Man After Man is Gross
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2023
- Listen to the Man After Man audiobook here:
• Man After Man (Audiobook)
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The creepiest, most unsettling All Tomorrows images (like that of The Colonials) are downright charming compared to anything in Man After Man. The Man After Man illustrations are just willfully ugly. They're good illustrations made by a talented artist, but they look very deliberately gross.
All tomorrows succeeded what man after man tried to do with their artistic depictions. All tomorrows was very unsettling and stayed with me for a while. Man after man was just ugly and kinda stupid
That is the entire point....
One of the most important evolutions in All Tomorrows is an incredibly lanky person with a several inch long butthole idk if it’s really exempt
they would take the hottest, sexiest models on earth and still draw them as eldritch abominations
I think the big difference between the two novels is hope
All Tomarrows is humanity going through horrific apocalypses, one after the other, but there's always that base human drive to survive and thrive and conquer and love and hate and be tender and control through it
Man after Man is...
return to monke
never come back
You've said exactly what I wanted to say.
Return to Le Monke.
M O N K E
*Tomorrows
Based on
My main gripe with Man After Man is, like you said, how misanthropic it is. It's bad enough I see that mindset everywhere else, especially on the Internet. This is also one of the main reasons I love All Tomorrows; overall, it is far more optimistic in regards to humanity.
I really hated how misanthropic this story is, like i had a very visceral reaction to it. Partly it bothered me that: Realistically, the common folk would have A: survived, the natural disaster wasn't nearly bad enough to kill them, and B: they would have likely gone full political extremists on the tics and their creations. It implies that people are too incompetent to live in this world we have lived in for so long, and frankly that offends me. Its a total crap on the human spirt.
Lmao if you think a story like this is so misanthropic just look at real life and where our species is headed.
@@jdhh1801 Maybe if you overcame your inherent negativity bias like I have, you’d see things a bit differently.
@@ultimazillarex1076 *_I HATE KLAUS SCHAWB, I WILL NOT EAT THE BUGS_* ahem, excuse me.
@@The_Natalist What are you saying?
I love speculative evolution but Man After Man just makes me feel ill for some reason, it's awesome but the art/the way afterhumans are portrayed are gross and creepy
exactly same
To me thats exactly the point tho, I love this feeling I got the first time I listened to the audiobook, of humanity doing horrific things to itself and theses horrendous creatures suffering the consequences. Being themselves something that our brains instinctively feels its wrong, shouldn't even exist.
I mean, there's a lot of humans that are pretty gross and creepy. So to that extent, it's quite accurate.
I mean all tomorrows can be just as gross with their distorted cones of meat with muitlated genitalia
yeah, I think even Dougal was speculative about this book considering that most of these were extremely bizarre even for the author
I prefer All Tomorrows, it's easier to read and more interesting, but what ruined an otherwise ok read for me was the constant humanity sucks message through it all. Especially the ending. Yes, all the post human species eventually died out in All Tomorrows but there was a message that they were still there, their stories mattered and deserved to be told. Man after Man was like: "And then everyone died and good riddance, the universe never knew or cared." It was depressing and hard to care about the characters you met along the way.
What's funny is MaM went out of its way to craft individuals from each species, from name, to current struggle they're going through. You get names like Cralym, Jimez Smoot, Kyshu Kristaan, Haron Solto, etc. But you don't really empathize with them.
AT didn't do that, and yet it made you care about the posthumans more. The closest AT went to making individualized descriptions of each species was in the pictures, best examples are with the Pterosapien, Assymetric, and the Bug Facer.
I agree with what BtQ said about how Dixon kinda lets it(his misanthropy) show through the writing
It’s weird how the Colonials from All Tomorrows don’t phase me nearly as much as the Mechanical Hitek Humans from Man After Man
Colonials got the happy ending they deserved.
Man After Man and All Tomorrows both left me like physically sick and mentally scared for a few days after learning about them and seeing the pictures. I was a bit more prepared for Man After Man cus I saw All Tomorrows first but it still just left me with a gross feeling. But it didn't take away from how cool they both are and introduced me to the topic. Ofc All Tomorrows is better but Man After Man still is quite formative for this extremely niche topic.
I think you verbalized exactly how it made me feel the first time I checked it out, as you said physically sick/grossed out. It's weird, some concepts and designs in AT came pretty close but not quite.
ignorant ppl are way more disgusting than nature.
