In this episode of Audio Signals Podcast, host Marco Ciappelli speaks with Nathan Peter Ogloff, a rising author, about his upcoming novel "The Sapien Empire".
Guests: Nathan Peter Ogloff, Author
On Linkedin | https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-ogloff-314ba411/
On Twitter | https://twitter.com/UnusualAuthor
On Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/groups/1610460879486141/
On TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@nathan_ogloff
On Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/nathan_ogloff/
Website | https://www.nathanogloff.com/index.html
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Host: Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining Society Podcast & Audio Signals Podcast
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/marco-ciappelli
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Episode Introduction
In this episode of Audio Signals Podcast, host Marco Ciappelli speaks with Nathan Peter Ogloff, a rising author, about his upcoming novel "The Sapien Empire". They go backstage into the inspirations behind his complex narrative, from viewing Star Wars as a youngster to his fascination with heavy metal music and intricate Lego architectures.
"The Sapien Empire" unravels a post-apocalyptic world where civilization is being rebuilt. The story centers around two main characters who aim to establish a morally upright world amid the ruins. Ogloff’s approach to crafting this world includes a balanced combination of vibrant descriptions and crucial dialogue, underpinned by philosophical undertones. His story addresses the question of what constitutes a 'better' world following an apocalypse, a theme that straddles various elements in his novel including characters, machinery, and societal norms.
Ogloff injects his world with contrasting perspectives, offering readers thought-provoking notions about different versions of 'better'. These echoes of thought force readers into a cerebral examination of their own perceptions and understanding of ideal societal structures.
To intensify the reading experience, Nathan recommends his eclectic heavy metal playlist on YouTube, which he believes complements the thrilling journey within his novel perfectly. This session provides an in-depth exploration of the captivating mind behind this unique sci-fi tale, offering readers a glimpse into the inspirations behind his narrative.
Tune into this fascinating episode for a sneak peek into the exciting mind of Nathan Peter Ogloff and his world of post-apocalyptic renaissance, presenting listeners with an engaging blend of cultural commentary, philosophical debate, and thrilling narrative exploration. It's an enlightening hour that dives deep into the process of world-building and the exciting future of science fiction storytelling.
Be sure to enjoy this captivation conversation, share it with your friends and subscribe to the Audio Signals to listen to many more episode with Marco Ciappelli and his many guests!
About the Book
The first book in the series tells the story of Shindo Dacan, a socially awkward young man gifted in all things engineering living in a Mad-Max style world. He is forced by a brutal tyrant, Vibrun Magrite, to create machines that aid Vibrun in his path of conquest. If you can imagine Elon Musk having to make machines for the Hells Angels, you'll have an idea of the situation Shindo is living under.
This all changes after Shindo exacts revenge on Vibrun with the aid of a woman, Jarim Alsaedon, from a derelict underground archive. From then on, they begin the process of rebuilding civilization across the planet. As their realm expands, they're constantly haunted by the mistakes of past civilizations. Shindo, in his new role as dual head-of-state, finds his desire to better understand people an absolute necessity.
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Resources
The Sapien Empire: https://www.nathanogloff.com/Books/Book_1_The_Sapien_Empire.php
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Book | Unraveling 'The Sapien Empire': A Deep Dive into Nathan Peter Ogloff's Post-Apocalyptic World Building | Audio Signals Podcast With Marco Ciappelli
Please note that this transcript was created using AI technology and may contain inaccuracies or deviations from the original audio file. The transcript is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for the original recording, as errors may exist. At this time, we provide it “as it is,” and we hope it can be helpful for our audience.
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[00:00:00] Marco Ciappelli: Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Audio Signals Podcast with me, Marco Ciapelli. As you know, lately, not only we talk about stories of all kinds, which often are books and written stories, but that could be also music, songwriting. Painting, art, photography, any way possible way that people can tell stories.
I like to say we're all made of stories. So we have different media to share them. And today we're talking about a book. We're talking with an author and we got connected through one of these many nowadays platform that connect podcasts. Uh, host with guest and, uh, I am really enjoying this new way of connecting with people instead of having PR or book publisher connecting with me because I get to know people that maybe are relatively new to, to the storytelling business and, uh, for me, every conversation is.
