Something Old, Something Debut Episode Transcript: THE ONES WE’RE MEANT TO FIND by Joan He
SPEAKERS
GiannaMarie, Ron, Annaliese
CONTENT WARNINGS: This book contains discussion of a climate apocalypse/climate crisis; evaluating worth by ranking system, judging by previous generations’ mistakes; large-scale coercion of genetic modification; mass casualties; climate refugees; survival; risk of starvation; scarcity of resources; isolation both literal and social; discrimination for neurodivergent behaviors; amnesia; poor mental health; mild suicidal ideation; suicidal imagery; drowning; stasis pods/long term medically enforced sleep; lack of body autonomy; lack of autonomy over thoughts; questions of free will; terminal illness; familial estrangement; regular nutrition through IV; and a surveillance state.
[guitar intro, book pages flipping]
Ron 00:12
Hello, welcome to Something Old, Something Debut, the podcast where we discuss new books and old books that we think you should know about. I’m Ron, and I use he and they pronouns.
GiannaMarie 00:23
And I’m GiannaMarie and I use she/her pronouns. And today we’re talking about The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He.
Ron 00:31
All right, but as usual, before we get into discussing the book, we have our little warm up-y…thingies.
GiannaMarie 00:37
…Yes. [both laughing] What’cha got?
Ron 00:45
Even though I’m like, staring out the book, and I’m like, time to say things. But anyway, okay. So basically, as soon as I started this book in chapter one, I automatically fell in love with U-me, who is just this little tiny robot. And so my question is, what are some robots in media that you love?
GiannaMarie 01:05
Ohhhh, lemme think. I don’t have a lot of robots in my life.
Ron 01:13
There was a really obvious one that I thought you might go with, but I don’t know if you’re gonna think of it. From The Good Place.
GiannaMarie 01:19
She’s not a robot!
Ron 01:21
I mean, she’s not, but she is. She’s an artificial intelligence.
GiannaMarie 01:25
When people say that she’s a robot, she says, “I’m not a robot!” Respect her!
Ron 01:33
[cackling laughter] Okay, so one that comes to mind for me is C-3PO, because I think the best thing about robots is when they have like,…an attitude. [both laughing] Um, and C-3PO just, basically spends th- all of the Star Wars movies just…sassing people. And I enjoy it. The other like, R2-D2 and BB-8 are both — also have like, good personalities where they’re a lot more like U-me in that U-me can only say like, a few different things.
GiannaMarie 02:25
Yeah.
Ron 02:26
And like, R2-D2 and BB-8 literally just beep, but they still manage to be like, little assholes sometimes? [both laughing]
GiannaMarie 02:37
Okay, I have a couple of answers. One is Iko from the Lunar Chronicles. Who, uh —
Ron 02:45
That one came to mind for me too.
GiannaMarie 02:47
She began in a robot body and then she upgraded to a very fantastic like, I’m gonna say like, a sex robot body? But she just uses it to like, kick ass and save the universe. [both laugh] Where did my thoughts go? Okay. Um, okay. JARVIS from the Iron Man movies. I — I am absolutely still not over the fact that they just didn’t back JARVIS up. They just like, sacrificed him to create Vision, it doesn’t make any sense, just back him up! You can have both! I’m not over it. Um, I adore, absolutely adore FRIDAY in — in Iron Man comics, I don’t think she has much of a personality in — in the movies so — so far — so far? But in the comics, like, she runs the company, and she, like is best buds with like, all of the ladies in Tony’s life and they conspire to control him. And she’s so powerful and quite a bitch, and I love her. Um, and Ironheart, Riri Williams, she like created her own AI to like, in memory of her — her best friend Natalie, who died of gun violence in Chicago. So she has this like, holographic, best friend girl who runs her suit and helps her do superhero things, so. Those are all my answers — [shouting] Wait, no!! I got too excited. My favorite is Gideon from Legends of Tomorrow, who runs the Waverider, because she’s such a bitch. And she’s so awesome. And like, sometimes they’ll bring in her — her voice actress to like do things with her actual body and everyone’s like, Oh my god, Gideon…is so hot. [both laughing] But she also just like completely controls them, and I love it. Okay, I’m done.
