This is TOF’s second Live Show. The first one was a celebration of their 50th episode, and had the theme of Time Travel. This live show is all robots. Each season TOF will host a live show.

This show was recorded on Tuesday, December 19th, from 8 pm – 9:30 pm, Eastern Time. 13 or 14 or so attended the event, including five previous guests: Sandra Kasturi; Ira Nayman; Robert J. Sawyer; Jerome Stueart; and, Maaja Wentz.

Dan Miwa attended, and will be a guest for our forthcoming Spaceballs episode, that will be released on May 4th, 2024. He talks a bit about the film during this episode.

Stephen Humphrey attended, and is a forthcoming guest, and we will be looking at Neuromancer, likely in March of 2024.

David and Troy reveal their top ten robots.

Some discussion of what a robot and an android are. What counts as a robot and what does not.

Some of the robots mentioned in this episode include:

Robots from Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman.
GORT from The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Huey, Dewey, and Louie from Silent Running.
Robocop – does not count – a cyborg.
The Cylons from Battlestar Galactica.
Robot from the Let’s Kill Hitler episode of Dr. Who.
Sandra recommends the flesh robots from
Weird #66: “In the Hills, The Cities” by Clive Barker (1984)
Marvin the paranoid android from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Nomad from Star Trek.
Twiki from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
Promo the Robot from Rocketship 7.
Wall-E.
Hymie the robot from Get Smart.
The robot from Metropolis.
Mechagodzilla and Mechani-Kong.
Dolores from Westworld.
The Terminator from The Terminator.
Robbie the Robot from Lost in Space.
K9 from Doctor Who.
Rover from The Prisoner.
No. 6 (played by Tricia Helfer) from BSG.
The Daggit from the original BSG
Ash, and other androids from the Alien movie franchise.
The Nazi scientist (Karl Ruprecht Kroenen) in Hellboy.
The Major from Ghost in the Shell.
The replicants from Blade Runner.
The Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz.
Proteus from Demon Seed.
Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
A.I.
The Iron Giant.
C3P0 and R2D2 from Star Wars.
Brainiac, Vision, and Red Tornado.
T1000.
Bender from Futurama
Dot Matrix from Space Balls.
Minsky from Fargo, season 3.
Martha Wells Murder Bot Diaries.

The Thing PT. 2

Troy and David return with Carolyn Clink and Sandra Kasturi, to look at The Thing. First and foremost, the 1982 film, but also the 1951 film, and the 2011 film.

They also do a Dream Cast and Schrodinger’s Cast, of six of the main characters in the 1982 movie.

They choose another actor or actress to fill the role, one the best actor (living or dead) which is the Dream Cast, and one unusual choice, for the Schrodinger’s Cast.

This episode is being broadcast on Saturday, June 10, 2023.

Carolyn Clink is a poet living in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.

She won the Aurora Award for Best Poem/Song in 2022 for “Cat People Café” and in 2011 for “The ABCs of the End of the World.”

Her genre poetry publications include: Weird Tales, Analog, Imaginarium 2012: the Best Canadian Speculative Writing, Polar Starlight, Polar Borealis, On-Spec, Tesseracts, Frost Zone Zine, Eye to the Telescope, Tales of the Unanticipated, Room, and all 5 volumes of Northern Frights.

Sandra Kasturi is an award-winning poet, writer, and editor, with work appearing in many places including ON SPEC, several Tesseracts anthologies, and 80! Memories & Reflections on Ursula K. Le Guin.

Her two poetry collections are: The Animal Bridegroom (with an introduction by Neil Gaiman) and Come Late to the Love of Birds (both from Tightrope Books).

Sandra recently won second prize in The New Quarterly’s Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest. She is also the winner of the Sunburst Award for her story “The Beautiful Gears of Dying” and ARC Magazine‘s Poem of the Year Award for “Old Men, Smoking.”

