Pulitzer prize winning fiction, the return of the zeppelin, cats signaling the apocalypse, and Guses across the multiverse. Plus, aged watermelon Kölsches! Welcome to Whiskey and the Weird, a podcast exploring the British Library Tales of the Weird series! This season, we're pondering what could have been with our ninth book in the vast collection, Roads of Destiny: And Other Tales of Alternative Histories and Parallel Realms, edited by Alasdair Richmond. In this episode, our featured story is: "He Walked Around the Horses" by H. Beam Piper.
Bar Talk (our recommendations):
Jessica is watching Hallow Road (2025, dir by Babak Anvari); drinking Oak Aged Watermelon Kolsch by Ommegang.
Damien is reading Angel Down by Daniel Kraus; drinking Bondstone Toasted Barrel Bourbon.
Ryan is reading There Is No Anti-Memetics Division by QNTM; drinking The Obituary (dry gin martini with an absinthe wash).
If you liked this week’s story, watch Total Recall (1990; dir. Paul Verhoeven). Heck, watch it even if you didn't like this story.
Up next: "The Rose Wall" by Joyce Carol Oates
Special thank you to Dr Blake Brandes for our Whiskey and the Weird music!
Like, rate, and follow! Check us out @whiskeyandtheweird on Instagram, Threads & Facebook, and at whiskeyandtheweird.com
Jess: [00:00:00] There's a lot of books, a lot of comics, a lot of movies that, You know? that really fit into this. And when it's done- Right ... well, it's so fun. But yeah, the reality of being like, "What if there's another Jessica Berg out there?" Okay. Well, maybe she- What if she could do my laundry, too? Like, that would be good.
Ryan: Welcome back, everybody. I'm Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm Jessica Berg.
Damien: And I am Damien Smith.
Ryan: And together, we're Whiskey and the Weird, the podcast that for the past eight seasons has been bringing you unrivaled literary critiques of the best of yesteryear's weird fiction, as collected in the British Library's Tales of the Weird series.
Each season, we have journeyed together through one edition of this now voluminous series, and each episode we've turned to one story for in-depth discussion. But never along the table of contents' [00:01:00] prescribed path. If you don't want the story spoiled, make sure you take the road less traveled and read ahead.
Alternatively, our summaries will do the job for you. This season, friends, we were fated to pluck the strings of the multiverse as we take a dimensional left at the corner of reality to trek through Roads of Destiny. Boo boo boo. And other tales of alternative histories and parallel realms, edited by Alasdair Richmond.
Look there, through the fog. Is that a, a road sign? With an arrow? But which way does it point? And- Uh ... to what time? Time or- 12:30 ... or, or, or place or w- Where am I? Don't you people know who Jo-
Damien: Jessica's yawning is what she's doing.
Jess: Oh my gosh. We're hanging in there. We're [00:02:00] recording late, folks. Why don't we cover He Walked Around the Horses by, of course, H.
Beam Piper?
Ryan: Sounds like a banger. But before we get into that, we've got some bar talk to do. Jessica, what are you drinking at this late hour?
Jess: Okay. So when I go to Wegmans-
Damien: Here we go ...
Jess: they have the make your own six-pack thing.
Ryan: You
Jess: know, there's- She's been waiting to
Ryan: do that for a while ...
Jess: with the- I know. She was waiting to crack that
Damien: can, yeah.
Jess: It's the second one. I had another one while we were talking. But I do the buy your own six-pack thingy so that you can, try a bunch of weird stuff from busted cases- Oh, yes ... or whatever. And-
Ryan: Jessica's
Jess: ever
Ryan: quest to find a beer she enjoys. Yeah .
Jess: I, like, I like some beer. This beer is so weird and I-
Ryan: Ooh
Jess: okay, so it is an Ommegang Oak Aged Watermelon Kolsch.
Damien: This isn't even a beer. What the heck?
Jess: And I think, so I bought it in one of these- This is
Damien: like a mistake. It sounds like a bre-
Jess: Yeah ...
Damien: it's like
Jess: bring your
Damien: kid- It tastes- ... to the brewery day.
Jess: So it kind of tastes like a mistake- ... 'cause [00:03:00] it's like watermelon lime aged kolsch.
But mellowed. And it's like, it's like, no, like, it's like tart.
Damien: So is it like kombucha?
Jess: It's almost a sour, but heavier. Is- And so I bought it in this, one of them in the six pack, and I was like, "Well, this is really weird." And I had it, and I've bought it, like, four more times since then. So apparently- There you go, folks
something about- You're a hate drinker. I like this. Yeah. This is great. It's so strange, and it's, like a big beer and it's whatever. It's weird, but it's, if you see it anywhere, pick it up 'cause you'll be like, "Gross," and then you'll drink the whole thing immediately and then go buy more from Wegmans
Okay.
So Ommegang, what, what is the name of the beer? Like our, our book title, friends, there are seven subtitles to this beer.
I don't... It's, it's an oak aged watermelon Kolsch is the name of it.
Damien: An oak aged watermelon Kolsch. Yeah. Or as Jess likes to call it, my favorite mistake.
Jess: Yeah, that's just what the name of it [00:04:00] is.
All
Damien: right. Done. My interest is piqued inasmuch as, like, hakarl out in Iceland where you eat the rotten basking shark has piqued my interest- Yes ... this is the same.
Jess: Yeah. Str-
Damien: str- strumming stuff?
Jess: The canned- No,
Damien: it's hakarl is what it's called. Ha- hakarl. Hakarl.
Jess: Oh, we're talking about the same thing. It's
Ryan: still rotten fish.
I'm talking about-
Damien: No, you're thinking of the strumming, the... That's that, like, viral thing that people look at- Yeah. Yeah ... while they're sitting in the car and everyone pukes. Right. No, this is just when you taste it, you, you puke because it's like Jell-O and ammonia. It's like Windex- It's awful ...
Ryan: sprayed
Damien: onto Jell-O.
But it's not, that's
Ryan: not a food product at
Damien: all. No, it's not a food at all, but it puts hair on your chest. You drink it with brennivin and you call it a day. Anyway, Jess, what, what are you reading and watching?
Jess: I watched another one of those movies that shows up on Hulu that you're like, "Who made this?
Where did this come from? Why wasn't it ever in the theater?" And I, I think maybe it was, I just, like, have a kid, and so I don't know what's in the theater. That'll do it. So it was... I was a little self-righteous about, like, well, [00:05:00] why aren't... What, like... Like I would know, I guess. But it is a 2025 movie, horror, thriller.
It's directed by Babak Anvari.
So this is the same director. He did that Army Hammer- He did Wounds ... Wounds movie.
Damien: Yeah, yeah
Jess: Which I don't think I really liked 'cause it was gross and everyone was really sweaty.
Damien: I won't, I won't watch it because I feel like it bastardizes everything that we love about Nathan Ballingrud, and even though, good on him for getting, a movie option out of one of his books, one of his novellas.
Like, I just can't do it. I can't do it.
Jess: Okay. Well, whatever. You should watch this one. Nope. It has Rosamund Pike- Oh ... Matthew Rhys, and it starts at, like, the aftermath of a fight. So they're married, and they just had a fight with their, like, college-aged daughter or something, and then they get a call from her, and she's, like, driving, and she hit someone in the road.
She's, like, driving in the woods, and she hit someone- Mm-hmm ... with her car. And so the movie is basically filmed inside of the car [00:06:00] as the parents drive to try to, like, help their daughter, who's lost in the woods, and it's, it's really claustrophobic, but it's, like, really well-paced, and it's entertaining, but it also is, like, annoying because you're just hearing the daughter over the phone, and you're s- you're trapped in this car.
So it's just, like, this tension of, like, "Well, you got... Will you go faster so you can get there so this thing will happen? You can see what's going on?" And then the, like, the closer they get, the, like, more things ramp up. And it, it's, it's really good. It's worth watching. And it's on Hulu, of course.
Damien: Okay.
Hallowroom.
Jess: Damien, what are
Damien: Guys, I did... It's, like, one of my favorite things when you go to your packie or your local liquor store and you see a new bourbon you haven't tried before- Mm-hmm ... and it's on sale. And I don't know if it's, like, one of these things where they mark it up to slash it down. I don't know.
