Episode 41
Episode 41 | Thirteen Dooms! With Author James Maxey
Engaging with the theme of apocalypse, this episode of Welcome to Wonder Land serves as a thought-provoking meditation on the nature of human existence and the potential for self-inflicted annihilation. Through an earnest discussion with author James Maxey, we explore the cultural fascination with post-apocalyptic narratives, tracing their lineage from early literary works to contemporary media. The dialogue is enriched by personal anecdotes and reflections from the hosts, who grapple with their own fears and perceptions about the end of the world. Maxey's latest publication is positioned as a lens through which we can scrutinize our collective anxieties, as he delineates thirteen specific apocalyptic scenarios, each accompanied by a dose of levity that belies the gravity of the subject matter. This episode ultimately challenges listeners to confront their apprehensions regarding the future while simultaneously encouraging a dialogue about resilience and the capacity for renewal in the face of despair.
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Transcript
Welcome to Wonderland, the podcast where I go down the rabbit hole to research things you may be curious about.
Speaker A:My name is Amie and I'll be your guide on this trip to Wonderland.
Speaker A:Hi there, my wonderlings.
Speaker A:Welcome back for another trip to Wonderland.
Speaker A:We'll be going down a rabbit hole with a friend of the podcast and author, James Maxey.
Speaker A:So what are we wondering about this week that James can help us with?
Speaker B:Total annihilation.
Speaker B:Annihilation.
Speaker B:Armageddon.
Speaker B:Armaged.
Speaker B:Armageddon.
Speaker B:Ragnarok.
Speaker B:Extinction.
Speaker B:Apocalypse.
Speaker B:Apocalypse.
Speaker B:Rapture.
Speaker B:Doomsday.
Speaker B:Doom.
Speaker B:End of days.
Speaker B:End of time.
Speaker B:Sweet Meteor.
Speaker C:Death.
Speaker A:Oh, yes, the end of times.
Speaker A:No matter what you call it, you've potentially given thought to how humanity ends.
Speaker A:Pop culture is littered with books, TV shows and movies set in post apocalyptic worlds.
Speaker A:The fascination with life after mass decimation isn't new, though.
Speaker A: apocalyptic novel back in her: Speaker A: n that, however, Lord Byron's: Speaker A:Television shows and video games like the Last of Us, Twisted Metal and Fallout feature tales amidst a variety of post apocalyptic backgrounds.
Speaker A:And very recently, friend of the POD and author James Maxey put his thoughts to paper in his newest book.
Speaker A:Join me as we sit down to talk to him.
Speaker C:You're good.
Speaker C:All right.
Speaker C:Hi there, my wonderlings.
Speaker C:And welcome back for another special episode of I've got James Maxey back with us.
Speaker C:And you may remember that name.
Speaker C:He was on.
Speaker C:He was on welcome to Wonderland back in September, episode 35.
Speaker C:I had a cheat here.
Speaker C:And we talked about his book Cryptids, how we know they're real.
Speaker C:And if you remember, at that time he teased that he was working on a new book and he said it was going to be about the end.
Speaker A:Of the world and guess what?
Speaker C:It came out.
Speaker C:So James sent me a copy of the book and I read it and guys, it is so much fun.
Speaker C:It's weird to say that the end of the world is fun, but in case you didn't catch the last episode, what I'm going to do is go ahead and introduce James.
Speaker A:James Maxey.
Speaker C:Welcome back.
Speaker C:Tell us about yourself.
Speaker C:Thanks for being here again.
Speaker B:All right, well, happy to be here.
Speaker B:Thank you for having me.
Speaker B:So, yeah, I've been writing for.
Speaker B:I started publishing stories in the 90s, so I've been at this a long time.
Speaker B:Mostly writing fiction.
Speaker B:And it's only in recent years that I've been stretching and trying out the nonfiction game.
Speaker B:And they say write what you know.
Speaker B:So I'm not like sitting there, you know, deciding to write a book, then going and reading 50 other things to put it together.
Speaker B:Instead, it's me putting down the stuff I've been fascinated with since I was a kid.
Speaker B:So I write a lot of post apocalyptic science fiction stories set after the end of the world.
Speaker B:And so I've been for decades reading about various ways that the world could end.
Speaker B:I grew up in a very fundamentalist church that believed that the end times were imminent, that the rapture was going to be happening any day.
Speaker B:So I've got a lot of trading and just expecting the world is going to come crashing down around us.
Speaker B:And this book was just kind of my attempt to work through some of my own feelings about the dooms that we.
Speaker B:That face us.
Speaker B:We definitely live in an age where we have more ways for humanity to drive itself to the brink of extinction and beyond than ever before.
Speaker B:Everything we advance seems to bring with it some fresh doom.
Speaker C:Yeah, so this is gonna sound terrible.
Speaker C:I didn't expect this book to be so fun to read.
Speaker B:I have it on the book.
Speaker B:The title, you know, the subtitle or the tagline is a frightening but fun look at our inevitable extinction.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:And it was so similarly to you.
Speaker C:I enjoy a nice post apocalyptic novel.
Speaker C:Like there's something about it and that, that grit and that get to it, that, that desire to survive that's just really enticing.
Speaker C:But I'm going to be honest, I don't give a whole lot of thought to how the world might actually end.
Speaker C:Like in my head, it's forever away, you know, billions.
Speaker C:And you talk about that in here, that it's.
Speaker C:It's forever away.
Speaker C:But you mentioned something in the book about how you grew up in an era where nuclear holocaust was kind of.
Speaker B:Oh yeah.
Speaker B: So I was born in: Speaker B:And so, you know, I was going to schools that had bomb shelters in the basement.
Speaker B:I remember going into some of these bomb shelter rooms.
Speaker B:They would get turned into storerooms for the band or something.
