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Seth Hi there and welcome back to Hugos There 2.0 and this time I'm introducing a new kind of Zoomed Out episode that I'm calling Subgenre Spotlight and since COVID-19 isn't very far in the review mirror if at all, um I thought maybe we could start with Pandemic Fiction and right here I do want to issue a trigger warning for anybody who has lost loved ones or or experienced trauma through the pandemic. Maybe this isn't the type type of thing you want to listen to right now. Just I don't think we're going to be too morbid in this episode but you know you never know, and so yeah, just wanted to put that out there. We'll we'll try to be careful during the discussion to to not cause any further pain that said I am delighted to be joined by Bob Morrell for this discussion sorry for this discussion. Hi there, Bob! Bob Hey how you doing thanks for having me on. Seth Yeah, yeah, it's ah it's good to have you and we've been corresponding over email for I don't know a few months I think since I started planning these kind of things. So ah, how about a little bit of your bio and background. Bob Yep, yeah all right well yeah I also want say I really enjoyed this podcast I think your Hugo nomination is is well deserved. Seth Oh thank you. Bob But I guess I could start by giving away a little bit about my age I'm a child of the Sputnik panic that was back when the Russ- when the Soviets were not the Russians were ahead of us and everybody thought we had fallen behind on science and so they just started pushing it, everything they could in the schools and I just ate it up. I Love Science I Still follow science the way a lot of people follow sports and that led me into science fiction which is a good way to get advanced science that they won't give you an elementary school, but I really got interested in science fiction for science fiction's sake when I read ah 2001: A Space Odyssey which I actually read while Apollo 11 was heading to the moon. So yeah, um, sort of the end of of space travel science fiction actually um for a little while um, but from there I went into got more interested in the literary you know Zelazny and Le Guin, and um, right out of college I started writing science fiction. Um I managed to publish two novellas and two short stories and then one of the ah publishers started a literary agency and asked me asked to be my agent so I quickly and very poorly wrote a novel which unfortunately for me was predicated on the Soviet Union being the dominant world power which is a very very bad premise to have in the late 80s Seth Yes, the real world kind of intervened to to make that not work. Well I just pushed it into alternate history really. Bob Yeah, well you know in fact, that's sort of what we're gonna be talking about today because COVID is sort of messing with other people's history that they put into their Pandemic Fiction. But so yeah, my daytime job that while I was trying to write was in a clinical microbiology lab in a large medical center and so I think listeners need to be warned right? off the bat I am not an MD or a PhD, my microbiology experience is in the trenches the very dirty smelly trenches. Bob I started though in the late 70s which put me right in time for the AIDS pandemic and that just totally changed microbiology. How how we did it and what it was. Bob Then after the Soviet Union fell and my agent returned my novel. Seth Meaning he dropped it. Bob Yes he dropped it and I I went back to grad school and but science fiction had to help me one way I had gotten one of the very first IBM PCs to do word processing and DOS 1.0 and so um, that that is what passed for computer experience back then and and that started leading me into computerized microbiology a little bit. Infection control computing and clinical research informatics which is just a fancy way of saying I was a computer nerd. Um, so in a way I sort of owe my career to science fiction and in 1998 the cancer center recruited me to run their research databases. So ah so another warning to listeners my my microbiology knowledge is also outdated so but you know with those warnings though a couple years after that I I rediscovered audio books. Which got me back into science fiction and reading in general and as I neared retirement I began writing again and I've written 2 novels one of which I think is good enough to publish but you know my agent's long dead. So I'll have to endure the slush files for a while I guess. Bob So right now my focus is on humorous Science fiction I Just think laughter is the highest form of of literature. Maybe that's just because I find the rest of the world so depressing I don't know. Um, yeah, so being retired though I'll say in reference to COVID. It was not very challenging for me unless you count being part of the target demographic that could get killed. Bob But really I'm the husband of a retired Librarian So we just enjoy nothing more than staying at home with the cats and reading books. So you know the Pandemic was right up my alley. Um, it also got me back into reading microbiology. Seth And through your career you are used to wearing masks and taking precautions. Bob Oh yeah, yeah, boy nobody knew how to wear a mask better than me and nobody knew how to wash their hands better than me. But yeah, but even with all the reading and stuff I Still underestimate the virus mainly because SARS had been so self-limiting in 2002 that was SARS-1 and so there's another lesson for you even with professional experience and full access to a medical school library. You can still go down the wrong path. It did actually my hospital contacts did get me into the Moderna COVID vaccine trial. Seth Oh so you got vaccines earlier than other folks. Yeah. Bob Yeah I originally got the placebo but eventually they figured out it worked and they called me in early and gave me the real thing so that was that was kind of interesting to watch because I'd been working in clinical trials before in the cancer center and to see it operate at just a hyper velocity that they operate in was just very fascinating. Bob Um in terms of what you like to know I have read 43 Hugo winners. Seth Nice. Bob Well I may be more but when you've been reading it for 60 years you sort of forget some of my well I was trying to look at some of the summaries I go god that really sounds familiar. But I'm just not sure if I've read that. My favorite books are Lord of Light, the Left Hand Of Darkness, Year Zero, Doorways in the Sand, Good Omens and practically anything by Terry Pratchett. Like I said I'm I'm into humor. Seth Nice right now you had mentioned earlier that you spent your time in the trenches and ah in our talking as we've been planning. Ah you you mentioned a couple stories. Seth I I do think it's worth mentioning right? How scary AIDS was um because because here here it comes along and everybody who gets it dies and we don't know what it is right? Bob Oh yeah. It was very scary. Um, but I'll tell you a story. It is part AIDS and part tells you about being in the trenches so near the end of my time in microbiology. I was working mostly on computers. But I still had this job of evaluating new tests for the lab to use and when I say tests I'm not talking about drop drop and wait for two lines to appear I'm talking about with test tubes and pipettes and machines and all that stuff. Bob And one of the things that we were working on was AIDS patients would get this horrible intestinal illness. I can't remember it was Cryptosporidium or Mycobacterium. But some ah company came in with a PCR test. One of the early PCR tests. And and they said okay Bob you know let's let's figure out if this thing works well that meant that I had to collect a bunch of AIDS diarrhea bloody AIDS diarrhea so I get these little tubs and I'd stick them in a freezer and when I got in the freezer full I was going to test it. Bob And I just was not looking forward to that as you might imagine if finally one day my boss came in and said I think you need to pull out all that poop I don't think he actually said that um and and thought out and and do and test them all. I said yeah I guess it is time. Bob And right about then I got a phone call from the cancer center and I said um if we'd like you to come work and and manage our clinical trials databases and stuff like that and I said so that would be an office job and be all computers and they said oh yeah, yeah, you wouldn't be working on a lab. I looked over at that freezer full of poop and I went. Yeah yeah, I'll take that job. So yeah, that's that's trenches and you know So yeah, That's what it was. Seth Yeah, yeah, yeah, um, so I mean kind of moving into that. That's sort of suffices to the intro to Bob but now kind of moving into the actual kind of subgenre discussion. One of the things that surprised me as we were emailing back and forth is that Pandemic Fiction is basically as old as science fiction. Bob Oh yeah, I mean so that that actually surprised me too when I was looking at it. Ah Mary Shelley the author of Frankenstein and everybody sort of calls her the mother of science fiction. She wrote a pandemic novel called The Last Man just eight years after she wrote Frankenstein and apparently she was late to the party. Ah between the time she wrote Frankenstein and the time she wrote The Last Man other people had had pretty much saturated the field with that kind of work and I often wonder if maybe The Year Without a Summer. Ah which was 1816, I think that generated Frankenstein. Um I maybe that triggered other people into writing about you know disaster fiction of that kind. Seth Yeah, so getting into more specifics about the subgenre of Pandemic Fiction. Um are there different kinds of Pandemic Fiction or and maybe like if you have examples of of any of those. Bob Oh yeah, so yeah, that's I'm sure there are bunches of different ways you could break them down but I'm just going to pick based on how the pandemic is used in the story and so like the the first type being a computer nerd I'll call it Type 0. Bob Ah, in those in those kind of stories the pandemic never happens the suspense comes from the hero trying to prevent the disease from ah from being either being released or or spreading you know you might wipe out a town or two, just to demonstrate the power of the thing but the rest of the world escapes. Um, you know examples of that might be like The Andromeda Strain and a very scientifically hard to swallow