I guess body horror is not your thing, huh?
I mean there's good and bad ones, all tomorrows does it well, man after man not such much. Some movies do it well others its just the shock factor. I think that's why I liked all tomorrows so much cus it stuck with me for so long just thinking about it. Movies like human centipede are just dumb (idk if that's a hot take or not) and while it can "stick" with you it's not in the same way as good body horror. But no I don't actively seek out the genre cus it can make me sick lmao@@saulgoodmanKAZAKH
@@saulgoodmanKAZAKHbut that’s like the whole point of body horror, so it is his thing
This book is so anti-human that it reads like a WEF fan fiction
WEF?
@@troin3925 World Economic Forum, the counterpart to the World Bank and UN
Bro I was bath tied in church so I love future is wild and man after man I remember seeing clip of the book on the internet so I fucking love this book to my heart it paints a true picture of are society in future
I completely agree with your opinion on the whole "anti human" idea. We are so much more than our heads of state.
Exactly.
I'm grateful for your audiobook of 'Man After Man' cause I'd wanted to read it since I was prolly a Junior or Senior in High School. I'm 34 now; the book is so outrageously priced it was never feasible. It usually runs around $90-$200USD. Much obliged to you! 😎✌️
I feel you, I looked up the price on Amazon once and had my dreams shattered too 😂
Same!
To add to your thoughts on All Tomorrow’s:
I think because the book is shorter, and the creatures CM created, along with the more imaginative scenario he put fourth, I believe that that combo sets up a more engaging and interesting story.
You look at Man After Man, the story just seems more tedious than anything, and after the first read through, there’s really nothing to draw you back to want to read it again when compared to All Tomorrows
humans genetical modifying humans:NOOOOOOO
cool ailens genetical modifying humans:yeees
The thing with Man after Man that really gives me issues are not the illustrations, not the long intro chapters before we get to the main story, but just the overall depressing mood of the book. If we remember, the goal of the Hitek was to repopulate the wild areas of the planet in the hopes that one of the post human species would be able to restart human civilization...and none of them succeeded in doing so. The travelers say (as Dixon wrote) "it is a sign of strength that they know to make their life easier, but ignore the knowledge." and how the boat builders were basically forced to go into hiding because they rediscovered how to make tools and use them. It's not that these species aren't capable of doing it, the Hivers proved that they were somewhat capable, its just that they won't do it
It's because the book has psychic misanthropes in it the relatives of the boatbuilders absolutely went out of their way to snuff out burgening civilizations . The one thing I hate about this book is that such is almost celebrated instead of being rightly demonized as the most vile sort of behavior.
The illustrations remind me of old science text book diagrams. I didnt find them horribly unsettling, but entirely fascinating. Especially towards the end when they it turned more into body horror with grotesque human forms.
One of the things I did like about man after man was the ending and how it tied into this running theme of what it means to be "a man" for each of the creatures. You have all the various creatures seeing themselves as a true person while looking down on the other creatures they interact with.
The theme was sharply noted with one of the monkey tribes that interacted with the fish guy that was stranded. There is a brief moment of empathy that was quickly torn down. You also had humanity leaving with hope in the future only to return later seemingly unaware that Earth was their home planet and they just ravaged it and move on as that is what they do now since they are a completely different species.
There was this very loose definition of humanity as being the superior creature, with a divine right to everything, and that there is nothing else like you. And without getting into rather that is true or not I just found it interesting how it was laid out.
That being said I do think all tomorrow's was better. Also I do believe that our understanding of DNA is different now. We've come to understand that it's a lot more subtle and not the straightforward code of life that we thought it was. For instance there are two very different creatures (I can't recall what they are) that have exactly the same DNA structure but how that encryption is read by the mother's egg determines how the organism will grow. So in a sense DNA doesn't hold all the information it's just the content of a code but the context of the code is in the mother's egg.
And one last thing you do make a very good point about people hating on Humanity. I struggle with that sentimentality too but when I stop to really reflect I realize deep down inside that that's not really what I think. When you get away from the media, and perhaps driving on the roads, you realize most people really are decent normal people thet usually just want to be left alone.
