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Episode 571 - Kid Stuff (Patreon)

Published:
2021-11-13 01:32:19
Imported:
2026-06
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Scary Faerie Month continues with the Isaac Asimov story Kid Stuff!

Special thanks to our elf-like reader Heather Klinke!

Next up: The Dream of Akinosuke 

Comments

Mandy Reznor (She/It)

Another tale, another Shee! This week, lets move south of Orkney into the Scottish mainland to deal with a giant monster. The Fachan is a towering brute that comes out in the night to pummel farmers' crops with a massive iron flail. So the story goes, a single erect tuft of hair stands atop its cycloptic head, while its huge body—covered in crude deerskins—only has two limbs. A single boney arm juts out of the center of its broad chest to grasp the flail, while it hops to and fro on a central leg like a pogo stick. It's the sort of thing that might be comical if it weren't big enough to crush you like a bug and *extremely* hostile. Despite only having one of everything, the Fachan is a creature that got stats in AD&D 2E *twice,* in two seperate sourcebooks, each unaware of the other. (I believe it was the Forgotten Realms and Red Steel, if you're wondering.)

Sanjay Mathew

Re Heather's voice over gig- I've always wondered why they do the incidental non verbal noises like snorting cocaine in the dubbed audio. Couldn't they just use the existing audio? Or is, say, a Lusophone snort different from an Anglophone one?

Sanjay Mathew

Re High Fantasy elves, it was Tolkien who very consciously wanted to separate them from the fair folk or twee Victorian fairies. His elves are essentially unfallen humans (they can interbreed with humans so the difference is primarily metaphysical rather than physical). He started out with them being like the Tuatha de Danaan or Nordic elves but developed the idea.

Aaron Gullison

I remember reading a story about a tourist or traveller in the Highlands who hears about a cabin where people were killed by two small creatures that could be fairies. I can't recall the title or author. He eventually goes to the ruins of the cabin where the two creatures are still living and kills one of them (the female) using all his strength in doing so. I belive it was in a collection of other stories. One was about a couple living in a house where their baby died and they are feeling that it might be haunting them. [Note- likely not in the same work. Another about a vampire attacking a couple in a secular world and being driven off by money.] Another about a dream advertising idea man having to retire because he's run out of new ideas.

Aaron Gullison

Thanks. I'm now not sure if it was in the same book as Money Talks. All the stories in that book were by the same author, which means that I've conflated Money Talks into it. Sorry.

Eric Sroka

You guys touched on something that’s been bugging me for years, the rise of nerd culture. I remember 30 years ago wishing they would make a “good” Spider-Man/avengers/X-men movie. And then they did (definitely not all good). When Marvel went mainstream, I think it took away part of the magic for me. Reading comic books felt like sort of a club to me, and now while I guess it’s good that the characters I’ve known and loved for years are getting their due, it does make me sad. The movies are more and more becoming canon, and one only has to ride a cross country plane to catch up on the buzz. I suppose that’s the way it goes, now that I’m on the wrong side of forty.

Matthew Oliver

JRR Tolkien did not care for the diminutive Tinkerbell type faerie, but was more of a fan of the tales told pre Victorian. He took a stab at it with his story "The Smith of Wooton Major." My absolute favorite story about faerie Is "Johnathan Strange and Mister Norrel." Its a historical fiction that takes place in the Victorian period, where magic is real and you must be very careful when making deals with fairies. If you like your humor dry, this is for you. Nothing I have ever read, has made me laugh out loud like this one.

Cole Caron

Discussion of genre fiction stigma always reminds me of my mother. Her book club mostly did historical romance, but I finally got her to read Flowers for Algernon after maybe two years of pestering. She loved it, and then the entire book club loved it. It had everything they wanted in a cry-worthy book, they just didn’t think to look for it. I don’t know why some people think science fiction and fantasy are all space operas and chosen ones. Adventure and action are fun, but speculative fiction is far more flexible than that.

Adequately Excellent Entertainment

I am reminded of the time I visited the Robert E Howard house in Cross Planes, TX. I’d never seen a picture of Howard, so when the lady giving the tour pointed out one. Before that, I had been wondering why there was a framed photo of Al Capone in the house. He looked like a regular tough guy. The tour guide mentioned that Howard was into weight lifting and boxing in part because he caught a bunch of flack for making his living as a fantasy writer. Not sure where she got that though.