Outbreak movie. Seth Right. Bob Yeah, now there's one but one movie I've got to mention probably nobody knows about it. It's a 60s movie called The Satan Bug and it is if you watch it now, it is campy and dated and it's horrible. But I saw it when as a teenager and this movie gave me nightmares. Back then I don't know why cause it's really ironic because ten years later I was working in a clinical microbiology lab with the pathogens. Seth Yeah I mean the andromeda strain right? that that definitely has that where like a town gets gets wiped out and then the the hero scientists come in and well actually it's not even really through their work that the the thing goes away. It just kind of goes up into the atmosphere. Bob Yeah, just it mutates into a less pathogengenic form which I want to blame Andromeda Strain for creating that kind of myth because you know bugs don't mutate. They don't care about us at all. They just care about whether they can they can replicate and typically when a ah virus seems to becoming less pathogenic what it is is that we've all been exposed to it or been vaccinated and it gets and of course we don't react to it as strongly. Bob So yeah there there is that but but once you get ah past you know these pandemics that never happen. There's I think what you want to call the prime or Type 1 type of pandemic fiction which is one that centered entirely on the pandemic itself. And and these are actually rare in science fiction. We'll get to the other type in second. But I think the Doomsday Book by Connie Willis that's a perfect sample. You get two pandemics for the price of one in that book. And then there's Contagion which is probably the movie that got cited most often and and I thought that was the most scientifically accurate I mean it tied everything up in a ribbon and that's way Hollywood is I guess. Bob But more recently we've had How High We Go in the Dark, which I think most of that was written before the pandemic was edited during the pandemic. Seth Yeah, and that's Sequoia Nagamatsu, and that's what I really enjoyed. Bob I I had some problems. Ah we can get into that later. But ah, you know another example there was some post pandemic in that one. Also there was a post pandemic in World War Z zombie novel you know and all zombie novels are basically just epidemiology with monsters. You know, basically so yeah, so. Seth Right. Well in World War Z succeeded you know, it was a follow on book from the zombie survival guide by Max Brooks ah where in that one he goes into talking about like the virology of it. The solanum virus I think he calls it and you know why it drives the host to bite to pass on the virus and that kind of stuff. Bob Yeah, I mean I I know I like that book it was. It was fun to read. Um, but again all that too had some post pandemic scenes. But then once you get past that you get to the what is the most common Pandemic novel, we'll call it Type 2 but it's just really what it is is the pandemic is just a method for getting to a post-apocalyptic aftermath. You know? yeah you you kill off everybody usually in the first few chapters or even sometimes even the first few pages. And and then everybody marches forward into ah a really grim um, depopulated simplified world. Yeah so a good example of that would be Station Eleven by Mandel. Bob An older example of that which is kind of interesting is the Earth Abides that was written in 1948 and if you were on Audible early on before they tanked up their science fiction collection that would they push that one religiously and I that's how I heard it. Seth Yeah I just I just listened to that one last week. Bob Um, yeah, yeah, it's a little dated but um, but what what that was really about was the you know they all everybody in 1948 was terrified of a nuclear holocaust. So this was a way of having a holocaust but all the buildings were still standing and and so yeah and and that sort of created the meme of a post-apocalyptic post pandemicic novel. That's basically just a large scavenger hunt as you know trying to find toilet paper and and antibiotics. Um, you know you don't have the like radiation problems et cetera. Um. Seth Right in that one I mean like the light stayed on for quite a while the the the water faucets worked for a long time until the reservoir leaked and and drained. Bob Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah that I think COVID kind of nixed that concept because we saw things break down pretty quick. Um, and that also you know there's prepper fiction. An example that would be Odd Billy Todd. And they basically use pandemic and and but about any kind of disaster to to basically highlight how the preppers will survive and they they seldom go too far because too many generations out you know, suddenly, if you don't have miners to mine iron. You don't get any more guns etc So forth or solar panels. Um sort of ah an example, we'll have to talk about this sort of a break from all that is Scalzi's Lock In which is an exception to the kill almost everybody rule and and I think if you look at that one. It might point the way forward for future Pandemic Novels Those are those I think we've covered almost all of the books that were covered. Seth Yeah. Bob Although yeah, the Nonfiction Phoenix Economy which I made you read and. Seth Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that was that was interesting too because I think lock-in has has something in common with the Phoenix Economy where the Phoenix Economy you told me just at least listen to the read the first chapter or the the an introduction to it and he talked about in that book. Um, and this is Felix Salmon I think. Bob Yes Seth It's about the fact that you know we had the luxury of COVID happening in the era of high bandwidth internet and you know Zoom and things like that that so people could actually not everyone obviously could. Shift to working from home where if it had happened in you know, 1995 that's not going to work with dial-up internet and that kind of stuff and so and so there were there was ah a fortunate kind of coincidence of the the rise of the high bandwidth and internet telephony and and all that kind of stuff. That was really helpful and in Lock In I think there's technology the lets the people who are locked-in still have a life. Bob Right. And which I think was was what I was going to mention about that one is that's kind of parallels Zoom and other virtual technologies. It's kind of pushes that out there and 1 of the other things in in in the Phoenix Economy. He references a pandemic joke which only Douglas Adams he's referencing Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy, only Douglas Adams get away with pandemic joke. But you know, but but we'll talk about that I guess when we get into some of the other details. Seth Yeah, okay so we've we covered Type 0 Type 1 Type 2 and then within a pandemic novel. What what does the structure typically look like what are the elements? Bob Yeah, so I was trying to tease this out and I was reviewing summaries of books that I'd read a long time ago. One of which was World War Z which we've already talked about um and. I ran across the chapter headers for that book and so I'm gonna read them. They are Warnings, Blame, The Great Panic, Turning the Tide, Home Front USA, Around the World And Above, Total War and Goodbyes. Seth Nice, definitely the first few of those at least are quite recognizable from COVID um, and you have some of that in Doomsday Book as well with with especially the blame part. Um, that was interesting in Doomsday Book that and you know they called it like the Indian Flu or something and they're they're like hey let's blame this disease on brown people. Um. Bob Yeah. Seth Whereas whereas you know you had Trump constantly calling COVID the China Virus. I'm like, I mean that sounds pretty racist to me. Um. Bob Yeah, well yeah, they we always get the origin wrong I mean the 1918 flu was called the the Spanish Flu but ah, the only reason it was called that was because they were the only ones who weren't censoring the news. Seth Spanish flu. Yeah. Bob So everybody else was in the middle of World War I and Spain was neutral so they they started talking about hey man where a lot of people are dropping dead and so they called it the Spanish Flu even though everybody knew it was happening everywhere else too. So um, so that ah I think if you take those chapter headers. You can basically simplify it even further just to 3 parts and I'd say the first part which is actually my favorite part of any pandemic novel and actually my favorite part of a lot of science fiction is the the first discovery. And the growing awareness. There's looming danger and denial and secret knowledge and and ah people starting to panic um in a way. It's like I said it's very much like other science fiction where something really big and unprecedented happens and you know, an example would be a first contact novel a first contact novel and a pandemic novel. Basically one has an epidemiologist with a microscope and the other has an astronomer with a telescope. Both of them are seeing something they have never seen before and they're starting you know, starting to panic about it. Bob So I went back trying to find an example of this in COVID and I hit a good one. This is from a podcast called This Week in Virology and it's an old podcast and it it before COVID it was just an obscure academic podcast where virologists reviewed papers and kind of let their hair down and it it had a very relaxed atmosphere and probably very small. Seth Yeah, you had compared it to car talk for virologists. Bob Yeah, it's like car talk for virologists it and and they laugh a lot. Well yeah, after COVID it became very popular. A lot of people started listening to it but I went and I looked and I found where they first discussed COVID. They didn't call it COVID because didn't have a name yet Seth Yeah, yeah, you sent me that episode. Bob Yes, episode 582 and it was in early January 2020 and and they they had all sorts of things you could when you listen to it. It's just I don't know I listen to it and I got goose bumps. But yes, that's just that's just and a retired microbiologist. But you know there was a talk about the virology work in Hunan. There was discussion to the seafood market and and it was a lot of uncertainty over how contagious the disease was and how much it was spreading I mean listening to it you you get this kind of ominous foreshadowing since you know