Speaker B:And so, you know, you would go into the bomb shelter to get the tambourines or whatever, and there'd be all these tins of like dry biscuits with that, you know, that had a shelf life of like 50 years.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And I was always like, I really want to open up one of these.
Speaker C:Did you, did you open any of them?
Speaker B:Taste these ancient biscuits but no, I never, I never did.
Speaker B:And, but still it was, it was fascinating.
Speaker B:I remember really strongly in.
Speaker B:I was going to school, going to college.
Speaker B:Reagan was president.
Speaker B:There was a movie that came out.
Speaker B:It was, it was broadcast, was like one of the highest rated TV shows of all time.
Speaker B:It was a made for TV movie about a nuclear holocaust.
Speaker B:And everybody at college was sitting around watching it.
Speaker B:And a friend of mine, you know, I was talking to him and he was like, you know, I felt like.
Speaker B:He said that he felt like, you know, his parents had been lucky, you know, that they had been getting their education and getting their start in the world before the nuclear holocaust was an option and they had a future to look forward to.
Speaker B:And he just, he didn't, he felt like there was really no tomorrow.
Speaker B:Like everything he was doing was pointless because in the next five to 10 years, it's all going to come to an end.
Speaker B:There's just too many ways for a nuclear holocaust to unfold.
Speaker B:It was in, you know, Mad Max and you know, before that, Planet of the Apes and you know, just, just, it was such a staple of science fiction and just really suffusing our culture.
Speaker B: t like music videos from like: Speaker B:And it was just, just a, you know, it was, it was that, that was a moment where I was like, you know, is, you know, am I, am I being programmed to, to expect the end?
Speaker B:You know, is there, you know, no way that we're going to, to get out of this?
Speaker B:And, and it turned out you so far.
Speaker C:So did it serious though, that.
Speaker C:Because, you know, if you're talking about it being in music videos, that kind of feels light and like people are like, well, this is kind of part of life, but maybe not really a thing.
Speaker C:Did it feel like at any point that could be a thing that the world may truly end?
Speaker C:Or was it just something like a tickle in the back of your head?
Speaker B:So it was, it was part of, it was like, yeah, sir.
Speaker B:Yeah, sure.
Speaker B:You know, may, you know, it's probably, you know, you get, you get kind of numb to it.
Speaker B:And so it did feel, you know, kind of kind of science fictiony.
Speaker B:I remember, you know, there was like some low level conflicts going on.
Speaker B:You know, you know, Russia had invaded Afghanistan and, and Reagan was talking about the Star wars, you know, putting space lasers and stuff up.
Speaker B:And, and so there was like always this fear of, oh, you know, things Going to escalate.
Speaker B:We're just going to keep, keep building more and more powerful weapons and all you need is one slip up.
Speaker B:And, and you know, the, the, it was, you know, among college age kids, it was just assumed that, you know, Reagan was just, you know, a maniac.
Speaker B:He was old and doddering and he would make jokes about, you know, about, you know, he did a.
Speaker B:He was playing around in the studio one day before recording and he says, well, my fellow Americans, I just want to announce that we've declared war on Russia and the missiles are flying.
Speaker B:And, and no, I'm not quoting it directly, but, you know, he made a joke, but yikes.
Speaker B:It was like a huge scandal that he had, that he had done this.
Speaker A: ,: Speaker C:I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever.
Speaker B:We begin bombing in five minutes.
Speaker B:And a lot of us were just like, oh, yeah, no, this isn't this, this could really be the end.
Speaker B:There were also like close calls, you know, you would hear about, oh, you know, the, the, we were put on a red alert.
Speaker B:You know, the.
Speaker B:Went into, you know, because a flock of Greek, of geese, you know, in Canada, you know, triggered, you know, some early radar warning.
Speaker C:Sure it wasn't a flock of seagulls.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So, so definitely, you know, you know, it was, it felt distant, but it also felt very plausible that this was going to be, going to be the way the world ended.
Speaker B:And then the Soviet Union fell apart.
Speaker B: s and the, the early: Speaker B:But the, that sense that, you know, there's, you know, enough nuclear power, material out there, enough nuclear missiles out there to destroy us all kind of faded away from the, from the foreground.
Speaker B:Russia got rid of a lot of warheads.
Speaker B:We got rid of a lot of warheads.
Speaker B:We stopped testing bombs every, you know, every three weeks.
Speaker B:We, we have blown up very, very few, you know, atolls in the Pacific in recent years.
Speaker B:France kind of gave up on their nuclear testing and so it just kind of kind of faded away.
Speaker B:It's, I think if you, you know, if you talk to people today, young people today, and ask them, you know, how, what they're afraid of, you know, it's, it's climate change more than, more than nuclear war.
Speaker B:And, you know, I can, I'm not one to judge people for, you know, for feeling Their fears.
Speaker B:You know, the world programs you to fear, to fear certain things.
Speaker B:Every generation has its way of ending, that the world is going to end.
Speaker B:And, you know, I mentioned, you know, I grew up in a very religious household.
Speaker B:You know, I left that behind many, many years ago.
Speaker B:But, you know, there was.
Speaker B:I grew up in a crowd of people who were like, eagerly awaiting the end of the world.
Speaker B:You know, it wasn't that, oh, no, the world is about to end.
Speaker B:They're like, oh, yes, the world is about to end.
Speaker C:Right, right.
Speaker C:And, and I think that's, that's common.
Speaker C:So I've been talking to some people about the end of the world, which is a super uplifting conversation to have.
Speaker C:But as I've been preparing for this and, you know, rapture didn't actually come up as often as I kind of would have thought that it might, you know, because I was asking people, so if, how, how do you think the world ends?
Speaker C:How do you think the world ends?
Speaker C:And you know, we're in the south and.
