The SFFaudio Podcast #754 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Four-Day Planet by H. Beam Piper

The SFFaudio Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #754 – Four-Day Planet by H. Beam Piper – read by Mark Nelson. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novel (6 hours, 14 minutes minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Cora Buhlert.

Talked about on today’s show:
Henry Beam Piper, 1961, paired with another Piper, probably serialized?, no, doesn’t need a serial feel, Putnam and Sons, standard Piper spaceship: ball, the hunting of the seamonster, Lone Star Planet, chased by giant steer, more action hunting in this, makes you want to read it, influences, a Jack London novel, Moby Dick, kind of a juvenile, a YA protagonist, not 18 yet, felt younger, felt older, “Tin Tin And The Space Whalers”, Tin Tin at the typewriter, drill down into this book, Tin Tin on Instagram, streamer tech, video and audio recording everything, flashing it to his dad, their planet doesn’t have satellites, only 20,000 people on the planet, stubborn SOBs, occasional miscreant, divide satellites by the number of people on earth, Jesse’s not a math guy, GPS, navigating from the stars and inertial systems, cute surprising moves, on the docks, pulls out a gun, sea-snail, gets poisoned, showcases Piper’s hobby horses, excuses for guns, excuses to smoke, loves his guns, low opinion of police, respect, government forces lumped in with the racketeers, as a group they get no respect, libertarianism is in the mix, propaganda for libertarianism, undercutting that, multiple volunteer fire departments in the same city?, one alarm system, seven small villages, look at the geography of this planet, near antarctica, very rural, ports, no farming, vat meat, vegan meat, under-egged that, limited to the ocean journey, the lifeboat, a Battlestar Galactica episode, Dogget will survive until the air turned to liquid, taught us interesting things, Fritz Leiber’s A Pail Of Air, To Build A Fire by Jack London, The Sea Wolf, Eden among the sealions, not a romantic vacation, thick bark trees, using machine guns to cut down trees, more guns in this scene?, everybody brought their own personal weapons, the meta, a former slaver hiding his identity, a dead woman’s fingers, driving down the price of a natural resource in order to enrich himself, the hazards of monopolism, they wanna lynch, government’s on the case, that’s be nice, not very likely, Israel hunting Nazis, a Federation government, agents, at the general level or admiral level, James Bond, ordinary murderer, bank robber or conartists, enslave a planet, he’s a war criminal, more along the Hitler lines, characters from the Jack Vance Demon Prince novels, a personal mission not a government mission, the Manuel Noriega story, maybe I should run this country, they went after him, they knew he was corrupt, ask Saddam Hussein, why am I the one defending libertarianism to H. Beam Piper?, lynch law is bad, correct moral message, you must go to court, reading books, schools in Florida, supporting public education, the value of a good education, old fashioned, out in 7 months, useless information from chat GPT, good curation of knowledge, critical race theory in math books, banning hijabs, a women only safe space room, wasn’t even allowed to do her internship, a math class, a technique to divide the poors, telling H. Beam Piper his business, going against his own instincts, Kim by Rudyard Kipling, grows up wild, ends up working for the British empire, his Irish father and his good instincts, turn him into a spy, British empire good, Heinlein takes that and says I can do one better, Citizen Of The Galaxy, he has legs at home, gathering information for the Empire, goes a little cynical with them, a revolution is about to start, we’re storming the Bastille today, whoof the rug is pulled out from under him, cooler heads have already been on the case, he’s not as good as Heinlein for this, YA elements, where’s the romance?, the girl who’s going to work for him, doing romance in the 40s and the 50s, not in the cards for our hero Mr. H. Beam Piper, the sister, she’s a girl!, that’s a rough place, these rough people, the dad is busy smoking, doing the job of three people, way below, he’s not doing it as good, we need way more about the ecology of a planet with four days in the year, they can’t eat any of the food, and the food can’t eat them, Larry Niven, catsnake?, for this planet Niven [would be] better, Space Viking, breezier and easier, very simple, space battles, why is this science fiction?, the strongest science fiction idea in here, its the instagram recorder, youtuber streamer, and the hunting of the wax, shielding, a commodity, intense sunlight, analogizes with Moby Dick, whaling was huge, tallow wax and whale oil, how they breed, not to hunt them to extinction, traditional societies, north German Bremen dish made with whale meat, the meat was not the moneymaker, it was the sperm, petroleum, he doesn’t do enough with that, a reporter, friend doesn’t quite do enough, disappears like Ishmael, not a classic for the ages, Little Fuzzy, interesting, not a terrible books, but not special, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, the definitive Piper book, Omnilingual, a richer piece, passes the Jesse test, the 20 chapter titles, a cute little nod, obscure author from Scotland: Arthur Conan Doyle, the