Ron 05:00
I…know that I’m forgetting one. And when I came up with this question, I was like trying to search to figure out what one I’m forgetting. Because I was like, I know that there is a robot character out there that I love, and I can’t remember who it is. And I still couldn’t figure it out. But I will also shout out the robots from The Mitchells vs. The Machines. There’s like these two robots that get like separated from the rest of the like hive mind robots, and they malfunction, so they develop their own personalities. And they’re just hilarious and I love them. And they’re basically just like, brothers. [laughing]
GiannaMarie 05:40
I just forgot there was, um, I thought you were going to say Baymax? Or, uh — Wall-E.
Ron 05:47
Baymax is one that I know a lot of people appreciate. I don’t like Wall-E.
GiannaMarie 05:52
I hate Wall-E! [both laughing] This is fantastic, another thing that you and I have in common!
Ron 05:57
Baymax is one that like — I remember thinking Baymax was cute when I saw the movie, but I’ve only seen the movie once. And it was years ago. So I just don’t really remember that much about Baymax, but like shout out to Baymax because I know a lot of people love Baymax. So.
GiannaMarie 06:12
I wish that Baymax had just lived his happy life as a healer. And that he did not have to pick up the sword. [long pause]
Ron 06:20
[laughing]
GiannaMarie 06:24
Okay, my question is more boring, which is, I know that you have recently gotten your bookshelf situation in a better situation than it was. So as a — as a chaotic library student who works in a bookstore now, what is your personal library organization system? How do you do it?
Ron 06:45
Okay. So. I basically separate — Oh, it’s complicated. So right now, something that I always do is I always have a shelf of like, standouts, I guess, which right now is specifically basically just signed books. And then also other books related to the signed books. Like if I have the first book in a series signed, then the rest of the series will still be with it on the signed bookshelf, even if, you know, they aren’t all signed, um, and that’s something I’ve done pretty much ever since I owned a single signed book when I was younger. I actually have too many signed books now to fit them all on one shelf, but I pretty much put all the ones that I got signed in person on that shelf now and like, if I just like, bought it signed, or like — yeah, then I don’t really put it on the science shelf because it’s not quite the same level of like, wow! factor, I guess. Um, my smallest bookcase is just a TBR and it’s probably got around 50 books on it that I own and have not read. Um, then I have a bookcase that’s pretty much just adult books, which is not all my adult books because not all my adult books can fit on it. But like, it looks really pretty, it’s probably my best set up bookcase because I have a shelf that’s all black books and then a shelf that’s all white books and then a shelf that’s a rainbow and it just like, is very aesthetically pleasing. And then it has like a cabinet on the bottom and then the cabinet is just like, stuffed full because you can’t see into it, so who cares. And then I basically have like a YA/middle grade bookcase, which is my biggest bookcase. But then my new bookcase, as of right now, has all my Rick Riordan books on one shelf. And then it has a shelf of gay paperback and a shelf of gay hardcover.
GiannaMarie 08:54
I was about to ask.
Ron 08:56
The Gay hardcover shelf is almost full, so. Maybe the hardcovers will start invading the paperback shelf.
GiannaMarie 09:06
I understand. I also have a case that is all adult fiction, which is pretty much like, intentionally women writing SFF and then one shelf that’s Brandon Sanderson.
Ron 09:22
[chuckling]
GiannaMarie 09:23
I have a special chunk in that for women of color writing SFF. Um, then I have one shelf that’s all [distant] How to Train Your Dragon books. Because I have…all of them. [laugh] Um, [distant] I have a case that’s all my kids’ books, hold on. All ED Baker and Laura Ingalls and Percy Jackson stuff, and then like a bunch of random middle grade paperbacks. Um, I have a nonfiction shelf. I have a shelf that’s all, um, like, [laughing] like, intellectual property? So I have like a bunch of Flash and Supergirl and Arrow spinoffs. [laughing] And like, that’s where — that’s where The Unstoppable Wasp book lives and the Ashoka book by EK Johnston. And then pretty much everything — Oh, and I have a shelf that — a book case, I have a bookcase. It’s all books that I have bought for school. So like, musty old classics, but also like a bunch of really awesome, like disability theory. I have a case that’s all comic books, like trades, which I organize by: one shelf is all Spider-Man, one half of a shelf is DC, everything else is Marvel. And then I organize it by like, what kind of superheroes they are. [laughing] Like, I put street level superheroes together, I put spies together and I put Thors together,
Ron 11:00
[chuckling]
GiannaMarie 11:01
I put spider women together. [laughing] And then everything else, all of the rest, is just organized by how much I like them. [laughing]
Ron 11:11
I also forgot to say so there’s three shelves I forgot about, plus my desk. So I have like a little desk stand shelf thing. So that’s where all my library science books are. And then I forgot to mention I have a podcast shelf, which got full. So I basically took all the season one books and mixed them in with the rest of my collection.