It's worth having. There's always something that I learn. So I hope I'm going to get to learn a lot today from this conversation, and I hope you guys, people listening, do the same. And it's not just me talking, as usual. I have a guest. His name is Nathan Ogloff, and he's connecting with me from all the way up in Canada.
Welcome to the show, Nathan.
[00:02:07] Nathan Peter Ogloff: Thanks Marco. It's a pleasure to be here.
[00:02:10] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you. So I did a little bit of the Introduction for the show. Hopefully people already know what is about but for those for the first time listen, I gave a little background. So Next on the menu is your background.
So who is Nathan and then we'll talk about also what you do
[00:02:31] Nathan Peter Ogloff: Well, Nathan's just a guy that, uh, ever since fourth or fifth grade, I wanted to create these really rich, intricate, deep, vast universes that people could just dive into and get lost in and get obsessed with. And I think it all started when I saw the Star Wars trilogy.
Before that, I thought I was going to do architecture or engineering, and then I saw That set of films. And it was like a complete 180. I was like, forget all that, that other stuff I'm doing that. That is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. And then, uh, kind of struggled to figure out exactly how I would do it.
I thought it was going to be video game development or film. Uh, I tried being a programmer in the video game industry for a while. It didn't work out. And then in 2013, I had this idea for a novel. Uh, it was an idea that was kind of swimming in my head for years, but. I decided to put it in written form because I thought, okay, here's this thing called the novel.
Writing's a little bit of a simpler medium. It just needs you and you who do have a lot more mastery over your domain and your world when you do become an author. And so I said, well, why don't I take this idea that I think is very unique and very interesting. If I can just nurture it and breathe. fire into it, then it can just grow and it can become something that really just blows people away.
So in 2013, I committed to making this novel, which was originally going to be one, now it's a series. Uh, and I thought it was going to take two years, but instead, nine years later, I finally finished it, tried finding a literary agent for a year, and then went the self publishing route and it'll be coming out in less than a month.
And so, That's, uh, yeah, that's who I am, uh, in a nutshell, briefly,
[00:04:20] Marco Ciappelli: that's really cool. I also see on your website that you are an author, and we just heard that story. You're a metal head, and maybe some people want to know what that is and why you're a metal head and a Lego fanatic. So we're going to that for some reason, and in All these three when I was reading your bio, they, they are connected in a certain way.
I don't know if, if you feel the same way. Uh, it's kind of like throwing this epic metal story in, in there that many, many times do often with connect with sci-fi, with mythology, with, uh, with writing. I mean, again, writing song is definitely part of storytelling for sure. And then there is the, the Lego part that will be interesting to, to know, but, uh, do you see this connection?
Is it like all the things that you do kind of gravitating around this sci fi fictional world?
[00:05:18] Nathan Peter Ogloff: I would say, okay. So, I mean, I just tend to like go after stuff I like, but I can say specifically with metal, like it's. Not something I've been super into for my whole life. It's only really been within the past five years that I've kind of just committed to like, oh, this is the music I'm listening to.
And it was a series of a bunch of things. So it was, um, the fact that I'm writing a post apocalyptic series. And I remember seeing Mad Max Fury Road. And there's that one part where like the guys in the war wagon with the guitar, just riffing and it all just went to well, so together. So I'm like, all right, metal.
Like I like, that's good to have in my post apocalyptic. But then I also saw there's this YouTube channel I follow called Geography Now. And they had a, video called the geography of metal across the world and so you find out that metal doesn't tend to be a very like it's not always necessarily a western thing like they exist in various different forms across the planet so like for example there's a colombian metal band on my playlist called kraken that i have and then i have a mongolian metal band called the who um on my playlist and they got like This wild sound because they combined their traditional throat singing with like the instruments and so once once I saw Like there was all these bands across the world right because my series involves rebuilding civilization across the planet I do have Story arcs that eventually start in other parts of the world.
I said, well, this is metal across the world. It takes place across the world to keep the theme consistent and the stylistic elements consistent throughout the series. Like this is it, this is what I want to have. And then that, that was the second thing. The third thing was I started just finding random metal playlists on YouTube.
Like people would just make various collaborations. And then I started. Getting introduced to all these bands and their songs and I was like, oh my god, this music's like on a completely different level than a lot of this pop crap I've listened to or just kind of I hear in the background of everyday life.
