This Book was Unapologetically Disgusting... and a Total Blast!

[00:00:00]Welcome to Pulp Mortem, the search for lost science fiction classic. Hello everybody, I'm Jake here. Serious question before we get started. Have you ever walked through the meat department at your local grocer and stopped at that tank that holds all the live shellfish?

[00:00:14]You see those lobsters crawling about, rubber bands on their silly little claws, weird antennae going crazy and think to yourself, "I wonder, you know, I really wonder with enough plastic surgery, a good wig maker, could I go steady with [music] a lobster?"

[00:00:33]What?

[00:00:34]You have You haven't?

[00:00:37]Well, it's not just me.

[00:00:39]Is it just me? It's not Get out of here, it's not just me. Is it just me?

[00:00:45]Well, boil me red and slather me with butter if I'm >> [music] >> Yeah, before I attempt to make sense of all that, let's talk about the author.

[00:00:54]Francis Marion Busby was an American author born March 11th, 1921, and he died in 2005 at the age of 83. Busby was born in Indianapolis, but his family moved to Washington state when he was young, and there he would plant himself and make his mark on science fiction.

[00:01:09]But, that mark would come much later in life because Busby served in the National Guard, then the army, then as a communication engineer for 30 years.

[00:01:17]But, after World War II, Busby fell in with a Seattle-based sci-fi fandom, the Nameless Ones.

[00:01:22]Here he would meet his wife, Eleanor Daub, and together they published and edited the fanzine Cry of the Nameless and won a Hugo for it. In fact, Eleanor was the first one ever to win a Hugo.

[00:01:33]But, as we so often see from fandom, eventually they start to feel that creative itch, and Busby's first short story was accepted in the fall 1957 issue of Future Science Fiction. But, it wasn't off for the races with him. He tinkered around with writing, short story here, an essay there, for over a decade. Then at 52 years of age in the 1973, Busby be his first novel, which we're talking about today. He would go on to write well into the '90s and is most well known for the Demu trilogy and the Rissa Kurligan and Rebel series.

[00:02:04]Altogether, Busby wrote over 40 short stories and 19 novels, which brings us to Cage a Man. "I will not be caged."

[00:02:13]Four gray walls, floor and ceiling, this had become his universe. This and the Demu, silent watchers, prodding and pushing, tyrannical teachers chaining one's mind. "I will not be tamed." his mind cried out, and Barton began to will his way to escape, for he had a world to protect and a great vengeance to take, but the Demu were a most powerful enemy, and if Barton failed, the Demu would make the Earth pay the price. Cage a Man is an original story first published by Nelson Doubleday in 1973. I own the Signet paperback that came out the next year. It's 144 pages and originally cost 95 cents.

[00:02:50]The cover is by FMA. I don't know who that is. If anybody does, please let us know in the comments. This was 100% a cover by, and it's so cool. And not just not just because the um the and not You got you know, out of all the editions, it's the best cover.

[00:03:10]Look at the French edition. What are you guys thinking over there? Who's reading this on the train? Anyways, back to Signet. We have the protagonist Barton here in the titular cage, but it's implied that perhaps the cage is in his mind. Then we have the beautiful Limela, who may or may not be a lobster. But before we fasten our bibs and get cracking, I want to show you guys something cool. All right, we all love science fiction. We all need more science fiction in our lives. But I don't know, your life is so busy, you only have five minutes of free time today. What are you going to do? Well, let me tell you, because Sci-Fi Shorts might be the internet's best kept secret. It's your new home for flash fiction, and it's freaking awesome. New stories all under 1,000 words. You can read from any device and the back catalog is insane. You can search stories out by author, theme, subgenre, even fantasy. You can save your favorites, build your own library, comment and interact with the authors, listen on audio. Heck, you can even submit your own flash story. We talk all the time on this channel, not just about vintage science fiction, but about modern pulp and supporting the indie market. And that's what Sci-Fi Shorts is. That's what they're doing over there. It is a monthly subscription service and the cost is about a that of a Frappuccino in 2026.

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[00:05:02]Anyhoo, let's talk about what I liked.

[00:05:04]>> Nopster. [music] >> This is divided into two acts with no chapter breaks, which I kind of hate when books do that, but it reads so fast that it it doesn't really matter. And act one was titled A Cage There Was and it starts just like that. It opens with our protagonist waking up in a cage.