Javelin, the Pequod, gunpron, monster killing, treason, masks off, a simple story, 180 hour away from sunset, H. Beam Piper with Larry Niven, had he not killed himself, they could’ve been friendly, Robert E. Howard, tapering off, Clark Ashton Smith, ailing parents, kept changing, c’mon you can do this, doesn’t have the fire in the belly anymore, coming into his oats, Jerry Pournelle, sometimes it don’t work, sometimes it do, Oath Of Fealty, Dream Park ain’t a good book, a little silly, pretty good book, the whole Bish thing, a kind of western, quickdraw, Firefly and Serenity (2005), special agent, an H. Beam Piper tv show, our heroes and their dialogue, the empire they were fighting against were flat, the Alliance, insurance company, the Dortmunder, a Donald Westlake character, the reavers, better in prediction than in execution, it had potential, fashionable to criticize, Cora always had her issues, the best episode of Firefly: Objects In Space, a bottle episode, the casting was good, The Witcher tv series, Elric, they both have swords and white hair, hiatus, forgetting to cancel shows, the pilot for the Logan’s Run TV show, the movie in fast forward, the new Logan, an elder council is running things!, they have to make it a series, there’s old people?, old and weird looking, there’s no renewal, Logan and this other chick, they find a car in D.C., an android robot that will help them every episode, a Paul thing, the Planet Of The Apes TV series, about 6 Star Trek episodes, you can’t tell anybody what you saw there, an old circus poster of an ape behind bars, Sky has never been so good again, music videos and cartoons, Dutch people, best TV channel ever, D.C. Fontana was story editor, Harlan Ellison wrote an episode, David Gerrold, George Clayton Johnson, William F. Nolan, Logan’s Run, all on for Odds On, not abridged, a Jesse book, Breakthroughs In Science by Isaac Asimov, in a rabbit, Sixth Column, Tommy Patrick Ryan, Shakespeare’s Planet by Clifford D. Simak, Charwoman’s Shadow a novel by Lord Dunsany, in Spain, dowry, substitute shadow doesn’t grow and shrink, praises by Theodore Sturgeon, I love the book, humour and beauty, E.F. Bleiler found it excellent, tradition of George MacDonald, first science fiction novel, Keeper Of The Isis Light by Monica Hughes, Crisis on Conshelf Ten, political crisis or something, set on the Moon, her stuff is really short, thin volumes, mostly girly and boarding school stuff, kiddie gossip for teens, a series, Invitation To The Game, a horrible situation, it’s odd, fewer women science fiction writers, she put out a lot of YA, solid science fiction book, not having the greatest prose ever, on the pirate website, a real shame, Invitation The Game by Monica Hughes, Lisse and her friends are unemployable after graduation, embrace The Game, narrated by June Carter, abebooks, Scholastic Books, way before Harry Potter, the YA cover look, an affordable edition, the shipping, import them, twice the value of the book for shipping, Ballantine Adult Fantasy, the Internet Archive, a hard science fiction dystopian novel, children go to government schools, social welfare systems, agitating for political reform, many are involved in organized crime, just write science fiction like you mean it, and not too long, 192 pages, from 1990, died in 2003, she was British, Canadian by emigration, 11 novels?, Earthdark, the Arthur C. Clarke moonbus book, Devil On My Back, used headset, hairgel, the price was right, bargain hunter, Jesse’s gonna hug Cora, Angélique books by Anne Golo, proto-bodice rippery, smoky shag rug, nicotine stained wooden rosary, one bloody Mary two bloody Marys, might as well convert, half-equipped, stinky old books, best wishes to the father-in-law, taking parents to hospitals, four hospitals in six weeks, nursing home, and blah, Paul met Cora’s mom, already in pain, not very communicative, karaoke evenings, what went wrong, heart surgery, hip surgery, not a lot going on with her anymore, Worldcon, collapsed at the airport, farm animals, recognizing farm animal, have you ever touched a bird, have you ever touched a cow, where was Paul born?, have your touched a cow, have you touched a bird, a lot of people haven’t, three days old, Jesse’s mom’s photography is awful, very significant hand disability, well done Jesse, you get 9 points, the one who blocked Jesse, cows or goats, not a farm kid, obviously a cow, cow, bull, and calf, a little bull, the relevant pieces, an active farm across the road, the cows next door, one of the cows would run away, Uncle Heine and Aunt Marianna, three sets of grandparents, kids need to do that, in New York city, a farm visit, city kids, look at all the animals, sit on a horse, had to have his balls banded, that makes him a steer so he can be eaten, ox and oxen, most of the meat, you need one bull just like you need one rooster, prairie oysters, rocky mountain oysters, I’d like a weird meat cut please, boy penises are dog chewies, rawhide chewies are penises, product descriptions, pure meat, oxen are commonly castrated, don’t steer us wrong, working animals, riding an ox, horses or camels or bicycles, a monkey riding a dog, riding an elephant, bull-riding doesn’t last very long, pull carts, ploughs, Paul has to game, Over The Edge, work for an embassy, misadventures, get into troubles and have adventures, bye, breakfast is what Jesse is hearing, Odd’s On by Michael Crichton, reuse of Easy Go notes.