So, uh, and I've always had a, like, I've always gravitated towards, like, Metal and like hard rock. It's, it's what I remember from my childhood. And so what I ended up doing was I ended up doing this process where like, if I like a couple of songs by a band, I'll like start going through their albums from the first to the last, and as I listened to the songs, I kind of write down what I think is great or what I think is like, I get a list of songs that I like, and then I'll go through it again, and if I do indeed like those songs, I add them to this playlist of mine.
And. Metal, in a sense, is connected to my interests, because if you've ever noticed metal bands, like, if you've listened to enough of their songs, you can tell that they were these nerds and geeks in high school, but instead of going the tech or intellectual, quote unquote intellectual route, the science route, they were artistic and went the, you know, song route.
And so you can tell a lot of that in their songs. Like, I mean, there's a band called Gamma Ray. Well, Gamma Ray is one of the most powerful energy events in the universe. And then as I was telling you before the podcast, that they sing songs about Norse gods and mythology. And you find that happens in a lot of, um, bands.
Um, Dio has, uh, this one song called the Book of Magicka at the end of one of their albums, which is really a song. It's just kind of like a short little. Legend, but still that fantasy element. And so, um, if you've looked at Judas Priest's album covers, they do have sort of a sci fi element to some of them, or a machinery element.
And, oh, that's another thing. I do like machines, and you guys will see a lot of that in my novels, if you do read them, which you should read them, because they're really good novels. Uh, and so it's, it's just all of that really hit me, and it really aligned with my interests. And so I was just like, yeah, this is, this is me.
This is, uh, it, it, it suits me so well. And so yes, in a sense, um, they are related, although I don't know how many, uh, heavy metal authors there are out there so far, but Hey, maybe I'm the first, I don't know. And so there's heavy metal and then there's Lego, which I don't know if it really aligns with what I'm writing, but it was, it's just something that I had told myself a long time ago.
What I said. I'll stop messing around with this when I get tired of it and I just never got tired of it. I mean, I thought like, cause you know, like the boxes used to say eight to 14. And so I thought like when I turned 15, I just, some switch would get shut off and I would just suddenly lose interest, but I found that wasn't happening.
And so. It's gotten a little crazier in recent years because I don't have the space or the money for it, but I use a program called Lego Studio to make these really large Lego models I have, and a lot of them have done what are called photorealistic renders of them, and I put them on my Instagram, and so Uh, I've got like, it's, it's, it's, it's usually just been mostly Lego spaceships recently.
And so, uh, the largest,
[00:10:46] Marco Ciappelli: it all comes together. It all comes to Star Wars. I was envisioning you when, when I saw Lego, you building, you know, the Death Star or, you know, the, the big, uh, the big spaceship and the X wings and all of that. So I don't know, I, I kind of had this idea that everything was coming together.
And as you are telling me this. It sounds to me that there is a common theme that, yeah, then it brings you to this kind of probably post apocalyptic stories that we're going to dig into a little bit more. I mean, I'm looking at the cover on your website for your book, The Sapien Empire, and it does remind me a little bit of Dune, a little bit of, uh, Uh, Star Wars, I see the desert and I see all of that.
And if I'm going to play a music with this, it's going to be, it's going to be heavy metal for sure. So, but I come from that as well. So that's why I'm excited about this conversation. But let's dig a little bit more into the book. So I know it's not just, uh, adventure. Per se, but you have some important messages and meaning in when you decide to share the story and to create this environment as well.
So let's start with that. What is the mission apart from writing and entertaining people?
[00:12:14] Nathan Peter Ogloff: So in the book, um, for those who don't know, it's post apocalyptic, but the twist I have here is Civilization's coming back. So I'm really starting at the end of the post apocalyptic era. And when civilization comes back at the hands of the protagonist, they're trying to do things right, have a moral world, one that's not filled with, um, a lot of injustice and decay and, um, Narcissistic, sociopathic people having their way and being in charge.
Um, typically what you think of post apocalyptic. And so, um, that mission, uh, is a lot easier said than done. And so in the book, uh, I do a lot of explorations of like, how do you create a world like that? And I have to go into detail about how society is organized themselves and what better is and why people think.
function the way they do and why people disagree because I've been telling people recently that one of the problems is a lot of us want the world to be a better place but we tend to have our different versions of better so someone's better maybe somebody else is like not better and so because they disagree on their versions of better it's um As a result, there's, there's tension and nothing really happens.
