid, quite useful, square km of wheat in the Ukraine, the proximate creator of this set of little people, Tommy and everyone else on the Earth, Earth B is us, Earth C is gonna be the fairy people, squeaks and stuff, A is the angels, some of them got away, they did things, so funny, so silly in so many respects, back up this theory, what kind of genre it is, Edward Billing’s space, kids spying on a man in their house, the upstairs rented, kid from the neighbourhood, sneak in, to get some dirt, the garden, his eye to the crack, the moment of creation in Genesis, shapes forms, beyond the wall, an immense old fashioned desk, it’s been 7 days, his vest pocket, the great watch, naked and bleak, elderly bird, then he put his glasses on again, expert fingers, reared up before him, the typewriter, the ominous booming, insistent beat, him typing, the sound echoed hollowly, Prominent Author, dark and littered, in heaps, charts, charps!, astronomy, signs of the zodiac, chemical bottles, a stuffed bird, grey and drooping, greek and hebrew dictionaries, a bone letter opener, a wizard’s lair, laboratory, very alchemist room, flypaper, gas heater, a magic lantern, able to identify that, heaps, an image from his youth, The Father Thing, Scott Miller narrated recently, a horror story about a father being replaced by an alien, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, a place of importance, a pool of sticky water, dried butterflies, the huge old man, gosh!, working on his report, if it is all metaphor, it has to be, Philip K. Dick rationalizing the events of the bible and extrapolating on them, putting them in their proper context, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, the radio drama, the Earth is destroyed, the mice were the laboratory technicians, the dolphins, So Long And Thanks For All The Fish, a series of rug pulling outs, ok now what?, let’s go to The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, hanging out with cave people on the new Earth, Sunday school, could this all be the explanation, we’re never going to know, the questions we have are wrong, two bad words to describe what is going on here, an Ark in his garage, that rain’s going to continue, only he got the message from God to build that Ark, a little bad boy, does this amazing thing, you can’t just take them from me, I have free will, race C, the little people, a very Philip K. Dick thing too, marbles, that was how it was, he’s accessed this memory, kinda like pool, you win, he wins completely, he has the spark of god in his thumb, what we would call God, we’ve made a mistake, we think of him as that guy, so powerful in our lives, the Garden he’s making on his deck, office/laboratory/room, bucket full of dirt, spark glass into red hot fragments, he’s tired, Tommy carries the bucket, these little people, their new earth, our Earth is their Earth, just the garden in the Garden of Eden, just that it be there, a myth symbol, making out his report, they had escaped, they had gone, his repetition, that’s what happened, they enjoyed playing games with this kid, he taught them, he prepared them for this, going back to Heaven, dazed from the shock, Project C was already, beyond control, the contamination had spread to C, immobile, silent, thoughtful, happened before twice before, each project would carry the discontent to the end, the evasion of the plan, slowly he opened it, they would all be equal, equal failures, they had clothes on, little suits of clothing, the same trick, he’s trying to solve these questions, what if this is true?, turn it into a cycle, resolving the mystery, religious visions, a guy who could have used that for evil and start a cult, he uses it to explore, how could this be?, is that a science fiction story?, not really, is it a fantasy story?, maybe, just for conversation, genre conversation, a set of rules or something, what stories do, useful to talk about, this doesn’t fit the criteria, there’s not consequences of technology, chemical, words, the questions that the boy asks of the man, where are they?, yes and also not, god is everywhere, you can’t find him under the table, is he down by the corner store?, three kids are bored, curious about this old man rooming in their house, is he a communist?, doesn’t have a beard so he can’t be a spy, the parents, you won’t have any dinner, a snake?, in the garden, Theodore Sturgeon’s Microcosmic God, much more explicitly a science fiction story, whatever institution he is a representative of, looks like a bird, a bird in the Noah story, is God a bird?, does that make Tommy the Devil, talking snake, the fairy people, isn’t Tommy also Prometheus?, he’s a thief, for a good purpose, he’s freeing these people, did he also save us?, an implanted memory, he once had a healing rod, the aliens who gave it to him, you saved our spaceship, be the hero of mankind, superpowers, project my mind out into the solar system, the messiah complex, Damien G. Walter, I am the prophet, let me tell you about the Mythos, the fate the Angels had happen to them, fairies out in the world, like Conan Doyle, cigar box