HARDCOVER - Four Day Planet by H. Beam Piper

Four Day Planet by H. Beam Piper

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The SFFaudio Podcast #742 – READALONG: The Many-Headed Hydra by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker

The SFFaudio Podcast

Jesse and Evan Lampe talk about The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, And The Hidden History Of The Revolutionary Atlantic by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker

Talked about on today’s show:
2012, 2000, influential for Evan, written up, dirtied edges, moldy, learned to appreciate, first big look into history from below, political history, conventional narrative history, the power of the approach of history from below, understanding Lovecraft, vernacular networks, those ideas are rooted in here, turned you into a radical, social history and labour history (vs. theory), daily life, new wave labour history, E.P. Thompson, Herbert Gutman, religious traditions, English working class radicalism, Baptists and Methodists, pirates, maroon communities, opting out, Typee by Herman Melville, William Blake, William Morris, social pariah, they haven’t read this book, pen is mightier than the sword, undermines a lot of go along get along takes, the heroes vs. the villains, Francis Bacon, this is not science, team evil, Colonel Despard, paraded through every street, 2nd hand, that scene on Jefferson’s estate, the words are compromised, turning that metaphor on its head, surprising insights, actually used as metaphors, upper crust living off the pain of the poors, poors and riches, those with weapons and those obeying until they don’t, very insightful, Villains Of All Nations, which chapter was written by Rediker?, 1741, the Slave Conspiracy, Outcast Nations Of The World, the Hydrarchy, a conspiracy!, rule over water, everything is flipped, the royal navy, left swipes, bottom up order, how wikipedia works, a bunch of CIA guys, recreationally, they’re not personally making money from locking Wikipedia accounts, life purpose, no actual work, competing ideas, some people’s pov, opressed all over the planet, Africa, North and South America and Europe, an other and later story, Bligh and the breadfruit, blackbirding, where capitalism was made, 16th and 17th century, why we have the world we have today, capitalism is fueled by sugar and slavery, the capital is being accumulated, the movement of people to serve the needs of capital, Gandhi, there’s a story there, heroes amongst the horror, repressed and excised and not promoted, Jesse’s twitter profile, all jokes, ruritarian romantic, drawer of roof bears, huer of colour, Canadian history, a youngest, Diaries Of Susana Moodie, its really hard living in the forest, chop down trees and wear high heels, interbreed with the locals, the Hudson’s Bay Company, that little building used to own this entire northern part of the continent, people in Europe wanting hats, Fort St. James, Fort St. John, Moose Factory, cut-off from this history, discovery and settlement and fast forward, Belize, from a previous period in time, independence, iron rule, most people don’t know Belize exists, they have no idea, it doesn’t serve the interests, the chamber of commerce, this book is very subversive, Mestizo, Metis, Creole, culture mixing, our mosaic, radicalized by the hydra, became radical by them, the Putney debates, Smedley Butler, the Businessman’s plot, he wasn’t executed, too much like Daniel Ellsberg, he gets a pass, Julian Assange, 1741 conspiracy, the official line, we created racism to divide the poors, now racism is used only by the bad people, keep the institutions, slave labour in us prisons, post-racial, white washing, a substantial point, slaves who were not black, indentured servants, morally reprobates, what are Australians taught about that in their schools, avarice, keeping the population of the central prairies, this labour thing, in the 17th century, you could own their contract, that could be traded, treated similarly, death rate, legally there was a distinction, the 1741 uprising in New York, the slave port of last resort, the triangular trade, the defective product, Virginia, the rebels, those who could not be seasoned, breaking them through threats of violence and death, sold them cheap, really radical slaves, we need a line between whites and blacks, after Bacon’s rebellion, give whites land, racism is a product of conscious decisions to suppress the working class, blacks used as strikebreakers, scabs, a deliberate technique that develops, am I racist, I don’t think I’m racist, homosexuality, am I gay, I don’t think I’m gay, it doesn’t seem to be the case, individual racists, primarily a system, Critical Race Theory is based, is that what based means?, the problem is institutional, its the institution that’s sending you to it, the class teaches you the history, is that what those classes are?, flagellation, root out the sin within you, not the intention, in favour of this book, progress online, online classes are terrible, Brer Rabbit, Uncle Remus, an old black man, probably an ex-slave telling stories to a little white boy, interrupted stories, background information, what the boy would know, stories of how to behave so as to survive in a system of slavery, Brer Fox, reverse psychology, using the of stuckupedness, double meaning, good morning or get beaten, the writing down of the vernacular tradition, the horror that is being a slaves, the awesome style of writing, phonetic, what was good and what was bad, salty language, fuck and shit are really good words, they are valuable, your only adjective should not be fuck, make your arguments better, people at the top say don’t listen to those sailors, big surprise, swearing and cursing, if you keep hitting me, we’re not allowed to do either, always do what the authority above us tells us, school is abuse, keep the factor workers from organizing, I just don’t want to work all the time, the Barbados thing, you learn about Virginia, The Tempest by William Shakespeare, a strong limb of this many headed hydra of a book, this book needs subsequent books, we need a whole Despard book, Peter Linebaugh, The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons For All, Stop, Thief!: The Commons, Enclosures, And Resistance, The London Hanged: Crime And Civil Society In The Eighteenth Century, something on E.P. Thompson, unfortunate, The Slave Ship, Red Round World Burning Hot, Kate and Ned Despard, emphasizes women in his writing, they need to make the babies, plead the belly, women criminals, plenty of time to get pregnant, Mexican jails, you can’t execute them, the depository for slave nobody else wanted to buy, Moby-Dick, repressed?, we don’t want this book to be popular, gatekept!, various institutions, The Fearless Benjamin Lay, the black dwarf, Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates And The Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750, the movie?, Amistad movie, the Adams’ are good guys, propaganda, an Adams descendant was president of Raytheon, ambassador to London, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., Abigail Adams, the Adams, a group of people on the right side of history, sacrificed his presidency to stop a war, Jimmy Carter didn’t start any wars, people fall in line, very interesting history books, a horror show, the book is good, looking at resistance to the slave ship by white sailors, tricking sailors, disease, miserable experiences, prison guards, euphemisms are a horrible, to not know they are going to Africa, mutinies on slave ships by sailors, bold women, interracialiness, alternatives, teleology, makes the current world inevitable, the Indian Ocean trade system, the spread of Islam to East Africa, Arabic is the lingua franca, Arabic innovation in the middle ages, capitalism, corporations that are global in scope, connections, trade, that’s indoctrination, it doesn’t create wealth, there’s no wealth created, someone is being screwed from trade, production, turning that tree into that table, mahogany