The Seventh Victim and Another Unexpected Tale | Podcast

About this episode

This episode explores two science fiction short stories, 'The Sentinel' by Arthur C. Clarke and 'The Seventh Victim' by Robert Sheckley, highlighting their themes and influences.

The Sentinel is a science fiction short story by Arthur C. Clarke. It served as the foundational concept for Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey . The story is set in 1996 following Wilson, a veteran selenologist on a lunar expedition. While exploring the Mare Crisium region, he discovers a mysterious, pyramid-shaped structure surrounded by an invisible force-field— clearly not of terrestrial or lunar origin. Wilson theorizes it was —a device placed on the Moon by an ancient, advanced alien civilization to monitor the development of intelligent life across the cosmos. The Seventh Victim is a science fiction short story by Robert Sheckley. It presents a dystopian future where global warfare has been replaced by a government-sanctioned, televised hunting game called The Big Hunt. In this society, individuals who are prone to violence can voluntarily become hunters, tasked with tracking and killing assigned victims, while later facing the same fate themselves as a victim. The story follows Stanton Frelaine, an experienced hunter preparing for his seventh mission, who is assigned Janet-Marie Patzig, a woman—unprecedented in the game—whose passive acceptance of her fate…

People in this episode

Host: M.P. Pellicer

Topics covered

• science fiction
• dystopian future
• alien civilization
• televised hunting game
• lunar expedition

Keywords

• science fiction
• Arthur C. Clarke
• Robert Sheckley
• The Seventh Victim
• The Big Hunt
• lunar expedition
• alien civilization
• dystopian future

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Seventh Victim, The Big Hunt, The 10th Victim, Victim Prime, Hunter/Victim

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