And so it's like, well, if you want something better to happen, if you want to not repeat the mistakes of the past, you really need to take a look at why people act the way they do, how they can get manipulated, um, by, um, charismatic yet, um, again, sociopathic leaders that may not have their best interests at heart, they're just power hungry.
Um, and I do, I don't, not so much in the first novel, but in the second novel, I start diving into, um, um, We have a lot in our evolution that dictates our behavior and we're trying to push something counter to that. It really, uh, you're really going to have problems. So you first have to acknowledge that, uh, as you try to build a, build, build a solution and, uh, really just ask yourself, like, how do we avoid this cycle that we seem to have been caught in for, uh, Centuries, if not millennia.
[00:14:41] Marco Ciappelli: Well, that sounds pretty intense. And I agree in having this kind of mission and vision. What I always find incredibly difficult. And I said to myself, I don't know if I could do something like that is when you are able to create an entire world. And I love this kind of book. I mean, I love the Tolkien, The Old Lord of the Ring, Middle Earth, and all of that, and the Star Wars, and all things that you've mentioned, and I'm like, I said to myself, I'm a decent writer.
I like to write short stories or I write things for work, but, um, the idea of creating an entire cohesive, consistent, coherent world, it, I don't know how you guys do it. So can you maybe give me some of your, the way that you do something like this and you say, okay, this is the core of the story and this is how I'm going to build everything else.
It's daunting to me.
[00:15:49] Nathan Peter Ogloff: Yeah. So, um, this isn't something I actually did with the first book, but I, and I should have, but I kind of did it with the second one is I had to first just sort of ground myself. Uh, I had to create some pillars, so to speak, that I could, um, that kept me grounded. And so the pillars were, okay, what does it mean for something to be post apocalyptic?
Second one was, what do you like about post apocalyptic? What gravitates towards you? Three was, what messages are you trying to convey through this post apocalyptic world? And then four was, how do I tie it all together? So how do I create a world that draws you in? You see things from the perspective of the characters.
The messages I display aren't too, too on the nose. Um. How do I just make it cohesive? And so one thing I liked about post apocalyptic was there was elements of, and when I say post apocalyptic, like there's basically two camps of it. There's the camp of. The story starts with people that remember the world before the post apocalyptic world.
So you think, um, The Walking Dead, uh, or The Last of Us. There are people that remember life before things went to crap. And then there's the other camp, like Mad Max, where it's so far in the future that people have no memory of the our time and it's actually our time shrouded in mystery and myth. And so I like it when they take things that we kind of take for granted and they're elevated to the level of um, I I am, they're, they're deified.
So the one example I'd like to cite is the cult of V8 in Mad Max Fury Road, where it's just a V8 engine and a wheel, but it's like, like the center of the religion. And so if that's really interesting. So you start with the world like that, then you ask yourself, okay, well, I've got these messages that I want to convey of, um, how do you make the world a better place, but you got to make it a better place when people think like that.
So like. First, you have to make it so that people understand what better is, or at least a portion of them. And then they gotta convey that message to everyone else. So, one idea I really settled on in my story world was there's two types of societies that kind of exist. There's um, These city state societies that have the basic embers of civilization, so they know what like an economy is, and they know what currency and trade and taxation are, and so they have a big memory of the past, they have a memory of these ideas of What better was supposed to be and sort of what people were trying to do before things went to garbage.
And then you have these other societies, which are what you typically think of when you can you think of post apocalyptic like bad backs where everything in the past is just deified. And you might even go as far as to see if they're a little bit more simplistic, quote unquote, than the city state people.
And so. I like that idea because it shows the contrast that contradictions that can often happen in our society between like rich and poor, uh, liberal and conservative, urban and rural, those like mentalities that sometimes really just butt heads with each other. And so that's, um, where I started. And then a lot of these societies I build, it's just like, I keep like, I get into this headspace where I'm like, Oh, I've got the solution that this is just what society needs to do and everything.
And then you realize, well, it's, it's a little bit more complicated than that. Then you re then you talk to other people and you realize, okay, well, they have a different version of what you're supposed to do. And so, as I said before, all these different versions of what better is. And so I always keep coming up with a different version and then that just becomes the center of a belief for like a different faction of people within my world.
