Ep 719 - The Kaiju Preservation Society, by John Scalzi
Overdue
Headgum
4.6 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 8 September 2025
⏱️ 73 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For anyone who’s ever loved a movie or TV show where people in silly outfits pretend to be giant city-crushing lizards and/or robots, this week’s book plays around in a pretty entertaining space. If the references to the mid-to-late-2020 stretch of the COVID pandemic and the 2020 US presidential election date it a little, and if every single named character talks exactly the same, it’s still got neat ideas and a part where the evil billionaire antagonist is implied to have his face eaten off by a parasite from another dimension.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a headgum podcast. |
| 0:05.6 | In artificial wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver, salvation has a price. |
| 0:11.9 | Is humanity willing to pay it? |
| 0:13.8 | In a climate ravaged landscape where AI and humans vie for political power, a journalist must unravel a murderous plot that will either up in the |
| 0:21.5 | world or save it. In 2050, investigative journalist Marcus Tully is grieving his wife and unborn |
| 0:28.0 | child 10 years after they perished in a deadly heat wave that gripped the Persian Gulf. Now the whole |
| 0:32.8 | planet is both burning and drowning and the nations of the world aside to elect a global leader to steer |
| 0:38.2 | humanity through the climate apocalypse, the final two candidates, a former U.S. president, |
| 0:44.0 | and Solomon, the first artificial intellect to hold political office. Wait a second. Whoa, |
| 0:50.7 | AI politicians. As Election Day races closer, Craig, Solomon's creator is murdered and is up to Tully to find |
| 0:57.0 | the culprit. |
| 0:57.8 | Soon Tully is unraveling a conspiracy that goes to the highest levels. |
| 1:01.5 | As the investigation heats up in the planet hurdles ever closer to the brink, |
| 1:05.1 | Tully must find the truth and convince the world to face it because salvation has a price. |
| 1:10.2 | But is humanity willing to pay it? I don't know but is humanity willing to pay it i don't know |
| 1:13.5 | if we're willing to pay i said that earlier and i wasn't sure and you just said it and i'm not still |
| 1:17.6 | not sure you're gonna have to read this book and figure it out okay you will have to read it so i'm |
| 1:21.8 | calling our listeners to action uh artificial wisdom is a pitch perfect near future thriller wrapped in a murder mystery. It's a masterclass in playing an intimate story out on a global stage dealing with the big societal issues of climate change and technology alongside genuine human drama. It adds to the growing conversation about AI by presenting a speculative world in which |
| 1:46.2 | humanity is trying to determine if surrendering control to an AI in the interests of solving |
| 1:52.4 | climate change is in the best interest of humanity in the planet. I just think that our listeners |
| 1:57.6 | might want to read artificial wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver. |
| 2:01.8 | While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well-told tale, |
... |
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