Speaker C:Yeah, but I think I only got rapture one time.
Speaker C:And even then it was kind of a.
Speaker C:Well, you know, what.
Speaker C:Oh, I can't even think how she said it.
Speaker C:But, but rapture.
Speaker C:And obviously lots of jokes about zombies.
Speaker C:You referenced very briefly zombies in the book.
Speaker C:So in the book, guys, basically James goes in and he pulls out 13 specific specific ways that the world might end, which he narrowed down from a list of like 30.
Speaker C:Hey.
Speaker C:And I was really pleased to find the list at the back of the book won't even lie.
Speaker C:Like, as I got to the end, I was like, I wonder what the other ones were.
Speaker C:Like, he didn't talk about this and he didn't talk about.
Speaker C:And then I got to that.
Speaker C:I was like, oh, it was on the list, though.
Speaker C:So he talks about 13 different specific ways the world might end.
Speaker C:And in each part of this.
Speaker C:So each chapter, each, each doom is a chapter, basically, he.
Speaker C:And he kind of goes through what might happen and then he asks the questions, should you panic?
Speaker C:And will this kill you?
Speaker C:And then he kind of answers that, will this decimate us?
Speaker C:Could this send us back to the Stone Ages?
Speaker C:Will this lead us to extent?
Speaker C:Will this lead to extinction and is there hope?
Speaker C:Which I think was a really fun way to do.
Speaker C:You did something similar in the Cryptids book, and I think that's a really fun way to kind of bring each chapter back in.
Speaker C:But I'm not going to tell everybody what all of the dooms are that you have gone over, because this is a Book that they should purchase and enjoy.
Speaker C:And I haven't looked yet.
Speaker C:Is this one available as an ebook on Amazon or anything?
Speaker B:It's available as an ebook, not yet on audio.
Speaker B:You can get it in the hardcover or paperback.
Speaker B:And it's.
Speaker B:It sold out at the very first event I had it at, so I was very, very.
Speaker C:Hey, congratulations.
Speaker C:That's exciting.
Speaker B:The orange cover.
Speaker B:So the.
Speaker B:I was doing an outdoor festival when I debuted.
Speaker B:When I debuted it back in November, and we have a red tint, and inside that red tint, this was, like, neon orange.
Speaker B:I mean, it just looked like I had printed it with a fluorescent ink.
Speaker C:Oh, that's neat.
Speaker B:Just like, it was just.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Everybody, like, grabbing it.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So, yeah, it's.
Speaker B:It turns out there are a lot of people who.
Speaker B:Who want to.
Speaker B:To read about the.
Speaker B:About the apocalypse.
Speaker C:Well, yeah, I can imagine it's something to be fascinated with.
Speaker C:And, you know, Barrett wants me to say that he does.
Speaker C:On audiobooks, Voices.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker C:So his little shameless plug back there where you can't see him.
Speaker C:But anyhow.
Speaker C:So one of the things.
Speaker C:And I don't want to get into it too much because I don't have an overly political podcast, but, you know, you were talking about Reagan a little bit ago, and throughout this, you kind of talk about how the different dooms, the ones that are not necessarily natural, really come down potentially to how people are being led and who's in charge of making decisions and how we're doing things.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And I would say there's a fair amount of them that kind of boiled down to that.
Speaker C:Like, if somebody smart makes good decisions, then we can probably avoid this doom altogether.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:In other words, for screwed.
Speaker B:Just.
Speaker B:However, no, the.
Speaker B:One of the things that I return to again in the book is that humans have this wonderful track record of beating back the apocalypse, you know, so if you look at the classic Horsemen of the Apocalypse, you know, we've really mostly defeated famine.
Speaker B:You know, famine is now much more a political act that it is the fact that we can't grow enough calories.
Speaker B:You know, in any advanced nation with a stable government, they can grow more food than.
Speaker C:We need.
Speaker B:And then, you know, disease, plague.
Speaker B:We've really done pretty masterful job of getting rid of things like smallpox and polio.
Speaker B:And, you know, as dramatic as much as Covid, you know, really seemed to, like, shake the world and turn it upside down, you know, it didn't kill anywhere near.
Speaker B:You know, it was.
Speaker B:You know, it's a rounding error, you know, as far as.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:You know, I mean, every death is tragic, but, but it's, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't the Black Plague, it wasn't, wasn't the Black Death or, or smallpox.
Speaker B:It was, you know, it's, it's, it was unfortunate, but it was not extinction ender or a civilization ender.
Speaker B:And so, you know, we've, we, I don't think that there's, I don't think that, I mean, I, you know, all we need is one thing that we're, I'm wrong but you know, we just understand enough about how germs spread, you know, that, you know, we take things, we can do things to mitigate it.
Speaker B:So much of disease was, you know, spread by bad water.
Speaker B:And you know, in places that have, you know, a halfway stable political system, people can have clean water.
Speaker B:So, so that is, that is really, well, and then even war, you know, if you look back at the previous centuries, you know, just the conflicts between major nations going on, you know, World War I, World War II, you know, where tens of millions of people are dying every year and there's still so many wars going on, but far fewer people die today from armed conflicts than once, than once we once did.
Speaker B:I mean, it was, you know, World War I, you know, the, the number of 18 and 19 year old Europeans that, European males that just got thrown into a grinder and just, you do, just erased, you know, a huge part of that population.
Speaker B:The same thing happened in World War II.
Speaker B:And then with World War II, we started introducing the practice of well, we're just going to erase this entire city, you know, so, you know, nuclear, you know, Hiroshima, Nagasaki are obvious, but even without that, with conventional weapons, you know, we would take a town like Dresden and just leave nothing standing.
Speaker B:And you know, there's, you know, not to be political, you know, there's still conflicts where that, that sort of thing happens, but it's definitely not the scale or the scope that, that it once was.