trade, Belize, the plantation, the ship being a site of production, the origins of capitalism, blackbirding in the 19th century, just after the time of Melville, the copra trade, massive effects, Jack London, like Star Trek, a strange federation of Romulans and Klingons, getting tricked, be slaves and die, Maoris in Vancouver, The White Pacific, Nazis moving to the states doing Nazi stuff in the states, the unknown story of this books, we found something!, labour history remains suppressed, the labour historians labour in obscurity, the world history turn, the East India Company, this history of the world in 10 drinks, Tom Standage is the author of all those books, simple, peppy, and they don’t threaten power, The World Is Flat kinda stuff, a refutation of that, the hydra is global, separation into races and nations, white supremacy is the counter revolution, a specific lady, Kimberlé Crenshaw, you’re this you’re that, she really knows what she is, she knows what she wants, very simple, you want to have boys like you, you want to be chaste and chased, this gives you both, critical marriage theory, evidence of it in literature, very modern traditional religion, alcohol, smoking, per-marital sex, a vampire/werewolf book to express the ideas of a teenage girl, land rovers, Robin Hood is a cleaned up version, how to live within your very narrow, cottagecore, keep a nice little house in the forest and you’re a hobbit, setting up your perfect, trad pre-wives, nostalgia for the medieval, collapsing the commons, when the working class was most radical, agrarian settings, the jungle meatpacking plant, this is not what we signed up for, the Stono Rebellion, the New York Uprising Conspiracy, Africans, worth it because we have iphones, nice slave phone AOC, breakage along the way was a shame, Stephen Pinker, the meme the bomber dropping bombs with different paint jobs, CIA ads, I’m an agender black disabled lady, anybody can drop bombs for the CIA, kind of a progress, getting fat, there food has additives, their babies are getting poisoned, the problems are changing, a dearth of labour, you need to coerce people into work, all that land, people would have come and took land, German immigrants, given land, we need to produce sugar/tobacco, homesteader, now we can have a UBI, the obesity epidemic, the back end of production, promoting physical fitness, relaxing immigration, a more easily exploitable working class, some black man got a piece of real estate, why did he tear it down?, instead of becoming a factor, what are you going to use this for, unused land is a sin, jubilee and letting things lay fallow, stores were closed on Sundays, 7-11 was open 7 days a week!, the Diggers, New York’s commercial space is all lying fallow, all the malls are empty now, there’s no land reform, apartments, housing is not affordable, developers never choose affordable housing, the plot of Mr. Robot, F-Society, delete debt, delete the records of who owns what, that would F the system, wild spaces, mountain people in Southeast Asia, a religious revival, geographical solution, a homesteader is a petty bourgeois selling your jam, no geographical solution for capitalist, what happens in games, the streamers and all the people who want to be them, a new phenomenon, sharecropping for Jeff Bezos, he sets the rules, it infects peoples brains, that desire is significant, people want to opt out of traditional, play video games all day, streams are not that interesting, it doesn’t work, it can’t, a colonization of a virtual, what Meta was supposed to be, new spiritual geographies, the internet, this shows people want out, their daily life might be better, coal miner pay, pathetic little podcast, we’re not covering the right things, the homesteading thing, a horrible homesteader, larp, import some immigrants have them work the land for you, why does Indiana Jones have a bullwhip?, a sinister meaning, cattle rustlers, an 80 year old man being de-aged, for swinging, The Dial Of Destiny, WWII action again, the girl from Temple Of Doom, married, Shanghai, Short Round is a teenager, anti-Japanese resistance, Chinese gangsters, he’s old, a history lesson of the early 20th century, insight into those weirdos doing those weird things, artists and humanitarians, the least interesting characters, the Russian Revolution, great documentaries, artist movements, The Outcast Nations Of The Earth, a counterexample to everybody sells out, I’ve been radicalized, you didn’t know that, he did it his way, he’s a hero, and his wife too, from the aristocratic class, siding with the workers against the capitalist class, JFK, murdered by the Dulles brothers, what about Caesar, his power comes from the loyalty of his soldiers, threatens the establishment order, his college buddies stabbed him, in the play, talk to Paul, Evan regrets Paul not being here, open his eyes?, many-headedness being democracy vs. a guy talking about “democracy” but who can cut cheques, how young do you have to be to be radicalized?, liberty university, trump university, reading history did it, away from theory, Marx and anarchist theory, coming back to philosophy, social history, rationalism vs. empiricism, that doesn’t seem to line up with the theory, never joining a political party, focusing on religion after becoming an atheist, now Evan is sympathetic to religion, what’s going on in the text through music, the British experience, counter cultural, anti-monarchy, dissenting churches, right wing churches, being religious outside of a religion, internally puritan, a space of resistance, one of the heads of the hydra, in the same paragraph as the witches, pirates, Matt Christman, Chapo Trap House, we need community again, sympathetic to religion, a space for radical transformation and alternatives, we need something else, we want something real, human experiences, long, but useful, never a dull moment, maybe the best we can hope for, the foundation, sit down and talk with people, come over our collective social anxiety, the progressive era, lived community, moving to cities, creating new instituions, Lions Club, Elks Club, Boy Scouts, used as a cudgel, Murray Bookchin, if freedom is a tree, the best you can do is become a streamer, fuck this shit we’re going to burn down New York, website problems, being very helpful, making community or whatever, problems not caused by big tech, creating “content”, generally buried and forgotten, 1000 podcasts, old posts, anything from about 10 years ago on YouTube approx 75% is gone, sad/boring comments, turning performance art into, give tips to the actors while they’re playing the play, they’re all terrible, extraordinary weirdos who are good at clicking, the worst sort of outcome imaginable, larping your jam, sitting all day, sitting too much, a new dystopia, Elon Musk buying twitter vs. making it open source, new free public engagement, he has the right enemies, a lol cow, read some more Rediker and Linebaugh, The Magna Carta Manifesto gets pretty wild, he’s braver, commentary on these themes, a very good revolitonary book, very insightful, insights into Lovecraft, when we look at something old, things we don’t know they knew, so happy teachers don’t know the contents of these stories, this is a sex metaphor, asses being stared at, these are all fart jokes, so rich, made richer, Shakespeare bad man (but also good man), holding stock, Stephen King knows the problem but can’t take that last step, Blaze, having sex with some lady, that farmer doing his best to help you, the way it should be rather than the way it is, a hotline in some boiler room, weird streamers like Stephen King, everybody can be like me, try to buy a lot less shit, games are full of virtual goods that are artificially scarce, all new games are free (pretty much), battlepasses, get skins for your character or car or gun, there are places for capitalism to go, a horrible place, consuming the public sector, Amazon still rests on producing things, ebooks are essentially skins, audiobooks are essentially skins, sometimes derived from labour, wealth