And within my story series as I, um, as I introduce them and as, uh, the, the story goes on. So, um, there's that and also a lot of the names I, uh, I'll either just play around with letters and words or I sometimes just take words and sort of smash them together and do a lot of, um, you'll find there's a lot of portmanteau in my stories.
And so, and also the dialogue, uh, there's that aspect too and how I, how I come up with that is Uh, I kind of realized this when I was watching, like, the third or fourth season of Game of Thrones. That was a really popular TV series. And I was like, what's going on here? Why do people like it? And one of the things I noticed was, the dialogue tends to have little hints of wisdom in it as they speak.
And so, I have that, um, when I'm writing. If things are said, but there's also kind of things underneath that are said, which I later found out was like how you write good dialogue. They don't necessarily talk directly about what they're both thinking. A lot of it's, um. Inferred. And, uh, that's a that's a long winded answer.
The short answer I like to tell people just to be funny and cute is how do I come up with this? A lot of LSD and mushrooms, everyone, but I
[00:21:04] Marco Ciappelli: just saw the world all together. Come come to my mind. I'm always wondering if you know when you when you do something like this, you actually drew your own map. And so you're sure that If you do, uh, if you have your protagonist, your characters do a journey, you know, you know what journey did in your creating actually this world as you as you do, and maybe as you answer that, you kind of started to hint into that, um, if you want to tell me, I mean, who's who's the character?
On which the story is based and and how this person described or is it at one person? Do you have multiple character kind of like the game of throne where you have different story within the story? What what's the the strategy?
[00:21:52] Nathan Peter Ogloff: Yeah, so there are two main characters that are dual heads of state and they are responsible for kick starting this rebuild of civilization.
Um, and there are other story lines I do touch up on. It's usually just Here's the villain talking with his comrades and then like I have in the second part of the first novel a little sort of sub story of some commoners so to speak quote unquote that um You just kind of see things from their perspective and that whole idea is to show like here's how the decisions the um people up top are making here's how they're affecting those at the bottom that they're trying to and I would say, if anything, the main character, the one that we start out with first, is a little bit based off of myself, because, um, I've heard mixed things about inserting yourself into the story, that you're not supposed to do it, but then you read about, like, Mark Twain, and he sometimes wrote stories where it was just pretty much him in the story, and I think, um, If you're just having fun with this and having fantasy, it's like taking yourself on a journey because that's really what you do whenever you tell a story.
A lot of it is just you're kind of along with the characters for the ride. And so, um, we've all had this conversation with ourself of if I ran the world, what would I do? And so, and who would I be? And so I thought about that when making up the main character, I said, what would I do? And so I took aspects of myself and put them in.
The main character, uh, a lot of the descriptions don't match, like it's, I would say physical descriptions don't match me anymore, but they do match me when I was 20 years younger. Um, and yeah, so that's, uh, that's, that's just that one character. Um, that is how I came up with them. That's the, that's the dice I decided to roll.
[00:23:45] Marco Ciappelli: That's really cool. So, something that I agree with you a lot is the better, right? The better for me is not what is better for I mean, maybe me and you, we could, but different culture, you started describing, metal around the world and that how somehow there is this picture. So is there a culture that you're more inspired?
I mean, is it people thinking on a Western civilization kind of culture? Is it more inspired by, you know, you mentioned Mongolia and you mentioned Northic Uh, mythology. You mentioned Asia. Is that like something that you go, you, you, you mix it all together or is more inspired by a certain kind of culture?
And what better is for that culture?
[00:24:33] Nathan Peter Ogloff: Uh, so I would say primarily it is a Western culture. However, there is, um, this one concept in the beginning of the first story that I deal with and the villain believes he has what's called. The right of the abstract to rule. So there's this entity they worship called the abstract, and he believes the abstract has given him the right to rule divinely.
And this is very similar to the divine mandate of heaven that we see in Chinese culture. So it does, it is mostly, I would say for the most part, Western, just because Western tends to be about democracy and freedom and the free market, especially with capitalism. But, um, what also makes the series interesting as I continue is.
A lot of those ideas get, um, countered and clashed with, um, people that do see things differently. And in my story, I do, especially because I'm going to have arcs that start in multiple places of the world. I do try to give, sorry, uh, as best I can, um, validity to a lot of the ideas and maybe just listen to people that have a different way of seeing things and say, okay, well, they've obviously, they do this for a reason.