Speaker B:And it's because, you know, we have built institutions.
Speaker B:You know, as much as you might laugh at, you know, how ineffective something like the United nations was, might be, you know, we do tend to be able to talk our way out of conflicts, right?
Speaker B:And the major reason that we have fewer conflicts is, you know, capitalism.
Speaker C:We got to work together as, you.
Speaker B:Know, it's, it's, it pays, you pay, you can, it's much easier to buy and sell and trade with with your potential enemies and, and influence them economically.
Speaker B:It's just expensive to go out and conquer territory because then you're fighting the resistance for decades.
Speaker B:The quicker way to monetize it is just to go in and buy what you want bribe.
Speaker B:And it's created, for the most part, a more peaceful world.
Speaker B:So we've.
Speaker B:We've really beaten three of the four Horsemen and in doing so, we create new problems by eliminating the kind of mass death and the mass disease and the mass hunger that we were plagued with until as recently as like 60, 70 years ago.
Speaker B:We have quadrupled the world's population in a very short period of time.
Speaker B:And that's been a lot of strain on a lot of ecosystems.
Speaker B:It's created, you know, even though we might not have the same level of war, it has created, you know, political turmoil.
Speaker B:And so there's, you know, most.
Speaker B:A lot of the dooms that we might face are.
Speaker B:Are the results of us beating back some other doom.
Speaker C:And opens right, because there's so many of.
Speaker C:And that was a theme throughout it, the overpopulation.
Speaker C:So spoiler one of them is overpopulation.
Speaker C:But, you know, you talked about the overpopulation, but then in other chapters it comes back to that.
Speaker C:So because we have so many more people, we are making more trash.
Speaker C:Not to give another spoiler, but so.
Speaker C:And these kinds of things feed on each other.
Speaker C:You talked about natural stupidity, which gave me a good little giggle there.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:I will.
Speaker B:The, the one chapter, you know is dealing with artificial intelligence.
Speaker B:So I have to follow with the chapter on natural stupidity.
Speaker C:Oh, my God, it is.
Speaker C:I don't think I even noticed that it went in that direction.
Speaker C:Yeah, no, that.
Speaker C:That's brilliant.
Speaker C:And you know, the ardor fiddle.
Speaker C:Artificial intelligence.
Speaker C:I get teased all the time.
Speaker C:So do I think that robots are going to take over the world?
Speaker C:No, I probably don't.
Speaker C:But if they do, I am super polite to my Google all day, every day, so that when it comes time, she's like, not her.
Speaker C:You can spare her because she said thank you and called me ma'am.
Speaker C:And we've got Google.
Speaker C:Like, I'm very big on the automated stuff, so I've got a Google in every room and she's doing all kinds of things for me and controlling my lights and controlling the temperature and telling me random facts that I need to know when I'm in the shower, you know, But I don't know, part of me, I've got.
Speaker C:I've got a preoccupation with robots and androids and all of that.
Speaker C:And I, I just, I find it incredibly fascinating and I don't.
Speaker C:And Barrett and I have discussed this Before, I don't love AI like, I love aspects of it.
Speaker C:And you actually talked about it really eloquently in your chapter.
Speaker C:Like, I've got this fear of AI taking the creative jobs, taking away which.
Speaker C:Which obviously you addressed as a creative, but taking away the things that bring passion to people.
Speaker C:And then we've got a robot doing it and what are we doing?
Speaker C:It would be different if, you know, now I'm going to get on soapbox, you know, it'd be different if we were AI advanced to a point that we were allowed to then pursue our passions in any way, you know, but the world is still the world.
Speaker C:Capitalism is still capitalism.
Speaker C:We still have to make money.
Speaker C:We still have to report to the man.
Speaker C:That's all still a thing.
Speaker C:And so I've got very mixed feelings.
Speaker B:About AI well, so I do think the, that, you know, AI is likely to put, you know, some people out of work.
Speaker B:You know, that's definitely the case.
Speaker B:And it can make life, you know, very difficult for.
Speaker B:For author, authors or artists.
Speaker B:That said, life is already really difficult for our author, authors and artists.
Speaker B:You know, it wasn't like it was some walk in the park before.
Speaker B:And the, the attributes that go into becoming a successful writer or a successful illustrator aren't really the raw talent or producing the product.
Speaker B:A lot of it is being able to make connections and just, you know, know, having.
Speaker B:Having those personal experiences, you know, so, like, I can.
Speaker B:I can connect with people over my, you know, over my background, my personal experience with nuclear holocaust and with, you know, people, you know, ready for the rapture.
Speaker B:And, you know, AI can just can't make these connections.
Speaker B:And so, you know, if it's a good imitative system, but it's got.
Speaker B:It won't ever really.
Speaker B:I don't think it will ever truly be a threat for the creative types because it can't do the.
Speaker B:Even though it's running on a network, it can't really do the networking.
Speaker C:The irony of it, you could be on a network, but you cannot network.
Speaker C:And you actually talked about.
Speaker C:And it hadn't occurred to me, and maybe that's just because I live under a rock.
Speaker C:But in that same chapter, you talked about how really the people who potentially there's concern for are your, like your surgeons and your people who have these very highly skilled jobs that honestly, robot potentially can do better, more efficiently.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So my wife just had her whole foot rebuilt, you know, so.
Speaker B:And right now it's just this Frankenstein monster foot with stitches.
Speaker C:And we're gonna clip this out and send it to her Valentine's Day.
Speaker B:It, it's, it's, it's a mess.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:And it was a five hour surgery.
Speaker B:You know, the doctors were in there with the X rays and stuff for, for five hours and the surgeon did a wonderful job.
Speaker B:You know, it was wonderful that, that they did this.