Sure. But then you come home and you see that actually you did get a bit of a steal. I did that, and it was with the Bondstone [00:07:00] Toasted Barrel, and I've never had a Bondstone bourbon before, but the Bondstone Toasted Barrel Bourbon. So I read this. I was like, "Whatever. I don't give two squats," because at the end of the day, this is a $30 bottle, typically 45 to $50 bottle.
Mm-hmm. So I'm gonna give it a go. Pretty high rye. They boast being aged a minimum of four years in toasted and charred American oak. I thought I was gonna get something... I knew it was gonna be pretty mellow because of that aging, but I thought it was gonna be something that was a little spicier with it being so high rye.
This thing was like drinking almost like a, like a sugar cookie.
Jess: Mm.
Damien: It had, like, vanillas in it. It had a little bit of spice from that rye, but it was all, like, totally mellowed out, and, caramel influx, honey It was, it was, and that's the oak, right? So it was proper, it was good. Like, scary good, to the point where I was drinking a lot of it.
And then I was just like, "How is this disappearing so fast?" But also, I found it to be very versatile. So I would like... The [00:08:00] first time I had it, I was eating barbecue, and I was like, "Yeah, my jam." So a little bit of sweet, take out any of the spice from dry rubs or whatever from barbecue. I was like, "This is great."
But then one night I had a banana, and I had this, I had this bourbon with the banana. I was like- Sure, of course ... this works with a banana, too. Classic combo. I was like, "It is, it is a banana bourbon kind of night." It was for
Ryan: breakfast. So- Don't lie.
Damien: Well-
Jess: Night can be 7:00 AM ...
Damien: any given Tuesday. So actually, I was kind of turned on to Bondstone.
I'll look more into them, but their Toasted Barrel- I'm gonna have to look for that one ... Bourbon was pretty solid. And again, I got it at a steal. It's typically 45, 50 bucks. I got it for 30 bucks.
Jess: Mm.
Damien: I still think if it's 45, like, give it a go. It's not anything that stands out as being, like, landmark in any way, shape, or form, but it is a pretty high quality product, so.
Again, Bondstone Toasted Barrel Bourbon. So I started reading a book on, I think, the first of this month, and the reason I know is because Ryan habitually asks his friends in social media- ... it's- ... X first, what are you reading? Right now we're recording in May, so whenever this airs. And I had [00:09:00] picked up and started reading Daniel Kraus's new one, Angel Down.
Ryan: Mm-hmm.
Damien: Daniel Kraus wrote Whale Fall, I think is his probably most notable novel. Mm-hmm. Got a lot of acclaim. As it turns out, like three or four days later, it got named... It got the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Ryan: Which is incredible.
Damien: Which is incredible, because you don't see a lot of, like- Wait ... horror or horror adjacent movies.
Whale Fall? No, no. Angel Down. No,
Jess: this one.
Damien: Angel Down, this year.
Jess: Got it, got it, got it. I was like, "I don't think I would've given Whale Fall an award." Got it. Sorry. It was- I liked Whale Fall ... it was-
Damien: All good. I liked, I liked Whale Fall fa- I liked Whale Fall too, but was it a Pulitzer Prize winning novel? No. Is-
Ryan: More
Damien: importantly,
Ryan: is Angel Down a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Damien?
Damien: Angel Down, to me, is, and here's why. There were a lot of risks taken- Here's why ... in writing this novel.
Jess: Number one.
Damien: Well, first of all, it's written as, like, one continuous sentence. Second of all- That, that's
Ryan: a choice ...
Damien: to kinda capture the freneticism of war, I would assume. [00:10:00] Second of all, I, I don't know what Daniel Kraus actually knows in his head, but the way that this World War I novel seems researched is absolutely incredible.
From the weapons, from the scenery- Mm-hmm ... from the atmosphere, from the smells, appealing to all the senses, like, it was a crazy tale.
Ryan: Well, we know from Whale Fall that he puts a tremendous amount of research into his
Damien: books. I mean, a tremendous amount, and it's just, it's- Killed a
Jess: lot of whales for that book.
Damien: God, just, I mean, it was just... In various ways. Eating corkscrews, eating squid beaks. But this one, I, I, I don't think that the actual, like... Okay, the conceit is this: it's World War I, a soldier finds a, some entity out in the battlefield, and it ends up possibly being an angel. Um- Oh, I get the title now
the angel trans fixes him and his company, and, they get driven insane by their, like, desire to help or to, assault this thing. [00:11:00] Look, whatever. I, I, the less is more for this book. Go in blind. I just have to say that this, without a doubt, this Pulitzer was deserved because Daniel Kraus is an absolute writer.
Mm. And I don't know a better way to describe it. I was entranced by this book. I read it in, I think, two sittings, and I just, I don't know, it blew me away. I could... There are nitpicky things I could go back and say, I wasn't too crazy about the way it ended, and the, the The, the, the sequence of, like, another member of the party goes mad by some desire, whether it's carnal, whether it's blood lust, something like that, and then ends up, like, facing a fate that they deserved.
There's a lot of stuff that's pretty thematic that maybe gets a little repetitive, but it doesn't matter- Like Seven? ... because the artistry- Like
Ryan: Seven
Damien: is
Ryan: a World War I movie?
Damien: I bet. M- maybe. Maybe. That's a actually a really good call. But I will say just Daniel Kraus' mastery of the written word is absolutely demonstrated here, and I have [00:12:00] a, I h- I, once I ended that book, I, I looked at him with just a newfound respect and was like, "You- Hmm
you, you are a maestro." And then all of a sudden it's like, okay, he has a Pulitzer. I was like, "Okay, I'm not surprised by this." Actually pleasantly surprised. So again, that's Angel Down, 2025, Kraus. Pick it up, read it. Okay. What about you, Ry?
Ryan: Well, I'm, I'm doing it again. I'm drinking a thematic beverage this evening.
Oh. And it's working out, actually, surprisingly. You like it? Yeah. Yay. So, so to understand the theme you have to know that tomorrow is my birthday. So on the day of recording- Whoa ... May 21st, tomorrow- Sorry, I'll steal it out the way ... May 22nd is my 45th birthday. And so- Holy cow ... in honor of my 45th birthday, I'm drinking the obituary.
Everybody pause
Damien: your podcast now and sing happy birthday to Ryan. That's right. And then- Turn it back on ... all right, let's l-
Ryan: continue. So the obituary is a riff on a dry martini, a dry gin martini. So [00:13:00] what you wanna do is you're gonna do everything you would normally do for a dry gin martini, and you're gonna make it how you like it.
Okay. But before you pour it into your martini glass, you're gonna give that martini glass a light absinthe rinse. Perfect. This changes the beverage almost entirely. Yes. I'm garnishing it with two olives stuffed with lemon peels, which is working with everything else- Mm ... that's in this glass very nicely.
And this is a... This is a delightful drink. It, it is definit- I mean, it's definitely got that gin martini base to it, but the absinthe rinse is, is giving it a little bit of sweetness and a whole lot of a different flavor.
Damien: Okay.
Ryan: I will warn you, though, the recipes that I found for the obituary call for a lot more absinthe in, in the mix, that you're supposed to pour quarter part absinthe into the, into the mixture that you're shaking up in your shaker. Okay. And, and I didn't wanna do that 'cause that just sounded like a lot to me. So I just... other cocktails that I've made have used an absinthe rinse, so I tried that, and it's the perfect amount. Okay. So [00:14:00] the obituary.
Okay. Cheers. Cheers. Happy birthday. Happy
Damien: birthday. One, one, one happy birthday. That sounds... a drink that's right up my alley, so.
Ryan: Yeah, give it a whirl. You'll like it. As for what else I've been up to, I am in the deep throes of a reread of all of George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire stories.
Damien: Okay.
