From the Dungeons of Morningstar, my name's Stretch.
And I'm Clint, and this is Prevailing Strange.
All right, welcome back to Prevailing Strange
with our week in review, where we kind of touch
on the content that we've checked out this week.
What have you... Just touching on you. Checked
out your content. Why, thank you. What content
have you checked out this week? Well, I tried
to watch The Expanse last night. Right. I couldn't
find a season one, episode one. I've been consuming
Ark, Survival Evolved, the game I play. Just
dumped a new big update for Unreal Engine 5 .5,
which I was pretty excited about. But apart from
that, I can honestly say I haven't watched much.
Just elementary, but you're playing it on in
the background. Mm -hmm. Wow. This will be a
first. I know. Unless hopefully you picked it
up. Well, I mean, kind of. I didn't watch anything.
I did read a bit, though. So I finally finished,
yeah, come on. Oh, God. So I finished Lords of
Uncreation. which is the third book in The Final
Architecture by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Oh, yeah.
Pretty cool. Pretty cool series. I'll give you
a little bit of a spiel about it. So the main
antagonists in it are these moon -size crystalline
spheres that are sentient. They just pop out
of – they bend space. pop out of space and they
can manipulate gravity and they use it to pretty
much sculpture planets and make different shapes
out of them and shit. Yeah, right. Pretty much
they only do it to planets with sentient races
on them, intelligent life. Yep. And, yeah, it
kind of starts off nobody knows why they're doing
it. They've popped up. And through this, you
have a few different alien races as well as humans
kind of come into contact because they're all
copying this external threat. Yeah, you're right.
Yeah. So over the three novels, you meet a few
different characters. They are doing their thing.
The main character, he's what they call an intermediary.
Right. So basically a psychic. Right. So these
guys, they're able to make contact with these,
what they call the architects, because they come
in and they reshape worlds. Yeah, right. And,
like, strangely beautiful kind of shapes. Like
at the end of Hitchcock's Guide to the Galaxy.
Pretty eerie kind of what they're doing. But,
yeah, so you've got the main guy. He's... hasn't
slept since they made him a psychic. So it's
been a long time between the start of this kind
of war to the point where the story is taking
place and he's this kind of wimpy kind of fella
who's highly strung, obviously, if you haven't
slept for fucking 60 -odd years or something
like that. Yeah. But basically these intermediaries,
they're able to... use their abilities to navigate
what they call unspace, which is the realm below
our kind of existence, and that's how they kind
of are able to travel great distances. This sounds
like a documentary to me, Jeremy. Like a documentary?
Yeah. Why? It sounds factual. Oh, no. So a pretty
cool thing is when they go into this unspace,
everybody's got to go and cry asleep. Because
when they go in there, it's not a real space.
Once you're down there, nobody else is with you.
So how do they write that into the novel? How
do they write into it that you're in this unspace
and everyone on that ship's asleep? Well, because
a lot of the times they get caught in unspace
and they're alone and when there was just somebody
else on the ship they were talking to and they're
gone and they're like. They're feeling alone.
There's a presence that they feel in this unspace.
Yeah, right. That everybody feels when they're
down there. Because they talk about going down
into unspace. It feels like this drop out of
reality. And there's this ever -knowing presence
that kind of looms over their shoulder the longer
they're in there. And pretty much anybody who
stays awake down there too long either doesn't
come back or... you know, ends themselves because
they can't handle what's down there, except for
these intermediaries. They're able to kind of...
And they go into the unspaced to traverse long
distances. Is that right? Yeah. Right, okay.
So there's these pathways in unspace, which they're
kind of able to navigate easily, but intermediaries
are able to kind of traverse the void between
these spaces. But that's... That's where these
architects are popping out of, coming out of
and reshaping worlds. Yeah, right. But, yeah,
it was a good series. I listened to it as an
audio book at a female narrator, which, you know,
I'm fine with. But it just made the main character
a little too whiny. Is the main character a male
or a female? Yeah, male. So he's male. Oh, right.
