The SFFaudio Podcast #269 – The Moth by H.G. Wells; read by Peter Bishop. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the short story (24 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Seth and Mr Jim Moon!

Peter Bishops narration of The Moth is a part of Spoken Freely: Summer Shorts ’14 audiobook by Tantor Media – all proceeds benefit ProLiteracy.

Talked about on today’s show:
Subtitle “Genus Novo” means “new species”, or, well, new genus; not to be confused with Edgar Allan Poe’s The Sphinx; not tongue-in-cheek like Wells’s The New Accelerator or The Flowering of a Strange Orchid; morality tale; insanity; a “knife fight” of scientists; significance of names, especially when only heard in audio; genre: ghost story, scientific fiction, satire; bears relevance to scientific debates through the ages; Robert Hooke vs. Isaac Newton; Lawrence Krauss on Geek’s Guide podcast; “miracle of incompetence”; science “all works out in the end”; microlepidoptera are little moths; confirmation bias; death’s head moth in Silence of the Lambs; caterpillars, moths, and transformation; Pawkins misheard as “Porkins”; chess and diatoms; follows trends of horrible characters in Wells stories; erratic, gadfly behavior of the moth; giant maddening mosquitos in Canada; “unfortunately the doctor was a blockhead”, detached sadism; the monster inside you à la Alien; multiple readings of the story; The Door in the Wall; strait jackets; moths aren’t Lovecraftian; Lovecraft’s The Rats in the Walls.

Posted by Jesse Willis