GiannaMarie 11:35
Ohhhh.
Ron 11:35
And now it’s just season two. But also, we’ve read a couple things that are series in season two. So I have the other books in the series, lumped in with the rest of the season two books. And then my bottom shelves of my bookcases — on one bookcase is all comics, and like, graphic novels and stuff, which I won’t get into the thing about how those are just the same, and we shouldn’t separate them. But whatever. Um —
GiannaMarie 12:05
I generally say graphic novels for if it’s not intellectual property that is released monthly.
Ron 12:12
But like, if we’re talking about the art form, they’re the exact same thing and they shouldn’t be judged, like —
GiannaMarie 12:17
Oh yes.
Ron 12:18
Like people are, [mimicking] well, graphic novels are like, more intellectual than comics or whatever! And it’s like, shut up. [laugh]
GiannaMarie 12:23
No, they’re just…sold differently. Um, they’re literally just sold differently. Instead of serialized, they’re sold all at once.
Ron 12:31
Yeah. Like, there’s teachers who will be like, well, you can read a graphic novel, but you can’t read like, Spider-Man comics. And it’s like, why. It’s the same art form. [inaudible]
GiannaMarie 12:40
It’s discrimination against Spider-Man, he’s a menace!
Ron 12:44
Also like, it’s discrimination against people who work in the comic industry. And like, saying that their stories aren’t like, deep and like well-thought-out and meaningful. Anyway! I said I wouldn’t get into it, and now we’re getting into it. And then my last shelf that I forgot to mention, is like a mix of like, kids books that are like, you know, like, picture books, so they’re bigger. It’s basically all like, oversized stuff on the bottom shelf. So it’s got some kids books and some like, coffee table book -type books, and I have like, a book that’s called An Encyclopedia of Ghost Stories and stuff like that. So it’s, it’s like, an encyclopedia, like, it doesn’t actually have the full stories. It’s just like, a list of like, different supernatural creatures in places and stuff like that.
GiannaMarie 13:40
I love that.
Ron 13:41
And so what have weird stuff like that.
GiannaMarie 13:44
Does it have — does it have Champ in it? Shamp? How do you say it?
Ron 13:48
Champ.
GiannaMarie 13:50
That’s what I thought. Okay, does it have Champ in it? [laugh]
Ron 13:52
I don’t know. I haven’t looked.
GiannaMarie 13:55
If I ever get to visit your bookshelves I’m going to look.
Ron 13:58
[laugh]
GiannaMarie 13:59
I’d like to see Champ one day.
Ron 14:03
But I think that’s finally everything. Aside from the massive pile of books I always have on my nightstand.
GiannaMarie 14:11
[laugh] I don’t even have a nightstand, I have a — I have a headboard, and books just live in my bed. Like, I’ll fall asleep and in the morning I’ll wake up and there’s a book open on its face next to my face. [laughing] All right, I’m gonna read the — the — the jacket flap. Ooh, I forgot to say it is a Junior Library Guild selection. And it was the Barnes and Noble YA book club pick for June. So. Yay!
Ron 14:50
And I’m a OwlCrate subscriber, and I got my copy from our crate. So it’s like an exclusive cover and um, yeah, it came with a pin and a little note and I’m going to actually read the note later, cuz I thought it was interesting.