[00:05:21]He's completely naked in a room filled with humans or humanoids. Most of them are similar to humans, though clearly alien. He remembers nothing of his past.

[00:05:31]>> I KNOW NOTHING.

[00:05:33]THINK >> HE but he's aware enough to know that he has a past [music] and that he's unable to access those memories. It's kind of very frustrating.

[00:05:42]He's like, he knows enough to know, "I should remember who I am." He knows his name is Barton. "I should remember how I got here, but all of a sudden I'm just here. It's really terrifying idea. But first, he's got to pee.

[00:05:58]Bodily functions are front and center in this book. But we'll get to that later, believe me.

[00:06:03]So Barton shouts, "Does anybody here speak English?" And then he meets the only other two native English speakers.

[00:06:10]Or I should say English speakers cuz one's not native. There's a Dr. C One and Limela. This is a Tilari alien woman who has been here long enough to learn and pick up some serviceable English from other captives in the past. She's human-esque, at least where it counts, so we're told.

[00:06:32]She's got a very high forehead, rows of shark teeth, and her breasts are considerably lower and kind of on the outside.

[00:06:40]But other than that, hot.

[00:06:42]Well, at least good enough for a few rounds of grown-up Twister, as we soon find out.

[00:06:49]Uh but they tell Barton that he they have all been taken from their own worlds, captured by the Demu.

[00:06:56]But soon, Barton finds himself separated from the others, alone in this featureless cell.

[00:07:02]That's when the tests begin.

[00:07:05]Every function is tested and pushed to the limits. How far can he go without air? Will he continue to eat when we make the food taste so nasty it's inedible? Um what do these body parts do and how do they respond to pain? Uh Barton is tortured, tested, and occasionally windows appear, and he catches glimpses of his captors, the lobster-like Demu.

[00:07:29]You see, the Demu believe that they are the only true people in the universe, and everyone else, everything else is just animals. And so they scour the universe collecting different races, testing them to see if they have potential to be Demu.

[00:07:44]If they do, the Demu turn them into Demu surgically.

[00:07:50]>> Dude, your face. Did you get Botox?

[00:07:52]>> Oh, you guys can tell?

[00:07:54]>> This first act is so surreal, so visceral, loaded with dread, gore, and body horror. It was it was kind of a blast.

[00:08:03]>> Lobster.

[00:08:04]>> Barton himself, he's a pretty rough character, I'm not going to lie. Not the nicest man, but would you be after 8 years of captivity and torture? Probably not. Eventually, he discovers a way to break free, and then he's on the loose in this Demu world. He fights these crustacean villains, kills, and eats a bunch of them.

[00:08:25]Takes some prisoners, commandeers a starship, and he's headed back to Earth.

[00:08:29]Uh with him is Dr. Thuy Wyn, who has been broken. His mind is he's virtually mindless. He's this altered lobster person. They got him.

[00:08:40]Huh.

[00:08:40]Limala has also been surgically mutilated, however, her mind is still her own.

[00:08:46]They also capture the the Demu director and Hits egg child and one or two others. This escape sequence is so violent, so fun, so satisfying.

[00:08:58]Uh you know those like Tarantino-esque cathartic vengeance scenes where all the bad guys finally get their comeuppance when the oppressed protagonist finally exacts his revenge?

[00:09:09]That's what it felt like here. And it was kind of glorious.

[00:09:14]Like at one point, he rips out a lobster spine and fashions it into a sword.

[00:09:19]>> That's the greatest thing I've ever heard, huh?

[00:09:22]>> But throughout this book, you really get the sense of Barton as a real character.

[00:09:27]So flawed, often unlikable, but must-watch TV.

[00:09:31]>> Lobster. [music] >> There are some hinted at lore elements of with the Demu that are really interesting and kind of fascinating.

[00:09:39]Like all their spaceships are old and dusty. Huh, why does it seem like their civilization is deteriorating? Why do they feel the need to make all beings Demu? Is it a spiritual reason? Is it something else?

[00:09:52]Uh, we aren't told, but I'd be lying if I said I was not fascinated by these tailed aliens.

[00:09:58]>> Nope, stop.

[00:09:59]>> For being his first book, Busby made some smart decisions. He did something really interesting here which honestly saved the book.

[00:10:08]Because the back half We'll get to act two here in a minute.

[00:10:12]But he answered the question, how does Barton remain sane?