what's actually happened. Um, I mean the the it wasn't even mentioned till 14 minutes into the podcast and that that gave it kind of that ah important story hidden in the mundane I mean in in back in the days before podcast. It would be. You know you open the newspaper and they're on page 14, you know you'd see you'd see this little blur about oh some people are getting sick in China you know and and and that's very close to what you see in pandemic fiction because the first chapters are all that kind of secret knowledge going on. Bob But once that's over you move on to the the second part which is, uh, the Great Mortality and and I have to say in a lot of books this is skipped or or viewed retroactively so but most authors seem to like just just throw really big numbers that are impossible to comprehend. I think they use ah the old Stalin trick. You know that 1 death is a tragedy but millions are a statistic but there are some books and ah and and the one you liked. Ah How High We Go in the Dark and the Doomsday Book. They really force you to come to terms with individuals facing death and yeah and um, you know I have to say this was part of my experience with HIV because my but my work made it impossible not to see patient suffering. Bob And loss I even met families of survivors or families of victims. Um, yeah, whereas outside of medicine a lot of my friends who were also outside the main risk groups. They just willfully ignore the disease. Seth Yeah, well I mean when when you think back to AIDS and it it kind of starting in a marginalized group right? Politically nobody was going to make a big deal about this at least on the political right? Nobody was going to be like this is an emergency. They're like oh well, it's affecting gay men. You know, screw those guys. Bob Although I do remember I do remember literally the moral majority had a had a um, a tele magazine ad with a bunch of a heterosexual family all wearing masks which was masks were completely unnecessary for for aids but you know I saw that and I and I look think back on that now I think about they were like masks for the ones where it it. It didn't help and and think they don't like masks otherwise so but yeah, so. So once you get past the great mortality then the third part for the novels that have that part is for the majority of pandemic novels I would think is is really the goal which is to get back to that simplified society. We talked about um, ah. Everything stripped away sometimes some pandemics will do ah novels we do a kind of twist and one of them that that you mentioned and and I think I've seen it in other ones is radical gender ratios where one gender or the other is wiped out and you you mentioned yeah. Seth Um, yeah, like like Y: The Last Man Bob Where Y is not WHY it's Y chromosome. Seth Yeah yeah. I think his name is I can't remember what his name is now I I lost it I had it I Just I all I want to say is Yogesh, but that's somebody I work with um I I can't remember what his name was but his name begins with a why. But yeah in in that one. It's anything with a y chromosome is affected by this virus and wiped out and so it threatens the the end of humanity. Bob Yeah, it was an interesting thing in the summer you sent me about that so in that novel or it's a ah graphic novel. Yeah, everybody dies on the same day which is there's a and I think it's Stephen King maybe The Stand I'm not sure where the same thing happens where but unlike the Y: The Last Man, Stephen King came up with a scientific explanation for this which was very creative I thought I give him points for at least trying to come up with an explanation for something because it wasn't this long spreading event terror. It's just like boom it's over but that Seth Yeah I mean you could see how like some kind of engineered um bio Weapon could do something like that. Bob Yeah I think that's what Stephen King did he had it had a virus already out there and then some. Seth Yeah, there's a catalyst for it. Yeah. Bob Yeah, a catalyst was from radiation from space or something catalyzed it and everybody got it at once? Seth yeah yeah I do want to mention um I'll put a link in the show notes to the This Week In Virology you you sent me a couple different episodes because one where like they they just kind of casually mention it and and then another one where they realize how bad it is um. Bob Yes, I mean you could you could hear him start to get really worried and and and and I think the thing that they there were several things that they had to confront one was the possibility that that it was that they were asymptomatic cases that was the thing that a lot of people missed and and and then they also were really upset when the testing totally failed and everybody was looking only at certain things instead of a broader picture. So it just was able to sneak in. But yeah, they those were several good episodes to listen to Seth Yeah, yeah, so looking back at the at the kind of 3 steps right? like you mentioned earlier a lot of this is common for any kind of apocalyptic post-apocalytic post-apocalyptic novel I can say that word. Um, where it's it's just different causes right? Biological in some places and nuclear and others or aliens or all kinds of things. Bob And yeah, um, but you know I'll tell you the truth I do have a natural preference to a pandemic. So I I prefer them as an act of nature instead of some genetic engineering or or aliens. Um, you know natural pandemic stories are are like a callback to the old man versus nature theme and and you know viruses Bacteria and fungi. They're the dominant life on the planet by any means that you measure it. Seth yeah, yeah. Bob And so I think sometimes we need to be reminded of that and and that's why I I prefer I Sadly I think this goes against the grain of our Anthropocene Zeitgeist. But yeah and I'm sure a lot of conspiratorialists are real upset. But my opinion human villains are are petty by comparison to what nature can do? Seth Yeah, yeah, so you're not a fan of the the Lab Leak Hypothesis I was actually reading um an article from Quillette this morning on on. Basically the demise of the Lab Leak Hypothesis and yet why it still endures. Bob Yeah, yeah, well you know I can tell you about Lab Leaks Lab accidents any rate. Seth Okay Bob Yeah yeah, so yeah I had quite a few but ah, the main reason why I think that theory will endure is that nobody who ever worked in microbiology or virology is ever going to say oh that can't happen because if you've worked in a a period time period. So when I I had a lab partner that got tuberculosis and was working with a negative pressure hood and all that stuff still managed to get it. Seth And negative pressure hood is so you can't have anything exploding outwards. Bob Yeah it is vacuums in but they had not done the maintenance on the thing properly and after when I started working with Tb we not only had the negative pressure hood. We had the gown the gloves face face mask. Everything because we we take it very Tb is still the number 1 infectious disease killer out there so you take it seriously but then another one of my lab partners managed to get probably 1 of the worst cases of Salmonella and I myself had a rather nasty little accident right? when I first started working there. Bob I Managed to flick a very large liquid globule of pure gonorrhea across my face and eyes and yeah and let me tell you industrial grade disinfectants when you squirt it directly in your eye that really stings but it felt good at the time. Seth Wow. Bob I'm pretty sure I ended up sleeping on the couch for a little while after that I'm like Seth Yeah I was gonna say yeah, you're telling. Yeah no honestly honey I got it it work. Bob It's yeah, that's right, that's right as that's gonna be really hard to explain. But I I've made I mean I had a vial of bloody HIV pleural fluid shatter in my bare hand. Seth Oof Bob Came out of a refrigerator and and it probably was safe but you know but let me tell you I got that glass off my hand very very carefully because it but you know so yeah Lab accidents do happen. It's just that the evidence on this one just seemed to all point to the market and the reason China is squirming both ways they don't want to admit to a lab accident but they also don't want to admit to the fact that they had that that wild meat market. They promised to stop those after the first SARS epidemic and they're embarrassed because they still had them and they found deep RNA from the COVID virus mixed in with raccoon dogs in the in the Market. So It's There's samples that were collected before. So yeah, it's the the theory will never go away and that's sort of a problem with pandemic fiction too because fiction. Fiction that you want to tie up all the loose ends and if you watch um ah contagion the very end of that Movie. You see the bat coming into the the Pig Sty and then you see the pig being slaughtered by the cook and you see the cook go out and put his contaminated hands on Patient Zero. So You get a perfect picture. Well you know that just doesn't happen but in real life by the time that it the the pandemic's going on the the evidence is all faded. We're still arguing about you know, a lot of great pandemics where do they started Even what diseases they were so and that one's in History. So yeah, well, that'll never go away but you know like I said nature has more than enough at it is this the simplest solution to about anything. Seth Yeah, yeah, um, you know I think the fact is we're talking about pandemic fiction in the era of COVID right? So how do you think the COVID-19 pandemic that we've all lived through. How is that going to affect science fiction centered on pandemics going forward. Is it going to be. You know is subgenre gone or is it going to be just become better informed. Um like lots of um, lots of science fiction set on other planets was informed by space exploration. Bob And and made and made obsolete as well. So yeah. Seth Yeah, exactly like like the the planetary romances that had thriving civilizations on Venus and Mars and and other planets right? Well we know that's not true anymore and even though it's it's too bad. You know, um I I actually I I love that kind of fiction even though it's inaccurate. Bob Yeah, well you know I was reading Science fiction in the sixty s when we had you know really thrillers about spaceships sinking into seas of dust in on the moon and so yeah, so yeah, it is like space travel. It's going to have