There has to be a good reason. What's the reason and also I don't want to have this attitude of I'm right everyone else is wrong I mean, I if anything I do want to talk to people from multiple parts of the world and say this is the plan Am I like forcing my beliefs on everyone? Is there something I'm missing here?
Am I asking too much for the world like? Because, I mean, in terms of making the world a better place, it's not like I want everywhere to be like what you see on the interstate in the U. S. where it's just like fast food chains and strip malls and shopping places everywhere. Like, I don't want that. But I mean, like, a certain degree of peace, a certain, um People get to have, you know, good level of education.
They get to at least graduate high school. They get guaranteed jobs on healthcare. It isn't going to make them go broke. Um, I mean, just, just, just that. And then everything else culture wise, um, is really just up in the air. I have no issues with it. Um, I noticed you can't just change people by telling them what they're doing is wrong.
And even if you have a good argument, it doesn't necessarily happen. Uh, because, um, there's, there's certain, they can kind of get defensive and, um, rejected, especially, uh, if you're not being too kind about it. And, um, I even, again, in the novel, in the series later on, I get to this whole concept of, well, well, language and discourse only works to an extent.
I kind of touched up on this a bit in the, I kind of hinted at it in the first one, that language and discourse and, um. Sharing of information like we're doing can only work to an extent, but if people's brains are wired differently, they're just wired differently. It's like trying to interface two different operating systems, so to speak.
So, um, yeah, a long winded answer of saying what the morals are, but again, like I said, it's making the world a better place. Well, you thought you knew what better was. You found out that's a lot deeper question than it is. Uh, we're going to find out exactly what that means over the whole course of the novel series.
So Again, long winded answer for that question.
[00:28:12] Marco Ciappelli: It makes a lot of sense. And one thing I love to do in my podcast in general is to make people think. So your story seems to me that it is ultimately very philosophical, very cultural. And I do agree with you. I mean, I talk about. Uh, ethics, especially now with technology and, and when we say, you know, we got to put guardrail on AI and it's like, okay, but my ethics of what it could be good or bad may be different from yours, but.
At a human level, as Earthlings, we, there are at least certain basic value human rights and you listed them all that. I agree. I mean, we otherwise, what's the point if there's no survival or living a decent life, good life, healthy life and all of that. So I think you did a really Good job in giving this answer and not giving away, of course, the book itself.
Uh, you mentioned something about , your passion again for machinery. So before we end, I'm curious to see, uh, because of course I haven't read the book yet. Do you go in this kind of description of I mean, are you more dialogue based? Are you more descriptive in your way of writing? Is it a little bit both of both of them?
And how do the machine comes into play? Maybe.
[00:29:37] Nathan Peter Ogloff: Um, so it's, it's a bit of both. I do have good dialogue as people have told me, but I do have to describe things because it's a world that, and it's not like describing a thriller and Florence, for example, where everyone knows what Florence in Italy and spy thrillers looked like in general, I do have to describe things that don't exist in the world.
And so the machines come into play because the main character actually starts off as working for the villain. And the main character's moniker is the Machine Write. And so he's really gifted in engineering. And so I talk about, um, some machines he made that ultimately helped the villain, um, conquer these other city states that existed around his.
And so I have something like a ghost flame tank, which is like a tank that emits like, Methane fires, which burn in the ultraviolet range. Um, there is, uh, uh, what else? Oh, there's something called a chained battering ram, which is like a, it's based off of what's called a flail tank, which just came up out in the 1940s.
And so that's just like sort of the psychological devastating machine he comes up with. And then later on, he comes up with like a sampling machine that can like, if you have a mine or a patch of land where you're trying to sample. Where the good stuff is it's just a simple like the drill that goes down takes up a sample says, okay What's here and then goes on and so forth and it's quick and easy and able to reposition itself So it's stuff like that.
And then there's this Machine that comes about later in the story that I don't want to give away too much because it's pretty interesting.
[00:31:16] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, I was gonna stop you. I'm like don't give it away too much. Yeah
[00:31:21] Nathan Peter Ogloff: Yeah, so, um, yeah machines definitely do come into play because um, I do have this belief that making the world Like basically our societies are complicated and your problems are complicated.
