Episode 546: Now I Can Talk To Plants
May 5th, 2023 | Robin
We enter the secret chamber of the Gaming Hut at the behest of beloved Patreon backer Ian Carlsen, who seeks guidance on a campaign built around initiation into a mystery cult.
Speaking of mysteries, the Food Hut tackles the terrifying possibility that ice cream might be good for you.
In the Cinema Hut our Science Fiction Film Essentials series reaches the densely packed turn from the 70s into the 80s.
Finally Conspiracy Corner looks at the 15 minute city and how this anodyne urban planning concept has become the latest locus of paranoid panic.
Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Our Patreon-backed Letterboxd list of all films mentioned on the show is now up and running.
Also check out the Goodreads list of books mentioned on the show.
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
Once Upon a Time the fairy godmothers at Atlas Games offered a special deal on their classic card game, Once Upon a Time. Until May 31st you and your magic beans can claim a free expansion with the purchase of any three Once Upon a Time products at the Atlas Games store. Use the coupon code ONCE2023.
The skies above New Olympus are patrolled by caped crusaders, but these superior beings are far from heroes. They wield their powers with reckless disregard, serving the interests of corporate overseers, and silencing those who oppose their will. You are Klara Koenig, investigative journalist for The Pedestrian newspaper, and you intend to prove the privileged superhuman elite do not yet hold a monopoly on justice. Welcome to Alteregomania: the newest setting for the GUMSHOE One-2-One system.
The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!
![](https://www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Thunderbird_blue_border.png")
Put on your flannels, grab your duffel bag of hardware and assemble your fake passports. Alert your retailer to the contents of their favorite unmarked warehouse. Delta Green: The Conspiracy, the revised, updated and declassified edition of the iconic 1990s sourcebook has escaped from Arc Dream Publishing.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
I would take it kindly if Ken would in future not call those who are just looking for the next alleged plot to be outraged about as ‘conspirators’. That already has a meaning. The Proud Boy leadership were conspirators. The people who protested in Oxford arranged their idiocy openly.
I’ll admit that we need a better, shorter name than ‘conspiracy theorist’; ‘conpirifan’ perhaps.
But if Ken crosses the linguistic streams like this can the day be far away before Time Incorporated sends him back in time to erase this mistake from history?
The presence of the ‘fantastic’ isn’t what defines science fiction. Science fiction is the branch of fiction where the implications of alterations to known principles are explored. In the very most traditional and rigorous forms, only a single principle is changed, but less formal types can involve multiple changes.
“Star Wars” has a lot of alternate-reality principles: there are humans in another galaxy, in the distant past, with alien life, FTL space travel, sapient constructed beings, and psychic powers. It is interested in exploring the consequences of none of these. Its development has nothing to do with the space opera backdrop it uses, and the story could just as easily be told in any number of non-SF settings. Indeed, since the plot was cribbed from Kurosawa’s “The Hidden Fortress”, that’s precisely how the story WAS told.
This is the same fundamental reason why the Oz books aren’t considered Science Fiction despite the presence of the Tin Man and Tik-Tok the Mechanical Man, even though their existence raises questions about conscious, uploading, cybernetics, and the nature of the identity: the books don’t explore the logical consequences of any of their postulates. “Back to the Future” is a highly entertaining movie but weak science fiction; nevertheless, it IS SF and not merely an adventure tale with technofantasy props.
Science fiction isn’t about aesthetics, superficiality, or trite cliches, and both of you ought to be ashamed to have reduced it to same. There are lots of great science fiction movies, and there’s no need to pad your list with influential non-SF.