to be better informed. Um, you know there are a lot of terms now. Ah that that the public knows they know what an R value is they know what super spreaders and fomites and aerosols. So they're gonna have. Seth And PCR tests. Bob Yeah, and PCR tests. There's a lot. They know what a phase 3 trial is you know? So yeah in the past pandemic fiction was the it was kind of the fiction of the unimaginable a lot like a lot of other science fiction. But now it's not unimaginable. We've lived through it so you know it's going to have to be just a little bit ah more informed and and and you know I liked How High We Go in the Dark, which like I said was written before the pandemic and only edited during it but I had Seth And that let let me let me point out 1 thing about that book that it's essentially a COVID sort of thing but the mortality is more limited to the very young. Um so more more like the 1918 flu and and so it it almost forces the world into like a Children of Men. Bob Um, yes, right right, and it and it has yeah yeah I have to say I found reading it a lot of kind of magical realism more than science fiction. but but 1 of the things it had in there that was just so hard for me to get over was ah, the whole funeral based economy and the focus on on the dead. Um, because all through history and during COVID when when you have large numbers of deaths. The the bodies are treated horribly. They're dumped in mass graves even in New York City they were dumping them in mass graves. And they're treated as unclean. Um, so you know you remember you may have seen I don't know if you read obituaries or often but during COVID so many other obituaries for people that died of of COVID or didn't would say a memorial to be held at a later date. Bob And I have a friend in the funeral industry and he said that never happened I mean he hadn't seen a single one of those. It's just you know the the grief was too much people just couldn't come back to it and and they moved on and so in a way you know I understand why, is it Nagamatsu? I understand why she did it but it's sort of like my first novel back in the 80s you know you know with the Soviets it. It doesn't it makes it hard to swallow after you've been through it and you you know the way people really behave. Seth Yeah, yeah, and you know that novel kind of jumps over the um you know straight to the new normal or or or what The Phoenix Economy called the new not normal. Bob Yeah, yeah, yeah I Wonder if if he had a chapter about that and he just took it out because yeah, it could be. It could be. Seth Yeah, could be yeah and you know the the Euthanasia roller coasters. Yeah, and the Euthanasia theme parks. It's a very sad book. Bob Yeah, yeah, it is but as a study of grief I Don't think you find too many that are better than that I mean every every aspect of grief is done whereas you know your standard pandemic novel just says up and then everybody died and now you got this, you know, uh, a few people left moving on. Seth Yeah, yeah, you know one of the things with COVID is it's easy to imagine that it it could take away some of that that horror and shock that we talk about about the the dawning realization. Um, instead we're just going. Oh no, not this again. Bob Yeah, yeah, extra points if if you're thinking about a bowl of petunius right now. Yeah, the the Douglas Adams fans will know. Seth Um I bet Michael I I bet my friend Michael will get that one. Bob Another problem that might happen is that because so much about COVID has gotten polarized. Ah you know, certain subjects like vaccines lockdowns or even the CDC have have gotten a political spin on them. And so if you're writing. Ah if you're writing a story about it. Um, then you're you're going to suddenly find yourself alienating part of your audience and you don't know you got to choose which one you're going to alienate depending on how you write it. You know so. Bob So I Do I do think that people be able to write them. They're just not going to be as Simplistic. So One of the things about pandemics that I think everybody sees now is there The real pandemics have a lot of infectious and demographic irregularities and they cascade through society in ways that you know you just don't see coming Well you don't see it coming quite as as much you certainly don't see the the pandemic coming um COVID You know, mostly affected the elderly and and it created a kind of divide between the young and the old you know in how they viewed it the 1918 flu was the reverse but that was like I said it was ah in the middle of a war and news about it was censored so the HIV though that um that set gay rights back decades and it changed the way people have sex. You know you know so those are the kinds of things I think that authors probably will be looking at more they're looking at. Taking advantage of public awareness of this kind of thing rather than just killing everybody off. Seth Oh yeah, so then you know HIV was a big thing in the right in the 80s um, why didn't we see an effect of HIV on science fiction pandemics all that kind of stuff. Bob Yeah I you know you really would think it would have because HIV was really a science fiction disease you know it killed everybody that got it and and I think there's only 1 other infectious disease that I know of that does that and that's rabies and rabies, you know where that comes from. We went a long time without knowing what caused HIV um and and there were a bunch of different faces of this disease you know Pneumcystis Pneumonia and Toxoplasmosis Dementia and skin cancers, and and what's really weird is even when we came up with a treatment. It was like a fairy tale I mean you had people that were dying. There were skeletons barely able to move and you gave them this drug and they they popped right up it was like the ending of a book where the author's rushing in to to get everybody well so they can end it. Bob Um, but for all that um, it just didn't seem to change the way we looked at it. Um I think you could make the argument because of all the blood aspects of AIDS that vampire fiction became very popular I I think I've read other people trying to make that argument. It makes sense to me. But I think the real reason why HIV didn't change things as much was like the 1918 flu it was. It was dampened ah people did not want to admit that they had HIV It was a marginalized population that have it even some of the families of victims of HIV never would they would they would make up what they died of. Seth Yeah, like Asimov, right? Bob So you never knew it was kind of hidden. Yeah Asimov was a perfect example. He was very unfortunate in that he got a heart surgery in 1983 right at the period where we didn't know what caused it. We didn't have a test for it and he had a heart operation and got a blood transfusion and nine years later he died of of of I have AIDS and his family. He didn't let on that was what was causing it. He continued to blame it on his heart and 10 years after he died when when the family released his autobiography they finally admitted it. I didn't hear about it till 5 years after that and and it Seth Yeah I didn't. When we're talking about this on the you know on the email thread, that's what I learned about it. Bob Well yeah, I'm sure that a lot of people listening to this will. We'll go wait a minute wait a minute and I'll go run into Google to find that if it's true. But so yeah, basically because it had all that suppression I think it it kept news down but COVID is a little bit different COVID was in our faces. It was public. It was just no way we're gonna avoid it and I just I mean it doesn't have any shortage of controversies or or debates about it. But I think it's going to be very hard to dislodge from the public consciousness. Seth Yeah, so what would you say are the biggest differences between COVID you know something that we've recently gone through and pandemics typically presented in science fiction. Bob Yeah, the big one is the body count. You know most pandemics go for the really big body count. Um, but COVID was right at the lower limit of the the mortality rate that that causes people to get really upset. Um, and it it did show us though that even at that level people can panic and it showed us just how how well the world behaves during a global threat. Seth Yeah, not well. Bob Yeah, we are not well at all. Um, now we know you don't need a you know 90% of the killing off 90% of the population to make society collapse I mean I personally think that a really bad smallpox virus with maybe 10 to 20% mortality which is reasonable for smallpox, that would probably send us back to the eighteen hundreds or further I think really what COVID really showed which I'm sure will affect science fiction as well is that we live in a technological house of cards and it doesn't take much to bring it down. Seth Yeah, yeah, it's interesting because it it kind of sat in that that place where our level of technology allowed us to kind of keep going during COVID but just a little more mortality and some of the infrastructure starts to fail and it could get bad. Bob Yeah I mean if it had been a little less more ah fatal we probably would have ignored it if it had been just a little bit more fatal I think we really would have been in trouble you know or maybe we wouldn't have maybe it would have been so bad that people would have paid it a lot more attention and and shut down a little faster. Seth Um, yeah, yeah, so was was COVID different from previous pandemics and any other ways that will affect Science fiction in future. Bob Yeah I think the big one for me is someone who worked a long time ago in microbiology was the medical science and the technology they were just radically different from from what we had ah HIV was played out with very crude virology tools. There was no genetic testing. There were no and almost no antivirals and you know with this is a thing that a lot of people forget about from the time The first AIDS cases were reported in a cheery little periodical called Morbidity and Mortality, I actually read that, um and from that time to the time we actually knew what it was that it was a virus. It was spread in certain ways that was 3 years think about that for a minute. Seth Um, yeah. Bob It's been. It's a little over 3 years since COVID started so imagine going through all the we've gone through and just now we're finding out what it is. You know? oh it's this. It's a virus. Oh it's a virus and it's this kind