The Incomparable, number 4003, April 2018.

Welcome back, everybody, to The Incomparable podcast.

I'm your host, Jason Snell.

And in this episode, it's the first of two episodes, because so many people wanted to talk about this subject, suggested by

Lisa Schmeiser, who was not here, by the way, putting her definitely in the second definition

of Glenning, which is to suggest a topic and then not be on the episode.

And this is what she suggested when we were looking for episode subject.

She said, how about your childhood canon, your childhood nerd canon?

Panelists talk about the four formative works they can point to as shaping their taste for life.

So basically, we're going to go back and it's not a draft, but we are going to take turns in talking about, totally not a draft, about formative things from our youth.

I'm also not going to judge you on based on what age you were and say whether that is childhood or not.

This isn't, for that, there's probably an episode of Robot or not you could listen to that determines.

Will you be judging if they were actually formative enough?

Will you be pulling up our history and cross-checking?

Yeah, I'll be like, this doesn't know.

Let me ask some questions about your current life.

You didn't mention this in your backstory on your character sheet, therefore it's not formative enough.

How could it be, given your current career, how could you consider this, which is an opposition to your current career, formative?

Ha-ha, I accuse you.

Just one more question.

Yeah, exactly.

That is not going to happen. Instead,

...