generated by investments, other people’s labour, William Gibson is a shitlib, The Peripheral, disabled people in drone bodies, a place to expand to, go knock on doors and ask do you answer the phone?, a great book, 16.5 hours, the narration, too much of a boomer, Evan has come to terms with his boomerness, Evan is out of touch, YA for adults, that Rite Gud show, a retelling of a Jane Austen but late 19th century Cinderella, so not interested in class consciousness at all, so old fashioned, just Jane Austen + Cinderella as a YA, written for adults who never graduated to something that challenged them, technically well done, cinematographers, reading the subtitles, that’s the actual dialogue, if this is about my soul take it I don’t want it without you, maybe I’m crazy now, voice over narration, is it possible that there isn’t anything sane and normal at all?, Italy for some reason, Virgin airlines, Marry me Bella, GASP!, the credits roll, so cute, so spot on, we’re getting poisoned, which vampire or werewolf to choose, so funny, mass phenomenon, watching the world cup, people going back and forth, Slack is Evan’s twitter, when Qatar got the world cup, using slaves, not allowing beer, my team is my nation, the crimes are done, reparations schmeperations, soccer is not fun, basketball, volleyball, baseball is much more dynamic, cricket, nobody knows how it works, football has strategy, people like running, very simple, games are fun to play not fun to watch, your kid is involved, in solidarity with you kids, car racing, gladiators, MMA, it doesn’t have the clock, moments of great tension, makes better movies, good baseball movies, Major League, The Natural, The Sandlot, For The Love Of The Game, Field Of Dreams, more charm, pastime, a game of leisure, hockey, learning to skate, why soccer is popular on poverty stricken planets around the universe, running around, some sort of vague interest in that game they used to play, the elites care about the prestige, a bottom up thing, I am this powerful, I can pull this off, a poor kids sport, crazy for soccer, running around and kicking, Evan is not the only annoying person on Slack, the help desk blew up, complaining about things, urgent student issues, to do your ranting, friendly and non-work related, shitposting on slack, Tolkien universities, friendly and relaxed calm and peaceable, no J.R.R. Tolkien hate, orcs!, a Tolkien creation, spelled the same: orc, a more subversive reading than calling them black people, Rings Of Power, the creation of Mordor, an orc nationalist subplot, Galadriel is just a fuckin racist, no apologies, a horrible racist, we lost the war, we just need our place, no, you all have to die, a beloved character from the book, trolling on purpose, that longstanding criticism of Tolkien, all the good guys are white people, Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon, an essay about two orcs talking to each other, a fox takes note of something, attacking Tolkien in a very narrow way, a fantasy series with a gay protagonist doing gay sex, noir, dark, The Steel Remains, Market Forces, combines Mad Max and Wall Street, conflict investment, on the drive home from work they do car wars, satire sort of thing, an ESL tutor in Turkey, had some kid and fucked off, solid books, Black Man aka Thirteen, a bottom up approach, the ideas tend to be pretty good, Svudu is now Wealthy Genius, seeing it from the orc’s pov, Sam overhears, kidnapping Pippin and Merry, underorcs, discipline, our lot is misery, why William Blake is so weird, he has strong feelings, Jerusalem, undeniably powerful art, they made it a hymn, some Phil Ochs song, nice looking ladies holding hands, The Tyger is almost impenetrable, the final lines of this book, hard to understand then?, some whimsy if not power in his art, the Pacific, the ancient sign of navigators, the wanderers of the planets, some Typee for you, Thomas and Lydia Hardy, tried for his life, the globalizing powers, the planetary wanderers, Seattle, 2000, during the Battle of Seattle, 1999, the rhetoric of the 1990s, peace and trade and progress, a significant chunk of a lifetime ago, worse off now, the hope of a radical, 1997 APEC protests, authoritarian countries, I put pepper on my steak, why is everybody upset, they’re coordinating their laws to fuck us, reading the student newspaper, 2nd World is the Soviet Union, euphemism treadmill, 3rd world is more radical, it means poor, a third path, so much propaganda, poo on Jesse’s head from Evan pooing on him, lazy thinking, the truth can be exposed, you need to not be soaking in propaganda, on the ferry to Vancouver Island, Adbusters magazine, an anti-propaganda magazine, Biden on one side and Zelensky on the other, two critical takes, yessir yessir how high sir?, Megan Markle and her husband are getting a Netflix show, the number one show on Spotify, celebrities that are kings and queens, Obama and a musician had a podcast, content-less, too many books to read, 75 episodes for Mark Twain and 100 episodes for Heinlein, people who should know better, angry at the queen or the other kid for being, mostly not propaganda, a fine place to dwell, analyzing, exposing it, out from under, Jesse’s thinking of Paul, let them be in their blanket, its not Evan’s job to save everyone, do Poe eventual, the Poe wish, stay healthy, losing weight, one pack a week, anti-smoking, a week long group project planned out, deliver content, dynamism, ESL students, read these pages, answer these questions, work in groups, a private school that’s trying to make money, lecture, present this, without Slides (PPT) you might as well be speaking in a foreign language, when the bosses walk by reading at your desk, teaching taking place, devestated by lockdowns, this is going to perk you up, you’re not engaging with this amazing Lovecraft poem the way you should be, why are the kids fucking off?, some structure, a more traditional idea of academic achievement, girls do better, hard on the boys, they’re Evan’s clan/tribe/race, don’t let them embarrass us, their acculturated to do better in those class, boys in person, wooden swords and hack at each other for 45 minutes, then talk philosophy, run around for a long time, able to absorb things, pumped up with lack of sword fighting, it could be javelin throwing, less upset, less restrained, PE is not the solution, nobody cares about the grades, bad grades in gym class, kids love dodgeball, gladiator stuff, you want to do this?, of course!, Philip K. Dick Volume 1 letters, letters to his mom, Mom send my pills!, Mom I need a doctor’s note, doing bad at math, poor Philip K. Dick, terrible spelling, 1940s and early 1950s, letter to Anthony Boucher, Susan Cooper, The Skull, The Moon Maid is about communism on the Moon, centaur, a lady riding a male centaur, foreign teachers could have Christmas off, Life On The Mississippi, Lifeline, Misfit, it pisses off the insurance companies, The Man Who Traveled In Elephants, Tenderfoot In Space, Rocket Ship Galileo, the podcasts are broken, a thousand episodes, boring lame necessary (unpaid) work, Patreon stuff, she loves business shit, hey, this book’s cool!, literally gonna run out of juveniles, a theory of Philip Dick, a theory of Lovecraft, Heinlein’s thesis is he’s American (but not the way the government means), For Us, The Living, Shadows In Zamboula, roaming cannibals, a fearsome strangler, marred by including racial stereotypes, specific blacks from Darfar, profiting from cannibalism, it sounds good, near southern Egypt?, kushites, a love letter to Paul, The Golden Slave by Poul Anderson, The Venom Business by Michael Crichton, Evan can out American Jesse, people mad at him for global warming denier, ended his career sort of, he can never be a good boy like Stephen King, what about his blank book that has a blank in it, no, you’re ruining it!, a strong theory about westerns: ketchup and mustard, #KetchupAndMustardGetup, it means something but probably not anything important, pulp style covers, blues and whites, yellow and red for clothes, snowing.