Very good points all around, love this comment bro. Haven’t read either of these books I just think his voice is nice so I fall asleep to it
Not only did I find the images disgusting but the idea of humanity failing to protect itself and the environment we live in and are forced by both nature and its own hand to transform into bizarre "monstrosities" is highly disturbing.😮
I have to address, Man after Man is definitely a glass-half-empty approach when it comes to humanity and it also takes place on a much shorter time scale so that is why the humans are less evolved. I feel like in 1 million years humans would have a sort of uncanny valley look rather than true alien.
Man After Man is extremely weak when it comes to the science and chronology as you pointed out, I agree. I mean, human species are evolving and going extinct in the matter of 3000 years.
The ‘grounded’ feel of the book in comparison to All Tomorrows can go both ways - sometimes it’s nice to fall asleep to a visual storytelling rather than facts and figures. Also, All Tomorrows is way too short! At least Man after Man gives you plenty of it.
Overall though, All Tomorrows is the superior story because it goes more in depth with the biology and, as you said, is cooler, but Man After Man is my favourite. I’ve only listened to your audiobooks - maybe that makes a difference.
I wish the book spent more time focused on the hitek, a society where everybody is too fucked up to function properly is both horrifying and intriguing.
For some reason my school had this in their library. I found it fascinating and borrowed it a few times.
I like your assessment on human nature. Humans aren't bad. It's a few bad apples, as they say.
For 99% of human history, we did rather well when interacting with our environment. A few hiccups, but rather well.
I always thought man after man was more of a theory then a story, it felt more of something you would read if you were high on weed or hallucinogenics.
Keep up the content💪🏻🔥
Thank you so much for the shout-out! :)
I'm always happy when my creations inspire others...
I don't know if you mention this, but Man After Man was going to be an entirely different book. It was in some ways gonna be a continuation of After Man where humans have time traveled to that book's world and destroyed the environment in a way similar to the end of Man After Man. But because of publisher meddling, he was forced to change the book to be about humans evolving instead. Dougal Dixon hated the way it turned out and to this day, he doesn't look back fondly on the book (and considering he republished After Man with newer artwork and updated scientific info and is going to do the same with The New Dinosaurs at some point, it safe to say that Man After Man won't get officially rereleased anytime soon, if at all). Though, Dixon's original concept for Man After Man did come to fruition with his book Greenworld, with it being about an alien planet rather than a future earth. Unfortunately, the book was only released in Japan and has yet to be released in English in the west.
Honestly, the original idea of Man After Man sounds more tragic. Many readers would've already read After Man, and fell in love with its wonderous animals. Imagine their horror, when that ecosystem suddenly gets destroyed. As messed up as Man After Man is, at least it doesn't mess with Dixon's prior works. Besides, one ecosystem being destroyed is sad enough.
Body horror type of entertainment is so fun to watch/read. Your content is great to listen to when I’m at work. I always have hours to be alone and productive.
Awesome! Thank you!
I prefer All Tommorow.
For some reason I'm always a bit annoyed that first human offshoot in MaM aren't anything close to human sapiens and are completely adapted to space from the start.
I think the illustrations in Man After Man are meant to be uncanny. These creatures are not quite human, but human enough to be recognizable and that's disturbing to us on a primal level. I imagine that was the illustrator's goal and he clearly achieved it. Not all art is meant to be beautiful.
I find Man After Man more depressing than gross
Man after man or “how to give yourself free nightmares” as its known elsewhere, was definitely my first major plunge into the speculative evolution pipeline. I remember seeing some images of it in science class one afternoon in highschool and being so impressed by the pictures. It was so unlike any other evolution or science book id even seen at the time. Seeing human faces on animal like beings messed my young mind up for a few days. Even the story itself without the genetically modified people feels slightly cursed. Brilliant video as always, Mr. Qu 💙
It's not just you, and it's not just the weird creatures, even the baseline humans give me chills.
Hello Mr. Qu
Good to hear from you again. Man after man was tough to hang on to cause of the way it's written. Interesting in it's own way.
Well said
I want to like Man After Man but it peaks in the beginning and stops being interesting after the tics go extinct. It only picks up again at the very, very end of the book when the builders show up. The only highlight of the middle part was the parasite species. I was so mad when the book didn't bring back the vacuumorphs and replaced the fish man aquamorphs with lame manatee aquatics. I also didn't like how some of the later species weren't illustrated. It's like Dixon had a great idea, but got bored halfway through. There are things I did like aside from the beginning and end. I like how the little stories were told through the perspective of individual characters instead of just glossing over entire species like in All Tomorrows.
