Jacob Szymanski

Back in high school, there was a moment where I wasn't in the class at the time, but somebody mixed two chemicals together or something in some laboratory.

and it created uh some gas that was extremely nauseous to everyone around it and they evacuated the whole school and uh nobody came back until like two days later so let us remember that so all that to say is that science can lead to great outcomes even though the experiment itself was a failure and you're so right it's totally slapstick there's a lot of humor it's it's kind of corny uh

It's campy a little bit too, right?

Even the whole structure of it being episodic is kind of campy.

It doesn't take itself too seriously.

But that all leads to what I was saying in the intro.

That it's capital S storytelling.

It's tension and release and just endlessly satisfying to see how is he going to solve this.

And then you get introduced to a really interesting concept.

And then it works or doesn't.

You just always want to know what's coming next.

And they string together all of these problems and solutions to form this really interesting narrative that's incredibly high stakes while being funny and slapstick at the same time.

It's a really good formula.

exploration form of mind and that is the way they start communicating and I just thought that was fascinating he's probably correct I read the book I think three years ago if I recall correctly Rocky that's the name of the alien he talks I think he has like four or five different vocal cords and they can each produce a different note like a musical note essentially and he speaks in harmony yes

Right?

Am I remembering this right?

Absolutely.

And that's, from what I remember, that's one of the earlier problems that has to be solved in the book.

And he uses like a computer software to listen and then identify the notes.

Yes.