John Carpenter’s The Thing. 1982 saw a plethora of great genre films, and this one got lost in the mix. How exactly do you compete with Blade Runner; E.T.: The Extraterrestrial; Tron; and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan? It did not do well at the box office. It had some poor reviews, most notably from Roger Ebert, who said, “…this material has been done before, and better…”

There have been a few films that took audiences and critics years, if not decades, to warm to, and this is one of them. It is now considered a classic of the genre, and often appears in top ten lists. It is favorably mentioned alongside Blade Runner and Alien. Its makeup effects, which at first was off-putting to some audiences and critics, were ahead of their time, and still stand up today.

This is Part 1 of a 2-Part episode.

Troy Harkin and David Clink, the Two Old Farts of this podcast, will look at the 1982 film in detail, but will also look at the 1951 film, and the 2011 prequel. There may be some discussion on the story, Who Goes There, by John W. Campbell (who has recently been cancelled), which the movies are based on. In the case of the Howard Hawks film, a much looser adaptation, whereas the John Carpenter film, starring Kurt Russell, was a much closer version.

About John W. Campbell being cancelled, here is an excerpt from an article titled: John W. Campbell Award Is Renamed After Winner Criticizes Him, published in The New York Times, August 28, 2019, and updated on Sept 1, 2019, written by Peter Libbey:

The decision to remove Campbell’s name from the award came after this year’s winner, Jeannette Ng, criticized him in her acceptance speech. “He is responsible for setting a tone for science fiction that haunts this genre to this very day,” she said. “Stale, sterile, male, white, exalting in the ambitions of imperialists, colonialists, settlers and industrialists.”

Click on this image to take you to the full article:

This episode is being broadcast on Saturday, May 27, 2023.

Troy and David are joined by two guests. Please see their bios and author photos below.

Carolyn Clink is David’s sister, and this is her first time being a guest on the TOF podcast. She lists the 1982 film, The Thing, as her favourite all-time genre movie. Being a first-time guest, Troy and David ask her about her early genre memories, and what her all-time genre faves are.

Sandra Kasturi makes her third appearance as a guest. Sandra first appeared on the Season 1 episode 13 and 14 on Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes (September 2021). She next guested on Season 3 episode 2 and 3 on Folk Horror (July 2022?), which took a careful look at The Wicker Man and MidSommar. Sandra joins Bev Vincent and Ira Nayman as guests who have appeared on three different topics.

Carolyn Clink is a poet living in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.

She won the Aurora Award for Best Poem/Song in 2022 for “Cat People Café” and in 2011 for “The ABCs of the End of the World.”

Her genre poetry publications include: Weird Tales, Analog, Imaginarium 2012: the Best Canadian Speculative Writing, Polar Starlight, Polar Borealis, On-Spec, Tesseracts, Frost Zone Zine, Eye to the Telescope, Tales of the Unanticipated, Room, and all 5 volumes of Northern Frights.

Sandra Kasturi is an award-winning poet, writer, and editor, with work appearing in many places including ON SPEC, several Tesseracts anthologies, and 80! Memories & Reflections on Ursula K. Le Guin.

Her two poetry collections are: The Animal Bridegroom (with an introduction by Neil Gaiman) and Come Late to the Love of Birds (both from Tightrope Books).

Sandra recently won second prize in The New Quarterly’s Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest. She is also the winner of the Sunburst Award for her story “The Beautiful Gears of Dying” and ARC Magazine‘s Poem of the Year Award for “Old Men, Smoking.”

In 2019 a film was released called “MidSommar” and it caused quite a sensation. Ari Aster drew inspiration from the 1973 film, The Wicker Man. This film is part of the folk horror tradition.

Here is a bit that Troy put together about MidSommar (with key spoilers and plot points removed):

MIDSOMMAR (history)

Midsommar was written and directed by Ari Aster. It was released in 2019, and was the follow up to his highly-acclaimed debut feature film, Hereditary. Aster, who was hugely influenced by Swedish film legend Ingmar Bergman, was approached by Swedish producers to create a slasher film involving Swedish folk traditions. The director had recently dealt with the trauma of a breakup and found he could work through his pain by dealing with it in his screenplay for Midsommar.

Shot in Hungary outside of Budapest, not Sweden. The Horgan village was constructed from scratch for the film. 