GiannaMarie 15:11
Okay. “It’s been three years and seventeens days since Cee woke up on the shore of an abandoned island. She has no idea how she came to be marooned or what her life was like before. She has only the rickety house by the sea, the android she built for company, and a single memory: somewhere beyond the horizon, she has a sister and it’s up to Cee to escape the island and find her. A world away, 16 year old STEM prodigy Kasey is also looking to escape — from the science she once believed in and from her home. The eco-cities, Earth’s last unpolluted habitats, are meant to be a sanctuary for those from deserving lineages, for those committed to planetary protection, but instead they’re populated by people willing to do anything for refuge, even lie. After a series of manmade disasters rock the planet, Kasey must decide if she’s ready to use science to help humanity even though it failed the people who mattered most to her. From Joan He, the critically acclaimed author of Descendent of the Crane, comes a stunning science fiction novel with mind-blowing twists.” I have to say, the twists were actually extremely twisty.
Ron 16:25
Yes, they were.
GiannaMarie 16:27
These were well-written twists.
Ron 16:29
Yeah, if you’ve been following —
GiannaMarie 16:30
That had a lot of build up, and were well delivered. And the — the form of this novel was not quite unique, but very unusual. And it created a lot of tension that made these twists work, it was —
Ron 16:45
Yeah.
GiannaMarie 16:45
— a masterclass.
Ron 16:45
If you’ve been following us for a while, and you remember, when we read How We Became Wicked —
GiannaMarie 16:51
[loud laugh]
Ron 16:51
— that’s definitely a book I’ll recommend at the end, because the whole time I was like, if you like really twisty like, sci-fi type apocalyptic stuff, you would absolutely love both How We Became Wicked and The Ones We’re Meant to Find. And also, if you really like twists not to be spoiled, then you’ll probably want to stop listening to this podcast right after the next bit where we say the content warnings, and then go read it for yourself and then come back and listen to our discussion. Because as always, it’s full of spoilers. And in a very, very twisty book, sometimes you really want to like, experience it yourself the first time, even if normally you might listen to our podcast first and not care. But anyway, so as I mentioned, content warnings. So one of the things you probably noticed from the jacket was that it mentions a lot about like, society kind of being in a —
GiannaMarie 17:51
Broken.
Ron 17:52
— caste, like, rank system. So that’s definitely something to be aware of. And basically, people are judged on like, the past actions of their family, regardless of how they live now. Relatedly, another content warning: a way that people can make their rank better is through like, genetic modification to make their carbon footprint smaller.
GiannaMarie 18:16
I would like to talk about this in detail later.
Ron 18:18
Yeah. So I think that’s another content warning thing to be aware of is like, that’s how messed up this universe is. And in general, just, it’s about a climate apocalypse. Um, so, all the things that go with that —
GiannaMarie 18:29
To be honest, the society —
Ron 18:30
— like, natural phenomena, and like, people suffering and dying in the millions and stuff like that.
GiannaMarie 18:38
Yeah. I was going to say, I actually don’t think that the society is…very? different from us? [uncomfy laugh] Um.
Ron 18:47
No, it’s definitely not super different. It’s just…very exaggerated as far as like, this society is way further into a climate crisis than we currently even are now.
GiannaMarie 19:00
Yeah.
Ron 19:00
Where life — like everything is in shambles at this point in their world. Um —
GiannaMarie 19:07
Alright, let’s keep it — keep goin’.
Ron 19:09
Yeah, so also kind of related to that, there’s like issues related to like, refugee status almost? Where like — so basically this universe to give a little context, I don’t remember if it was explicitly described in the jacket, because we read the jacket, like, that’s so five minutes ago! [both laugh] But um, so like, the safest place to live are these like, cities in the sky, but you can only get in if your rank is good enough, and like your social status is good enough. And so there’s people who are like, living on the ground trying to get into this place and being discriminated against because of their history and where they’ve come from. So very much like a refugee, immigration-type issue.
GiannaMarie 19:51
The history is — The history is your family — your — your ancestors’ carbon usage, so like, people who —
Ron 20:02
Yeah, pretty much. How much your ancestors polluted.
GiannaMarie 20:06
People who are descendants of like, the fossil fuel industry are in like, like their rank is like 15,000 or something. But people who — like, the ranks go all the way up to one, which is the highest rank.
