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‘The Beast Adjoins’ Is Seriously Creepy Sci-Fi

‘The Beast Adjoins’ Is Seriously Creepy Sci-Fi

The new anthology The Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy 2021 collects 20 of the best short stories of the year. Series editor John Joseph Adams was particularly impressed with Ted Kosmatka’s story “The Beast Adjoins,” which presents a fresh take on the idea of an AI uprising.

“It’s so great,” Adams says in Episode 492 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “It pushes all the sense-of-wonder buttons; it’s got all this cool character stuff in there. It feels enormous. There’s so much going on in the story. I just love it.”

The story riffs on the Von Neumann-Wigner interpretation of quantum mechanics, positing a future in which advanced AIs are unable to function without humans present. Guest editor Veronica Roth, author of Divergent, found the story extremely creepy. “I reached the part where the machines were using people attached to the front of themselves to keep time moving, and I was like, ‘This is revolting. I love it,’” she says. “It has haunted me ever since I read it. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Fantasy author Yohanca Delgado agrees that “The Beast Adjoins” is an unsettling story. “It’s such a beautifully realized and chilling premise, this reversal of what we imagine AI can do for us,” she says. “There’s a passage where [the AIs] are creating human tail lights—humans in jars that are just an eye and a blob of flesh. It’s such incredibly horrific writing. I’m a huge fan.”

For now “The Beast Adjoins” exists only as a stand-alone short story, but Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy host David Barr Kirtley wonders if the story could be expanded. “I just feel like this is such an interesting premise—these AIs that can only function when humans are observing them,” he says. “I feel like there are probably a lot of other narratives you could spin out of that.”

Listen to the complete interview with John Joseph Adams, Veronica Roth, and Yohanca Delgado in Episode 492 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). And check out some highlights from the discussion below.

Yohanca Delgado on the Clarion workshop:

“At Clarion I skipped a week, and was just rocking back and forth in a panic in my room, because I was like, ‘I have to write something. I have this idea, and I can’t seem to write something else, but I also feel—you know that feeling when you want to write something, but you’re not quite ready? Like, you don’t feel like you’re the writer you need to be to tackle it yet … And the schedule at Clarion is relentless. I’d already missed a week, I couldn’t miss another one. I talked to Andy Duncan, who is a wonderful human, and basically he was like, ‘I don’t understand why you’re not just doing this.’ Which is sometimes what you need to hear. You need somebody to shake you by the shoulders and tell you, ‘Just go do it.’”

Yohanca Delgado on her story “Our Language”:

“My family is from the Dominican Republic and Cuba. I didn’t know of any Latin American or Caribbean monsters, so I set off on this research project to find them … The ciguapa is this woman—there are some stories that have it be male as well, but I was interested more specifically in the idea of it being a woman—who is very small and charming, in a feral way, and whose legs grow backwards. I found that to be a really interesting monster to think about. What would her powers be? What does it all mean? In researching this, I found that it’s really rooted in indigenous and enslaved folks’ stories. Because her real superpower was being able to escape. And I thought that dovetailed really beautifully with some conversations around gender and gender oppression.”

John Joseph Adams on the pandemic:

“Most people who are publishing a science fiction/fantasy magazine are not doing it as a job—it’s a side thing that they’re doing. They have some other regular job that pays the bills. So maybe because they were saving an hour commute to and from work every day, they had more time to work on their [magazines]. I honestly would have expected there to be a lot more closing up and ceasing publication, just because a lot of people lost their jobs once the pandemic hit, and there was just a lot of belt-tightening that was needed for almost everyone. So I was really surprised to see that everyone was so resilient. Maybe it was partly because everyone was thinking, ‘People need this right now.’ So it was more important to stick around, rather than close up, because we need this to look forward to when we’re dealing with all this scary bleakness out in the real world.”

David Barr Kirtley on “The Pill” by Meg Elison:

“One way in which this story is science fiction, in a really good way, is it doesn’t just present an idea then stick with that static situation, it keeps complicating it and keeps introducing these new twists … One of the things that is often said about science fiction is that a science fiction writer’s job isn’t to predict the automobile—anyone could predict the automobile. Your job is to predict the Interstate Highway System and the suburbs, to look at the second-order effects of these technological changes. And I thought the story functioned really well in that way as a science fiction story, where it’s not just about ‘How does this new technology affect the protagonist?’—though it certainly goes into that—but also ‘How does it affect the wider society?’”


