Going back to this whole story, it's sort of a huge expansion of the concept of the genetic algorithm, which were kind of a thing about 10 years ago. Scientists would build these simulated single-celled organisms and an environment with rewards and stressors, then run millions of computer simulated cycles to see which ones performed the best under certain stresses. I recently listened to the Clarkesworld podcast of Hummingbird, Resting on Honeysuckles, which revisited that idea as a way to construct an AI.

It seems like all the doctors are dogs. That deserves a little exploration. Does it mean that doctors are humankind's closest allies? My thoughts on the "ape" are somewhat similar. Are they the closest to human or the uncanny valley?

In case anyone wants to listen to this story, the Drabblecast just did a reading of it. Episode 454. I just listened to it on iTunes, or you can go to their website. https://www.drabblecast.org/2021/11/08/drabblecast-454-the-doom-that-came-to-sarnath/

As soon as you guys said Espinoza was 33 years old, I thought, "Glenn's going to think that guy is Jesus now."

More from same book, but different story: The Moon Of Skulls! “The Englishman gazed, fascinated though repelled. Not even in the courts of Europe had he seen such grandeur. The chamber and all its accoutrements, from the carven serpents twined about the bases of the pillars to the dimly seen dragons on the shadowy ceiling, were fashioned on a gigantic scale. The splendour was awesome—elephantine—inhumanly oversized, and almost numbing to the mind which sought to measure and conceive the magnitude thereof. To Kane it seemed that these things must have been the work of gods rather than men, for this chamber alone would dwarf most of the castles be had known in Europe...” Classic scene of a lost ancient civilization, in this case in a cave that can only be reached through the jungle.

Re: great characters, I played several thieves who were pretty much Shadowspawn/Hanse: short swords, daggers in both boots, throwing daggers strapped to their forearms, daggers hidden in their cloaks. To summarize, lots of daggers were involved.

The older Cappen Varra story that was discussed The Valor of Cappen Varra https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29542/29542-h/29542-h.htm

Enjoyed the crossover with dicegeeks.com podcast. You said that Jamie (Cappen Varra's warrior friend) was modeled on a Viking, but I figured he was a Scot, not a Viking. One of his favored weapons is a claymore.

Also, the discussion of the White Wolf games reminded me of a terrific series of books by Sergei Lukyanenko that begins with Night Watch. It's sort of a spy/police story set in Moscow, but with vampires and other supernatural beings. They have a lot of the same feel like your description of the World of Darkness, with different groups of supernatural beings working against each other.

Yes. "A thousand ..." something is more impressive-sounding than "a really tall tower" or "a long time ago", though George Lucas got pretty good mileage out of the latter. Using cubits gives a sense of ancient time, too. If he'd described it at 1500 feet or 457 meters, that would have sounded too modern.

By the way, the towers being " A full thousand cubits high" makes them about 1500 feet (at 18" to the cubit). Which would place them about 15th on the list of tallest modern buildings on Earth. For comparison, the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower is 1450 feet tall, and was the tallest building in the world the whole time I was growing up around Chicago.

By the way, the towers being " A full thousand cubits high" makes them about 1500 feet (at 18" to the cubit). Which would place them about 15th on the list of tallest modern buildings on Earth. For comparison, the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower is 1450 feet tall, and was the tallest building in the world the whole time I was growing up around Chicago.

Got around to reading this (like I wrote earlier, had a couple things ahead of it). I enjoyed it a lot - it's an interesting under-explored modern setting that still has enough room for magic and the supernatural. That said, Drake doesn't lean on the supernatural for the story to progress. It's present, but not forward. Nice to see an older wiser protagonist instead of another naïve youth heading out on his first hero's journey/origin story. Also, interesting to see some of the effects of aging on him, as these stories seem to be spread out over at least a decade of Old Nathan's life.

After reading this story, I contend that it is supposed to be a time-travel story, not a dream. The last line indicates that there's physical evidence of Jeanne d"Ys presence: "But upon the icy slab lay a woman’s glove still warm and fragrant." Also, there's a reference to Genesis 3:15: And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” https://biblehub.com/niv/genesis/3.htm

If anyone is looking for a copy to read, here is a link to Wikisource (since it's out of copyright): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_King_in_Yellow/The_Demoiselle_d%27Ys

I recently read Ian Tregillis' Something More Than Night, which is described on his website as, "A Raymond Chandler-inspired murder mystery set in Thomas Aquinas’s vision of Heaven, replete with hard-drinking fallen angels, stubborn molls, flaming swords, and quantum cosmology." Which sounds like the most perfect book ever written for you guys. As part of his research to create Bayliss, the Philip Marlowe of the angelic plane, Tregillis also created his own glossary of noir detective era slang: https://iantregillis.com/home-top-stub/writing/something-more-than-night/noir-slang-glossary/

Regarding possible environmental catastrophes. Back in the 70's, people were worried about ozone layer depletion. This sort of ties into the mention of UV light damaging Ceedeesy's skin, since upper atmospheric ozone filters UV light. Some of this might have been published early enough for Wolfe to have picked up on it for this story. I distinctly recall it being mentioned in a comic book I read in the late-70's and I'd like to think that Gene Wolfe would have known a lot earlier than 7 or 8-year-old me. This might be a reason people stay indoors, out of the sun, and why the ranger is retiring at 30. To re-assure everyone, the international community did a bunch of work to get ozone depleting chemicals, such as certain refrigerants, out of the supply chain in the 80's and 90's. The ozone layer is actually rebuilding now: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/rebuilding-ozone-layer-how-world-came-together-ultimate-repair-job

Revisiting Eyebem. Just read this myself and will re-listen to the podcast shortly. A few things I noted: Eyebem almost has to be IBM, like Ceedeesy is CDC/Control Data Corporation. Not sure what the 887332 designation means, though lots of chips started with 8, like the Intel 8008, which came out in 1972, after this story was published originally. The mention of the neo-Catholic Saint Kennedy the Lesser running a "gorge on the Colorado" (Grand Canyon?) on an air mattress made me laugh, but also suggests a long enough span of time has gone that the Kennedys could pass from storied political family to legends to sainthood. I liked how the station boss was completely different (fixed cabinet with sensors all over the station), but still regarded as "one of us". That tells me the cybernetic beings have a separate culture that is pretty inclusive. Regarding Eyebem's need to keep power on to not lose all his programming: that makes sense to me in the computer science of the day. Stored data access was really slow in 1970, so storing a program in RAM and re-using it worked better. This was still true even in the 1980's when I was in college, working on FORTRAN77 programs for a professor. We had an early fluid dynamics modeling program that we would load and run multiple simulations with different inputs overnight, then our timeslot would be over and someone else's work would be loaded up. Eyebem has an interesting concept of death, very close to a human one - the loss of consciousness, not physical destruction. Presumably, the cybernetic body can be recovered, repaired, and reprogrammed/trained. But it will never be Eyebem again.

I think Brandon and Glenn have mostly been working from The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories. I think that is a fairly early collection of Wolfe's work. I previously mentioned the Endangered Species collection that I've been reading through. It's originally copyrighted in 1989, so covers a pretty broad range of Wolfe's career. I bought it on my Nook a while ago, originally because it has Silhouette in it. It has several of the stories that Brandon and Glenn have covered. I just read Eyebem, for example, and The HORARS of War is next.

@rshane There could be a whole Themes & Motifs section on Dalton's (Swayze's) Three Rules: Never underestimate your opponent; expect the unexpected. (Which seems like at least one and a half rules.) Take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it's absolutely necessary. Be nice...I want you to be nice, until it's time to not be nice. Plus a whole segment just on Swayze's hair.