of virus and that's the virus. Um, you know. Seth Right Bob That was what AIDS was like you know we were kind of doomed and we were kind of stupid doomed and ignorant that's and and um, you know I think the Doomsday Book the the medieval plague part really captured that well you know, just you know. Helplessness. Seth yeah, well they're looking at that This is a judgment from God right? And what else could it be? yeah. Bob Um, but it right right? Yes, and ah, you know with COVID We had the full genetic sequence in weeks and and you know I remember your Doomsday Book episode that you did a podcast and ah which I think I give you you very brave to do that in the middle of the pandemic. You know that that was that was quite something but you know you you and the your host your co-host ah you all doubted. You know y'all questioned how fast things moved in the modern Seth Yeah Rebecca I remember Rebecca saying something what like what is this? What is this utopian future. They're talking about here where they get this all wrapped up in weeks. Bob Yeah, well you know it was a little fast but it was 2054 but I'll tell you the truth from my out of date microbiology perspective it sounded just like COVID I mean it as in it moved lightning quick which is what COVID seemed like to me I mean you know? yeah we had the we had everything we had the the genetic sequence real quick. We had the we had a candidate vaccine within a month and it we spent the rest of our time testing it and we tested it in record time I mean the previous virus vaccine to ever get approved took 4 years this took like eleven months or something. Um, and so you know, um, you know. Bob You may have heard um, another influence of AIDS In Science Fiction you may I mentioned I heard when the Hugo, Girls were getting ready to do their podcast on that book I wrote in so can you correct 1 just one little um you know. Mistake and ah and I was talking about and I'll mention that later but but I did point out to them that that book was written during AIDS and so that that sense of doom. Um, you know that really was really in keeping with the time that it was written around AIDS, you know you had the um, the medical helplessness. You know that that we had even during Aids certainly during the 1918 flu I Think after COVID Pandemic fiction will probably rely less on um, technological limitations. And more on human foolishness which COVID spotlighted very very well. Seth Um, yeah, yeah, you know thinking of a movie like Don't Look Up. There's an obvious allegory in there for denial of climate change. But you can very easily see that with the response to COVID as well. The politization. Bob Yeah I don't think it would have I don't think it would have resonated or been as popular if it had been released before COVID you know people would have like you said they? Seth Yeah I I didn't think it was very good I thought it was super on the nose but but but it was interesting Bob It was very meant to be over the top and it definitely was. Seth Yeah, it succeeded. Seth Let's see so you know we talked about the Lab Leak theory and and saying basically if you're unless you're a conspiracy fair and theorist right? that COVID is very likely a natural disease. But. Um, what about pandemic stories that rely on unnatural origins? Bob Yeah, so um, like I said those are my favorite types. It is a good question about the natural I've already said that I prefer those um but a good number start with unnatural origins such as Andromeda Strain and others have fantasy elements where they get by. They don't have to worry about the science at all. But I do think that we probably will see more of those because in and less of where nature's a blame because you know people want somebody to blame you know and also authors may use genetic manipulation or aliens. To get around some of the scientific limitations that now people are aware of so you know so right right? So yeah, that that may be a dodge that that people use. Seth So we've talked a little about about things that pandemic fiction gets wrong. Let's talk about what they get right. Bob Yeah, so I think the the big thing they get right is the confusion and the panic I mean it's It's an obvious one but it it needs to be said once we recognize a new disease or what they called a novel virus and that's an important point because when you say novel that means we don't really know what it's going to do because we've never seen it before and there's this feeling of being behind the curve. Um and it makes for an exciting story. You know there's one trope that is both right and wrong that I feel like I oughta mention and that's um, in most and a lot of pandemic pandemic stories. There's always 1 guy. Usually it's a guy could be a woman as well. Who knows what's going on. He's right and everybody's wrong, and if only we'd listen to him, everything would have been so much better and he's usually fighting to save the world. Well the truth is in a real pandemic. There are a hundred such people men and women. But the problem is they're all saying different things. 1 says this one says that, and what happens is once the pandemic is finally solved people figure out what it is they forget about the other 99 and they remember that one person and go if only we listen to them. You know it's it's it's the person. It's the survivor bias personified. Seth Right. Bob It's same thing same thing happens after a stock market crash. There's always somebody makes their career by saying I predicted that was go happen. Seth Right? right? right? And then they never predict anything right? again? yeah. Bob Yeah, that's that's exactly right? it you know your your performance may vary know the future. Seth Exactly? That's why they always say that because because it's been you know studied pretty well that yeah these people who make 1 big right? prediction. It's it's not because they were just smarter if they got lucky on that one. Bob Yeah, yeah, and and you know you look at um Connie Willis's the modern pandemic that she had they had oh that was amazingly accurate I mean you had what. Seth Um I know from the 90s like like toilet paper shortages right. Bob Yeah, toilet paper shortages lockdowns first and secondary exposure searches xenophobia rapid gene sequencing I mean she Seth Masking? Bob yeah masking well yeah asking I probably I think most people could predict but I don't I don't know how many people would thought a toilet paper right? off the bat. But that's that's really good. Seth Well I mean I I I know that in different parts of the world right? people as a courtesy if they're sick will will often wear a mask right? But that's not something that I think is super common in the US and and so that I think that's why there was such a resistance. Bob And yes, well you there was there was attempts to get people to mask during the 1918 flu and there was opposition to it. There was a mask opposition society. You know people really you know it's just stuff they he she did miss some things I mean she obviously didn't have texting and Zoom and but you know she would, her, and I have to be if I want to be pedantic, I had to be say her modern disease was an epidemic not a pandemic. Apparently yeah, but and it was in Oxford it wasn't in Red State America so you know probably some of the things didn't have it. There was one scientific flub in there and I and that was the one that I wrote to Hugo Girls about which is it was obviously done for artistic reasons was that that the modern epidemic was' gotten was was came from graves of the medieval times that that ain't going to happen I mean the viruses decay break down very quickly unless you're in like maybe permafrost. But if if that wasn't happening then archeologists would be dropping dead like flies. So yeah, so but get it. But you know that was a minor point but it it ah sort of points to get back to what we're talking about the debate over origins of a pandemic are endless because you know, people mess with it. So. Seth Yeah I mean it was the origin of it was in Oxford but they were still calling it the Indian Flu. Bob Um, yeah, yes, that's Seth Okay, so you know you worked in infectious disease. So what are some pet peeves? What bugs you the most the the inaccuracies in a pandemic story that bug you the most? Bob Ah, well yeah, the biggest one beyond the pale is the bugs are always too deadly too fast and and too contagious all at the same time you know you can have 1 but you can't have all 3 you know, just that doesn't happen and you know for instance, you know, respiratory aerosols which is the way a lot of them are spread they contain a very small number of viruses so you get some of those small number of viruses in. It takes a while for that to replicate in your body to the point where you actually get sick. That's what an incubation period is and um, you know, even if you have direct contact bugs like Ebola and AIDS, you know that still those incubation periods are long so you just can't get them all at once I mean if you look at if you watch um Outbreak that movie with horrible science. Um it it that virus acts like nerve gas more than it does anything else. Yeah and and you know. Bob This is true and and I'm embarrassed to say this but in 2014 I if you remember the Ebola scare. So so we had Ebola an Ebola outbreak in Africa and a nurse or two came back infected to the United States and people just lost their minds and I was I was trying to calm some people down because I knew enough about Ebola to know that it was not going to spread. In Africa a lot of people take care of their own dead and that was how they were getting it and it just wasn't kind of spread that way. So I made this bet with somebody trying to convince them I said I'll give you a dollar for every case over 100 that in the United States and you'll give me a dollar for every case under a hundred, and this guy was oh no, you shouldn't do that. That's an unlimited bet I said I feel safe and. Bob And I won $89 on that but he never paid up which it's probably good Seth It's kind of a morbid bet. Yeah. Bob Yeah way it was a morbid bet and it'd be embarrassed to have made money off that. Seth Yeah I mean that's something about the you know pandemic fiction kind of ah, amps us up to to think about the worst case right? with something like Ebola. Bob Yeah, yeah, yeah, they they you know it's It's a novel you're gonna make the the worst you can get Station Eleven is a good example of this the author admitted