Ryan: And that's not what I'm gonna talk about, though, 'cause I had to break up that reading a little bit-
with something else. I love, I love the Martin stuff, but I had to break... I had to do something else. And so I read a sci-fi horror novel, and I think, Damien, you've read this as well. This is called There Is No Antimemetics Division- Yes ... by QNTM, spelled Q-N-T-M, which is the- Man, that book
Damien: broke me ... nom de
Ryan: plume of some software engineer/author out in California.
It's a fantastic read. It is- Really good ... creepy as all get out. It is confusing. You cannot read this while watching the ball game. You have to
Damien: pay attention- ... to this book. No, this is, this is not a background read, [00:15:00] no doubt.
Ryan: No. The book opens with a startling scene in which an employee of a major tech institution is being held at gunpoint by her boss-
Jess: Sure
Ryan: and asked to explain themselves and what they're doing there. And she says, "You, you know me. You know who I am. I'm your chief officer for the Antimemetics Division." And he says, "There is no Antimemetics Division." Whoa! I don't know where the title comes from. Everybody- Take a shot ... everybody take a shot.
Yeah. But you have to get into a little bit of, I don't even know what the right branch of philosophy is for this, but for like what, what certain things mean or signal. So everybody knows what a meme is on, on, on the internet, but that, it, that word actually comes from- Yeah ... something else that indicates the way in which we, I don't even know how to describe it.
The way in which we- Like process and archive ... understand and process knowledge. Yeah.
Damien: Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan: Hmm. And so if something, if something can do that in, in the positive sense, then there can be a way in which that [00:16:00] can't be done in the negative sense. That's antimemetics. And so if, if, if this is sounding boring to you, just know that, that, and the background of all of this is some serious cosmic horror type stuff going on.
Damien: Like real, probably the most harrowing in a, in a tech advanced society- Yeah ... probably one of the most harrowing ways to depict, cosmos-ending, universe-ending evils.
Ryan: And there's some real edge of your seat scenes too-
Damien: Yes ...
Ryan: that I thought were so well-written. And it, and it's a short novel. It's like 270 pages.
Damien: Yeah, it's not long. Yeah. But it's dense. But it is dense.
Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I really liked it, and it was the perfect, perfect break read for
Damien: me before I- Which is funny to hear you say that 'cause like- Yeah ... I need a break from this George R.R. Martin. Yeah. I'm gonna read There Is No Antimemetics Division by Quantum.
Ryan: So I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. Check it out. There Is No Antimemetics Division by Quantum. It's got a really cool cover too.
Damien: Awesome. [00:17:00]
Ryan: All right. Well, that's our bar talk for tonight. That was a lot of fun, but that's gonna take us to our author and publication info, and I'm gonna warn you upfront, I really got into reading about our author tonight.
I thought he was a fascinating dude. And that dude is Henry Beam Piper, and he's a rare author for us. A lot of our authors labored in obscurity, perhaps achieving some measure of recognition only decades after they'd died. Not so with Piper. At the time of his untimely death, his name was easily being brought up in conversation along such names as Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein.
Damien: Huh.
Ryan: An enormously popular pulp sci-fi writer, many of Piper's works endure today. Uh, there's collected, collected works. There's omnibuses of his novels that you can, that you can get out there, and a lot of it's available via Project Gutenberg for free. And all of it still has legions of fans. So let's see if we can peer through his [00:18:00] prodigious cloud of pipe smoke and learn something-
of who he was. Henry Beam Piper, who sometimes told people to call him Horace. Why? We don't know.
Jess: Sure. I mean, I do the same thing. I get it.
Ryan: Was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania on March the 23rd, 1904. He was predominantly self-educated and went to work at age 18 at the Pennsylvania Railroad's Altoona Rail Yards, where he would periodically collect $25 from random pewter objects just passing through.
In 1947, he launched his pulp sci-fi career with the publication of his first story, Time and Time Again, in Astounding Magazine. It's got an exclamation point after it. Oh, it's got an exclamation point. Yeah, yeah. For the next 14 years, he churned out over 25 short stories, some forming parts of two larger collections of works called his Terro-Human Future History [00:19:00] stories- Of course
and his- Of course ... Paratime stories. These were both very popular. The Terro-Human Future History stories give an accounting of the next six millennia, dated from 1 AE, or Atomic Era, or 1942, when the first fission reactor was built Three novels form a sort of literary center to this cycle, and those are called the Fuzzy novels.
They're very popular. The Paratime stories are a futuristic series of police action stories about a police force from a parallel universe that has learned how to jump universes.
Damien: Oh,
Ryan: geez. And interestingly enough, our story tonight, He Walked Around the Horses, is the first of the Paratime universe stories.
So it's, it functions in, as a setup story in- Hmm ... in many ways. Since his death, multiple other authors have continued publishing stories in both of those [00:20:00] worlds. Despite popular acclaim and commercial success, at least within the science fiction magazine world, Piper lived almost in poverty. Though no one knew it on account of his pride, he spent large portions of his paychecks on tailored suits and celebratory dinners with friends out at fancy restaurants-
Jess: Perfect
Ryan: only to then struggle to pay his bills. His neighbors, meanwhile, had the impression that they were living next to a rich and successful author of international renown, an idea that Piper did not disabuse them of. He also spent a lot of money on guns. Piper, from an, from an early age, was a firearms and weapons enthusiast.
At the age of 14, he purchased his first gun, a .44 caliber Civil War revolver, for $4.85, and was heard to remark he was pleased with it because, quote, "It made a [00:21:00] satisfying noise."
Damien: Sure. Bang,
Ryan: bang. Piper was furious when the Russians beat us into space with Sputnik and subjected the whole bar where he was drinking when the news broke to a tirade of unusual swearing-
and then a lecture complete with bar napkin illustrations of what Sputnik must look like and how it must work. One of his friends was then amazed the next day when there was an article published in the newspaper to the same effect, and he was amazed at how correct Piper's drawing- ... and assumptions had been.
Piper's unique and uncompromising outlook on life eventually cost him his marriage, and his divorce was financially catastrophic. Compounding his issues, in 1964, his agent died before informing him of several impending sales of Piper's stories, and very shortly after that, Piper died by suicide. [00:22:00] His body was only found some lengthy time afterwards, along with a note he left which said, in part, "I don't like to leave messes when I go away, but if I could have cleaned up any of this mess, I wouldn't be going away."
Piper, who looked a little bit like a literary pipe-smoking John Waters, was ranked eighth on the list of Analog Magazine's most popular analog authors of all time, as voted on by its readers. Our story tonight first appeared in April 1948 of Astounding Science Fiction, edited by heroic science fiction editor John C.
Campbell. And I feel compelled at this point to add that if you are in the US at least, and you are in mental health crisis, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the United States is reachable by dialing [00:23:00] 988. Someone cares and is listening. You are worth it. Pick up the phone and call.
Jess: Well, I feel a little-
Ryan: Man
Jess: off, off topic then, 'cause I just wanted to bring up that he also has a series called Little Fuzzy, and it's about fuzzy sapiens, tiny little fuzzy aliens that- Yeah, those are the Fuzzy
Ryan: novels. Yeah.
Jess: My God, they actually look really cute there on the covers.
Damien: I want
Ryan: a
Damien: fuzzy sapien.
Ryan: They're, they're very popular.
I'm kind of intrigued by them, to be honest.
Damien: That's too much. Okay. Well- Okay That's gonna take us to our summary,
Ryan: Damien.
Damien: Yep. Teed it up for you. Yeah, gee, thanks pal. Nothing like, uh, mentioning suicide hotlines, which are essential, very important. Somebody's listening, somebody cares. But meanwhile, I'm gonna launch into a joke-filled tirade about this story, which is killer, by the way
Jess: I mean, I was looking at pictures of fuzzy little aliens,
Damien: so- Yeah, fuzzy space aliens- We're all
Jess: doing great tonight
Damien: win the day. Guys, we've already heard, like, the keys, right? It's a banger title, He Walked Around the [00:24:00] Horses. It's a banger author name, H. Beam Piper. Henry, but Horace to his real friends. Maybe Horace, yeah. And true to word, within the story, he did in fact walk around the horses. Who is he? Well, it's Benny Bath.