The Film stars Florence Pugh as Dani Ardor, Jack Reynor as her boyfriend Christian.

Dani finds that Christian and his three friends Jack (played by Will Poulter), Josh, and Pelle  (all of them anthropology students) are planning on visiting the Swedish community, the Horga, that Pelle belongs to.

The five Americans make the trip to the rustic village and are welcomed into the community by the Horgans.

They soon discover that the community is not as idyllic as it seems. 

Time Out‘s Joshua Rothkopf wrote, “A savage yet evolved slice of Swedish folk-horror, Ari Aster’s hallucinatory follow-up to Hereditary proves him a horror director with no peer.”

“Ambitious, impressively crafted, and above all unsettling, Midsommar further proves writer-director Ari Aster is a horror auteur to be reckoned with.” – Rotten Tomatoes

Troy Harkin and David Clink will look at the film, with special guest Sandra Kasturi. She was also the guest for folk horror part 1, our season 3 episode 2 installment, which looked at The Wicker Man (1973).

Sandra Kasturi is an award-winning poet, writer, and editor, with work appearing in many places including ON SPEC, several Tesseracts anthologies, and 80! Memories & Reflections on Ursula K. Le Guin.

Her two poetry collections are: The Animal Bridegroom (with an introduction by Neil Gaiman) and Come Late to the Love of Birds (both from Tightrope Books).

Sandra recently won second prize in The New Quarterly’s Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest. She is also the winner of the Sunburst Award for her story “The Beautiful Gears of Dying” and ARC Magazine‘s Poem of the Year Award for “Old Men, Smoking.”

In 1973 a film was released called “The Wicker Man.”
In this podcast episode, we look at folk horror in general and The Wicker Man in particular.

This is from Troy Harkin’s introduction:

FOLK HORROR (Intro)

Man loves order. Moreover man loves the order that he cultivates.

As much as we claim to love the great outdoors we love a garden even more because we are the ones who dictate the order. We fear the wilderness. We fear the threat of the untamed. Because we want to see ourselves as enlightened, and civilized, we fear our pagan roots.

Folk Horror explores these fears. Often it examines a return to ancient rites and rituals that for the most part have been forgotten. But Folk Horror reminds us we can never truly leave our past behind. 

In his series The History of Horror, Mark Gatiss refers to the Unholy Trilogy of British Horror. These three films include Witchfiner General from 1968, The Blood on Satan’s Claw from 1970, and 1973’s The Wickerman.

THE WICKER MAN (history)

Inspired by David Pinner’s 1967 novel, Ritual, The Wickerman is ostensibly a detective story about a devout Christian police officer who is searching for a missing girl on Summerisle, an island off the west coast of Scotland, a community that is sustained by its production of apples. The Island is ruled by Lord Summerisle played by Christopher Lee. Police Sergeant Howie is played by Edward Woodward.The film features supporting actors Ingrid Pitt and Britt Eklund as well as actual Scottish locals as the inhabitants of Summerisle.

In the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, The Wickerman is described as “a highly original combination of horror movie, murder mystery, pagan ethnography, and folk musical…”

Cinefantastique once described it as “The Citizen Kane of horror movies”., 

Total Film magazine named The Wicker Man the sixth greatest British film of all time. 

Christopher Lee considers The Wicker Man the best film he ever appeared in.

Troy Harkin and David Clink will look at the film, with special guest Sandra Kasturi. She is also the guest for Folk Horror part 2, which will look at MidSommar (2019).

Sandra Kasturi is an award-winning poet, writer, and editor, with work appearing in many places including ON SPEC, several Tesseracts anthologies, and 80! Memories & Reflections on Ursula K. Le Guin.

Her two poetry collections are: The Animal Bridegroom (with an introduction by Neil Gaiman) and Come Late to the Love of Birds (both from Tightrope Books).

Sandra recently won second prize in The New Quarterly’s Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest. She is also the winner of the Sunburst Award for her story “The Beautiful Gears of Dying” and ARC Magazine‘s Poem of the Year Award for “Old Men, Smoking.”