Speaker B:But I can 100% see how an AI powered robot, you know, consulting with a human could probably do the very same surgery.
Speaker B:And it's probably, you know, if I'm, you know, I'm in my 60s, it is quite possible before I, I leave this planet that robot surgeons will become the standard because you know, they, they, you know, they're, it's still a learning curve, but as they perfect, you know, they don't get fatigued, they don't have.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:Various.
Speaker B:I don't, I don't want to spoil too much here about my.
Speaker B:About.
Speaker B:But I don't want to complain about my wife's care because it's excellent care.
Speaker B:But there, today there was someone who came and they were, that she was back for follow up exam and they unwrapped her foot, you know, and they, they were re.
Speaker B:You know, they re banished it and, and well actually before they rebanished it, they, they already removed all the wrapping and examined it.
Speaker B:And they were like, all right, we gotta, we gotta go get the X ray ready.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And we were sitting there for like six minutes and the nurse popped her head back in and, and she was like, and she was like, all right, just double checking it's your, it's your right foot, right?
Speaker B:And she said I gotta, I just had to tell the technician which foot.
Speaker B:And it's like.
Speaker B:So she is distracted and busy enough that she just spent 10 minutes working on her right foot, you know, doing an excellent job.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And yet because she's got other things to do and other things in her mind, she had forgotten whether it was the right or the left foot.
Speaker B:You know, she probably is, you know, probably deals with, you know, a dozen patients a day where she's dealing with this and it's all different, but I felt very connected to her because that is, you know, that is totally me.
Speaker C:You're like, I don't know which foot it was.
Speaker B:But yeah, no, I, all the time, you know, just the.
Speaker B:Some things I will have in my hand two minutes earlier.
Speaker B:You know, I will completely forget about, you know, in the course of talking the number of times I'll sign a book for someone at a convention and then set the book down or I'll Put it into a plastic bag and I'll be talking with them about something and I'll be like, well, you know, have a good day.
Speaker B:And they'll be like, going to give me my book?
Speaker C:Nope, I'm keeping that.
Speaker C:So I make money.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:Yeah, so, so, you know, getting, you know, machines, machines won't do that.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:And so, yeah, I think that, you know, I think there's going to be a learning curve.
Speaker B:I mean it's, it's not.
Speaker B:I wouldn't today I would be very nervous about getting into a robo taxi.
Speaker B:I definitely wouldn't want a robosurger working on machine today.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:But I see no, no real barriers to this tech becoming prominent.
Speaker B:And I will guarantee you that the companies will make way, way, way more money by, by doing, you know, robotic surgeries than they ever will from writing, from having their robots write a comic book or.
Speaker C:110%.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So, you know, the, the money, the money's not in the arts.
Speaker B:You know, I wouldn't be too, too worried.
Speaker B:The arts you do for love and the AIs just can't, can't feel that love.
Speaker C:So speaking of the art you do for love, you said earlier that you read a lot of post apocalyptic books and that's kind of, you know, when you were getting to the write what, you know, stuff, where were your influences?
Speaker C:What were the big ones?
Speaker B:Oh my God.
Speaker B:So I mentioned the church.
Speaker B:So the church was big one.
Speaker B:But the, you know, I was probably 10, May, maybe 11 when I saw the Plan of the Apes on TV and they get to the end and they pull back and it's the Statue of Liberty.
Speaker B:And he's like, you blew it up.
Speaker B:You know, you bought you maniacs.
Speaker B:And you know, that was like, oh, wow, that is really, you know, that, that, that has stayed with me a long time.
Speaker B:That was one of the first, you know, big, you know, big moments, you know, as a child where I'm like, oh, this is, this is how, how it's going to be in the future.
Speaker B:This is, you know, we're, we're, we're really going to be doomed because, because of the, of the technology that we built.
Speaker B:So definitely Planet the Apes was, was a big, a big driver for me.
Speaker B:I'm trying to think of a, of a book series that I was reading when I was young, but I really wasn't, I wasn't reading a lot of post apocalyptic.
Speaker C:But you write post apocalyptic.
Speaker B:I write struggling with it now.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And, but I didn't, so, but it was A, you know, I kind of grew out of it.
Speaker B:You know, I didn't have a strong influence that led me into.
Speaker B:Into this.
Speaker B:It was.
Speaker B:I write post apocalyptic.
Speaker B:My Bitterwood series is set on a post apocalyptic America.
Speaker B:But, you know, it grew out of plain D and D in just a traditional D and D setting.
Speaker B:And me thinking, what would it take to turn our world into a D and D world?
Speaker B:And so I was working from.
Speaker B:All right, instead of a fantasy reality, what would take our reality into something like a D and D setting?
Speaker B:And so, you know, I started with the end of the world, wiping away what we had and replacing it with, you know, nanotech as magic and the dragons, genetically engineered.
Speaker C:What ended the world in your series?
Speaker B:So it was a multitude of things.
Speaker B:So part of it was climate, climate change.
Speaker B:Big part of it was economic collapse.
Speaker B:You know, the, the economy had just, you know, gotten very unequal.
Speaker B:There was a lot of grifting stuff going on.
Speaker B:It was a kind of a house of cards.
Speaker B:If any of this sounds like I'm commenting on today's politics, keep in mind, I was writing this.
Speaker B:I started writing this in the 90s.
Speaker C:Oh, so you're predicting the future like the Simpsons, huh?
Speaker B: ld be a worldwide pandemic in: Speaker B:So I was a couple of years off.
Speaker C:Oh, wow.
Speaker B:And that pandemic, you know, killed a lot more people than the.
Speaker B:Than the one that actually came around.
Speaker B:Came around.
Speaker B:But yeah, so I just kind of came at it just through pure imagination and, you know, with the, you know, as much influenced by.