And why? Patience, my friends, patience. So we're in Europe, 1809. People are tense, wigs are powdered, and we're one d- bad diplomatic memo away from a, another war. So into this scene rides Benjamin Bathurst upon said titular horses. He's an English d- diplomat. He's trying to get home from Vienna. Napoleon is apparently turning Europe into his personal Risk board.
I'm pretty sure it's Napoleon on the cover of Risk. Maybe I'm wrong.
Ryan: Napoleon's an
Damien: old-school one,
Ryan: isn't he? He would like,
Damien: I think so. Yeah, he would. There's just one tiny little problem here. In this version of reality, Napoleon never actually becomes Napoleon. He's just a minor artillery [00:25:00] colonel with a suspiciously- Wait, we've read that story, too
horse addiction. Yes. I figured this was coming up in the aftermath, but I was like, wow, two fake Napoleons? Or two alternate Napoleons? He's the only guy that matters. Yeah. So our big guy, Bathurst, doesn't know any of this, though. The story basically opens like a police procedural, maybe with a little bit of Kafkaesque, or a little Kafkaesque infusion.
Maybe after a couple glasses of schnapps. I don't know. Bathurst stops at an inn in Prussia to sleep his horses. He walks around the coach, inspecting to make sure everything's in good shape. As he gets to the other side of the horses, he disappears. Poof. What? Where does he go? Well, because the story is told in epistolary format, we're reliant on reports of how this comes through.
So essentially, in his recollection, he gets a little bit dizzy, blacks out, and when he comes to, the coach is no longer there It's just [00:26:00] absolutely gone. Instead, it's a wagon and there's a couple peasants that are standing nearby, and they look at him and are just, like, making comments, "Where did this guy come from?
Why is he here?" Benjamin Bathurst is obviously looking around like, "Where'd my horses go? Why are there peasants? What is this wagon in front of me?" Why are there peasants? Yeah. So, I mean, right now we're plunged in the first page and a half into super weird territory, but, knowing the nature of this collection, we kinda came to expect it.
It's just the bluntness with which it hits the reader is pretty traumatic. So Bathurst is still at an inn. He storms inside the inn. He says, "I've been drugged, I've been robbed, somebody took my horses. Maybe the French agents are to blame." Everyone in the inn insists that nobody here knows who he is or what he's talking about.
There was never a coach, there were never any servants, there's no secretary, there's no wine, there's nothing.
Jess: There's no French.
Damien: They're basically like... I mean, it's the, it's the modern equivalent of, "Sir, this is a Wendy's." You know? [00:27:00] It's just like everything you're saying is incorrect, except it's not a Wen- Wendy's, it's Prussia, and basically people smell like wet sheep.
So , the cops, who are all suspiciously German, haul him in. At first, all the authorities think he's just, like, this dressed to the nines aristocratic lunatic, and refer to him as such a couple times. As it turns out, they find some papers that he was carrying on his person that made this interdimensional trek with him, and at this point when they start reading and seeing the validity of the papers inside, they start to question, like, how real is this person and where the heck did he come from- Mm-hmm
or maybe when the heck did he come from, you know, one of those type things. See, the thing is, is that Bathurst being a diplomat, he's got a bunch of these documents that are, like, signed by lords and whatever, like governing entities, and they match positions that are in the current environment and the current dimension, as it were, but it's just different people.
And I think that's the strength of this story, I [00:28:00] almost want to do a listicle, like the top 10, like, biggest, "Whoa, that's so cool-" "... the way that they changed how there was never a French Revolution and how, , the British Empire basically stormed and maintained control of Europe, and a sequence of events that happened where the American Revolution never took root either, and George Washington failed, and blabbity-blah."
So all these diplomatic credentials that he has are from a time that never existed, and a good chunk of, like, column inches are spent discussing historically and in a reporting fashion why that came to be. So again, as I mentioned, the American Revolution in his original world succeeded.
In this new world that he's in, failed. All the key members died or got disbanded or whatever. The French Revolution never happened because the American Revolution never happened. Napoleon ended up conquering Europe. He's now the big head cheese. Austria surrendered. Kings are gone. Tens of thousands die in, like, this industrial-scale war- warfare.
So it's very, very similar [00:29:00] almost some would say, possibly, to look around and see what's happening now.
Ryan: Hmm.
Damien: So Bathurst is trying to explain his situation. He sounds insane. The equivalence is what if Canada, like, took over the Western expansion of the US? Who knows? It's just, like, that level of weirdness, but also possible.
Possible if the vibes were different. The Prussian officials, they're not skeptics about this. They're, they're very deeply disturbed that bureaucrats are trying to process impossible evidence with the only tools they have, which of course are these hyper-realistic pieces of paper. Being knowledgeable about a chain of command, even if the people are different.
And as he sits down and is, like, drinking really good brandy, according to Benjamin Bathurst, maybe being in a bit of an alcoholic stupor. There's one officer who sits with, sits in a carriage with Bathurst and bas- basically, like, tells the whole current history as it stands. And again, that's where a lot of these whoa moments come to be- Mm-hmm
through the course of the [00:30:00] story. So Napoleon's a tyrant, it's constant wars and minor battles that are going on. Tons of death. The officer, I, I forget the quote, but he basically is like, "This guy's insane, but he, he's so, like, polite and gentlemanly- ... you would never know it." Uh, which is pretty cool.
Anyway, so we go through this alternate history type exposition where we find out that none of the people that mattered in his old timeline matter now, and we, we get a good, like, alternate history recollection through these reports, and I think it's very beneficial But all this story basically hits Benjamin Bathurst in the gut, and he gets driven insane 'cause he realizes there's no going back.
Like, everyone he knew in his life is done and dusted or, has no idea who he is. So he tries to escape captivity, and so he, he's in prison, but not really. They're just holding him 'cause of all the weirdness- Mm-hmm ... that's going on. So he tries to leave, and some sentry, like, pops him with a rifle, [00:31:00] right?
Because they thought he was a runaway. So it's a bummer. He dies face down in the mud- ... in an alternate reality, never knowing what the heck was going on.
Ryan: Bummer, man.
Damien: So yeah, it's, it, it stinks. Nobody gets mad at the... It's, it's, it's funny how much exposition is dedicated to saying that the guard did the right thing.
They're like, "The sentry did the right thing. If a prisoner's escaping- ... you shoot them, right?" So that's why this guy's lying dead. So after his death, basically what happens is they do a chalk drawing and sends it back to, like, England and says, "Hey, does anyone know this dude?"
"He came telling a really weird story. Claimed to be a diplomat." He had all the signatures and stuff like that. So they recognize this charcoal drawing of him because in that world, he- Right ... still exists. He's, like, a governor in Georgia. So this person exists in this universe. So the dead alternate Benjamin dies, but, situationally placed [00:32:00] Benjamin lives on.
Ryan: Ben- Benjamin Prime was still there.
Damien: Right, Benjamin Prime. Yeah, I like that. I like Bathurst One, uh, V-1. So now we got a dead diplomat in the mud. He wasn't a fraud, he just wasn't authentic in the universe in which we exist.
He walked behind some horses, got shot, end of story.
Ryan: End of story. Well, you mentioned that it was an epistolary story, and so that's kinda where I wanna start in this writing angle. Does the epistolary form work well for telling this particular story? What do you think?
Jess: It was interesting. It was interesting that you'd think a story where it's like, oh, someone's in a different universe and they're trying to figure it out, that you would get that guy's point of view-
Damien: Mm-hmm
Jess: first. Or- More.
Damien: Right ...
Jess: or you would get him... There would be some lead-up to it in a- Mm-hmm ... regular story, where he's looking around. And we get a little bit of that, but it's a lot more everything else that's going on.
Damien: Yeah.
Jess: So it was really like... I remember the first time I [00:33:00] read it, I was... It was unexpected, like, the form, and I thought it worked well, but it was a little bit of a trip to just be like, "Okay, well, if this story was written today..."
'Cause I, I'm sure we have read, read this story of guy falls through portal. Mm-hmm. Things weird. But it wouldn't take this format at all.
Damien: I... So the very first way that it struck me, especially when I got through it and I realized, like, the conceit of the story, is that it neutralized the concept of an unreliable narrator because it had multiple narrators.