that the pandemic was just a method to get to post-technological society and it so it was so she made that bug just move like lightning through town. You know people were trying to outrun it and it it was that fast. Um and the movie I already said movie Outbreak was even worse but it did have a line I think it was Dustin Hoffman who said um fear gets a bad you know fear gets a bad rap because you know that's basically what limits really highly contagious. Highly deadly bugs is people get afraid and they isolate and um you know the the problem that we learned from COVID is that people have different fear thresholds you know it is that one in a hundred sounds good to some people 1 in a hundred is is an awful virus if you one hundred and a hundred people die. That's bad and that and and the beginning days of of COVID it was around one in a hundred, sometimes three and a hundred um now maybe if if you had a respiratory spread Ebola like hemorrhagic fever. Ah, even the I think the most freedom loving antimasker would probably see some wisdom and in staying home that day. So So I I Want to say you know it'd be foolish to say this can never happen. Yeah, but it's just there's a lot of evolutionary dynamics and and epidemiology that just work against it. So. I'm not as worried about those kinds. Seth Yeah, yeah, you know you talked about the kind of the 3 factors there right too fast too deadly too contagious um is it just that if something that is that deadly you can quarantine and it's effective, people who get it die off and then don't spread it. Bob Yeah, well first off you die really fast. You're obviously not going to spread it much anymore unless somebody handles your body. But also you know when something really bad like that happens people who can isolate and you're not going to get the bug. You know from people driving by your house You know so you know people shut down and and that's really what limits every pandemic has a curve where people are not behaving and then they start behaving and it levels out and then natural immunity kicks in even HIV had that you know. People began changing their behaviors because they were scared. You know that's this way it works. Seth So are there any insights to be gained from Pandemic fiction movies books you know for the general public. Or is it just grim entertainment? Bob Oh yeah I think yeah yeah, it is grim entertainment. That's for sure. Um, yeah, movies do seem to have ah an effect on public consciousness. Um I heard the movie Contagion cited many times during COVID you probably did too. Um, and I also heard an outbreak discussed which kind of depressed me but 1 thing Andromeda Strain is is just my maybe just my perception but I accuse the andromedas strain of of promulgating that belief that a it'll just mutate into harmlessness. And and and you know like I said that's just an illusion created by immunity. Um, so yeah um yeah I think mentioned in the the Felix Salmon book Phoenix Economy he mentioned that the the Douglas Adams show that he mentioned was talking about the the extinction of the Golgafrincham. You may remember that they're the ones that got wiped out by a disease spread by a dirty telephone after they had banned all their telephone sanitizers to another planet and you know and and what Felix Salmon pointed out was that this kind of pointed towards a theme that happened in real life and happened in many pandemic novels which is the lowly worker becomes elevated in importance. So you have nurses and Grubhub drivers and grocery store clerks suddenly become essential workers and everybody honors them for taking a chance. So the rest of us can eat and be taken care of. Bob And in in World War Z they had this similar thing where you know ah humble skills farming and sowing and carpentry are listed up while movie stars and influencers are just considered worthless you know and there's another thing which I've been thinking about as we were going over. This is the pandemic fiction oftentimes has shows is trying to show us the heightened capacity for good and evil and um, you know you think, ah the selfless priest in in in um and the Doomsday Book or the evil prophet in Station Eleven and it it does make for good reading. But if you you know if you're classically middle class, you may find them kind of like a a caricature and find it kind of unbelievable. But once you've lived through a major crisis like that you you start to realize hey people really do that You know they really do some of them are heroes and some of them are really really sink low. The capacity for going low and going high is pretty pretty exaggerated I can tell you personally that during Aids I lost a lot of naivete because I heard people that I believed in and respected say some godawful incorrect and and harmful things that because of my job I knew weren't true. Seth Yeah. Bob And um I really wish I had learned that from from fiction that from real life I mean it. It was ah it it. It started a lot of me questioning a lot of the things that that that I had believed in at to up to that point. Seth Yeah, so looking forward with the the subgenre of Pandemic fiction and science fiction where where do you think that it can go? Bob Um, well I like I said I think the the the wild array of effects that that Felix Salmon's Phoenix Economy put out. There could be kind of a map for authors. Ah you know they they might consider. How society might change even when a small percentage of people are sick or die and like I said John Scalzi. His Lock In, which you know was predicated on this um book I was predicated on ah ah a pandemic where it was like a flu but 1% of the people, uh their brain was totally cut off from their body and they're locked in the lock-in syndrome and so he created this whole virtual technology that became the setting of the book is basically a murder mystery with that and um, like I said earlier that's really reminiscent of of Zoom and virtual technologies like the like the call we're on right now and I and I think that's the kind of dynamic that ah that ah that writers could take and you know and one of the ones I wish they would do is I wish somebody would write a pandemic novel where instead of minorities or the put upon. Um, ah poor are the victims for the old people certainly I want old people to fare better instead make the rich and powerful the people that really get sick I think that would make for an interesting reversal in the dynamics of a typical science you know pandemic story. So yeah, so I think there are a lot of things they can play with. They're just gonna they're just not going to be able to go for kill everybody and let's have gun fights with with a roving bandits. Seth Um, did you happen to see the movie Triangle of Sadness? Bob Um, no I don't think I have. Seth It almost does that it's not. It's not with a pandemic. It's just it's ah um, a shipwreck. Where where all these rich and powerful. You know these these influencers and and rich blue bloods end up you know shipwrecked on this island and one of the servant class people on the ship. You know one of the the worker class people on the ship. With her skills. She's able to provide food and make fires and that kind of stuff and all of a sudden she becomes in charge. So It's It's a a reversal of roles because of that and and of course you know the rich people object to it because they're like well why should you be in charge and she's like I made the fire I caught the fish I'm feeding you I'm in charge. Bob Yeah, yeah, that would be fun I think I'd enjoy that it's called Triangle of Sadness? Seth Yeah, it's It's a strange movie. Um, but yeah. Bob Um I Definitely definitely want to do that. You know you we were you and I were exchanging the Last of Us, which yeah, which I haven't played the game or watching the movie. But I think using a fungal pandemic is is genius because yeah I can tell you I can tell you from working in microbiology, I was never more scared was when I was working with a fungal pathogen I mean they they they you know the fuzzy fungi will can leap off the plate with their spores but also they there just were so few treatments there really still are very few treatments for fungal. Seth Yeah, yeah, and they talk about that ah in in the Last of Us series. But also um, if you want to if you want to read a book about it, The Girl With All the Gifts by Mike Carey is is another fungal fiction one. That's very good. Bob Yeah I think given the lack of information about them and the lack of antifungals who knows fungi are the new viruses. Seth Yeah, yeah, maybe the the very beginning of the Last of Us it starts with ah like a news program a commentary program where someone is opining that a fungal vector could be much worse than viruses and and somebody else objects. Well no, you know Fungi can't can't survive in our body temperatures and he said well not right now, but let's say the Earth were to get a little bit warmer. Um, and it would become an adaptive trait right. Bob Um, yes, well you know yes and the the people are actually seeing that at the CDC they recently released an alert about a fungus called Candida Aurus, which Seth Um, the yeast isn't it. Bob It's, well yeast are fungi. So that's yeah, so that's so yeah I think it's already starting to happen and it could you know? and and I think I've read Um, there's a a fungal medium, Fungal Pneumonia out in the in in the west in the desert spread by the spores and its name eludes me at the moment but that's starting to pick up and become more prevalent. So yeah, it's you know, just same story with a different villain. Seth Yeah, okay so let's and we've mentioned a number of titles throughout the the podcast but let's go ahead and circle kind of back to that about reading recommendations for pandemic fiction. Bob Well my number one would be Doomsday Book I just I do think that's the best and like I said it's 2 pandemic novels in 1 so you get double your money. Seth Yeah, yeah, and Connie Wills says such a good job with characters too that it pulls you really into their plight and so when characters start dying it really affects you. Bob Yeah, if she is really good at that and you know I like like her for a lot of her humorous writings but I was just very impressed with just how she took a a really serious one then and and it really bore in on it Seth Yeah, um, How High We Go In the Dark is one that that we've talked about a couple times we talked about the fact that it's a pandemic that