Speaker B:By those music videos I was.
Speaker B:I'm talking about.
Speaker C:Is there one that sticks out in your head?
Speaker B: One of these: Speaker B:The, like this bumpy, upbeat, you know, pumping, upbeat song.
Speaker B:But it's, you know, it is about, well, this party tonight because the world ends tomorrow and then, you know, going back, you know, again to the earlier the Smiths.
Speaker B:Ask me, you know, if it's not love, it's the bomb that will bring us together is the chorus.
Speaker B:And so, you know, good.
Speaker B:Again, very cultural.
Speaker B:Oh, you know, also for comic books at that time wasn't really post apocalyptic, but very dystopian.
Speaker B:So you had Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns, you know, all just showing the world going increasingly to hell.
Speaker B:And you know, so I kind of grew up, you know, had this very dour attitude.
Speaker B:But the, the best way to stop feeling bad about the future is to read A lot about the past and realize that we have made a tremendous amount of progress and you know, for, we can sit here and we can talk about all the problems in the world, but we just kind of routinely leave certain things behind, certain problems behind.
Speaker B:And it's just, you know, I, I don't think people today understand how horrible cars were in fairly recent decades.
Speaker B: the cars I was driving in the: Speaker B:No, no airbags, sure.
Speaker B:No anti lock brakes, you know, headlights.
Speaker B:I just don't even know.
Speaker B:I mean the before halogen, halogen headlights, you know, you, you were driving at, you know, 80 miles an hour, able to see like 50ft in front of you.
Speaker C:Just hoping for the best.
Speaker B:Yeah, just hoping for the best.
Speaker B:And it's so, yeah, it was, you know, today, you know, my car will chirp if I go out of a lane or if, you know, there's a car in my blind spot.
Speaker B:You know, that's a little warning for that.
Speaker B:You know, just, just all these little.
Speaker C:Elements keep you alive.
Speaker B:Things working hard to, to keep me alive and safe.
Speaker B:And you know, there's, there's variations from year to year, but it is, we have seriously cut, you know, cut into the number of traffic fatalities.
Speaker B:If, if there is any trend, it's because, you know, more people are driving than ever.
Speaker B:Sure, we're driving more miles.
Speaker B:But you know, as far as being able to, to drive, you know, two or 300 miles between, you know, any kind of, any kind of incident in your car, I mean, for me, you know, being able to drive 5,000 miles without having to change some major part of my car is really kind of right.
Speaker C:You're like, I just need to keep going.
Speaker C:Well, and you go all over for the different conventions and things.
Speaker B:I drove 17,000 miles last year going to shows.
Speaker B:That's a lot of miles.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:So mostly the things that you do talk about in the book are of our own devices.
Speaker C:Mostly they're things that potentially we bring upon ourselves.
Speaker C:There are a couple of things, though, that you mentioned that may just be inevitable.
Speaker C:Maybe the world and we may have zero say in it.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker B:So the, you know, there's the old Doomsday comet.
Speaker C:Yep.
Speaker B:You know, it is plotted probably the most, the most certain threat as far as it is a matter of time.
Speaker B:Every year, the planet is rolling dice.
Speaker B:So far, we're not rolling zeros, but eventually, on a scale of, you know, thousands of years, there's another one of these doomsday comets heading towards us.
Speaker B:You know, the, the Big one that wiped out the dinosaurs.
Speaker B:You know, plenty of things survived if alligators made it through.
Speaker B:You know, maybe, maybe we can make it through a doomsday comet, but.
Speaker C:Or the lizard man can.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:However, that is one where 50 years ago, if we had heard of doomsday comets heading towards us, we'd be completely helpless.
Speaker B:Today we have, you know, a good shot of spotting that Doomsday Comet 40, 50, 100 years before it, before it's going to hit.
Speaker B:And in another, you know, by 20, 30 years from now, we will probably have the, all the tools that we need to deflect an asteroid before it came to us.
Speaker B:So we got lucky that, you know, nothing slammed into us in this area era where we were becoming civilized enough to deal with this threat.
Speaker B:But again, that's one of the cases where I was talking or I mentioned, you know, assuming that the people who are running the world are smart enough to invest money into the space research and into the rocket programs and, and you know, so about that, Fingers.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I say this as we have, you know, two astronauts trapped up in space, that they live there now.
Speaker C:It's fine.
Speaker B:They have no idea how long they've been up there, but it's ridiculously long time.
Speaker B:And if, you know, it's kind of like we can't get a rocket up to, in very near Earth or orbit to retrieve two astronauts, does it make you feel good about our odds against mounting an expedition to an oncoming comet?
Speaker C:Well, and Bruce Willis is out of commission for it.
Speaker C:But I will say despite this book being called 13 Dooms and Doom being there in the title, it's a very optimistic and hopeful book.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:Except for, you know, I mean, do I do get to the, you know, I mean, it's optimistic, but it's also, you know, I, I keep, I, I try to remind people whenever possible that mortality is baked into the cake, you know?
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:Entropy is just part of, part of the design of the universe.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:You know, in the end, there's no escape.
Speaker B:The opening of the book says, imagine a world where 95% of humanity has already died.
Speaker B:And then it's like, you don't need to imagine it.
Speaker B:That's our world.
Speaker B:Well, more than 99 out of every human that's ever been born that's already passed away.
Speaker B:Most of them, we don't know their names.
Speaker B:We have no idea where they're buried.
Speaker B:They are gone and forgotten.
Speaker B:Entire civilizations have vanished from the earth.
Speaker C:The Alphabet thing I thought was a really poignant comment to make in It.
Speaker C:About the guy who wrote the Alphabet can't even be remembered.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:No, the guy.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So, yeah.
Speaker B:So you would think, you know, that.
Speaker B:That, you know, being the inventor of the Alphabet would make your name.