It's like
Ryan: uber
Damien: reliable. Yeah. Right? Yeah. It's like mega reliable. It's like a collaborative- ... story. And because of that, I think that the epistolary format worked extremely well-
Ryan: Mm-hmm ...
Damien: because we weren't questioning either, A, motivations or, B, recollection of a singular entity.
Jess: Right. I- is it just this guy's crazy?
Damien: Right. Right. Right. And so it was cool. It was like, no, this legit happened and here's all the weird stuff that transpired because of it. So I think for that reason, and I typically like epistolary format stories. I, I kind of [00:34:00] vacillate a little bit. But for this application, I was like, it instantly had me.
I, I
Ryan: really like them when they work well. Yeah. And I really don't like them when- Yeah, yeah ... they seem unnecessary. And- So do you think- ... I think that, I agree with you, Damien. I think it worked well here. Yeah. I really liked the idea of, as you said, sort of mega reliable narrators, like these, these army officers and diplomats-
exchanging c- communication about this. Like, it was-
Damien: And like
Ryan: everyone's
Damien: like-
Ryan: That was very interesting ...
Damien: pleasantly, politely baffled. Right. But they're just like, "Oh, this is so weird." And he's so chill, you know, he's not necessarily- 'Cause you can't
Ryan: say WTF if you're talking to your general,
Damien: right? Yeah, yeah.
He's, he's got all the paperwork- Yeah, yeah ... and stuff, and it's just like, "It's so legit. Like, in all my years in assessing signatures, I've never seen a better forgery." It's just like... No, it's because he legit came from a different plane. Right. And the way it happened, too, is just so, like, non built up, where he's just like- He's just like, "Whoops"
"I was walking my horses and all of a sudden I'm, like, in a new..." It's, it's just the- It's not anything you
Ryan: could avoid ... the randomness. It's not any,
Damien: any
Ryan: wrongdoing.
Damien: Yeah.
Jess: Right. It wasn't a big- And I mean, all that- ... like, haunted cave.
Damien: Right. Or like some big- It's like, "Don't
Jess: go in here" ...
Damien: portal opens- Yeah. ... and, you know, people are, like, bowing all around it and [00:35:00] stuff, and it's a scene for a big monster transfer.
It's just like, oops.
Ryan: Unless this is like a whole, this is, whole thing is built as a cautionary tale that you should walk in front of horses instead of behind them.
Damien: Probably the overall
Jess: message, yeah. If you're going around them, you have to go behind them at some point.
Damien: You don't, because if you're going around them but they're attached to a carriage, then you don't actually stand behind them ever.
Ryan: You could get kicked.
Damien: Just kicking it.
Ryan: With
Damien: Jess, Damien, and Ryan.
Ryan: Jessica's quitting. All right, well, what do you make of Bathurst's reaction to finding himself in this parallel universe? Were, are you surprised by, by how he responded?
Damien: I'm, I mean, ultimately, when it sank in, the truth sank in, like, I'm not surprised at how he responded where he was like- That he went
Ryan: nuts
Damien: "What's up, man? Game over, man." You know, he's like, who is it, Pullman or Paxton? Is that Paxton? That's Paxton, right? Yeah, that's Paxton. "Game over, man, aliens." And he's just like, "I'm out," and he goes to try and run away- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm ... to figure out how to get back home, and then he gets shot. So it's like, it's a [00:36:00] sad, that's a sad conclusion-
for this character. But all the other stuff leading up to it, and you already mentioned this a little bit, was just like everybody else's observation about how, boy, this is really feasible and just really weird, but no one goes deep into it. It doesn't drive anyone crazy except for maybe Bathurst at the end, which is why he tries to run away.
It's just odd how it, like, the entirety of the story, he's basically in shock, which I think is a hyper-realistic-
Jess: Right. But again, I think in a more contemporary story, it would be him, "I gotta figure this out. I gotta tr-" Right ... you know? And that, that- I
Ryan: was a little surprised that there wasn't some of that.
Jess: There wasn't, yeah.
Ryan: Right. And maybe he wasn't permitted to write, but maybe we could have seen a- But someone would've been like- ... a letter from him to somebody that he- Yeah ... thought existed and maybe didn't.
Damien: May- maybe, but I don't know. It made it, hence my Kafka reference- Mm-hmm ... it made it, like, ultra weird that it's like this weird thing happened in a weird non, built-up way, and then this guy finds himself in [00:37:00] an alt reality and he's like, "What?"
And then he goes and he, like, gets killed, but then meanwhile, regular him is a governor in Georgia and-
Ryan: Right ...
Damien: I don't know, just the inanity of all the, that sequence- ... it's just like, I, I found it just- So- ... really super enjoyable and kinda refreshing, honestly ...
Ryan: what do you guys think you would do if you walked around your car one day and then you looked up from picking up the paper and all of a sudden your neighbor wasn't your neighbor, and the tree was q- a little bit wrong, and the lemons were blue?
W- like What would you do?
Jess: So this comes up in-
Ryan: Just be like, "I would get a watermelon beer."
Jess: I would check to make sure they still had watermelon beer. No, this comes up a lot in one of the other, like, horror recap podcasts that I listen to because they're always giving, like, women who kind of realize they're in a horror movie, and then they give bonus points to the people around them who, like- Mm-hmm
believe them, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, like, if you go to your husband and you're just like, "Something's wrong," but you know, and, and your hus- And they don't
Ryan: tell you you have the vapors.
Jess: Yes, and your husband [00:38:00] believes you and helps you solve the problem.
Ryan: Right.
Jess: Like, that's- It's a shorter
Ryan: film ...
Jess: more ... Well, it's, or, or whatever.
Damien: I guess.
Jess: But I also think- "No, no, no,
Damien: something's wrong here." "Okay, well let's investigate, and obviously leave the scene." Roll credits.
Jess: Like, in reality, if you're just like, "Something's really wrong, I'm not from this universe"
Damien: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm ...
Jess: well, I don't f- I don't think your husband should help you. I think your husband should get you help.
And so that's where it would be like, I would just need to be institutionalized, I think. I don't, don't have the capacity to be like, "I'm gonna s- figure this out." I would just be like, "Mind broke."
Ryan: I just, I don't know how long it would take me to get to that stage. Like, I would
Jess: like to think- Five minutes.
Ryan: I would like to think it would take longer than that, but maybe that's- No
maybe that's just hubris, right?
Jess: I'd be like, "Where's my dog? I gotta get outta here."
Damien: Yeah, I-
Ryan: All universes have Gus, don't
Damien: worry. Yeah. Gus is a constant watcher. I, I don't know. This is one of those impossible circumstances that I think [00:39:00] until your body actually endures that kind of trauma, and it is a situational trauma, that you don't know how you'd react.
You could have the machismo feel where you're like, "Oh, I would obviously seek out my alternate self and seek answers to the questions," or, "I would, I would make myself a new life in this new alt universe." I
Ryan: don't think it would occur to me that I had an alternate self.
Damien: I don't know, man. I mean, if you're looking at things around you and you're like, "Okay, so we are..."
I'm name-dropping a little bit and you know kind of who I'm talking about, but they followed a different path. Mm-hmm. Like, you can put two and two together. Again, this is coming from a contemporary perspective.
Ryan: I'm trying to get to Damien Smith. Do you know Da- You mean the President of the United States?
Damien: That is a very alt universe now. You mean the guy who invented hot dog corn?
Ryan: That's more, that's more like
Damien: it. Yeah. Yeah. It's where you boil corn in hot dog water. Anyway, okay. Yeah, so that's, that, that would be my claim to fame in an alt universe. There'd still be a Whiskey and the Weird though. We transcend.
I, I
Jess: think- That would be like Tequila and the Weird. Oh, right, [00:40:00] right. It'd just be the worst. I agree. It'd just be like the worst thing in
the world.
Damien: Yeah. Um, I think, I ultimately think that I might go through the same course of feelings and processing that our boy Benjamin Bathurst did, and I think the reason- Mm-hmm ... it's easy to say that is because we got so little of his inner workings- Right ... that we don't know exactly what he felt- Right
what he was thinking.