The Many-Headed Hydra

Europe Supported By Africa And America by William Blake

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The SFFaudio Podcast #741 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Heads Of Cerberus by Francis Stevens


The SFFaudio Podcast #741 – The Heads Of Cerberus by Francis Stevens – read by Christina Fu for LibriVox. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novel (6 hour 14 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, and Alex

Talked about on today’s show:
The Thrill Book, August 15 August 15 1919, Polaris Books, the opening illustration, found and enhanced, three persons, two men and a woman, described for the listen, suits and ties and coats and pants, grey dust presumably, a topless lady in a dress at the center of the web, about an hour into the book, Ulithia, she’s not wearing a badge, the warning voice of the land of illusion, she’s a weaver, she’s a spider woman, she’s a spinner and a snipper and a weaver, the Fates, the Mori or the Norns, a long and detailed plot summary, E.F. Bleiler, 1990, in it everyday, a story summary of every science fiction story, Science Fiction The Early Years, densely packed, a typewriter, like a wikipedia of ancient books, like reading goodreads, authentically focused on giving summarized thoughts and a plot description, tricky to summarize, taking it seriously,

Questions of reality in the form of science-fantasy,
shading into both true science-fiction and supernatural
fiction. * Philadelphia and an other-world.
* Drayton, a down and out, unjustly disbarred lawyer,
breaks into a house, intending to burglarize
it, and is caught by the occupant, a former close
friend (Trenmore). * Trenmore has no hard feelings
about the intended crime and is willing to help his
friend. After some general conversation he shows
Drayton a novelty he bought at an auction, a small
glass vial with a metal cap formed of three canine
heads. Labelled “Dust from the Rocks of Purgatory,”
the contents of the vial were supposedly collected
by Dante, while the container was Benvenuto Cellini’s
work. * The friends pry open the bottle, a dust
swirls out, and Trenmore disappears. While Drayton
is standing in shock, Trenmore’s sister Viola bursts
in, accuses Drayton of foul play, and also disappears.
Drayton, an honorable man, decides that he,
too, must die, and deliberately inhales the gray
dust. # He awakens in a strange land, curiouslylighted,
littered with ruins, along with Trenmore
and Viola. Judging from an inscription the land is
called Ulithia. It is peopled with fantastic beings,
perhaps supernatural, who urge them on their
way. * After passing through a moon-shaped door they
find themselves back in Philadelphia, but with a
difference. They are arrested almost immediately
for not wearing numbers, and when they resist, are
beaten unconscious. * Background: The new Philadelphia
is a separate nation encompassing the former
Pennsylvania. The year is 2118. The land is run by
Penn Service, which permits no knowledge of the outside
world. Technology is about the same as in our
world, but the political and social systems are very
different. The masses of the people, who have no
rights j are not allowed to have personal names, only
numbers. They are also forbidden to read books or
newspapers, and are completely under the authority
of Penn Service. * The administration consists of
two groups, a hereditary aristocracy called the Service
that controls the land, and executives called
Superlatives, who administrate. The Service is composed
of decadent, degenerate capitalists of the
most vicious sort, while the Superlatives are crooks
and flunkies. The Superlatives have titles: the
chief of police is Quickest; the high judge is Virtue;
the head of the lawyers’ guild is Cleverest;
while Loveliest is a figurehead woman ruler with
little real power. * The Numbers (the masses) are
allowed to conduct their businesses as they wish—
the monetary unit being a work unit— but Penn Service
can seize what it needs or desires. Protest or
rebelliousness on the part of the Numbers is treated
harshly, with the ultimate, often-used Pit of the
Past, a spike-lined pit containing a mechanical monster.
* The Numbers are also kept down by the state
religion, which venerates William Penn and focuses
on a red bell that hangs in the great Temple (our
City Hall). The official belief is that the land
will dissolve into nothing if the bell is rung.
Most of the officials consider this dogma to be only
a superstition useful for controlling the masses. *
To return to the story: When Drayton and Trenmore
regain consciousness, they are hauled before Mr.
Virtue, who offhandedly sentences the men to the Pit
and awards Viola to a fellow Servant. It looks like
death, but the earth people are saved by two other
Servants who want to use them for their own plots.
The Superlative Loveliest has developed a passion
for the Herculean Trenmore, while the scheming Cleverest
hopes to use Viola to overthrow Loveliest.
He also lusts for Viola’s beautiful body. * The
mechanism for fulfilling these plots is the Contests,
or the Civil Service Examinations, in which
contestants can challenge incumbents, the losers
being thrown into the Pit. Loveliest wants Trenmore
to challenge the current Strongest, and Cleverest
wants Viola to challenge Loveliest for her office.
The earth people decide to go along temporarily, but
intend to double cross the Servants. * The Contests,
which take place over the Pit, are supervised by Mr.
Justice Supreme, a vile and vicious old man. As the
comrades should have guessed, the tests are rigged
and proceed according to the wishes of Mr. Justice
Supreme and his nephew, Cleverest. * How the contests
might have ended is never told, for there are
disruptions. First, there is a small rebellion of
the Numbers, bloodily suppressed, then Drayton’s
escapade. He wandered off, entered the forbidden
library, and learned not only the prohibited secret
history of the land (which emerged out of crooked
contractors and gangsters), but its precarious existence.
The legend of the bell is true. A twentieth-
century scientist, who discovered how to destroy
matter by means of resonances, embodied the
resonance of the land in the bell, which is the old
Liberty Bell recast. Its vibrations can destroy
Philadelphia. * A melee follows. The comrades escape
for a time, but are trapped, facing certain
death, when Trenmore, desperate, strikes the great
bell. The land dissolves, and the comrades find
themselves back in their own Philadelphia. * As a
subplot, a fourth twentieth-century person was also
present in the other Philadelphia. This was Bertram
the burglar, who accidentally followed Drayton and
the Trenmores into the other-world. More adaptable
than the others, he survived unobtrusively until the
dissolution of the land. Indeed, he even started an
affair with a local young woman, Miss 23000, who
survived the dissolution and came to our Philadelphia
with Bertram. Unfortunately, she disappears
when she loses contact with the vial. * Explanations
are in order, and they are offered in plenitude
by Mr. Scarboro, a collector who desperately
wants the dust and is caught sneaking about the
house. According to Scarboro, the dust is not ancient,
but is the discovery of the great modern
scientist Andrew Power (whose name is familiar as
one of the founders of Penn Service). The universe
is filled with parallel worlds that interpermeate
and are separated by vibratory rate. Power’s chemical
changes one’s vibration, moving one to Ulithia,
which seems to be a necessary staging area and
common ground for such worlds. After Power left to
explore various parallel worlds, Scarboro carried on
his work; while he does not know how to make the
powder, he has worked out a controllable means of
returning, which Power does not have. * Scarboro
continues in somewhat contradictory expansions of
what he has just said. He turns the parallel worlds
into the whims of superbeings, and then claims that
the worlds do not really exist. He further attributes
the corrupt nature of Penn Service to the corruption
in the minds and hearts of the three explorers,
who projected their own flaws into the land. *
Highly imaginative work, one of the classics of early
pulp fantastic fiction. While the characterizations
are pulp simplistics, the cynical anti-authoritarian
note in the description of the culture of
Penn Service is refreshing. The final destruction
of reality or rationality is a fine anticipation of
the work of Philip K. Dick.