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David Cronenberg Is the Master of Grotesque Sci-Fi

David Cronenberg Is the Master of Grotesque Sci-Fi

David Cronenberg has directed more than 20 feature films in a wide variety of genres, but he remains best known for provocative ’80s sci-fi films like The Fly and Videodrome. Humor writer Tom Gerencer is a lifelong fan of Cronenberg’s artistic vision.

“He is an absolute genius, and he has merged that with an absolute mastery of craft,” Gerencer says in Episode 533 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “Often you see one or the other. You see someone who’s very workmanlike and can produce a good movie, or you see someone who is a genius and is just all over the place, and there are good ones and bad ones. But he is both, and that’s rare.”

Science fiction author Matthew Kressel loves the way that Cronenberg films like Videodrome and Existenz blur the line between biology and technology. “Even though he’s talking about technology, often the technology is not what we think of as technology,” Kressel says. “We don’t see computers and flashing lights. Oftentimes it’s biological, or just sort of in the background, which I thought was very interesting. You don’t really see that take in a lot of film and TV and media.”

Cronenberg has worked with many of Hollywood’s top actors, including Michael Ironside, Jeff Goldblum, and Viggo Mortensen. TV writer Andrea Kail particularly enjoyed James Woods as sleazy TV producer Max Renn in Videodrome. “A lot of Cronenberg’s genius is in his casting,” she says. “He casts the perfect people for his roles. James Woods is perfect for that role. He looks sleazy, he acts sleazy. He’s the perfect person for that, that fast-talking, sleazy grifter who allows the story to get the better of him.”

Person pushing their face through a TV screen with human lips on the screen

Cronenberg’s most recent project is Crimes of the Future, a jaw-dropping exploration of sadomasochism and body modification. Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy host David Barr Kirtley wasn’t a fan of the film, but he still admires Cronenberg for taking risks. “There are so few science fiction movies that come out now that aren’t franchises and that aren’t tentpole blockbusters and that make serious points and have artistic vision and are original, and this movie is definitely all of those things,” he says. “I wasn’t crazy about it, but you have to respect someone who has an artistic vision and doesn’t just want to put out formulaic films.”

Listen to the complete interview with Tom Gerencer, Matthew Kressel, and Andrea Kail in Episode 553 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). And check out some highlights from the discussion below.

Tom Gerencer on Scanners:

It’s absolutely a classic. I was in sixth grade when this came out. Everybody in my junior high was talking about it, everybody was quoting it. Everybody was saying, “I’m going to suck your brain dry.” I had not seen that until later. My friend Greg showed me that scene and I was like, “Holy crap, that is horrifying.” And the scene where the guy’s head explodes, everybody talked about that for years—for years and years and years. And still, to this day, if I think of the word “scanners,” even if I’m thinking of something that has nothing to do with the movie, I will picture that guy’s head blowing up.

Matthew Kressel on The Fly:

The transition of Seth Brundle—Jeff Goldblum’s character—from this nerdy, confident-but-kind-of-shy guy who is clearly attracted to this woman to this insane, murderous fly creature, it was so gradual and perfect. … I had forgotten a lot of the body horror, like where he vomits on the guy’s hand and it dissolves or the arm wrestling in the bar, where he breaks the guy’s arm and the bone pops out. I was like, “Oh right, I forgot about that!” The body horror was, of course, grotesque, but somehow it managed to do it in a way that didn’t feel superfluous or gratuitous. It just felt like it worked with the story.

Andrea Kail on Existenz:

My first thought when [Jennifer Jason Leigh] walks in and everybody claps was, “Oh, a roomful of men clapping for a woman game designer. That is science fiction.” But I really enjoyed it. The story itself hung together really well for me, and I liked the world they create and the dynamic between the two characters. This was the first movie in this series where I actually gagged. The scene where he eats the food in the Chinese restaurant was horrific. And then the NPCs and how they move, when they’re waiting for the dialog. I just really enjoyed this one. I kind of put everything down and really watched it.