Ron 20:21
Yeah. And also like, your rank can be higher, if you were seen to like, have done something amazing to benefit humanity. Like, we know that one of the highest ranked families was the family who, quote unquote, “developed the cure to common cancer.” Um.
GiannaMarie 20:35
“To all common cancers.”
Ron 20:37
Yeah. Um.
GiannaMarie 20:39
Wild.
Ron 20:40
So anyway, um, other things that come up, survival and like things that go along with that are a big thing. So like, risk of starvation and like, scarcity of resources. And just like, in general, livin’ real rough is a big thing that happens. Um, isolation is a massive theme of this book, like, on one hand, there’s the very literal isolation and then on the other hand, that there’s like, social ostracization. And, specifically, along with that, I will mention, there’s a character who is not explicitly stated to be any sort of specific neurodivergent label, but definitely has neurodivergent traits and is discriminated against for how they act. Amnesia is a large part of this book, so be aware of that. Poor mental health is a large part of this book. Um, yeah, some — some suicidal ideation, I would say, but it’s not like a huge, huge part of the book, but it does come up. There’s also we will say, suicidal imagery. And a character who is involved in that temporarily dies, which is so complicated. If you listen, or you read the book, you’ll figure out what that means. But we’re going to keep it vague, so as not to spoil that because that comes way late in the book. [laugh] Let’s see…drowning. I don’t remember if I said that already. But drowning comes up. No one dies of drowning, but there are many scenes where there are high risks of drowning.
GiannaMarie 22:43
[inaudible]
Ron 22:45
What are you talking about?
GiannaMarie 22:47
There are at least two separate deaths of drowning.
Ron 22:50
What are you talking about?
GiannaMarie 22:51
That don’t last very long. But.
Ron 22:53
That doesn’t — count!
GiannaMarie 22:58
…Okay. Keep going.
Ron 23:05
Um, something that like, comes up that I could see being a potential, like, triggering thing that I don’t know exactly what to call is basically like, stasis? Like, the idea of a human being like, let’s say, cryogenically frozen, or something like that, that type of thing. That comes up quite a bit. So, you know, that’s something to be aware of. Um, did I make it through almost everything big? Yeah. And so then some just much, much smaller things, but things…Oh, um, I didn’t mention this one. This one’s a bigger one. Bodily autonomy. And also, I’ll say mental autonomy, like not having control over thoughts? That comes up a lot. And also the issue of — related to this, like, being concerned about whether or not one has free will, if they’re experiencing these things. And being concerned about like, Who am I if I’m experiencing these things? And now actually moving on to the ones that I would say like, these are very much not in it to a large extent, but I just thought are worth noticing — I mean, worth noting.
GiannaMarie 23:53
[derisive laugh] Uh, wait, um — terminal illness.
Ron 24:33
Oh, yes. It’s — I have so many written down on here, I think it just got buried, but terminal illness is a bigger one, too! Okay. Now I’m actually moving into the smaller ones. Familial estrangement, it comes up, it’s just not a very on page, or like —
GiannaMarie 24:48
Important.
Ron 24:49
— super upsetting to most of the characters or anything like that. Then this one is very small, but I could just see it potentially be triggering but it only comes up for like one scene, we find out that in this universe, the people who are like, in this like, city in the sky living with very small carbon footprints, eat through IV a lot of the time. And so there’s a scene that describes them, quote, unquote, “having lunch.” And what that really means is they basically just have IV bags. And I think that’s everything unless I missed more things in this mess of notes.
GiannaMarie 25:32
Um, also the eco-cities are — they — they run on a surveillance state. And there’s definitely some stuff about like the government controlling your serotonin levels and stuff, which is horrifying.
Ron 25:48
It’s not — I don’t think it’s — the government doesn’t control them. But if you’re not within an acceptable limit, like, they’ll get mad at you, and you’ll potentially get in trouble.
GiannaMarie 26:02
Kasey has a court order mandating her serotonin levels.
Ron 26:06
Yeah, but she monitors them herself. And if she didn’t do it, they wouldn’t force her levels to change, they would take away her privileges. So just, that’s not exactly the same thing.
GiannaMarie 26:18
It’s still very scary.