So that'd throw me. But there's a lot of strong
female characters in it, which I think that kind
of makes sense that they went the female route
because there's more female voices than there
are male voices. It just happens to be that the
protagonist is male. See, that's like in Andy
Weir's follow -up to The Martian. It's called
Artemis based on like a space station, I think.
The main character was a female. So they had,
she could play the night nurse in Ahsoka. They
had her narrate the book. Sensational. Yep. If
they got a bloke to do that, it would have thrown
me as well because the female, the protagonist
is a female. Yeah. Like, listen, I've read. Listened
to plenty of male books with female characters
and it's been fine. Just little bits though,
like not the whole book. Oh, no, like when they've
got a cast of characters, you know, they're playing
different genders or whatever. It was just that
this character was particularly kind of whiny.
Right. And it just kind of accentuated that kind
of quality about him so he was kind of less likeable.
Yeah. Even though he kind of, you know, yeah,
is the hero of the story. It's like when you
listen to Jack read your books and the bloke
who narrates that is just so monotonous. And
it's, yeah, sometimes it can throw you hardcore.
But, yeah. I've been watching Clarkson's Farm.
Season four. Mm -hmm. Like just continues to
charm dude even when he's 68. What he's, what
him and his cast and crew are doing for Farmers
over there is absolutely sensational. Yeah. Like
you re, you're watching this shit, you're watching
this show and like he gets Farmers from his local
region and they come on and they talk about their
story and they're talking about, you know, how
their farms are doing and just how much bureaucracy
goes in and they're just ruining people's lives,
dude. Yeah, right. Ruining their livelihoods
and you wouldn't know. I wouldn't know anyway.
The fact that it's taken a car journalist to
bring this to the world, we should have been
listening to Farmers a long time ago. Oh, yeah.
And now you just sit there and you're like, these
poor buses feed us. They give us everything.
And they've got all these fucking hoops they've
got to jump through, dude. Yeah, man. And they're
constantly working under like massive debt and
like, you know, crop to crop and. Yeah. Yeah,
wow. It was like Clarkson showed in one of his
episodes, I'm pretty sure, it was 225 ,000 pound
he outlaid that season and he made back 275 ,000
pound. Yeah, wow. What the fuck, dude? Yeah.
Yeah, it's fucking heartbreaking, but he chucks
in a couple of laughs here and there as well,
you know. So he's educating you, entertaining
you and holding you around, and you can't help
but feel for fucking farmers. Yeah. They're doing
it tough. Absolutely. You haven't got back into
listening to Dungeon Crawl Carl yet? No, not
yet. Besides being at work, when I'm at work,
I've been watching Elementary again. Mm -hmm.
And, again, like that's a show that came out
years ago, 2012 I think it was that it came out.
And, dude, you just re -watch an episode and
you're like, fuck this, I forgot how much heart
this show had. Yeah, right. And it's just little
nuances and the way that Johnny Lee Miller plays
an addict is incredible. Probably has been one
in his past life. I mean, dude does look pretty
strung out. Yeah, man, you've got to give it
a watch. It's really good. It holds up still.
And I'll find myself re -watching it in a bit.
It's a good show. And, yeah, just a lot of heart.
I like it. Yeah, right. What else? Oh, dude,
me and Rach watched the documentary the other
night on the Titanic. Right. And they've just
completed these highly detailed 3D scans of this
thing, right? Revealing a whole lot of. Different
things, yeah. Dude, they had this LED screen,
life size of the Titanic, and broadcast this
3D scan on this thing. And they were walking
through the Titanic, walking on the deck of the
Titanic and shit. It looks absolutely insane.
You sit there and you're like, hang on a minute,
this is not real. This is a 3D render, but it's
done to that much detail. It's incredible, dude.
Absolutely incredible. I think they were surprised
at the size of the cut up the side too from the
iceberg. It wasn't as big. It wasn't big. No,
it only went through one and a half compartments.
Yeah, right. Unsinkable. Yeah. The thing, if
the walls went up to the roof, it would have
survived for the fact that it didn't. Yeah, right.
Yeah, dude, just – and it's only on YouTube.
