Theme: Could it be … the final countdown?
Time:
37:38Episode Connections
Authors, stories. William Gibson, “Johnny Mnemonic.” Arnold J. Toynbee,
A Study of History. Oswald Spengler,
The Decline of the West. Murray Leinster, “First Contact.” Sigmund Freud. Carl Jung. Erich von Daniken.
Films.
Sphere.
Inner Space.
Godzilla series.
Gamera series.
The Creature From the Black Lagoon.
TV episodes, series. na.
Ideas. New Wave sci fi. Ballard influenced many areas of art, culture, and scholarship. In the story … the human race has been afflicted with a sleeping sickness. Mandalas. Strange mutated creatures keep showing up. Silent gene pairs. Could humans be in an evolutionary decline? Did we trigger that decline with testing atomic weaponry? The Mercury 7 project. Math and architecture. The final countdown. An experiment opens Power’s perceptions of time. Powers hears the Voices of Time. The story defies typical narrative structures. The story is more of a spiral than an arc. Many cultural and historical references. Operation: Greenhouse - Enewetak Atoll. Musings on Ballard’s influence. Asks the question … what if things were different?
Whoa - Hmmm - WTF. WTF? no question. Elements of whoa and hmmm. But primarily a mindbender.
Previous episode: Murray Leinster, “First Contact”
Next episode: Poul Anderson, “Sam Hall”
Music Credit: "Ouroboros" Kevin MacLeod (Incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
Link:
Creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/