This week the Society is entertained by The Hostess! The classic sci-fi series X Minus One presents Isaac Asimov’s chilling tale of alien etiquette and intrigue. How comfortable would you be to welcome something truly alien into your life? Would the story benefit from more lasers and car chases? Are aliens compelling us to create a spin off podcast about Dungeons & Dragons? Listen for yourself and find out! Then vote and let us know what you think:
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Don’t know if you have seen it, but there’s a site with transcripts of vintage radio programs that includes a few of the ones you’ve discussed (“Casting the Runes,” “Poltergeist”):
https://sites.google.com/site/microphoneplays/home
Might find it handy if you’re performing these shows.
A perfect resource for us! Thanks!
I *really* enjoyed this one. Partially, having a woman as a narrator is a nice change of pace, but mostly it was just, well… Asimov was basically writing about an interstellar version of Toxoplasma gondii, wasn’t he? That’s an actual organism that reproduces in cats, but alters the behavior of infected rodents, making them easier for the cats to catch. (The rodents become less fearful of the cats.) It may also alter behavior in infected humans. At the time Asimov wrote this, T. gondii had been discovered, but I’m *pretty* sure the behavioral research is relatively recent. (Thanks, Google!) So… Read more »
Your vision of the creature is delightful! The image I was trying to remember in the podcast is an illustration of a carp dragon from the First Edition Dungeons and Dragons. It was in the Fiend Folio. Perhaps Asimov was thinking of ophiocordyceps unilateral? It’s that zombie fungus that grows inside ant heads. Nature is creepy.
My favorite line in this was when Rose says her colleagues expected her to marry a biologist or “even an anthropologist.” I felt like Asimov was having a little joke at the expense of his own academic colleagues.
Why even create art if one does not take the opportunity to mock one’s peers? Thanks for pointing this out!
D&D and Asimov FTW! I kept envisioning the alien as a cross between an ankheg and an ettercap. Two things that have me wondering, when the alien was studying the missing persons is it because he experimented on possibly some of them listed? I mean, he wouldn’t need an actual list to hypothesize humans spread a disease. Second, did Drake marry her because she would be in contact with possible aliens rather than just “they go off into space”? The alien hinted that they have some sort of telepathy but that humans were unique and didn’t. Perhaps the parasites did… Read more »
More X-Minus One, please!
(And/or Dimension X!)