The Cosmic Computer by H. Beam Piper, Vulcan’s Hammer?, Eye In The Sky, the Bevatron, paranoid communist world, a similar mechanism, one alternative world, not including the staging area, setup for sequels, like a role playing game, grey powder, The Strange, Monte Cook Games, more about those otherworlds, I wanna read that book, chases Power, there’s a book here, there’s a book under there, her premise is awesome, the premise is stronger than the center, the Dante dust from purgatory, it’s actually all mad science, I liked the ancient powder, she loves mad scientist, half-Japanese and half-German, get as many of the axis powers in, The Curious Experience Of Thomas Dunbar, the first superhero, bitten by a radioactive spider, superpowers, Samson, 40 years too early, comics hadn’t been invented yet, 2118, the cab looks like a 1918 cab, she explains it away, the same uniforms, the same sheets, not a simple time travel story, pulls the rug out from under us, metafictional, bought at the drug store, strange experience in another world, these no-readers playboying about time, explaining to Scott, this burglar and another burglar, that’s cool, totalitarian universe, she’s having a helluva lot of fun, how imaginative this lady is, anticipating Philip K. Dick, there’s no more timely science fiction story than E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops, the system is falling apart, skype calls with people on the other side of the planet, damaged relationships, very very timely, Howard’s End, a mixing of genres, pre-the word science fiction or scientifiction, it’s not H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, not fantasy purely, scientific romance, she moved to Philadelphia, the husband was a treasure hunter who died on an expedition, to pay the bills, sick mother, whatever this is, a five year period, really really good at it, Sunfire, 1917-1920, a few novels, a good handful of short stories, it’s fun!, a fun book!, very peppy, a secret plot, the bell of doom!, powderland, you create the world out of your personality, right at the end, true but not in the book, none of their personalities seem to match, Miss 23000, I say she but she was nothing, the metafictional aspect, an excuse, our hero murdered an entire country of people, you destroyed an entire world, they’re on a train reading a pulp fiction magazine, after, The Goddess Of Atvatabar, more 1890s than 1920s, 1884, the year she was born, totalitarian and dystopian, Penn Service Philadelphia, not 1984 world, not Brave New World world, theater?, no more school!, abolishing all grades, dance halls and free movies!

“And they–the grafters–set themselves up as masters of the city under threat of its complete destruction. They called themselves the Servants of Penn. They curtailed the education of the people as needless and too expensive. When the people complained, they placated them by abolishing all grades above the primary and turning the schools into dance halls and free moving-picture theaters.”

you’ll end up a number, what almost makes it science fiction, a pulp style cover of Nineteen-Eighty Four, anti-sex league, I’m going to sex you, the signet giant edition, I wanna visit that dystopia, security guy BDSM, the trick to get you into this world, a movement afoot, the illusory universe we live in, less interested in prurient things, ban pornography, Everyone Is Beautiful And No One Is Horny by R.S. Benedict, enemies to friends, interior Pennsylvania place, great friend, you’re from Earth too!, villain of the week, villain light, I like kimchi you like kimchi, a petty thief, not even his house, everybody in the house except Martin, some subtle stuff, mirror mirror song, time’s a traitor but the web is real, liar/lyre,

“The web lies broad in the weaving room.

(Fly, little shuttle fly!)

The air is loud with the clashing loom.

(Fly, little shuttle fly!)”

There was a brief pause in the melody, then:

“Year on year have I woven here.

Green earth, white earth, and autumn sere;

Sitting singing where the earth-props mold;

Weave I, singing, where the world grows old.

Time’s a traitor, but the loom is leal–

Time’s a liar, but the web is real!

Hear my song and behold my web!

(Fly, little shuttle–!)”