Brittney Elmer

From the prologue of The Fellowship of the Ring: “It is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits are relatives of ours: far nearer to us than Elves, or even than Dwarves. Of old they spoke the languages of Men, after their own fashion, and liked and disliked much the same things as Men did. But what exactly our relationship is can no longer be discovered… Those days, the Third Age of Middle-earth, are now long past, and the shape of all lands has been changed; but the regions in which Hobbits then lived were doubtless the same as those in which they still linger: the North-West of the Old World, east of the Sea.”

Marzi_p

I really love that you guys are covering scary fairies. I think so many people forget how terrifying fairies actually are in folktales. I think Terry Pratchett did a really good job covering it in his book "Lords and Ladies."

Sweatin' to the Great Oldies

It has been a very long time since I encountered this story. Thank you for bringing it back to my attention. I read a great deal of Asimov as a young adult - which started when I picked up the original Foundation trilogy for something like 60 cents at a book fair before a vacation - and read many, many of his books and short stories. The man had a lot to say. I found a great deal of inspiration in his work. It really is devastating to learn what a creep he could be. Makes me wonder if the things he introduced me to are in some manner toxic. A concept, ironically, I think he'd enjoy penning a story around.

Ryan Thomas

Fairies prove to be super manipulative and deadly characters in the first season of the BBC's series "Torchwood" (2007). Since watching the wrath of fairies in Episode 5: Small Worlds, and seeing their true form, my memory now sometimes connects rose petals to something sinister, instead of love and beauty.

Forrest Rush

I just wanted to add to what others have mentioned about being an Asimov fan as a child/teen and then later learning about the creepiness. Yeah it sucks. The Foundation series was always my favorite hard scifi that I read and reread from probably ages 12 – 16 or 17. His short stories (including a lot of Robot stuff) always left me a little meh because it just came off as him doing his O. Henry riff which this story definitely falls into. Like an ep of Gilligan’s Island where you pretty much knew what was coming by the end of the theme song, here you could see the writing on the wall or the squashed bug on the desk with the first mention of his son.

Peter Larsen

Yes, Asimov was a very bad guy in a lot of ways and, honestly, not that great of a writer -- the best one can say about his prose is that it's not really in sync with today's aesthetic -- and his characters are pretty flat in most cases. It may just be that he was a better writer of short fiction, where extended character development is obviously impossible. Anyway, the stories of his groping and other forms of sexual harassment are legion, and I suspect the throw away bit by the faerie about men being creeps is just more deflection. "Of course I'm a creep; that's what men are," instead of "holy shit, I'm doing this man thing really really badly; I need to change." I guess that's the problem with learning about people whose work you admire -- I mean, if Lovecraft hadn't spent like 9 hours a day writing letters, we wouldn't know so much dispiriting stuff about him.... Also, Jan is pretty much an idiot who missed the who central lesson of his own stories. There is a malevolent species that can prey on humans, but only if we believe in them. Cultural shifts mean than the only "point of contact" is through readers of fantasy pulps. Maybe you should stop writing fantasy stories, or, at the least, stories with faeries in them. You have not been validated as an "adult writer," Jan; you've been identified as an infection vector. Of course, writing mysteries is how you get murders, so I guess there's no winning.....

Derrick Mcmullin

My favorite depection of elves is Larry Corriea's Monster Hunter International series were American elves are trailer park trash with the queen of the elves weighing in at 500lbs and fond of dipping oreos in ranch. Also when are you returning to Manly wade wellman

G. Monaldo

For the most part the endless repetition of childish entertainment is related to the secure return on investment. Making movies of established properties is secure ROI and making new content is not. Mark Fisher in "Capitalist Realism" outlines this effect pretty well. Essentially after a given point creativity starts becoming a risk too big for capitalism to stomach and they revert to making the safest fare for the biggest returns.

Jon Hancock

You should be careful calling someone "my guitarist", Chad. From Keith Richards' autobiography: ‘We were in Amsterdam for a meeting, Mick and I weren’t on great terms at the time but I said c’mon, let’s go out and I lent him the jacket I got married in. We got back to the hotel about five in the morning and Mick called up Charlie. I said “Don’t call him not at this hour.” But he did, and said, “Where’s my drummer?” About 20 minutes later there was a knock at the door. ‘There was Charlie Watts, Savile Row suit, perfectly dressed…I could smell the cologne! I opened the door and he didn’t even look at me, he walked straight past me, got hold of Mick and said “Never call me your drummer again.” Then he hauled him up by the lapels of my jacket and gave him a right hook. Mick fell back onto a silver platter of smoked salmon and began to slide towards the open window and the canal below.’ Of course, drummers might have a bigger punch.