Ryan: And I'm gonna bring that up later, too.
Damien: Okay, cool.
Ryan: Yeah. Well, flip the question then. What do you make of how the people he encountered reacted? Like, we already talked about they all wrote these sort of weird- Yeah ... po- polite- Yeah ... things. Do you think that was a- appropriate or realistic or, or how do you think-
Jess: Or accurate?
Like we're not- Or accurate, yeah ... yeah, we're not seeing them talk to their buddies. We're seeing them write official correspondence.
Ryan: Right.
Jess: Correct. So, like, I do have an inkling that, like, maybe they write this letter and then they go to the- They go to the bar
Damien: and they're
Jess: like, "
Damien: What the hell?" Yeah. They're like, "What the he-" Yeah, exactly.
Jess: "You guys will not believe what I'm dealing with at work."
Damien: I agree wholeheartedly with you, Jess, b- in that I think that's was another [00:41:00] strength in this epistolary format is we get this very, like, formal recollection and formal report. But meanwhile we don't get this other stuff where they're like, "You gotta be kidding me.
This guy can't take himself seriously." But in the formal report, there's a lot of, like, poignant, detailed observations- Mm-hmm ... and stuff that just made this, to me, a very fun and engaging read and in a refreshing format. So I appreciated it, honestly. How about you, Ry?
Ryan: I really, I, I'm, I'm having a hard time imagining how I would respond to somebody who showed up and were saying these kinds of crazy things and separating that from, from reality because I'm in a position where sometimes that happens to me.
Damien: Oh, okay. Right.
Ryan: Where pe- people show up and say some crazy things occasionally. One of my favorite- Like, "
Damien: Can I talk to God?" kind of things?
Ryan: Sometimes along those sorts of lines. Okay. Like, one of my favorite things that happens in my line of work is I'm periodically the recipient of manifestos. Hmm. These are, these are typically sent in the mail, and I usually get one or two a [00:42:00] year, and they're lengthy, but they are a joy to read.
And one, one particularly memorable part of one, it was referring to the time in which the end of the world would come about- Yeah ... and we would know that this was about to happen because all of the cats would disappear. I really liked that one I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued
Jess: Well-
Ryan: So sometimes
Jess: people- But
Ryan: like, what, what if
Jess: that happened?
Ryan: Right. Right. What if that happened? Then I would like- Well- ... did I throw that thing away? Let me go get that. Dig that out of the trash.
Damien: I knew I should've scanned it.
Ryan: So it's, it's interesting. Like, I feel like, I feel like I respond when these things happen in, in the event when somebody's, like, actually sitting in my office saying some of these things.
I feel like I respond in, in the same way that these formal letters sounded. I'm, I'm interested, I'm intrigued, I'm asking some clarifying questions. I'm practicing my best non-anxious presence. Sure. I'm not overreacting to what they're saying, even though in my head I might be thinking, "This is completely bonkers and I need to find this person some real help."
Yeah, it's... It was a... Thinking, thinking [00:43:00] like the officers, it was very realistic for some of
Damien: the things I, yeah So imagine taking that and, like, and, like, forcing yourself to be able to write in a fashion that conveys that- Mm-hmm ... underlying-
Ryan: Mm-hmm ...
Damien: subtext- Mm-hmm ... to the reader. I think that that's, again, I'm sort of fanboying here, but here- I think that
Ryan: happened.
Damien: I think that happened here. Yeah. And I think it wa- it was executed really well.
Ryan: Well, in the story, Bathurst insists that his version of reality is correct, but everyone else agrees it is not. So to what extent do you think reality relies on consensus? And how much does your perception influence that?
Damien: Reality as a, as a communal concept?
Ryan: Yeah.
Damien: Consensus. Reality as an individual interpretation, no consensus. Doesn't matter. Like, Bathurst was right. His reality was different.
Ryan: So his perception, from his [00:44:00] perception, that was different, so his reality was-
Damien: His perception is- ... I'm in the wrong place ... this is an alternate place.
Yes. Right. Yes. Everybody else is also correct in that, no, what you speak of would be the alternate place. This is the reality.
Ryan: So even in a more general, like outside of the world of this story, if, if everybody says that grass is, is purple-
Damien: Sure ...
Ryan: but you know it to be green, well, then what color is it?
Damien: Purple, to everybody. Green to the individual.
Ryan: Reality is defined by consensus.
Damien: Man, Jess is, uh, stretching
Ryan: that little brain of hers. Jess is pondering. Yeah.
Jess: Well, I'm thinking about this in the context of, like- One of the signs of, someone starting to deal with, , dementia and- Mm-hmm ... it's not just, like, memory failings.
It's where you can't remember something. It's where you remember something really incorrectly and it's- Mm-hmm. Yes, correct ... it can be small details or the plot of a movie or an, a, who the [00:45:00] actor was in a movie, and just being really, really convinced that you're correct and everyone else is wrong, and how a lot of times you'll kinda hear stories about how that was the first time that someone realized, , that their mother was actually having- Mm-hmm
more memory problems than they thought or, or things like that. And so yeah, it's, it's tough to reconcile, , the idea that, you have your truth and what you see and what you believe shapes your reality, while also knowing that the brain is a pile of mushy goop, and sometimes you're just wrong because chemicals are misfiring or your goop is weird, like, both things can be true. Your reality, I think, can be shaped by what you see, and also can be shaped by misfiring chemicals in those cases.
Damien: But it's still your reality.
Jess: Yeah, man. But
Damien: you, the- Yeah, even in those misfiring chemicals, it's still your reality, which is why actual reality is consensus. You can't change the fact that you think that's,
Ryan: that's
Damien: true.
Right. Right. Yeah. But your reality is... Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah, I think, we hear a lot in pop culture about, [00:46:00] like, speak your truth and , live your truth and all that. But I, I think that, that reality is often defined very strongly by consensus. Yeah. Even if you experience something different or you feel something different, if you voice that difference, your difference is identified.
And The way society works is that you're, you're penalized for that socially.
Damien: Yeah, socially.
Ryan: Yeah.
Damien: You know, the DSM is a consensus-based document that basically assigns mental affects
Ryan: based
Damien: on consensus. And it's, and
Ryan: it's malleable, right, as a manual,
Damien: right? And it's, it, it varies. It changes all the time.
Ryan: Right.
Damien: There's, you know, there's a lot of editions. It varies, so it's just like, what used to be mania and hysteria is now just, some people going through a process. So it's, it's wild to see how that is, but that's how culture and society establish is on those communal validations.
Ryan: We have to reach some consensus- Right ... in order to live in the same place.
Damien: Right.
Ryan: Yeah.
Damien: And so if you call grass purple and you get enough people to believe it's purple, then [00:47:00] guess what? Mm-hmm. The grass is purple- It's purple ... even if you know it's green. Because at the end of the day, maybe it really genuinely is purple and your brain is mush.
Ryan: There are perhaps some contemporary political lines of thought here that we could follow, but we're gonna move on.
Damien: Yeah.
Jess: About having a brain- Great call ... that's mush? Hmm.
Ryan: About a great number of things. About reality and alternative facts. I can't believe that we haven't talked about this yet this season, but do you guys think that there are parallel universes out there?
Jess: N- I think it's too exhausting to think about.
Damien: That is- Just like, "I'm tired" ... such a great way to put it, Jess. Thank
Jess: you. Like, there's too much going on in this universe. I can't fathom the idea that, like, am I gonna have a waffle for breakfast or a, a crumpet?
Ryan: Jess doesn't wanna have to make decisions twice.
Jess: Well, now that's a new universe where I had two crumpets or whatever. Right. Like, I do- As we've been going [00:48:00] through the like if this, then that's for this season, like- I realize how much I like this concept, right? Mm-hmm. There's a lot of books, a lot of comics, a lot of movies that, that- It's just
Damien: infinite material.
Jess: Yes. You know? That really fit into this. And when it's done- Right ... well, it's so fun. It's some of my favorite movies. But yeah, the reality of being like, "What if there's another Jessica Berg out there?" Okay. Well, maybe she- What if she could do my laundry, too? Like, that would be good.