David Barr Kirtley on Crimes of the Future:

The idea of people adapting themselves to eat toxic waste is a cool idea. I don’t know if David Cronenberg ever read Paolo Bacigalupi, but it sort of reminds me of Paolo Bacigalupi’s story “The People of Sand and Slag,” which is one of my favorite science fiction short stories. So I think that’s a cool idea, and there were some striking images in here. There’s a scene where Viggo Mortensen and Léa Seydoux are embracing nude while this autodoc kind of machine is cutting at them. I thought that was a cool image. And then there’s this artist who sews his eyes and mouth shut and covers his body in ears and does an interpretive dance, and I thought that was a cool image. So there were things like that in the movie that I liked.


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‘Super Mario Bros. Wonder’ Is the Face of Nintendo’s Transformation

‘Super Mario Bros. Wonder’ Is the Face of Nintendo’s Transformation

Mario’s reach is expansive. He’s a Lego minifig, a clothing brand, a cereal, a skit on Saturday Night Live. Fans obsess over who’s voicing him, and the size of the character’s butt. He’s a goofy little guy with a wholesome attitude he maintains through the power of only ever yelling things like “Mama mia” and “Wahoo!” For Nintendo’s purposes, Mario is the company’s strongest contender to test the bounds of what it can accomplish. As Nintendo’s most iconic character, in terms of sheer breadth of games and household recognition, he’s essentially a mascot. “There’s a likability, there’s a cuteness, there’s a sense of adventure,” says Bowser. Moreover, he adds, “one of the most important things about Mario is his approachability.”

Approachability was on Nintendo’s mind throughout the development of Super Mario Bros. Wonder. It’s got a familiar setup. Mario, Peach, and pals are visiting a neighboring nation, the Flower Kingdom, when Bowser (the video game character, not the Nintendo president) shows up and wreaks havoc on their floral world. In order to defeat Boswer, players collect the eponymous Wonder seeds.

Wonder, then, is an attempt to set Mario up for the future. The Mario movie and Super Nintendo World are, by design, bringing new people into the fold, and the company wanted the next game in the franchise to be the kind anyone could play, even if they’ve never held a joycon before. “That was particularly important with Super Mario Bros. Wonder, because there’s a host of new people that are just experiencing Mario for the first time, and now they want to experience it in a video game.” It’s a game for new and older fans, many of whom now play with their own kids.

Wonder includes 12 characters to pick from, including five—four Yoshis and Nabbit—that won’t take damage, and make it easier for inexperienced players to get through some of the game’s more difficult levels. Its co-op mode, which includes both local and online play, also means players can work together to finish the game.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is the series’ first side-scrolling platform in a decade, giving it a high expectation bar to clear. Players are savvier than ever about how Nintendo makes a Mario game (and have even had the chance to create levels themselves, thanks to the Mario Maker series). It’s hard to surprise them. The game’s Wonder elements are worthy of the title, however, activating something a little strange and different every time. Wonder Flowers—a sort of hyperactive powerup—add a welcome sense of surprise to familiar tasks, whether Mario is transformed into a ball of goo, fighting against a shifting level itself, or answering trivia questions. It manages to feel fresh despite the series’ long history.

Netflix’s Password-Sharing Crackdown Is Working—for Now

Netflix’s Password-Sharing Crackdown Is Working—for Now

If it’s not the company motto yet, it should be: Never count Netflix out. On Wednesday, the streaming giant beat Wall Street projections by reporting a gain of nearly 9 million new subscribers worldwide and $8.5 billion in revenue for the third quarter of 2023, a nearly 8 percent increase year-over-year. While that might all sound like a bunch of finance bro brouhaha, it’s also remarkable considering the very tumultuous three years the company—and Hollywood—has had.

Consider the company’s crackdown on password sharing. The long-planned killjoy campaign rolled out in the US and UK in May 2023. It came on the heels of a topsy-turvy time for streaming, when Netflix was facing increased competition from new streamers like Disney+ and HBO Max (now known as Max) and losing subscribers for the first time in a decade. The move to quash password-sharing—which basically shut out users who didn’t appear to live in the same household as the account holder—also landed shortly after the streamer pushed its much-hyped $7-per-month ad-supported tier.