David Halstead

9:30 in I just look down at the Batman t-shirt I'm wearing. Yeah.

Jim Cannon

On the subject of the story itself, its interesting to me that Asimov presents us with a fairy but completely drains it of any magic or mystery. Its essentially an alien with psychic powers, an elf in name only. Even when discussing "Kid's Stuff" Asimov had to make it more "serious" and "plausible" (because psychic powers were plausible for a little while, at least in science fiction). It reminds me of the first Asimov story I ever read, which appeared in a Batman anthology published in 1989 to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary or the Burton movie. A bunch of science fiction and genre writers commissioned to produce prose short stories about Batman, and what does Asimov do? He wrote a locked room murder mystery where one of the characters is named Bruce Wayne, but not THE Bruce Wayne, a fact even remarked upon in the story. I was so disappointed.

Patrick W

Wasn’t Doby an elf? Pretty humble.

NoSignal

It sounds we need some spin-off shows Relentless Ruminations of Repulsive Writers - Each week a weird tale of an author so depraved their true story shocks more than their art. -Hear facts, heresy, and a whole lotta speculation on writers such as John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Barry Gordon, and our old lovable Lovecraft. - Learn fun facts to share with your friends to ruin their perceptions on life and your friendship! -Everyone has their secrets, we just let them out of their cage. The Case of Lord Byron or The Shadow Over Lake Geneva -100 part mini series uncovering the hidden truths of Lord Byron. Possibly the most successful criminal in history. -Were 500 bodies dug up from a plot on his estate? - Did he murder Mary Shelley and take her place so he could take credit for Frankenstein? -Did he discover how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop? -We know. Find out the scintillating truth of this true Vampyric Don Juan.

Sean Sea Who Used To Be Much More Annoying

Faeries depicted as bugs is definitely not isolated to these but my mind immediately went to Pan's Labyrinth, with the faeries being the grasshopper-like creatures, and even in their humanoid forms they're still very insectile. I would guess that both Asimov and del Toro were drawing from the same well.

Forrest Rush

I’ve been racking my brain to no avail trying to remember the title of an Asimov short story, or at least I’m pretty sure is one. It involves an unattractive guy in love with and loved by an unattractive woman. A fairy or leprechaun or genie or alien posing as such comes into his life offering to grant wishes. The woman wants to be beautiful for him and he asks the techno-magic creature to make it so. It involves more than one wish and the creature is lambasting the guy the whole time about how you can’t trust women, though it is couched in criticisms about human vanity and such. As I wrote before, it doesn’t appeal to me much, because the ending can be seen coming a mile or more away. Once the woman is beautiful, she leaves the guy because he’s out of her league. She never knows that she was physically transformed claiming it was always a matter of just brushing up her make-up. The O. Henry moral of course is careful what you wish for though the creature lambasts the sad-sack with witticisms about how wishing for others is a fool’s game. What I do remember is it really leaves a less than savory taste regarding how the female character is treated. Her progression from shy but in love lonely spinister to cold heartless shrew is played for laughs, but even as a kid I thought it was as funny as Ralph Kramden threatening to send Alice to the moon, i.e. not so much. He was a great writer without a doubt and I still rank Foundation (at least the first and second) as my all time favorite novels, though feminist and post-colonial critiques of them I’ve come across in the last years have given me a lot to think about. But as I’ve written before most of his short stories just seem to be going for the oh so clever ending which more often than not ain’t.

Richard Haussmann

Maybe Eye of the Beholder from his Azazel stories? Asimov's person and stories didn't always age well. For me, reading stories from earlier eras (some of which I seem to belong to) is almost like reading cultural history. Of course, the real world wasn't necessarily reflected, but it was the media people of those times consumed. At the same time, magazine editors and film producers bought those stories because they had an audience that was buying. We're fortunate to have hindsight on our side to look at how far we've come (or not).

Rick Hound

I vaguely remember a book series that also portrayed some Faeries as more Insectoid than the common humanoid of older myths and fiction. I think it was called The Spiderwick Chronicles, it even had an interesting take on how the Fae races were able to hide from humanity even having a little “scientific” take on the idea especially on the journal of the late Spiderwick who studied and recorded many. Fairly complex for a series of a younger audience, remembering reading them even tho my mom not quite liking it based on a certain religious background (not too strict but still). Anyways, love your work and hope for many decades more.