affects the young. Um I think the prose is excellent. It's really just a series of interconnected short stories. It's not a novel per se um but one story will build on the other. No you might see events referenced or characters that that repeat. Bob Um, yeah, and yeah, there was one pseudo afterlife chapter that that was tied in later I thought that was very very effective I really enjoyed that. Seth Yes, yeah, yeah, it was good. We mentioned the Andromeda Strain which I will I will say we have an episode. We have an episode on that for Take Me To Your Reader if people want to check that out. We also did an interview with Daniel H Wilson, who is author of The Andromeda Evolution which is ah kind of a legacy sequel for The Andromeda Strain, which was a lot of fun. He lives in Portland so we went over and interviewed him in person. Seth World War Z is another one Bob Um, yeah I Yeah where was a I think that's an underappreciated book I mean and I would warn anybody that saw the movie. It's very different. The book is very different from the movie. So yeah. Seth Very different. Yeah and that's another one we covered on our podcast. Um and and we talked about the original screenplay for world wars he that was not shot that you can find it was written by J Michael Strazinski and it's excellent. Bob Ah I didn't know I didn't know that was out there. So so in a Station Eleven Emily St John Mandell Seth Yeah, yeah, I just I just recently listened to that one. That's very good. Bob And you know? yeah I Just think that's probably of all the the books we're talking about I think that's one of the most moving and I guess I want don't want to say artistic because that demeans it a little bit but it's just it's just very rich. Seth Yeah I mean there's that repeated mantra right? That to survive is not enough or to live is not enough I don't remember and I I remember things differently when I read them in print and when I listen to them on audio. Um. Bob Right. But yeah and I've really I don't know why it moved me more but having the unifying heart of the book be a character who died before the pandemic. Literally just before that I know that that created a hook for me that made it much more enjoyable. Seth Yeah, yeah, we also talked about the Earth Abides. Um, and that that's a good one. It's a little long. Bob And yeah, it's dated and yeah, it is but 1 thing about Earth Abides that I liked is um because you know the the novel part was the buildings were still standing. He had this juxtoposition. Where he was trying to teach the next generation to read while the library was still there and he couldn't do it. Society was going down and there was nothing. He could do to stop it and I thought that was I think it as a as a commentary. It was excellent. Seth Yeah, it's interesting too. The the pandemic tie-in it not pandemics's just you know civilization falls you're going to have some disease right? and and that that affects them because he does have the 1 child who who he thinks will be the one to take on his legacy and continue to to learn and teach. Unfortunately, he dies of disease. Measles was it? Bob He dies of of strep or something measles or something like that. Yeah, ah, you know which um, you know we're starting to see even without collapse in society. We're starting to see some of these bugs come back I mean we're seeing polio I heard a case of malaria popped up in Maryland so we've got it all in Texas Florida and Maryland. So yeah, it's not hard to imagine. You know that kind of setback. You know that. Seth Yeah I was talking to my mom once about, um, you know remembering things like the polio vaccine right? The development of the polio vaccine and when you knew people affected by the virus who who died of it and then you got to take a vaccine to keep you from getting it. Then you know that makes you think vaccines very very good and then you fast forward 20-30 years where nobody has ever seen anyone with polio and then they start going? Well what about autism you know or you know and and you start getting the anti-vax kind of thing moving in because people have moved far enough away from remembering what it was like before the vaccine. Bob Right. They forget they forget. Yeah but I had the early 2 earliest stories my grandmother and my mother told me my grandmother had a childhood memory of the 1918 flu pandemic she was in Richmond and she saw a flatbed rail car stacked cross-hatched coffins stacked 3 or 4 high and then my mother was pregnant with me when the polio vaccine was coming out and so she told me over and over again. How happy she was that she was not going to have to worry about that and so yeah, you know people forget and they don't you know one of the one of the worst days I remember at the hospital I was working on a Sunday morning, and and Sunday morning usually the the pediatric infectious disease docs would come in because they have such a short leash with children that they would come in and ask us to to read the cultures ahead of time and give us our best guesses and it's a very nice guy, doctor that I really liked and he came in that day and he just looked like he was going to die. He was depressed. He was all but crying and I asked him what happened and he had just sat all night with a child dying of whooping cough which is ah, easily preventable with a vaccine and apparently dying of whooping cough is probably 1 of the most painful ways to die on the planet and so yeah, my children were very young and I went home and I said we're getting every vaccine that it's possible. You know because I you know it was just yeah, it's. I think we maybe we're gonna have to go back to have a couple childhood outbreaks before we finally get back to it who knows. Seth Yeah, yeah, but you still you know you have people on the internet saying well you just need sunshine and fresh air like tell that to people who live in slums you know that that that's all they need oh well in that case I will just not live here anymore. Bob Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, well the others when you all you all you need is this I We oftentimes saw people. Yeah oh I'm just I'm going to cure my cancer With. Um, with with with good food and but quit quit eating the things and' want to quit smoking, finally. A little late but you know usually those people once to you know the tumor got big enough. They say Okay, let let me try some of them chemicals. You know? And yeah, it's It's a sad, sad case that is true. Seth Yeah, yeah, sorry so we were talking about titles and got got sidetracked. Bob Yeah, that's what happens. Yeah I think the next one on on the list was Odd Billy Todd which is basically like I said a prepper wish fulfillment fantasy novel. It's ah. Seth Um, and that's relatively recent isn't it? Bob I read it a while ago I don't know when it was you have that? Seth Looks like 2015 yeah it it's kind of an it's kind of an old time old timey sounding book title have to say. Bob Oh that's see that's what happens when your retired time flies. Yes, it is and it it's um, it's not bad. It's a little repetitive but it's got all the means of of pandemic fiction. So yeah, it's ah you know it would be a good audio book If you're traveling a long distance. Yeah, so then we talk about Phoenix Economy which you know ah like I said it's worth just the introduction. But I read the whole thing and I I found many parts of it just utterly fascinating when he started talking about people not wearing their seatbelts I just I flipped out because I had I had to admit to my sister I was wrong because was the height of the pandemic I said well at least the the roads are safe because nobody's driving and she said Bob the um road deaths are going up and I said no way and I went on to Google and damned if it wasn't true. I mean it's like people were you know they're dealing with one risk they would just say okay well I'm just going to let it all hang out and yeah, yeah, so I can't complain I have a bad history of risk you see that picture behind me? yeah um yes yeah I used to skydive, and unfortunately, my brother did too and he died doing it. So yeah, it's it's risk is risk is real I mean you know you you you have to take it take it seriously. But but yeah I found that an excellent map and then we talk about Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which I would, and anybody That's read the book but hasn't listened to the radio Original Radio Series should definitely do that. Seth Yeah, yeah, that that is the better way to experience it Bob It's that I think it it really is and yes it was and yes. Seth And that's that that's an interesting case of a book being adapted from the radio play people people don't understand that they they don't know that the radio play was the first thing. Bob I would say the first 2 seasons of Hitchhiker's Guide is just some of the best listening you can find BBC really knew what they were doing. Yes, yes, yeah. Seth Yeah, yeah I I strongly prefer the radio play and reading it in print I don't love it. So just somehow that the humor works better when it's when it's said by British people. Bob Absolutely absolutely. Um, let's see Lock In, they're detective novels, I'm not really that much of a fan of of science fictions that are really mystery novels. but but I did find that 1 interesting, because of the the various things he did. Outbreak ah God I just you know it got the blood from one little monkey is going to save a whole town I mean come on people is this you know I know it's Hollywood but still um. Seth Yeah, well and and I think I think don't they come up with whatever treatment they have and Renee Russo has been sick for a day or 2 already and they you know they give to her and she's 100% recovered you know she wouldn't have liver failure or multiorgan failure by then with a hemorrhagic fever that would be very bad. Bob Um, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be bad. You know, Contagion again. It wraps things up in a little bow, but it's it's ah you have to give, give it nods it has scientists acting badly. It has a major character, bank one star, dying Seth Um, yeah, it's a gut punch in that movie. Yeah. Bob That that's yeah and and and that's that's real life I mean you know when you say.1 in a hundred to one in 10 are going to die it isn't except for the main characters. You know if you got to have you know that's it's a sort of Game of Thrones like in that regard. Um, oh yes. Seth Yeah, some of that reminds me of ah