For months it looked as though Netflix’s shifts in plans, pricing, and password enforcement were the moves of a company feeling the squeeze of additional competition and a loss of cool in the realm of public perception. As recently as this week, analysts were cutting the company’s stock price forecasts amid talk that users weren’t flocking to the new ad-supported tier. And yet, in a letter to investors Wednesday announcing the company’s quarterly earnings, Netflix noted that membership in its ad-supported plans is up nearly 70 percent quarter-over-quarter. The streaming giant also noted it has brought “paid sharing”—which allows users to share accounts for an additional fee—to every region where Netflix is available.

“The cancel reaction continues to be low, exceeding our expectations, and borrower households converting into full paying memberships are demonstrating healthy retention,” Netflix told shareholders. In other words, previous password-swappers aren’t quitting the service in disgust, and Netflix now has more than 247 million paying subscribers around the world.

Will all those subscribers stick around long-term, though? That’s an open question. In addition to its healthy increase in subscribers, Netflix also announced on Wednesday that it is raising prices again. Effective immediately, the company said, people in the US, UK, and France would see the cost of the streamer’s Basic plan jump from $9.99 per month to $11.99. The Premium plan, meanwhile, climbs from $19.99 to $22.99. (Prices for the $6.99 ad-supported tier and $15.49 Standard plan remain unchanged.) It’s been more than a year since Netflix last increased prices, but if the streamer continues to ask for more money while also limiting the number of people who can use each subscription, some subscribers may decide Netflix isn’t worth it.

Speaking of benefits: the Hollywood strikes. Even though the Writers Guild of America struck a deal with studios and script scribes are getting back to work, actors remain on strike, leaving many productions stalled. For now Netflix can coast on Suits, which has seen a weird surge in popularity on the platform in recent months, and Love Is Blind. But by choking the content pipeline, the actors’ strike could eventually leave the streamer with fewer offerings to lure or retain subscribers. Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Netflix might raise prices after the actors strike ends. It’s possible that the increases announced Wednesday are the price hikes the Journal predicted, but if the cost of Netflix goes up again, the company will have to offer customers more to demonstrate it provides the same value.

To be fair, Disney, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery have all recently raised their own streaming prices, so Netflix’s move is not out of step with the industry. Still, the more streamers jack up their prices, the fewer services, presumably, people will want to shell out for.

Netflix may be converting mooching nieces, nephews, and ex-lovers into paying subscribers for now. But as Karl Bode noted recently in Techdirt, it’s possible the company’s recent revenue boosts “could be due to a popular new show or organic growth, and not necessarily due to Netflix’s scolding of password-sharing accounts.” The gambit is working so far, but it may not work forever.

‘Starfield’ Dev Bethesda Just Lost Peter Hines, One of Its Most Important Executives

‘Starfield’ Dev Bethesda Just Lost Peter Hines, One of Its Most Important Executives

Peter Hines, one of the leading executives behind Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Starfield, is leaving developer Bethesda after 24 years at the company. Hines, who was most recently head of publishing and senior vice president at the developer, said the decision wasn’t easy but that the time was now right, following Starfield’s launch.

Starfield, a massive action role-playing game Howard described as “Skyrim in space,” launched September 6 to critical acclaim and was the company’s “first new universe” in over 25 years. Hines says he plans to spend his time “exploring interests and passions, donating time where I can, and taking more time to enjoy life.”

Bethesda is part of Microsoft, which completed its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard last week.

Hines–alongside game director Todd Howard—has long been a visible face for the company’s massive franchises, like Fallout. In addition to interviews, conference appearances, and press events, Hines was also active on social media, including stunts like writing fake doctor notes ahead of Starfield’s launch, courtesy of “Uncle Pete.”

Bethesda released a brief statement about Hines’ departure. “Pete’s public presence was only a small part of his role at Bethesda, although the way he represented us carried into the values he nurtured here: authenticity, integrity and passion. His contributions have been integral in building Bethesda and its family of studios into the world-class organization that it is today.”

Hines is the second longtime executive in the game industry to retire this month, following Unity CEO John Riccitiello.