Speaker B:You're the first person who could have had your name written down.
Speaker B:And yet it didn't happen.
Speaker B:You know, so the world.
Speaker B:The world is full of people who invent wondrous and marvelous things that, you know into our lives, and we couldn't have a civilization without them, and then they're forgotten.
Speaker B:And then there's just a few glory hogs who come along and like, yeah, I'm Thomas Edison or me, me, me.
Speaker C:Me, me, me, me, me, me.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so, you know, it's.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:I'm not saying that, you know, that the famous inventors and famous scientists, you know, aren't.
Speaker B:Aren't important, but, you know, in the previous century, you know, someone was driving down a dark country road and thought, you know, we'd be a lot safer if we painted bright lines down the middle of the road, right?
Speaker C:Who is that guy?
Speaker C:Because I'm a fan, and I don't like whoever invented the other ones where I can't see the lanes.
Speaker B:So I've already forgotten his name.
Speaker B:But it turned out my wife is always teasing me about the.
Speaker B:About the boring stuff I listened to.
Speaker B:And so I was listening to an audiobook about infrastructure.
Speaker B:I was just out on the deck sorting buttons, prepping for my next con.
Speaker B:And one of the things I've always used is that example of, you know, the world has all these heroes that we don't know their names of.
Speaker B:No one knows the name of whoever decided to first paint those lines down the middle of the highway.
Speaker B:I'm listening to my book on infrastructure, and she walks out just as they're like.
Speaker B: In: Speaker B:And I'm like, oh, wait, they do know his name.
Speaker B:And I've promptly forgotten it.
Speaker C:See, and I'm going to Google it later.
Speaker A:I did Google it later, and it turns out that multiple people are accredited with this invention.
Speaker A: As early as: Speaker A: oss the pond in the UK in the: Speaker A:Try not to forget those names so they don't fade into Oblivion.
Speaker C:Watch.
Speaker C:There's going to be an episode of welcome to Wonderland at some point where I'm going to be.
Speaker C:All I'm going to do is go through and look up who.
Speaker C:People who made these inventions that we don't.
Speaker C:That we take for granted for.
Speaker C:It's gonna be a whole episode on.
Speaker B:Think of the name of that infrastructure book.
Speaker B:It was really fascinating, you know, just talking about the.
Speaker B:All the little engineering decisions that go into our built environment.
Speaker B:You know, you know why stoplights have the intervals they do.
Speaker B:You know why.
Speaker B:You know why certain signs are the color and this font and just all these little details that people are out there obsessively thinking about and working to make the world safer and more.
Speaker B:More usable.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And, you know, as long as these people are out there, you know, they don't get the glory, but they are making the world a much, much more pleasant place to live than probably any previous era.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:I'm not someone who glorifies the past that much.
Speaker B:I'm old enough to remember the past.
Speaker C:Oh, you're not?
Speaker C:But.
Speaker C:Okay, well, so this is the book thirteen Dooms My Wonderlings.
Speaker C:Here it is like, oops, sorry, I hit the mic like last time.
Speaker C:I'll do a giveaway for people who interact with this episode and share it and all of that so that we'll give away an e copy of 13 Dooms.
Speaker C:It is so much fun, though, truly.
Speaker C:If you guys are at a convention and you run into James, pick it up, order it online.
Speaker C:It looks like it is 15.
Speaker A:Is that right?
Speaker A:15.
Speaker B:15.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:25 for the hardcover ebook is 3.99.
Speaker B:4.99.
Speaker A:3.99.
Speaker C:See, they're not crazy.
Speaker C:Yeah, but it.
Speaker C:It's an incredibly fun read.
Speaker C:And the thirteen Dooms.
Speaker C:And we went over a fair amount of them.
Speaker C:There are some spoilers, but you still have to read it.
Speaker C:It's very funny.
Speaker C:The footnotes in it are hilarious.
Speaker B:I want to.
Speaker B:Yeah, I wanted to mention the footnotes.
Speaker B:If you read the ebook, you have to click on the footnotes to get to the footnotes.
Speaker B:Unlike the book where they're down at the.
Speaker B:At the foot.
Speaker B:And so don't skip the footnotes.
Speaker C:Don't skip the footnotes there.
Speaker C:I mean, there's.
Speaker C:There's a bunch of them.
Speaker C:Like, they're not for an appendix at the back.
Speaker C:They are for wit and humor only.
Speaker C:But it's.
Speaker C:It's incredibly entertaining.
Speaker C:And then the additional Dooms at the end, he does give us the full list of 30, including some of the.
Speaker C:The popular Ones like the rapture and black holes.
Speaker C:And honestly, this pole reversal.
Speaker C:So I hadn't heard about this.
Speaker C:And then one of the people that I was talking to about the apocalypse was like, well, you know, the polls might reverse.
Speaker C:I was like, excuse me.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So that one was one of these esoteric ones where I mean, we know poll that the poles flip from time to time, but it doesn't seem to be correlated with mass extinctions.
Speaker B:But we've never had a species realize as much on electronic devices and, and.
Speaker C:So it'd be the fallout from it.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:Yeah, the fallout from it.
Speaker B:I mean, biologically, you know, we would probably not notice anything at all.
Speaker B:But definitely, you know, definitely could, could lead to a very unpleasant aftermath.
Speaker B:And it's one of those things where, yep, it's, it'll happen.
Speaker C:No, and so I guess we will.
Speaker C:We're getting close here, so we'll, we'll start closing up.
Speaker C:But guys, I truly cannot say enough about this book.
Speaker C:I genuinely really enjoyed it.
Speaker C:It's such a quick read.
Speaker C:It's only was about 150 pages.
Speaker C:It's about 150 pages.
Speaker C:And it reads so easily, like there's nothing tedious about it.