     “The trouble with Jim was he looked at the world and could not look away. And when you never look away all your life, by the time you are thirteen you have done twenty years taking in the laundry of the world.”

Chapter 9, page 40, Something Wicked This Way Comes,
this selection is from ISBN 0-380-97727-3. Avon Books, Hardcover, June 1999.
copyright (c) 1962, 1997 by Ray Bradbury.

This episode of Two Old Farts Talk Sci-Fi is part two of our “Something Wicked This Way Comes” episode.

Something Wicked This Way Comes is a novel by Ray Bradbury, one of the great writers of speculative fiction of the 20th century. Bradbury was (and is) an influence on a generation of writers, including Stephen King.

The story idea began in Bradbury’s head, and found its way out via a short story, a comic, a screenplay, a novel, and a movie.

Troy Harkin and David Clink continue to look at the pivotal novel, in all its iterations.

We will also do our Dream Casting, and our Outside-The-Box Casting, which David has referred to as “Scream Casting,” but, going forward, may be called “Schrödinger’s Cast.”

Our special guest continues to be Sandra Kasturi. She was our special guest for pt. 1 (Episode 13). See author photo (a different one, this time) and a bio (same one from episode 13) below.

Sandra Kasturi is an award-winning poet, writer, and editor, with work appearing in many places including ON SPEC, several Tesseracts anthologies, and 80! Memories & Reflections on Ursula K. Le Guin.

Her two poetry collections are: The Animal Bridegroom (with an introduction by Neil Gaiman) and Come Late to the Love of Birds (both from Tightrope Books).

Sandra recently won second prize in The New Quarterly’s Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest. She is also the winner of the Sunburst Award for her story “The Beautiful Gears of Dying” and ARC Magazine‘s Poem of the Year Award for “Old Men, Smoking.”

     “They peered in at the merry-go-round which lay under a dry rattle and roar of wind-tumbled oak trees. Its horses, goats, antelopes, zebras, speared through their spines with brass javelins, hung contorted as in a death rictus, asking mercy with their fright-colored eyes, seeking revenge with their panic-colored teeth.”

Chapter 18, page 73, Something Wicked This Way Comes,
this selection is from ISBN 0-380-97727-3. Avon Books, Hardcover, June 1999.
copyright (c) 1962, 1997 by Ray Bradbury.

Why do so many people who have read Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury consider it a classic, and one of their favorite novels? What is it about this tale of good vs. evil, carnivals and side shows, that stays with us?

This is the story of two children, Will Halloway, and Jim Nightshade. They are both thirteen years old, born minutes apart, living across the street from each other, best friends. This is their adventure, an adventure that will take them to a carnival with a Ferris wheel, a mirror maze, an illustrated man, and the most beautiful woman in the world, an adventure that will forever change them and the town they live in.

The cast of characters include:
A lightning-rod salesman.
A dust witch.
A father working as a janitor working in a library who feels that he failed his son when he needed him most.
And the two men who run the carnival, Mr. Dark and Mr. Cooger.

Some characters in the novel long for the past.
Others have an eye to the future.
And the ever-pressing present rolling forward that no one can avoid.

And wishes do come with a price.

Troy Harkin and David Clink will look at the novel, the movie, the comic book, the short story it was all based on, and try to provide the answers.

We are introducing a new segment with this episode:
“These are a few of our favorite words”
This is where Troy, David and their special guest will read short excerpts from their favorite passages in the novel.

Our special guest is Sandra Kasturi. See author photo and bio below..

Sandra Kasturi is an award-winning poet, writer, and editor, with work appearing in many places including ON SPEC, several Tesseracts anthologies, and 80! Memories & Reflections on Ursula K. Le Guin.

Her two poetry collections are: The Animal Bridegroom (with an introduction by Neil Gaiman) and Come Late to the Love of Birds (both from Tightrope Books).

Sandra recently won second prize in The New Quarterly’s Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest. She is also the winner of the Sunburst Award for her story “The Beautiful Gears of Dying” and ARC Magazine‘s Poem of the Year Award for “Old Men, Smoking.”