Damien: Okay. I think that's why, like, authors like Blake Crouch or whatever, who have that motif pretty prevalent through their works- Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Dark Matter ... and it's, it, it's just, it's just super fun. Because like Jess said- Mm-hmm ... l- you could go in a billion different directions. You could take really, you could have really creative takes on this. But it is also exhausting when you think about the lack of limitations if you open up your reality to...
And I often think about this like, I, I had this, I had [00:49:00] this concept once where I was like, if I was ever just, like, walking around, right?
Ryan: Around some horses-
Damien: And then- ...
Ryan: for example ...
Damien: maybe, maybe some horses, but I'm just, like, meandering. And then in front of me is a very obviously, like, fictional creature that shouldn't exist.
It's a ghost. It's a demon. It's like a dragon or something. But it's there, and it's now in my reality. I think my brain would break at that point, because- Mm ... then it would be forced to reconcile with the fact that what you thought was your singular existence and everything that you knew that was a part of it is there, like, is now shattered, because this other thing that was thought to be impossible is now possible, right?
So when the impossible becomes possible, my brain breaks, and then yes- ... the multiverse exists, and th- there's a million different explanations behind it. But again, to Jess's brilliant observation, that is just exhausting. So it's a lot easier to just go, "Nope, we're it." I'm
Ryan: ready to be exhausted, though.
Damien: We're it.
W- this mental plane is all that i- is, is all that exists. And, like, I think
Ryan: you both operated on the idea of, of the [00:50:00] butterfly effect creating mul- these multiple universes. Right, there's- But what if, what if there's only, like, two?
Damien: Well, I think the science behind that is that there's- I think that's one.
One or not is that
Ryan: different.
Damien: It can't be either two. It's either infinite or one.
Ryan: Does it have to be that way?
Damien: Yes.
Ryan: Oh.
Damien: I think, I think if we get down to the- ... quantum science of it or the existential science of it, it has to either be infinite or one.
Ryan: What if, what if it's just another one where blimps were really s- still a thing?
Jess: I mean, the, even just the stuff you guys were talking about earlier where it's like, okay, you have the butterfly effect of splitting universes. Every decision does this. You have this story, which is like- It's just kind of a little different. Like, it ends up being big different, but it, you're still breathing oxygen, and people still have hair, and, it's just like no one's aliens or whatever.
But then you guys are also talking about the ones where it's like Abraham Lincoln, vampire hunter. That's also a different reality. What if vam- you know, it's [00:51:00] just, like, too much for my real brain to think about. Fun to watch a movie.
Ryan: It's like- I have lots of book recommendations that Jess shouldn't read then.
Jess, you mentioned this a moment ago, that there's so many of these types of media out there. Why do you think that sci-fi is so taken with this idea, this historical divergence concept?
Jess: What a great question. I guess because it gives you the option to do World building that's based in something you- Mm
understand, I think would, would be why I would be interested in writing it. That's smart. Right? So, like, we liked the- Fantasy that's
Damien: referential. Yeah.
Jess: We liked the fun details in this where it was just like, ooh, it's a little different. Versus, now we're on the planet and everyone is blue and has four eyes- Right
and, you know- Sure ... where you're starting from scratch. The books where you have to
Ryan: go to the glossary every five
Jess: minutes- Yes ...
Ryan: to look
Jess: up, yeah. Or, or the writing- Family
Ryan: trees or, yeah ...
Jess: the writing has to be like, "And then I picked up my [00:52:00] gorgolork," which of course we know is a fry- ... a flying broom horse. Like, I, that writing doesn't appeal to me.
This, where you're just like, "And then I got in my car, but it has three wheels."
Damien: You guys, as a family, we need to upgrade our gorgolork. So- Yeah. ... we just don't have enough gorgolork space to transport what we need to.
Jess: You also, I mean, if you're thinking about the ability to write more of these stories, a lot of them are infinitely replicable as spinoffs and sequels and things too- Sure
'cause you- Right ... whoop, woo, I fell in a different portal this time.
Damien: Yeah. 'Cause you're, you're not, you're not relegated to, like, a, the restraint of chronology, is that you can actually just, like, go up and down and not just left to right.
Ryan: Right. And I think with that- And I would be interested to read some of the other Paratime stories that Piper wrote, 'cause I wanna see if, like, some of these, these officials are the characters in the, in the other ones.
Yeah. Yeah. And I- Like, 'cause, 'cause they're supposed to be these, like, police action things. And this
Jess: guy, like- And I would like to read his writing because the writing of these letters is really good. I, I
Ryan: think- So talk about the writing. You [00:53:00] liked, you liked, outside of the epistolary stuff, you liked the writing?
Jess: Yeah, I thought it was, I mean, it was convincingly written. It conveyed everything that I was, like, wondering. Like, while also giving you kind of the underlying, like, okay, we do know that this is an official report, so we have- Yeah ... to kind of read between the lines on, on what people are actually thinking.
Like, I feel like it was pretty layered for seeming like a fairly straightforward, like, "Dear General-
Damien: Yeah ...
Jess: here's my report."
Damien: It was also, it was also speckled with, like, inane humor and really, like, dry wit in single lines, and I appreciated that. I think it offered And also just the other stuff, like I mentioned earlier about how the sentry that shot, Benny Bath when he's out running across that- Right.
Sort of the long explanation ... that thing earlier. And it's like he wasn't penalized. He did what he had to do because otherwise they would walk around... They're given guns, not because otherwise they would walk around with their hands in their pockets or something like that. Yeah. It's just such like an inane tossaway line, [00:54:00] but I was just chuckling at it.
And I was like, "I don't know how to feel while I'm reading this." The writing to me was entirely fresh and fun and, and thorough, but also not, like, so heavy and, hypothetical and, like, speaking in parentheses. It was just like these are reports and they're giving details as though they're facts, and it's an alt history so it's fun to read them as though they're facts.
A lot of this just struck the right chords with me.
Ryan: Interesting. You guys got a lot more out of the writing than I did. Ah. I said it was, I said it was fine. Nothing got in the way for me- ... but nothing stood out.
Damien: Okay.
Ryan: Fair. And, and oddly enough I normally have a quote highlighted that I like to read. I highlighted nothing-
Jess: Yeah,
Ryan: yeah
in this story. I
Jess: can see that. That's a bummer. But that's also the form of the story, right? Like-
Ryan: Of the story, yeah ...
Jess: you're not supposed to write- I
Ryan: can see how, yeah ...
Jess: a, a official letter with interesting flowery language.
Ryan: That's right, you're not, no. You're... That's a very- Sure, sure, sure ... very good point. Well, let's talk about if it destinied or not.
On a scale of zero to nine horses, did this story destiny, Damien?
Damien: I would say [00:55:00] 36 legs of horses. So yeah- Yeah ... this is a full nine horse destinying because- ... it... I mean, it was the entirety of the construct was them talking about this alt universe in an epistolary format, which made it very factual and formulaic, but also demonstrated exactly how-
Ryan: Mm-hmm
Damien: branched off it was from a, from a similar parallel universe or reality. And kudos to- So I give it nine horses ...
Ryan: some quick math there. Yeah.
Damien: What about you, Jess?
Jess: Yeah. I guess we'll go, we'll go seven horses. W- out of nine? Yeah, I think- Out of nine ... I think seven horses because there is... It fits, it fits the brief.
It's the title of the book is what this story is. Right. Oh, wow, is it an alternative history and a parallel realm? We got both of them. But you're... It's also just like-
Ryan: But there's not a lot of destiny in it. There's alternative- Yeah ... real- alternative universes- So- ... and parallel realms, check, check, but not a lot of destiny.
Well,
Jess: I mean, I guess
Damien: there's a [00:56:00] road- But I think the des- uh, the destiny wasn't, the destiny wasn't the central characters. The destiny was the pivotal historical figures who faced vastly different destinies and vastly different paths.
Ryan: I
Damien: guess that's true. Because this person is a bit of
Jess: an unknown. Well, this is also based on a real guy that disappeared
Ryan: Yeah, we didn't even mention that.