Speaker C:It's very quick witted and it's, it's, it's got a, a fun balance of, you know, the things you think and then there's factual information.
Speaker C:And I learned some new things in here, which is always fun for me.
Speaker C:That's obviously.
Speaker C:Welcome to Wonderland.
Speaker C:That's something I do, is I love to learn things.
Speaker C:So it's a wonderful, wonderful book.
Speaker C:And what's the next show you're gonna be at?
Speaker C:What did you have coming up?
Speaker B:I will be.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:All right, hold your horses.
Speaker B:My next show is in Wilmington, the first weekend of March.
Speaker C:Oh, we'll be there, right?
Speaker A:We'll be there.
Speaker B:Coastal Comic Con.
Speaker C:Coastal Comic Con.
Speaker C:We'll be there.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But March is crazy for me because then I turn around and go to the Indianapolis Comic Con, which is a four day show.
Speaker B:Then I go to Steel City Con in Pittsburgh.
Speaker B:Oh, no, no, I'm taking that I'm wrong.
Speaker B:I'm going to the Lexington Comic Con, then I'm going to the Indianapolis Comic Con, then I'm doing the Richmond GalaxyCon, and then I'm doing Steel City in Pittsburgh.
Speaker C:Geez Louise.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, yeah, so that, that's how I put, you know, the c.
Speaker B:17,000 miles on my, on my car.
Speaker C:Well, good news, Wonderlings.
Speaker C:No matter where you're at in the United States, you get to Go see James soon if you want to.
Speaker B:I'm stalking America.
Speaker B:I'm watching you, America.
Speaker C:Is that on here?
Speaker C:James drives around and stalks America.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah, it's number 29.
Speaker C:But it has been such a pleasure.
Speaker C:I really enjoy talking to you.
Speaker C:Will have to have another conversation again at some point.
Speaker C:I.
Speaker C:I do quite enjoy this.
Speaker C:But guys, so here.
Speaker C:And actually, now that I know that you'll be at Wilmington and will be at Wilmington, I don't think I'm going to do an E copy.
Speaker C:I think I'm going to do a physical copy of your book and get you to sign it as the giveaway.
Speaker C:So I'm going to come buy one of your books down at the.
Speaker C:I assume down.
Speaker C:I don't know, wherever the vendors are.
Speaker C:And then we.
Speaker C:We will get it signed and give away a copy of an act because they can't have mine.
Speaker C:My husband actually wants to read it, so he's like, can I read this?
Speaker C:It's like, not yet.
Speaker C:I still need it.
Speaker C:But we'll give away a copy, a signed copy of this book to a listener, and you guys are going to enjoy it again.
Speaker C:James, you've been wonderful.
Speaker C:I truly have appreciated having you on the show.
Speaker C:Anything else you want to say to everybody?
Speaker B:No, that is.
Speaker B:That is fine.
Speaker B:I mentioned that I'm on Twitter.
Speaker B:I'm James Allen Maxey on.
Speaker B:On.
Speaker B:On X, if you want to find me there.
Speaker B:That's the social media platform I'm.
Speaker B:I'm most active on.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:I have a thing called Dragons Gate on.
Speaker B:On Facebook, but I.
Speaker B:I always forget to post there.
Speaker C:So social media is hard.
Speaker B:So social media is hard.
Speaker B:And, you know, the.
Speaker B:I sell books by going out and meeting people and real life and.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:And the social.
Speaker B:Social media feeds are mainly where I will just dispense random bits of writing advice, and I use it to, you know, post excerpts as I'm writing.
Speaker B:And it kind of, you know, gives me a little motivation to, like, all right, I got to get this chapter done today so I can post something on X.
Speaker B:I'm gonna have to look at it.
Speaker C:I.
Speaker C:I know I follow you on X, but I don't ever get on there, so I'll have to get on and look at it.
Speaker C:So while I did give a few.
Speaker A:Spoilers about some of the 13 or 30 ways James hypothesizes that the world may end, you'll have to read the entire book to get all of his thoughts.
Speaker A:Even if you haven't read the book, how do you think the world might end?
Speaker B:I believe that we we will kill ourselves through killing the environment through meaning.
Speaker B:I believe in an effort to control, you know, things, control the weather and do all this stuff that we will actually destroy ourselves.
Speaker C:What do you think is going to do in the human race?
Speaker C:What is it going to be?
Speaker C:What ends us all?
Speaker B:I think we're going to end ourselves.
Speaker C:Via via war or.
Speaker B:Overpopulation or we kill the planet.
Speaker A:Hopefully we have some time before the world ends and until it does, be safe, be kind and stay curious.
Speaker A:The welcome to Wonderland podcast is copyrighted by Amie Bland and is part of Big Media, llc.
Speaker A:This episode was recorded at Big Media Home Studio.
Speaker A:Any thoughts or opinions expressed as part of this production are those of the Hostess unless otherwise indicated.
Speaker A:Subscribe to this podcast Wherever you get your podcast, please follow, like and share this podcast.
Speaker A:Find us on Facebook at Welcome to Wonderland, the podcast and on X, the app formerly known as Twitter ononderlandpod.
Speaker A:Check out behind the Scenes Moments and other videos on TikTok at WonderlandPod.
Speaker A:And finally, check out Pictures, Additional information and go further down the rabbit hole on our website at www.wtwlpod.com.
Speaker A:to submit corrections, additional information or request for Episodes, please email the hostess at welcome to wonderlandthepodmail.com.
Speaker C:It.
Speaker A:This part of the podcast was recorded in the welcome to Wonderland recording closet, which admittedly has not been cleaned in several weeks.
Speaker A:And there are like yoga pants and sweatpants and sweaters all over the place.
Speaker A:A little extra claustrophobic in here today.