[00:10:18]After all, he was tested, tortured, imprisoned in solitary confinement for [snorts] eight years.

[00:10:25]Uh, the answer is eventually he taught himself to retreat into his own mind to create hallucinations for himself. Over time he perfected this technique. So, Barton is battling the Demu the entire time, but the physical resistance, that was quickly overcome by the superior alien life force. And so, you know, the physical resistance only happened for a little while. The rest was a battle in his mind. So, for instance, the Demu are trying to teach him their language and physically and with his mouth he responds, but his mind refuses the data.

[00:10:59]His mind is in another place.

[00:11:01]Um, I will uh, talk more about this in a moment, but to do so first we do have to address some of the bad.

[00:11:10]Part two starts at page 55. Up until this point I've been loving every second of it and this part two started out being very cool as well. Barton lands the stolen Demu spaceship and immediately he's swarmed by the military. There's a little bit of a dogfight. He has to "Hey, I'm on your side. Stop. I'm a human. Love, you know, there's it's it's it's a cool it's action-packed. He finally lands, he's swarmed by the military and he goes, "Back off I blow this and a quarter of Earth with it. Um, it's a bluff, but Barton knows he will be confined by the military. He'll be tested, probed, interrogated uh cuz at this point his mind is his memories have started to come back, started to return to him slowly. And he's determined to never ever be caged again, no matter the cost.

[00:11:53]So, he tells them all about the Demu and their intentions. He tells them what happened to him. And the military, he was expecting a lot more resistance. The military is very inclined to believe him. In his absence, thousands more humans from across the world have been abducted on several different occasions.

[00:12:09]>> I know about them. I know how to fly their ships, use their weapons. I can teach you. Engineers can duplicate this ship and build our own fleet. I even have the Demu director on board with his child. Study him. Squeeze him for information. All the information you can get.

[00:12:25]Under two conditions. One, I'm a free man. And two, when it comes time to take the fight back to them, I'm going with.

[00:12:33]>> This is all cool, but this is also where the story, which up until this point was engaging, fast-paced, brutal, slows down. And it slows down a lot.

[00:12:43]Barton and Limalan are working along with the military and the government teaching them all about the Demu, how things work. Limalan is translating and teaching them about her planet and it's just really slow. In addition, a huge portion of the back half, even though it's it's it's more than half, it's closer to 2/3, is about her relationship between Barton, the relationship between Barton and Limalan. You see, she still wants him, but he can't seem to seal the deal because she looks like a monster now.

[00:13:16]>> [screaming] >> So, we're meeting with plastic surgeons, doctors, wig makers, dentists.

[00:13:23]>> So, when you fix her up, can you put her boobs back? They The lobsters chopped them off. Can you put her boo, but but raise them like Yeah, up here-ish.

[00:13:30]>> No, Barton. I'm a Talari. They're supposed to be lower on my ribs.

[00:13:36]>> Dang it. It became, honestly, kind of soap opera-ish. Huh. Just lots and lots and lots of conversations in different locations. It was fine, but just kind of a letdown considering how much [music] I enjoyed the first act. The one cool thing that I loved about the second half, something that kept the pages turning, was Barton's internal mental struggle. You see, the second act was titled Humpty Dumpty, and it's apt because Barton realizes that he may be perceived as broken, damaged, unfit for general society because he uses hypnosis, self-hypnosis to survive. Now Now that he's free in the real world, he wonders if his mind is still in that cage, a cage of his own construction. And so, the real threat to Barton is no longer torture, pain, and eventually losing oneself to become Demu, but rather this little psychiatrist, Dr. Parr. The battle takes place in a shrink's office, filling out questionnaires and fudging tests. Barton is still fighting for his life because she has the power to put him away, to put him in a cage again.

[00:14:48]But Barton slowly begins to realize that he might not even be seeing himself clearly. After all, he's been hypnotizing himself to survive.

[00:14:58]So, he actually might be broken to the point of total insanity, and this veneer of saneness is just another self-inflicted hypnosis to protect himself, but to protect himself from himself.

[00:15:11]Maybe all the king's horses and all the king's men can't put Barton together again. Um I loved this mind game element of it, and kind of the cat and he's playing with the psychiatrist. It was great. It was well done.

[00:15:26]I was kind of bored by literally everything else.

[00:15:30]But I didn't hate act two. It was just a drop compared to act one.