Jess: Yeah. Yeah. Which I feel like
Ryan: is- 'Cause the story is based on a-
Jess: It's that...
Ryan: It's probably worth mentioning.
Jess: Yeah. Like,
Ryan: just think about that. Ben- Benjamin Bathurst was a real person who disappeared, and this is, this is the author's, like, attempt to explain why he disappeared.
Jess: Yeah. Like, he probably just was, like, robbed and murdered, I think is the assumption.
Right. I heard he was shot by a bunch of Russians. Sorry. Sorry, Ben. But yeah, so this story is made up as, like, oh, what could have happened? Okay. And so, I mean, I think that that's a little weird, 'cause I don't think he was, like, a famous figure. It would be like, well, what if someone wrote about how your grandpa died?
And actually he disappeared into a parallel realm.
Damien: So you gave seven horses, though, so it's kind of mostly destinied.
Jess: Well, I guess- I, I
Ryan: gave it six. [00:57:00]
Jess: I'd say yeah, it... alternative histories and parallel realms more than destinies.
Ryan: Yeah. Fair. That's why I gave it six.
Damien: Okay.
Ryan: That's gonna take us to our whiskey ratings.
That's how we rate our stories here on Whiskey and the Weird.
Jess: You know
Ryan: what we sure do. Not by horses, but by fingers of whiskey, from zero fingers to the coveted full fist of whiskey. Jessica, what are you giving He Walked Around the Horses?
Jess: I've written down every number for this story and crossed it out, because I-
Ryan: Every number?
That's a lot of numbers.
Jess: Every number. Yeah, we're up to infinity. She
Ryan: likes to, to, to, to cover her alternative bases.
Jess: Yeah. S- and now every, every number I wrote down has split off into an alternate universe. I'm gonna go with like a 2.5, I think. Ooh. I liked the writing. I liked the concept of the story. I, I mean, for not really caring about history, I liked the alternatives of the history.
[00:58:00] Mm-hmm. But I also, just didn't really care about what happened to our friend Benjamin.
Ryan: 2... All right. Damien? Five. Five?
Damien: Whoa. I'm giving this a five fingers, yeah. I'm giving this a full fist of whiskey, and it's because one- Wow ... it was refreshing. Two, it used epistolary in a novel format. Three, the central character wasn't the central character, and to me the enjoyment was hearing about, like, this alternate universe being painted.
Four, the dryness in the way that a lot of the stories were delivered, I just thought, again, Kafkaesque. It was just really mundane and weird and fun, because otherwise it would be highly dramatized and stylized and there'd be a lot of flourish in the way that this was delivered, and it wasn't. It, it was like an episode of The Office.
It was just very dry and straightforward, but somewhat relatable, and it had a twist that was projected and delivered early on, but just, like, really super... I don't know. Like, it was just odd. The [00:59:00] oddity of it really stood out to me, more so than a lot of the stories in this collection and other collections.
So because of that, I, I give it a full fist. Full fist of whiskey. Five from Damien. I, I'm
Ryan: shocked. Damien, you do not hand out five fingers of whiskey- I do not ... very often. I can't remember the last time I did. I can't remember the last time. No, I can't. Yeah. And I certainly didn't see it coming for this story.
I sided with Jess. I wrote down two and a half fingers. Look, though, I, I- Just 'cause you're
Damien: a weird freak like me
Ryan: With, with Damien though, I thought this story started off awesome, and I was excited in the first five to 10 pages of the story. I thought it was such an excellent start, and then for me, he didn't really do much with the idea that he started with.
It was just this repetition of shock value discoveries of alt facts, and I got a little bored with it, I will admit. What I would've liked better is if he had hewed closer somehow to the emotional impact of these events on the character. So, [01:00:00] perhaps in mixing in, maybe not even eliminating the kind of diplomatic and officious letter writing, but mixing in perhaps pages of his journal while he's in prison or something- Okay.
Sure, right ... where we could have gotten some of the emotional impact on Bathurst of what he's experiencing. I would've, I would've liked that. But a- as it
Damien: stands- But that, that's so, that s- that seems so, like, non-thematic with the rest of the story, though. So to me, that would've been a divergence, and I like the fact that that was left unexplained, just like, you know- Yeah.
No, I, I- ... how did Bathurst feel? How, how, why did he- I get that and respect it ... why did he trans- w- like, why did he transsubstantiate into another realm? Like, it was never explained. Right. And why was it as weird as just walking around as horses? It was just, I love that stuff.
Ryan: No, I, I, I definitely, I definitely respect your rating.
Damien: Okay.
Ryan: I just, I got a little bored of the, like- That's fine ... "Oh, and George Washington this-" I think this is a first ... "and Thomas Jefferson that." Yeah.
Damien: I think I'm a little more critical than
Ryan: average. This is a very strange
Damien: rating system here.
Ryan: Yeah.
Damien: So
Ryan: this
Damien: is a very, this is a very odd amount. Wait until it's nine fingers- Wait a minute
or- Are we- ... 10 [01:01:00] fingers ...
Ryan: in an alt universe here? What's going on?
Damien: Um, no, no. God, I just went out and walked around my horses. My God. Oh, my
Ryan: God. Well, if you liked this story, as Damien clearly did, then we've got another recommendation for you that I think you're gonna like just as well. Uh, Jessica's here.
Tell us about that. Guarantee I'm gonna like
Damien: this.
Jess: Okay. If you need another-
Another great sci-fi story where something happens to our main character and he realizes that maybe the reality he finds himself in- If you need
Ryan: another great story where something happens...
Jess: And he finds himself in a reality that doesn't match up with his h- his memory of what happened in his previous reality, perhaps you should check out the 1990 Paul Verhoeven film Total Recall.
Uh, I think it, I think it fits. It's, I understand- It always fits ... it's a [01:02:00] bit of a stretch, but we've got an alternate history. It's not quite a parallel realm, but kind of, kind of it is. We've got some, like, political implications and alternative history facts there, plus it's, it's just a very stupid, very fun movie.
And everyone should just take this as an excuse to go watch Total Recall.
Damien: Just do it. And watch that and, you know, be mindful of the fact that it was based on We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick, you know. So 1960 sci-fi, but that it was so vastly 1990s rad that you need to watch the movie- Mm-hmm
and not even read the story.
Jess: Yep. Agreed.
Damien: And it's
Ryan: got Arnold in it.
Well, that's gonna do it for us here on this episode of Whiskey and the Weird. We are so glad you joined us. And if you're glad that you joined us too, please drop us a rating or a review- ... wherever you find your podcasts. We always want to thank Dr. Blake Brandes for providing the music here at Whiskey [01:03:00] and the Weird.
And Damien, if they'd like to tell us about their horses, where can they do that?
Damien: Wild horses couldn't drag me away, but they can follow us on the Instagram- ... On Those Vena Properties.
Jess: Ha. @
Damien: whiskeyandtheweird, @whiskeyandtheweird On Those Vena Properties. We spell our whiskeys with an E, and we hope you do, too.
If not, maybe I'll give you five fingers of whiskey just out of spite. Spite five?
Jess: That'll show them.
Damien: I got nothing. I got nothing. Or
Ryan: shoot you in the back as you walk away and then defend it very nonchalantly.
Damien: With one ounce of ball, as it was described. One ounce of ball. That's, that's a one ounce-
Ryan: Is that a heavy musket shot or a light musket shot?
Damien: I don't- I mean, I would have to think that one ounce of anything traveling at that speed is pretty murderous, so.
Ryan: Well, yeah, clearly.
Damien: You're safe. You're safe. But just follow us, Whis- @ whiskeyandtheweird.
Ryan: Jess, what are we reading next?
Jess: Why don't we go with a Joyce Carol Oates story for some reason? No. It is called The Rose Wall.
Ryan: So if you want to get ahead, read The Rose Wall [01:04:00] by Joyce Carol Oates. In the meantime, I'm Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm Jessica Berg.
Damien: And I'm Damien Smith.
Ryan: And together we're Whiskey and the Weird. Somebody send us home.
Jess: As always, keep your friends through the ages and your creeps in the pages.
Ryan: Bye-bye, everybody.