285 – Paul Tremblay & Eternity at Bernie’s
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What is the premise of Paul Tremblay’s new novel ‘Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep’?
Hello and welcome to Talkin' Scared. I'm your host, Neil McRoba, and the tech bros should just log off right now. Cause Paul Tremblay returns to the show for the fourth time. And I know that I said I was gonna prioritize new names this year, and I mostly have, but you don't say no to Paul because he writes such interesting books. His newest, no different, and it has the added rewards of absolutely skewering. The AI Plagiarism Factory, which is perhaps inspired by Paul's own involvement in the landmark class action legal case against OpenAI and Chat GPT. That all sounds awfully serious, I know, but the novel itself is a romp. A pair of romps, actually. One in our real world of planes, trains, and Teslas, the other in a virtual realm of broken memory and nightmarish.
Visions. Perhaps Romp. is the wrong word for that second one, but it sure is fun to read. The book is called Dead Butt Dreaming of Electric Sheep, and Paul tells us all about its genesis, its inspirations, its spite, and the craft required for such a unique story. I also recommend him a video game that may well drive him to violence. If you enjoy the following then please review wherever you listen and my usual plea, consider supporting the show by becoming a Patreon subscriber. You get tons of bonus episodes, ad-free listening, honest reviews, and the first of a new kind of extra that I'm calling Profiling the Monsters, in which I ask some notable guests for their very favourite and most influential books, movies, music.
and games all to get a sense of why they are. who they are. Paul was kindly my first volunteer and you can listen to that and all the other stuff at patreon.com slash talking scared pod. And I thank you. But now, come with me into the hellscape. Don't trust your eyes, your ears, or maybe even your mind. Just for your humanity. Let's talk scared.
Hiya, Paul. Welcome back to the show, man. Good to speak to you again. Yeah, great to speak to you, Neil, as well. I'm happy to be back. It's always nice to have you back. Uh fourth time that's I think, not counting the Shirley Jackson deep dives, so fifth time in total. We can get to books in a moment, but first of all, uh how the hell are you? I don't want to pry, but you've been very open about your recent health and the fans care, so how are you?
Sure. Thank you. Uh I'm doing well. Uh, you know, physically I can sort of do everything I was doing before in terms of like exercise and that stuff. Uh the next big hurdle is uh a PSA blood test. I don't know if you've had had that yet. If you're getting close to the age where you're gonna have that during your physio. That's what you say over there, right?
Yeah.
Um And if that's all zeros like we we think and hope it should be, then that's all I have to do going forward is just monitor that. Oh uh but yeah, otherwise, you know, it's still it's just gonna be it's a little daunting. It's just gonna be a while before Um You know, all the plumbing works like it's supposed to. Yeah. I mean you look very well. Well thanks. Trying to have a sense of humor about it. And my usually go to joke is I'm peeing right now as you speak. But I'm not, as far as I'm aware.
You handle the entire thing with a sense of humour and I'm always suspicious. I'm always like, Is he okay? Because I do that where I just joke about everything. So as long as it's progressing well, um, 'cause I think we're all of it taken aback and and rooting for you, so I appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. Um and you've you've recently, very recently, finally retired from teaching, right?
Yeah. Uh the vain part of me recoils in horror at the word retire 'cause As I said it it felt weird. As I said it. Yeah, yeah. I mean I'm not that old. I mean I'm not John Langan's age. Jesus Christ.
Uh desiccated husk that he is.
I prefer to think of it as I'm just working a different uh full time job. But yeah. Okay. Uh yeah, and also like, you know, who knows? We'll see if if I go back 'cause I I do enjoy teaching but We'll we'll give this writing thing a go, see what happens. So you know full time writ what what prompted that?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the premise of Paul Tremblay’s new novel ‘Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep’?
0:11–9:10
2
How is Paul’s health and recent medical situation affecting his writing?
9:10–18:16
3
What inspired the story’s core concept of a comatose body being piloted across the U.S.?
18:16–26:28
4
How did Paul approach the novel’s structure and decide to write it out of order?
26:28–36:54
5
Why did Paul choose to inject pointed humor and satire about the tech industry?
36:54–44:23
6
What role did Paul’s involvement in the AI‑Plagiarism class‑action lawsuit play in the book?
44:23–52:34
7
What philosophical ideas about consciousness and eternal suffering drive the horror?
52:34–1:00:04
8
How does the novel end and what books does Paul recommend next?
1:00:04–1:12:55
Speakers
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