The movie "The Man From Earth" is similar to your Popular Trash. An immortal changes towns every decade and works as a history prof who's been hiding his first hand knowledge of antiquity.
I like your author version, less discrete but more interesting stakes.
The ST:TOS episode had a similar premise to Popular Trash, though the ST writers, game as they often were, kept the list of former identities to acknowledged "Former Greats" rather than popular authors.
That said, I've seen Serious Literary Criticism of Stephen King, which was unimaginable when I was younger.
The "improve longevity by slowing the aging process" is one of the background elements of David Weber's Honor Harrington books. There are some consequences in the form of people with prolong looking much younger than their equivalents in non-prolong societies, such that neo-barbarians have some difficulty in taking seriously the idea that this person who looks like a young teenager is really a commissioned officer with years of experience under their belt.
I'm glad to see you mention the marsupials. I came up with the idea of marsupials agreeing that placentals couldn't safely evolve sapience twenty years or so ago . . . but without your ingenious twist on it.
The movie "The Man From Earth" is similar to your Popular Trash. An immortal changes towns every decade and works as a history prof who's been hiding his first hand knowledge of antiquity.
I like your author version, less discrete but more interesting stakes.
I think you're missing the point of the story, which is to be a send up of snobbish literary critics.
The last one was done in black mirror- the entire history of you, if I remember correctly
"Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" is the opposite of your last idea, where people delete their memories of bad relationships.
The ST:TOS episode had a similar premise to Popular Trash, though the ST writers, game as they often were, kept the list of former identities to acknowledged "Former Greats" rather than popular authors.
That said, I've seen Serious Literary Criticism of Stephen King, which was unimaginable when I was younger.
The "improve longevity by slowing the aging process" is one of the background elements of David Weber's Honor Harrington books. There are some consequences in the form of people with prolong looking much younger than their equivalents in non-prolong societies, such that neo-barbarians have some difficulty in taking seriously the idea that this person who looks like a young teenager is really a commissioned officer with years of experience under their belt.
I'm glad to see you mention the marsupials. I came up with the idea of marsupials agreeing that placentals couldn't safely evolve sapience twenty years or so ago . . . but without your ingenious twist on it.
Well penned, David, thanks, fuel for fantasies.
Here is more fuel for Responsible Freedom's sake:
The 4F SWITCH: The Abolition of Human Violence. July 27, 2025
A Voluntaryist Thought Experiment Imagining the Impossibility of Physical Coercion and the Evanescence of the State and Private Crime
https://responsiblyfree.substack.com/p/the-4f-switch-the-abolition-of-human
I hope we will get there through Peaceful Parenting for a Peaceful World but technology may be there first?
Get free, stay free.