So complicated problems require Complicated solutions and it's not all machines. There is like discussion as I said before of like, you know Trying to understand each other and, um, understanding what good is and what better is and different versions of it. But machines also do help. I mean, like, I don't need to go far.
Just look at the industrial revolution, made things cheap, increased the cost of living, jobs and opportunity for people to have a better life, even if in the beginning, everything was really dodgy and slicey. But then again, that also caused us to have a conversation about. You know, like better isn't better was safe conditions and having an eight hour and not a 12 hour work day and not letting kids work in there.
And so it's almost like technology drove us in the direction of having that conversation. So, um, and especially since it's sci fi, you're going to have to have interesting machines and technology, um, going around. Uh, yeah, I think that's just, um, that just, that's just. It's a given with my story, for sure.
[00:32:41] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, well, it seems to me that there is a lot of things that are pretty classic, let's say, into a sci fi, but maybe some story are more focused on one side, maybe the psychological aspect, another more the technology. Uh, this seems to me, and I'm looking forward to read it very.
Comprehensive look at things. And what I like about to end this conversation is the fact that you're taking these post apocalyptic things as an opportunity to do something with the knowledge of what went wrong, because I'm not asking you that. I don't want you to give up like What caused this apocalyptic thing?
Is it a war? Is it atomic? Is it an invasion from another planet? I don't know, but I'm envisioning that somebody survived and there is an opportunity to do it all over again in the wrong way or to do it in a better way. And I like that approach very much. So to close this, um, two things. One. Who did you have in mind?
It's one of my favorite question. Um, as a kind of audience while you were writing the book, you know, you always have an idea who is gonna read this book, right? Um, is it somebody passionate about sci-fi already? Is it somebody that is more interested in politics and sociology and philosophy is a young Greek crowd, it's an older crowd, whatever it is.
I don't know. That's the question. And the other one I wanna know what is the perfect soundtrack for reading this?
[00:34:20] Nathan Peter Ogloff: Um, so, uh, in terms of audience, I was told you should write the book you want to read because you're making it and it should be something you want to enjoy reading. Makes sense. So, uh, myself as the audience, but like, yeah, anybody who likes science fiction, uh, Star Trek, Star Wars, Dune, Mad Max, uh, in terms of personal life.
Um, you know, it tends to be nerdy people that, you know, maybe having some. adversity in high school, uh, you're getting tired of getting pushed around, you're getting tired of problems, um, happening and nobody doing anything about it and so you just want to indulge in this fantasy of you rise up and you take charge and then you just start setting things right.
So there's that and then the perfect soundtrack for reading this, uh, I don't really listen to a soundtrack while reading, I just kind of, if anything, I just play a Fireplace soundtrack because it's nice and cozy. Um, but if you're listening to music, uh, listen to my heavy metal slash hard rock playlist on YouTube because I have got Uh, almost 140 bands and a week worth of music on that.
So you guys got a lot of variety there for sure.
[00:35:32] Marco Ciappelli: All right. I kind of had the feeling that was going to be the answer. So, but the cozy fireplace is also very cool. I think music. It can change according to the mood, according to the feelings that you have and what you want to do. I'm very eclectic when it comes down to music.
Nathan, fantastic conversation. I want to thank you very much. I want to invite, of course, everybody to check your website. There will be notes on the podcast and if you're looking at watching on YouTube, of course, there will be the notes under the video. And, uh, link to your books, which, uh, let me see, will come up, uh, I see and can February 6, 2024.
Is that that's still correct? And so we got, we got time to probably listen to these, uh, few days before we actually, uh, have that publication date. And, uh, and again, uh, everybody subscribe to this channel, but also follow. Uh, Nathan on his social media and definitely check out the book. I will definitely do that.
And I will listen to the, the, the compilation, your YouTube playlist. I think it's going to be right up my alley, especially when I work out or something like that. Other than that, thank you so much for being on the show. I hope to have you again in the future with your next, uh, adventure. And, uh, and I best of luck for, for this book.
[00:37:06] Nathan Peter Ogloff: Thank you so much. It's been awesome being here.
[00:37:08] Marco Ciappelli: All right. Thank you everybody. Stay tuned. There'll be more here on AudioSignal Podcast