the Chernobyl series that was on HBO where at some point the the 2 main characters are talking to each other and you know one of them is a politician one's a scientist and the scientist is saying we need to get everyone away from here. Um, because because people are going to die because of this and. They they cannot stay here and the politician says. Well, we're staying here and the other one says yes and we'll be dead in 5 years and you can just see the the dawning realization on the Stellan Skarsgard character that oh I didn't realize that um you know like the the reality just drops like an anvil. Um. Bob Um, yeah, yes, yeah that that that was pretty good and and we talked about um the Last of Us and don't think but since we haven't seen it. We can't say it's much but fungi. Seth Um, no no I've watched the show. The show is excellent I know I never played the game. Um, but but yeah I have I have watched and it's it's excellent and it really does start well with that dawning realization. Um there, there's a moment when someone I think in Indonesia or I think it's Indonesia um, she realized what's realizes what's happening and she says you need to order a bombing strike on the city immediately. Um and then and yeah, yeah, and and then then she asks can someone please drive me home I'd like to be with my family. Bob Um, yeah, they did that in in Contagion as well. Yeah, and and I will say after COVID that becomes less believable because the idea of people getting that realization and being that aware of what's going on enough to make a harsh decision like that. That's just just not believable because people will always try to talk themselves out of it I mean you'll hear it if you listen to almost any of the early reporting with with virologists and I did it too I underestimated what was going on and the reason is because it's you know if you're dealing with a one and a hundred year event it's always safe to bet against it. There's always a reason why it isn't go to happen and until it actually does it. So. Seth Yeah, right, right? Well and then you get people constantly talking about well what about you know they they had comorbidities right? You're like yeah yeah, okay I have an uncle who's you know, nearing 90 and was a lifelong smoker. I still don't want him to die earlier than he has to. Bob Right? right? Well you know that's something that and and and I'm again confessing something that is true. Most people that work in hospitals. Um, and certainly was true for me as as a in microbiology is that you. That's the way you defend yourself against your you're working with this stuff. You know you're actually I had small children and I saw a dead baby and in the Autopsy Room. You know the way you defend your mind against that is by chipping away at, to create a distance between you and that patient. So when I would have a we'd have a patient that was dying of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, a Tick-borne Disease you know I would ask, so how long did they wait till they went to the emergency and they said they waited too long and I go oh I'm safe because I don't do I would not do that and but in real life is just different. You know real life. You can find 5 reasons why not to go to the emergency fact nowadays you can find a lot more. So yeah, you create this gulf between you and the victim by identifying things about them that are different so you know the moment they started saying COVID was striking ah minorities more I I knew bunch people. Well then I'm safe I'm not a minority you know so it's it's the problem of large numbers in probabilities. You don't people don't really grasp. Seth Yeah, yeah, and and with AIDS too right? that that here it's IV drug users and gay men and and well I'm not one of those people. Bob Yes and and yet the a this is true. The AIDS epidemic is still going on people are getting it all the time. It's just where we have a way to treat it. But you know. Seth Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's more controlled now. Yeah. Bob You You want to take a bunch of pills every day for the rest of your life. Seth Yeah I've I've heard that there's There's some prospect of an mRNA vaccine for for HIV Bob Yeah, it it it they've they've got one in the works that I've heard but I don't know how you know successful it'll be. That's another thing about COVID we're very spoiled by COVID nobody that I knew expected a vaccine to be that effective and so yeah, when somebody comes out with an aids vaccine that is 50 or sixty percent effective instead of 90 a lot of people are going to be very disappointed but you know what as many people in particularly in in third world countries that are still dying of aids, man that would be fantastic. A malaria vaccine that was that good if you could reduce malaria death by 50% it'd just be enormously helpful. So yeah, that would be another effect. Seth Yeah, yeah, it's funny. There's a there's a good segment of the conversation of the ah listeners of this conversation that will think that vaccine wasn't effective what you talking about because because that's what their pundits are telling him. Bob Yeah, well I told when I was unblinded and got the real vaccine when I was on the Moderna trial I told him I said I hope you realize that your vaccine is probably more effective than your numbers are telling you. And they said why and I said because you did this in such a hurry you gave for the placebo you just gave us saline if you were doing a real study you would have given us another vaccine say a flu shot because a flu shot makes your arm sore and the flu shot has some effects. And I knew the moment I got the shot that I'd gotten a placebo and because of that I said I'm still going to be really really careful. Meanwhile my neighbor who got on it the same way she had her arms got all red and she felt crappy for days she had ah probably 1 of the more extensive reactions I've ever seen. But she went out there going. Well I definitely am vaccinated and was out about. Seth I'm invincible now. Bob But yeah, and so I said that's gonna mean that you know because we all knew what we were on. It's going to make make the vaccine look worse than it really is and you still got 90% so it's really, you know the whole point of the vaccine that that was also lost and and I knew it because I had to sign all these consent forms that the point of vaccine wasn't to make you not get the bug. It was to make it so you didn't get hospitalized and that was all they were measuring they they said because they couldn't they that trial they couldn't actually tell unless you got physically sick and got tested. They they didn't know whether you got it all they were watching was do you end up at the doctor or the hospital sick and so yeah, yeah, so yeah, a lot of things that are COVID specific may affect the way people write fiction that that that probably aren't valid some that are valid some that aren't so yeah. Seth Right? Well I think let's see when did Heinlein write Stranger in a Strange Land? which has a civilization on mars well after we pretty much knew Mars now there's nothing there so you can still do it. Bob That was my favorite Heinlein book. Yes, ah, but yeah I love that one that that really was a lot of his books I did not like but I really love that one Seth It's a weird one. Nice yeah well I think we've come to the end of our topics. So so Bob I really want to thank you for for reaching out. You know all those months ago and and flooding my inbox and with with more and more information. Bob Yeah, well I'm a writer So I I write these things down. So sorry about that. Seth Yeah yeah, and I I finally at some point I had to say like I I've been so busy trying to wrap up Hugos There 1.0 and and get stuff ready for the next phase plus work was terribly busy and so like I I will respond just give me a little bit of time but but no, this was great. Um, and I don't know how much of a model this will be for other subgenres just because I don't know I think I anytime you you zoom in on a subgenre, you realize that it's a subgenre of subgenres and and you can go lots of different ways from inside it. Um. Bob And and this is unusual. But in that you have a subgenre that has recently had a concurrent reality event. So maybe if the aliens come next year you can do another 1 on first contact novels. Seth There we go. Bob You know and there and that'll be your that'll be your that. The follow up you know so. Seth Yeah yes maybe I'll be the 1 chosen to go and sit on the other side of the screen from childhood's end and talk to. Ah oh I had his name the the main overlord I can't remember his name now. It's the great book. Yeah. Seth Cool. Ah well so Bob if people want to to reach out to you. Can they find you anywhere online. Bob Yeah, um, well um I have a diminishing presence on Twitter, wallet55 is my handle as ah is a reference to what I viewed my purpose in life as a parent back in the day when I first joined and um, but I'm ah growing on mastodon I do [email protected]. So you know I'm hoping that more people will go over there. So yeah, that's about it. Seth Awesome Well so listener I want to invite you to to talk back and say do you have favorite favorite pandemic fiction that you want to recommend and anything that we missed please chime in. Seth Well everybody I hope you enjoyed that discussion with Bob I I thought that was really great. Um, that's the first of my Zoomed Out Subgenre Spotlight episodes I have a lot of these planned if you think that you're the right person to talk about a show subgenre, do reach out to me I I have this plan for military science fiction or together ones I have one plan for horror as well as a you know, sort of as a sub genre of genre fiction. Um I have some other ones as well. But if you want to reach out and volunteer for one of these the wait time for any guest at this point is longer than it typically was for Hugos There in the past and it's kind of in 2 different ways. I'm already planned out well through next year for guests and then I'm running a backlog as well and so you know I've recorded this episode with Bob in August of 2023. It's probably not going to come out till December so um, unless I make changes to my schedule. So just letting you know, um, there is a pretty good wait but but I'd still love to have you get your foot in the door and get you on the list. Seth Okay I think that's going to do it for this episode and so I'll talk to you next time. Bye now!