Yeah. It's fucking free. Yeah. Now they're releasing
it to all the VR manufacturers and you've now
got a fucking 3D thing that you can walk around
in virtual reality at home. It's wild. Titanic
was found in 1986, dude, and now we're walking
around in it. Just nuts. The speed into which
technology is just advancing is nuts. Yeah, bullshit.
Like I said, I want to be in the Singularity.
Let's go. So, yeah, I finished reading. The final
architecture series. I was like, oh, okay, I'll
pick something up to kind of read before today's
show. Okay. So I picked up this little book.
Oh, man. Tender is the Flesh. What the fuck is
that? So I'd seen this come across a lot of book
talks and stuff. A lot of horror readers had
read it. It is, I don't know how to describe
it. The only way I can kind of describe it is
if you've read The Road. Yeah. You're going to
get some similar fucking vibes. I'm not sure
I'm going to read that book. Oh, man, it is a
ride. So he works in a factory, our protagonist,
the main character. This factory is set slightly
in the future where something's happened to all
the animals. We can't eat them anymore. Fucking
vegans. Oh, no. Cannibals, bro. We're eating
humans now. Yeah, they're farming humans. It's
like a day in the life of this guy's existence.
This is a kick in the guts, this book, man. You
think it's going one way, it goes a completely
different way. I finished it today and I was
like, oh, fuck, why did I read that? At the same
time, it's a book book. It makes you feel something.
Yeah, yeah. So I would recommend it, but there
would be kind of, I'll let you know that there's
some stuff in this book that kind of, It's heavy.
Well, you compared it to The Road, and I think
The Road is the only book where I've ever held
my phone at the end of it and wanted to hurl
it across the room. It's one of the worst endings
that I've ever heard of. Here, son, don't trust
anyone. Don't talk to anybody. Protect yourself
at all costs. The first fuckery comes across.
He goes, hi, friend. I'm alone. Yeah, I think
that kind of sets up the bleak kind of, Tone
of that, you know, maybe he didn't learn. Didn't
learn shit. Yeah. He's dead sacrificed himself.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, Dad said I'd haunt Logan till
he's fucking dying days if he did that. So, yeah,
he works at the abattoirs pretty much. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah, so you kind of get a day in the life
of his working world, but he's also the right
-hand man of the main guy. for the factory, so
he's going to visit the breeders. He's going
to visit the laboratory that they sell heads
to, head of cattle. Do they speak English? Yeah.
You can't talk to them. Oh, no, no, no, no, no,
no. They take out their vocal cords and they
keep them dumb. Wow. Oh, man. So I think this
book is kind of like a commentary on the whole
kind of. Humans are a very, they're not a very
economical food source. No. They only have one
offspring a year, if that. Oh, no, they've genetically
bred them to kind of grow quicker, pretty much
like they do with chickens and shit. What about
in the pants region? Do I get bigger in the pants
region? I don't know. Sign me up. Yeah, man,
it's... I'm not sure I like the sound of that.
Yeah, I mean, I'm down for a horror. This was
something different. I'm glad I read it. But
I'm also kind of not. From the Daily Mail. Sitting
comfortably? Not after even the tiniest nibble
of this gut -wrenching, churning, brilliantly
realised novel? Grimly engrossing with a sucker
punch ending. Times. Yeah, that's pretty fucking
accurate, man. I don't know about that. Yeah,
no, I probably wouldn't suggest it. Hang on,
let me have a look at how big the words are.
Yeah, I could read that. Yeah, it only took me
a day. Yeah, all right, I'll give that a raz.
Let me know how you go. Might listen to the audiobook
version. Yeah, okay. There is an audiobook version.
I wonder if I hear, like... In the background
when he's walking through his home. I doubt it.
No, because they're quiet. Motherfucker. No,
they kind of talk about how quiet they are just
because they can't talk and they don't talk and
they kind of grow up away from contact. Are they
always nude? Yeah. So they're always nude. So
you've seen dudes, wangs, just walk around. Let's
face it, if they're genetically raised to age
quicker, then you're going to genetically raise
them to not have penises and reproductive organs
and shit like that. So pretty much all the kind
of elements of agriculture and raising cattle
and pigs and stuff, they talk about all that
with. They take the nuts. Yeah, there is some.