I think it's possible to admire something you don't enjoy
Have you seen the spec evo documentary from 2002 called "The Future is Wild"?
I find it interesting and inspiring as a fantasy world creator.
Sadly the premise is that all humans have disappeared so we don't see any human evolution and it may be bordering the "humans have to be wiped out" kind of thinking you mentioned but I think it's mostly to give room for the animals to evolve.
I recommend watching it for fun
Yeah it's a fun watch, I have the DVD boxset.
Do be fair, working with people has caused me to hate people.
I work at a book distribution warehouse, this book is for sale on the place's website for around $200 or so? Due to how rare it is to find copies. I got to look at it briefly myself thanks to the warehouse having a copy- the art is definitely nauseatingly uncanny but part of me feels like it was meant to be that way ( if it was the artist hit the nail on the head with it) but I look at it under the category of 'morbidly fascinating' tbh.
Especially after looking at both at this point, I do like All Tomorrows a lot more- I find the different species in that one much more fascinating with their diversity. But Man After Man is still bizarrely interesting to look through. I like that it goes more specifically into social structures/individual day-to-day moments of the different species in it, compared to looking at each species as a collective whole- both have their own interesting takes on the narrative for everything. All of this just makes me wish for more speculative evolution books honestly...
This is crazy. This morning I got recommended your man after man playlist and started to listen to it and a few hours later you upload this.
The art on man after man gave me a strong disgust response with a few species. That big red sloth one, the fishing ones and a few others and tic were just absolutely repulsive.
I didn’t get any type of real messaging from the book. It depicts the world in it as pretty uncaring and humans have to adapt to it at the expense of what made us human for the sake of survival.
All tomorrows on the other hand if you can get past the disgusting body horror has a good message about humanity and what it means to be human
I agree concerning humanity being tainted by a small group of powerful families that conspire to keep everyone enslaved.
Don't ever be sorry m8!
Haha I know, it's a shame we have to apologise in advance for having an opinion on things, but this is the internet after all and I can't be bothered with my inbox being flooded with death threats.
I believe the disgusting feeling of the Man after man illustrations is completely intended
idk if it’s cause i read man after man first, but while all tomorrows is more cohesive, i still find the slivers of humanity in man after man’s narrative chapters…weirdly comforting? it definitely hit me harder than all tomorrows did, and even the artistic depictions of the aquatics and the infamous “season’s greasons” art made me feel really sentimental
It’s what got me into speculative evolution believe it or not 😂
Last and First Men might be a very good contrast between both Man After Man and All Tomorrows when you get around to it.
When I watch these videos I imagine that he’s like some old dude that I’m hanging out with and I asked him what his favorite book was and now he’s just rambling at me about some random book I’ve never heard of. But in a good way
Lol
Today I learned that my hardcover of Man after Man is worth something! Unfortunately I can't find it and now I wonder if I got rid of it in a book purge I did last year. :/
Damn, that's a shame, I hope you find it.
I have noticed that too, why are certain groups of people especially the university educated tend to have this suicidal anti-human sentiment?
The 5hr. Run, is The Best❣️🤙 LOVE the production’s, please keep Goin’ 🙏😉
I like videos like this where you give your thoughts. I hope to see more of this kind of content in the future.
Thank you Mileidy, more like this on the way.
I suspect part of the reason it looks the way it does is that they were trying to make some of the more unusual ones look alien or at least give off that same feel. They do remind me of illustrations you see on old magazine and comic book covers from the 70s and 80s.
It's also worth noting that this book had a troubled production and Dixon considered it a failure. The story he originally wanted to tell is apparently used in Greenworld. It seems like purpose of the pessimism was that he was originally trying to have it be a more gritty Lorax type story, though it reads like a German fable where the mistake is made and everything just sucks by the end.
LOVE the All Tomorrow’s, Run, even More🙏❣️ Great Work🤙😉 Cheerz
I kind of thought the book was supposed to make you sick.
Definately got that body horror vibe for sure. Almost like David Croenberg had a bad trip having an Altered States moment.
It’s cool to hear your side of things you were the one who introduced me to speculative evolution thanks for the video
The off-the-cuff style is GREAT and your channel is doing amazing my friend. I personally would love to listen to more conversational podcasts like this from you...
Thank you! Perhaps I will try to do more of it.
