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The journey to space begins inside the mind. Ezra Keaton is a candidate for the Odyssey Project, a mission to retrieve a source of renewable energy from Saturn’s moon Titan that could save life on Earth. But he’s started experiencing frightening hallucinations that may link back to the Project. The sudden, inexplicable death of a colleague spurs him to investigate, but how can he uncover the truth if he can’t trust his own mind? WAKE UP: A Slingshot Story is a three part podcast event from L ...
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Oddly, the British author Ian Watson may be best known today for his various novels in the Warhammer 40,000 setting. Long before he flirted with "the grim darkness of the far future", Watson carved a space for himself as one of the most intellectually challenging and formidable British SF writers of the 1970s.
This episode covers Watson's bracing debut novel The Embedding. Originally published in 1973, it is a startling combination of linguistics, anthropology, geopolitics, and first contact with alien life. With settings in the UK, the US, Brazil, and in space, it is an expansive and ambitious debut posing big questions about humankind's search for meaning and a place in the universe. It also features a gonzo fusion of drugs, language theory, sex, and political violence.
J.G. Ballard once described Watson as the UK's only SF writer of ideas - and The Embedding is definitely packed with those.
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