[00:15:34]All right, and here's the real reason why act two was a let down. Drum roll.

[00:15:41]This isn't a two act story.

[00:15:43]There's two acts in it, but it's not.

[00:15:45]It's a two act story in a trilogy. Ha.

[00:15:50]Uh humanity's space armada is assembled.

[00:15:53]They're trained. Guns are locked and loaded. Let's go boil some lobster and then cut to credits.

[00:16:00]>> Whack.

[00:16:01]>> There's no indication anywhere that this is 1/3 of the story.

[00:16:06]The proud enemy, which came out in 1965, picks up immediately where Cage of Man ends. I mean, like sentence, boom, they plug it right in.

[00:16:17]There's not even a scene break.

[00:16:21]Then in 1980, uh End of the Line is released, but only in the Demu trilogy, which has all three of them together.

[00:16:31]>> Oh, no.

[00:16:33]>> The issue here is that these stories is not like, you know, Star Wars or Harry Potter or whatever where they're in a series, but they can work as stand-alone. No, no, no, no, no.

[00:16:44]This is one story.

[00:16:46]UM THAT SUCKS.

[00:16:49]>> SON OF A >> UH THAT'S THE ISSUE. ACT TWO here that act two that I'm really kind of moaning on about really is an act two. It's probably an act two in a seven act story.

[00:17:04]Since act one was the inciting incident, act two kind of doubles as the setup and the uh the pinch point that launches the full story. So, my critique of act two being kind of slow, just a lot of building towards something.

[00:17:18]It might not even deserve to be a bad point because I didn't read the full story. I only read uh well, I did the math.

[00:17:28]25.9% of a 522-page story.

[00:17:33]This book is very very scatologically inclined.

[00:17:41]I don't think scatologically is a word.

[00:17:43]And we're not just talking about poo-poo, which we do have several scenes of poo-poo, but urination, uh in fact, every bodily fluid and function takes center stage at certain points, sometimes at the same time.

[00:17:55]Uh I guess there's nothing to do in a cage full of naked aliens and stuff except pee, poop, throw up, have relations with different aliens, or when in solitary, by yourself.

[00:18:10]>> They ask you how [music] you are, and you just have to say that you're fine, but you're not really fine.

[00:18:13]>> Oh, and eat the nutrient goo that oozes from the walls.

[00:18:20]>> What the HELL IS EVEN THAT?

[00:18:22]>> ALSO, this book has a ton of sex. A ton.

[00:18:25]I should have been counting, but I would say, if I had to guess, I would say around 20 scenes.

[00:18:31]>> Nice.

[00:18:32]>> You know, 144-page book, but it's mostly done off page. It's never graphic, but which is funny because everything else is super graphic. Super graphic. Here's an example, okay. Barton ambushes and kills a Demu lobster person. You know, kills him, it's a brutal kill, breaking, crunching, cracking, snapping, pulling.

[00:18:54]It's It's gross, it's brutal, it's kind of great. But then he sees that kind of chitten face and is like, "Hmm, I bet I could If I took his robe and I ripped his face off, I bet I could make it into a mask." And so he rips his face off, you know, oozing glue glue glue glue who knows what else flying everywhere scratch he scrapes all the meat off there and then he pisses on the mask to clean it.

[00:19:24]He then puts that on his face.

[00:19:27]It made me laugh but yeah, this is pretty icky you guys. So what's the verdict? I don't know. I only read a third of a story. But I'd probably say ebook. It had some things I liked some things I didn't but overall I had a good time reading it. Will I ever finish the trilogy?

[00:19:43]Maybe I don't know. I can see myself doing it in the future but I didn't feel that burning need to quickly continue on this adventure and that is my review of Cage a Man. Have you read this or who cares? A better question have you read the entire trilogy? If so, please give us your thoughts in the comments below. Let us know if we can if we all should do that as well and if you're not subscribed, please consider doing so. It helps with the algorithm and ensures that you don't miss a review.

[00:20:11]I mean even if you're subscribed you can still miss them if you wanted to.

[00:20:14]I get it sometimes you need a break.

[00:20:16]It's cool. As always thanks for watching and I'll see you next time with [music] you know, I think all this talk about boiling shellfish and seafood boils is making me hungry because I'll see you next time with the sea is boiling hot.

[00:20:32]Wow.

[00:20:34]That's amazing.