I learned that autistic people are less likely to be affected by the uncanny valley. I wish it affected me as I feel that I am missing out, would love to understand why people are affected by it and how it feels, but alas, as an autistic person, it doesn’t affect me.
Also your voice is really good for reading, it’s nice to listen to.
I feel the same way. There is a bit of an uncanny element, but there seems not to be this strong effect that other people are describing with seeing such illustrations.
Same here. Also on the Spectrum, and while I do find it creepy, I’m not that heavily affected by it.
lol funny coincidence, i gotta write an essay for one of my uni classes and i chose exactly this topic - how autistic people are affected by uncanny valley
@@heybestie6440 That sounds fascinating!
Your reading of Man after Man is one of my favorite bedtime stories when I want to have nightmares
I've liked the concept of Spec Evo since I saw "The Future is Wild" on I think Animal Planet back in the day. There was also another one in a similar vein that I remember watching where it showed future evolution if humans suddenly left.
I have to admit some of the ones that go into weird forms humans might take really make me sick. I think I like the non-human animal ones a lot more.
It would have been more interesting to see more post human species had they not all have the same human-faces or perhaps rebuilt civilization from scratch, but it did have a lot of inspirations for authors and artists everywhere. And yeah, all Tomorrows is really popular
Dougal Dixon actually disowns this book. His original plan for it was to essentially have humanity time travel to the world of “After Man” and destroy it. But that idea was rejected and he was forced to come up with the weird body horror plot for “Man After Man.”
Yep. Then his original idea eventually became his book Greenworld, released only in Japanese, in Japan, and is impossible to find.
I do love the intro from man after man, I’d feel that if that served as the prologue for all tomorrows, it would be even more of a masterpiece.
Something to do with Covid 19 vaccines maybe Dixon was predicting something
How was Man After Man misanthropic? I remember it being just plain depressing, but not misanthropic. Everything is dead, dying, or beyond repair, thousands of years of human civilization have been set back to caveman times only worse, the best and brightest are hauling ass offworld, and the only solution left is different kinds of monkey people while the regular humans suffer and die out.
I mean, I got the impression that the illustrations making you feel sick was the point? Like it's supposed to almost be horror, that this definitely isn't the good ending for humanity.
Sometimes High Brow critique doesn't quite get the point, so a bit of simple blunt banter is needed!
A spec evo project I'd recommend is Biblaridion's Alien Biospheres series. The finale about the evolution of sapient life should be out in a few months (as of the time of my comment).
C.M. Kösemen (same one who did All Tomorrows) is involved in the series creation process by being one of the many people who's done art for it.
Sounds cool
Hot take: I actually like the designs in Man After Man Because of how creepy,gross and uncanny they look. Dont get me wrong, All Tomorrows is the better story in every single way but I think there is also a certain appeal when something decides to go full on nightmare fuel
Fair enough
In all fairness I never think of the text part of this book when I think of Man After Man, just the images. It just simply didn't captivate me like All Tomorrows did.😮💨 Can't say the art ever made me "sick" per se, but I have always thought the creatures were just too much of a mix of bland and ugly. I guess it also didn't help that my first encounter with this story was a meme from the early 2000's, specifically a cropped version of the manhandled/maltreated Tundra Dweller with the caption "Seasons Greetings", I just couldn't take this thing seriously after that.😅 The Hitek and the subsequent "Tics" depictions did bother me, both were far too unwieldy/cumbersome/unrealistic to ever be able to function in any sort of environment. The Astromorphs were the only ones that I really thought had an interesting design and they were barely a blip in the book. Any way, thanks for another afternoons brain stimulation Qu, can't wait for the next one!😄
I think you mean Vacuumorphs, not Astromorphs.
@@troin3925 Whoops!😆
A glorious year ago already
I wonder how many times i have listened to your reading of this... A LOT 10/10 reading.
Yea true this book did show humanity in such a grotesque light😆😆
P.s. loved your entire Man after Man series🙏
Cheers mate lovely to see such a perfectly put together video
I was actually going to listen to man after man as i loved your reading of all tomorrows. But... two things stopped me from listening up till this point: the length AND the cover art. Like you said, the art made me feel absolutely sick. I hated it. The art is amazing with the light and shadow and colours, but i just cant take looking at it (something i didnt get from All Tomorrows, All Tomorrows was disturbing but utterly interesting).