Oh, and then they. They talk about eating them
and stuff like that and just, yeah, it's. Now,
we were talking about Hannibal last week. Yeah,
it's not like that. You're not interested in.
Oh, you're not. Because I'm not lying, when Hannibal's
cooking his dinner, I'm like, fuck, that looks
good. That sounds more like, you know, they just
walk off, slice the thing off. Oh, no, no, no.
They're cooking it. They're kind of, yeah. They've
got game reserves where people go and hunt and
then they get to eat their spoils afterwards.
What happened to the animals? There's a virus
that pretty much made them inedible. So they
had to wipe them all out. You know who done that?
Who? Fucking vegans. genetically manufactured
this disease to go and say that people couldn't
eat them, you know what? We should be eating
vegans then. Not us, like these guys. Yeah. Markovs.
Yeah, Markovs. Cheese and rice. Okay, well. But
there's something I'm going to read, and I think
you should watch it this week. Watch? We talked
about it. Yeah, right. Okay. Yeah, so Annihilation,
which is – What is – Fucking beautiful book.
Yeah, isn't it? So there's three books. I'll
be doing all three with Natalie Portman on Netflix.
Yeah, right. It is. Fucking sick name. It is
visually striking, that movie. It is great. Yeah,
right. Guardian's book of the year. Mm -hmm.
Are they making? Foot cramp. Foot cramp. Oh,
no. I got it. I got it. I got it. So are they
making? Are they making sequels? I haven't had
any plans. See, the movie, I don't know what
the books are like. The movie was pretty self
-contained. Right. So I'm quite happy for them
to leave it as is. All right. Okay. All right.
That's going to make me watch that even more.
I might even watch that tonight. Cool. It's on
Netflix. You can see it tonight. Yeah. Yeah,
that's got me intrigued. All right. But I will
give that. I don't want it, but I'm probably
going to. Oh, man. Yeah. I don't know. I finished
it when I got home from work today. Yeah. And
I was just like, oh, that was. That bad? It affected
you? Yeah, that gut punch at the end. He eats
his girlfriend, doesn't he? No. There's a whole
lot of things going on. It's actually autobiography.
You're a cannibal, aren't you? Yeah. If you were
a cannibal, would you tell me? You'd be obliged
to tell me, though, because we're friends. I
would have. Fed you something by now? What would
you feed me? I don't know. I don't eat people.
Tell me what you feed me. I don't know. Would
you feed me heaps of like sweet stuff or would
you feed me heaps like garlic and shit? I don't
know, dude. I don't want to think about it. Yeah,
I do. I'd like to eat a lot of garlic and chilli
stuff because I like spicy stuff, garlic stuff.
See, I'd be worried because that fucking pork
belly did me in the other day. Wow, you're calling
me a pig. Man, they reckon pork and human are
pretty freaking close. They are. Dude, I don't
know. I don't even think if we were stuck on
the side of a mountain, I'd be able to eat another
human. No. Again, it's not something I could
live with. act of doing it. Like, I don't think
I could, if I survived that mountain, and if
I weren't going to survive that mountain, then
what's the fucking point of being humans? Like,
quite honestly, like, I've got mates who like
hunting, mates who like fishing. Yeah. Like,
I'm not into that. Like, I'm not squeamish. I've
done first aid. I've fucking patched people up
and shit. Yeah. I'm not squeamish at all. I just.
I don't know. It's like some people relish the
idea of fucking killing things and skinning them
and then it's just not my thing. I have no, you
know, like if the world ends and I have to, I
guess I'm going to have to learn, but I don't
want anything to do with it right now. Did you
ever tell your story the day you went pigging
with Brett? Oh, man. I don't mind going hunting.
It's more of the. Hanging out with your boys.
I'd love that, but like killing and dragging
things. You or me will sit back at the fire while
they go walk. Yeah. Fucking idiots. Get a quad.
But that's it for our week in review. Thanks,
guys.