Hearts & Spaceships: A Very SFF Valentine's Day

FANTASY+GIRLS
My Favorite Apocalypse Ep. 1: Don’t Eat the Soylent Green Show Notes

Note: This episode was recorded in April, before the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police, and the subsequent protests. When Em and EJ talk about the current state of the world, they are referring to the very beginning of quarantine. FANTASY+GIRL Podcast stands behind Black Lives Matter. For our full Black Livse Matter statement, our commentary on its impact on publishing, and how to support black authors, see the opening of episode 4 in this miniseries.

The world is ending and the girls are wondering: Is this how you pictured the apocalypse?

• Em wonders why our current situation isn’t more Mad Max and less yoga pants. Beyond Thunder Dome scarred her and that is where her mind goes when you say apocalypse. EJ admits to only seeing the Fury Road, but Em says she has no idea if the originals are good or not, bc she was a kid when she watched them.
• EJ and Em admit that they have quarantine brain. How do you even podcast?
• The theme of the new series is MY FAVORITE APOCALYPSE.
• Em goes first. She says her pick isn’t her favorite—but it is one of the more interesting. She says her husband’s fav is ZOMBIELAND. This takes a quick tangent into zombies. Em doesn’t think she would last long. She is more of a SHAWN OF THE DEAD girl. The zombies are slower so she would stand a chance. EJ says fast zombies would be how she died—she doesn’t belong in that world.
• Em mentions the book THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH by Carrie Ryan and the interesting way that slow and fast zombies are explained in the book. Surprise—it has nothing to do with decay.
• Your hosts commiserate about what exactly the current apocalypse means and how slowing down isn’t terrible, though they feel guilty saying that since so many people are sick.
• Em’s apocalyptic pick is SOYLENT GREEN. She sets the scene for the movie that is from the 1970s but takes place in futuristic New York after a climate catastrophe and overpopulation. She first saw the movie in a seventh grade science class when her teacher just showed scifi all day and didn’t teach. EJ is understandably jealous—she had to actually learn at school!
• No spoilers in the notes for SOYLENT GREEN—but Em recaps the movie and the big plot twist at the end (okay one spoiler: THE SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE! THE SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!)
• Em tells a Facebook story from a few years ago. She accepted a request from a guy from high school—but she moved 13 times between fifth grade and senior year so she admits to not always remembering everyone. EJ wonders how Em learned anything. Em says she didn’t, lol.
• The guy ended up being a huge conspiracy theorist, and so Em commented THE SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE on one of his especially outlandish theories and he got mad and unfriended her, but she was just glad someone got the obscure movie reference.
• Em admits, that if she lived in a post-apocalyptic world and the government was offering weird—but free and nutritious—food, she’d probably just eat it and not ask questions. She asks, Do you wanna know what is in your hot dog? EJ doesn’t!
• They move on from cannibalism references because the joke doesn’t land, lol.
• EJ’s turn! She brings it with the book: SUPER SAD TRUE LOVE STORY by Gary Shteyngart.
• EJ sets the scene by filling Em in on the novel’s setting: a world where society and country are deeply entangled with corporations. She explains that it is similar to when church and state were the same, except instead of church, it is private corporations. Plastic surgery and medical tech can help you to look and live however you want as long as you can pay for it, which has created an even bigger socioeconomic gap. At the core of the plot between the main characters is a love story. The protagonic works at a medical tech company that is super popular—EJ compares it to the Apple of the future except the accessories are for your own body.
• The protagonist is jaded and doesn’t buy into the culture of maxing out your own body which makes him relatable to the reader, but a complete loser in his fictional world. The protagonist falls in love with a woman within his company. Much of the book is told through emails. While the romance is happening, the world in the background is super unsettling.
• EJ compares it to our current situation and how we are all plugged in all the time. In the book, she explains, you have a pendant and whenever you go anywhere—like a bar—you are logged in and geo-located. Everyone else can see who you are and where you are and what you are about, then rank you as a human. Em says it gives her a Black Mirror vibe. EJ agrees.
• This futuristic world is overrun with clickbait...which is kind of what we are livin...