My sister seemed to enjoy the book and i have always planned to listen to it, but i just kind of dont want to for those reasons.
Doesn't mean I'll never read it, I just need to find the time (as I have memory of a goldfish, I like to read/listen things in one go) and also need to get over the frankly impressive and disgusting art.
I think these unscripted videos bring out more of your own personality which is important for youtubers in my opinion.
Your personality often sells your videos.
But one youtuber I follow also says that cream always rises to the top. That when you make quality content it will be noticed by the audience at some point.
THANK YOU FOR SAYING IT!! I thought the same with the pictures in Man After Man. They would better work for horror stories, which is kinda how I pictured Man After Man. Kind of a Horrific possible future.
A lot of people have called the book “eco-fascist” which I can definitely see. It’s very cynical towards technology, not just in how it affects the environment, but also because it flat out believes that technology and our modern way of living have helped us defy natural selection, preventing us from evolving and changing, which isn’t how it works. It also acts like mother nature would eventually take everything back and destroy technology.
In ways, technology does kinda do that, and it is especially possible in the future. Plus, the idea of mother nature eventually taking everything back and us becoming and staying as animals is a possibility and is arguably more plausible than in All Tomorrows.
The thing I found ridiculous about All Tomorrows was that somehow most of the species that were transformed into animals became sapient, even animals that are not capable of doing so like those lizard creatures. It took MANY hundreds of million years for just us to evolve, showing that something like us is probably very rare in the universe, yet somehow, human-level intelligence is pretty easy to achieve in All Tomorrows.
Also, I didn't find Man After Man to be misanthropic, but just more naturalistic and down to earth. Stating that despite how powerful and intelligent we are, we are still animals and are still prone to the brutality of nature and are very much capable of reverting back. The end has a glimmer of hope as the remaining human descendants survive and continue to do so and adapt. A misanthropic book wouldn't include that.
All Tomorrows has this constant sense of "Damn this is a cool design, I want to learn everything about this creature and then see the next one" and Man After Man simply doesn't... Man After Man has me thinking "Man, I'm really bored, I really hope the next creature is more interesting" and then I'm trying to read through the whole page really fast just to turn it and- God dammit it's the exact same creature but more obese
Any chance on some videos on Last and First men by Olaf Stapledon? It was written in the 30s and has some really cool old timey sci fi speculative evolution stuff in it.
BTW I had so share this amazing video. I love both books. And Your channel has been a wonderul joy to me. It was YOUR channel that introduced me to both stories. Keep up your amazing work! And you DO an excellent job with the sudiobooks; mistakes and all. You have a very enjoyable voice.
Great job on the growth of the channel!
Thanks John!
16:50 BTQ's trying his best not to use the word "bourgeoisie"
I think its supposed to be gross, the tics and the high tics made me so grossed out, i cant believe the tradesman class even worked for them. I only get this level of sheer disgust when i listen to politics, well done author and artist if that was your intent
Yknow what
Thank you
I was on the side of "fuck humanity the world would probably be better without us" even if there are many good people and its juat easier to see the bad, though if we went instinct then something else would probably gain similer intelegence over time unless people destroyed the planet
But the way you described humans made me feel better, we are just trying to live and not purposely trying to fuck things up, besides the really fucked up people
I was kinda in this state of, we all are mentally ill and panicked but we just are trying to keep going, and I sappose im still there but instead of being so against humanity
Now im conflicted, hearing that people just want peace is really brightening for me, thank you for opening my eyes abit more
Stay positive, my friend. Most people are just trying to get by, but you don't hear about those people on the news.
I've enjoyed your audio book reading ever since I came across the all tomorrow's, found fascinating, then of course man after man . I enjoyed both. Given choice I think all tomorrow's would be my preference , I'd say a proper sci-fi story if you like . Also listened to your other audio read story's. I have to say , it's thanks to you , otherwise I wouldn't have known about these books . Hope u do some more soon. I am certainly interested in your topic , think your voice is suits it.
Thanks Ashley
Nice video. I recently remembered your channel, still high quality. All Tormorows is amazing, but there are fininite things to talk about. It's great to see that you've started making videos on other speculative evolution books and similar media since ive last watched you!
Love your videos, BtQ. No worries about getting videos out frequently. As long as UA-cam isn't your job, it's not important. Life comes first always.
Definitely unsettling when I listed to you read it was grossing me out very uncanny valley
The man after man illustrations definitely make me feel ill too…. But i wont lie i really like that aspect haha.
Another thing I like about this book are the names of the characters in each story. They all sound very strange like they came from an alien language.
28:45 It's the politicians.
Your take on antihumanism on 17:50 is BASED
Thanks man, the prevailing antihumanist attitude of the modern age is something of a bugbear for me.
Yes I do think the artwork in Man After Man is very uncanny. I also get a bit of it from All Tomorrows. Some characters just look so weird with human noses or eyes which I believe is also the intent of the art.
While I have issues with you describing the bad decision-makers as mentally ill (mentally ill people can be perfectly kind and the people in charge can be perfectly sane and yet completely selfish and horrible), I agree completely with this anti-human rhetoric being stupid. What especially rubbed me the wrong way with this book is how Dixon seems to perpetuate dysgenics, or the idea that deleterious negative traits will emerge if people with "bad DNA" are allowed to reproduce, and that it'll bring down the fitness of the species as a whole.
Not only is it gross, it's an idea that doesn't even make sense within the context of MaM, where genetic engineering advanced enough to create sub-species of humans is around. We can do that, but we can't repair or replace harmful mutations or traits? That seems like such an obvious and easy fix for the entire premise, yet it's completely ignored. That really took me out of the story, personally.
Extremely ironic video considering that ‘All Tomorrows’ is full eldritch monstrosities. However, I can agree with you that the book was considerably underwhelming compared with CM Kosemen’s works. I think one fully unscientific chapter, maybe you mentioned it I don’t remember, was the one with the ape-things which somehow inherited knowledge from their forebears because of a dormant gene or something. Please do correct me if I’m wrong, but I think anyone, even without a scientific background would be very well capable of knowing this is fundamentally wrong.
Love this book.
I actually own an original 1990 copy of man after man, which i got for my birthday in 2017
Cool!
I also have an original after man copy (along with 40th anniversary edition copy) and an original the new dinosaurs copy. And an original 1990 copy of expedition (which would make for a great audiobook in my opinion)
Really hope you'll make a Video about After Man too😃
I plan to, once I've finished it.
I read this book last night and while I’d consider myself a fan of speculative evolution I just could not get invested in Man after Man. I think it really has to do with the visual component - to me none of the designs look disturbing or depressing, or sickening, they just look rather, for lack of a better word, silly. None of it feels organically designed, most of them even just feel like random ape archetypes with human faces slapped onto them. The worst offenders even just look like odd caricitures with no evolved attributes which feel sensible.
Some of the species themsleves like the telepathic carrier & hunters seemed ridiculously far-fetched for something attempting a human realism, making the majority of species either uninteresting archetypes or feel just again just too unscientific to be taken seriously. And I’m not a scientist or science trained either, it just again doesn’t have realism to it.
Despite there being more stories & more personal stories of the creatures, it felt less engaging and only highlighted the lack of realism that made the textbook-y atmosphere fall apart. Overall I don’t think it’s terrible but it really wasn’t my taste.
👍👍 nice informal, waffly report on your experience with the text, cheers! Based on what you've said here I would probably have a similar experience 😊👌
My main problem with Man After Man in terms of its art that its not bad art by any means, i just think the designs are very...off? sometimes? like the one piece that became the seasons greasons meme, the designs just don't translate well
I really enjoy your commentary about human nature. People so often try to ascribe some inherent morality to humanity, when that's just simply not how it works, not only is it miserably misanthropic but I also feel like it kind of...robs actually bad people of agency in a way? Bad people don't exist because there's some inherent immorality to them, they exist because they make choices that are bad, likewise there are people who make choices to be good. That's why I loved All Tomorrows, for all of its grim content, it feels like a love letter to humanity at its core.
I wouldn't call immoral people psychopaths or mentally ill though, I say as someone who *is* mentally ill that usually we're more likely the ones to be taken advantage of by people who are bad; psychiatric abuse, dehumanized or treated like we're dangerous due to symptoms people don't understand, etc.
You dislike it for the reasons I love it. MAM is a Horror/SF fusion like Peter Watts' Blindsight. I have had a copy since the 80s, and love the body horror and grim world view. Yerok and the Tool is one of the bleakest stories in SF.
Dougal Dixon is such a cool name😂