Francis Stevens moving the typewriter carriage return, very focused on making it all consistent, the four people, Robert E. Howard’s favourite character: hulking irishman, a giant!, he’s the strongest, sent in superlatives, cleverest, the most beautiful, only 19, this criminal, two win the superlatives, aha!, ooh!, very pulpy, plot twist, weird scientific explanation, phantasmagoria, bookended, Voyage To Arcturus by David Lindsay, that was unexpected, lacking colour, the three colours of the buttons, rolling up your D&D character, sorcerer, a D&D party, a setup for RPGs, storytelling like this, 40 years, rolling dice, telling stories, facing threats and being heroes, dealing with what you’ve been dropped into, collaborative storytelling, fantastical situations, literally a Shakespearean style comedy, marriage, shocked about it, interesting and early, Atvatabar was tedious in many spots, pacy, a day of listening at work, it didn’t flag, reseeing these characters, now you need to read the next book, cinematic universe, nickname was “Skidoo”, corny old fashioned, kale, a gat, he pulled a gat, gangsters wreck America, Buck Rogers, sleeping for 500 years, Killer Kane, a queer kind of totalitarianism, seeing it from a particular scale, badly then well treated, as Skidoo did, where she came from, found her at a whorehouse, introduced to her parents, at a dancehall, 1918 scolding has become their religion in 2118, Brave New World and Soma, kept ignorant, the forbidden library, Logan’s Run (1976), don’t trust anybody over 30, youre dosed with alcohol, pre-genes genetic engineering, making people deliberately dumb, our big handsome irishman, Trenmore, did he win the lottery?, homeless, a gold cigarette case, a pulpy version of The Time Machine, the Eloi and the Morlocks, effete cute, delicious elven people, descendants of coal shoveler and engineers, their food product, not objects of sexual desire, only into the future, a bunch of different futures, the dying earth, strange symbols adorn a garden world, the gatherers of the Eloi, make them clothes, bizarre, collars to cows, hobby horse, we have a class of people who are useless, the gentlemanly class, other people who know how things work, a hereditary class, the singing contest, new kid sounds great, condemned to the pit, making an argument about government corruption, the mob running the city, a fear of mobs and organized crime that has been lost culturally, over there, drug cartels, the gangs were going to take over the whole things, The Warriors (1979), and they have, not mafia, gangs have taken over politics, do crime on a large scale, CIA running drugs, geopolitical scale, movies exposing this to the public, the whole genre of pulp magazine, Scarface (1929), gangland movies, Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995), more like [Richard Stark’s] Parker, taking scores, The Score (2001), biographical, The Godfather (1972), Black Mass (2015), he played it bald, Leonardo Di Caprio and Marky Mark, The Departed (2006), Pain And Gain (2013), Ed Harris, Tony Shaloub, muscles big and robbing, such a light touch, he’s been naughty, woodshed, masculine storytelling, A Princess Of Mars is light, male wish fulfillment, the pallyness, they liked each other so much, a woman’s imagination of men’s relationships, oh my dear boy!, a boy who likes a girl, a lesbian woman, had never been a teenage boy, probably true, similar in intensely different ways, the new PDF Page, how many exist, three possibly missing things (possibly 2, maybe 1), the description doesn’t match, 11 items total, The Labyrinth from All-Story, July-August 1918, Behind The Curtain, a cute little mummy story, Serapion, Argosy in 1920, Claimed, Friend Island, The Elf Trap, Unseen-Unfeared, that’s not enough, a magic dust to take us to her laboratory, when she got remarried?, gave up her daughter?, the biographical details on her are very bad, Gertrude Barrows Bennett, two pictures come up, people didn’t know that she wasn’t A. Merritt until the 1940s, okay at best, Dwellers In The Marriage, The Moon-Pool, The Ship Of Ishtar, LibriVox, poor and poorly sourced, dubious, discuss, an illustrator, invalid mother, 1917-1920, the kinda citation, moved to California, death certificate, the Social Security Administration, the woman who invented “dark fantasy”, Aztec temples, most of her stuff is much more like science fiction, a scientist who we never meet, materialize certain eastern ideas, a scientific process, Spider-Man is a super-science story, weirdly undercuts, not even set in the future, a weird hell, that’s what would happen to you, their descendants become numbered people in a weird corrupt society, The Last Ship, everybody’s dying, reestablishing the American government in Missouri?, the new White House, regional leadership, the backstory of this, dystopia/utopia, a secret group, who those people are, who are they?, special badges, this planet that doesn’t really exist, weird totalitarian differences, Sliders, everybody’s a cat planet, Soviet America planet, not knowing social norms, what science fiction does, the book as written, something like proto-science fiction, this future was Andrew Power’s fault, fuck all of you, the borders are closed, I’ve heard of him, changing all these different places, he made the dust, he’s the changer, if we read the next book in the series, diminishing returns, the ice cream store, so many options and flavours, with ideas, as a premise is exhausted, as the ideas are wrung out, the idea of series comes out, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Sherlock Holmes, the biggest series ever, Dracula II, stick around for more of the same, really creative, she’s drawing on her experience of moving to Philadelphia, not hard science, the social science is exploring social norms, a pulp package, missing people, here’s a woman, our loss, when the next one comes out, we’re going to have to treasure it, LibriVox, no requirement, Christina Fu, a really great title, Benvenuto Cellini, autobiography, his Perseus, Alexander Dumas, Rolex, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Lois McMaster Bujold, Ian Fleming, How To Steal A Million, Nick Carter’s stiletto, Killmaster novels, Randolph Carter, The Punisher, airport books, Executioner, Deathlands, gun polishing books, tough guy in dystopian, fucking off across the United States, Clive Cussler, Nelson DeMille, non-book people, oh I see you like books, really good, Jesse doesn’t know everything, Lion’s Game, good books by people you’ve never read, an airport novel, the main character is sarcastic, a thin read and thick book, this guy is really fun, enjoying reading it, Reacher, Lee Child, character driven fun plot stories thing, need to read other books, feel the need or market demand, a great sense of loss, a tragedy, The Elf-Trap was a long time ago, pre-pandemic, 553, a couple hundred episodes ago, November 2019, hang on Maissa!, a major book, out, a good book, revelations about reality, the skill of a fantasist, connecting with somebody from 100 years ago, what she’s trying to do, far enough away for time to pass, staying in hotels and other people’s houses, what an imagination!, fly away Friday, The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper, The Skull by Philip K. Dick, most close for The Terminator, blackmailed into The Moon Maid, Shadows In Zamboula, Space Viking by H. Beam Piper, she loves a good libertarian, percentages of libertarians who are women, Ayn Rand is the only one, H. Beam Piper and his no-wife were libertarians, the Traveler RPG, bros pumping iron and robbin banks, the Swat Team are clearly post-9/11, space soldiers, The Last Ship, nautical stuff, little bit like Star Trek, 10,000 refugees, The Cosmic Computer, Excalibur, sword worlds, legendary swords, one day a starship rediscovered…, space vikings!, this boy book, a bit boy, scarred from The Cosmic Computer, good H. Beam Piper, more actiony, sit around creating economics, two-fisted, Poul Anderson, The Golden Slave, a sword and sandal book, sold!, hungry homeless pagan tribe, 1960, barbarian in chains with a lady on a divan with really nice hair, whipped by a lady, Esther Friesner, Chicks ‘n Chained Males, a chick in chain mail and a guy chained up, the puns got worse, I hear baby, players calling, a thundering novel of conquest and vengeance, a dude in a fur bikini chained up, the lady has some grapes, lines, Vancouver Island, wrecked the business, as new kids come…, that’s the hope, some people are not mask-obsessive anymore, masks recommended on BC Ferries, hairnet is fine, do something to society, wrecking the tutoring business (as an in person thing), online is not as good, share a drawing, share food, treating them like humans (to be feared), harbingers of doom and gloom, clearly likes it to commit to three cows, from chickens to cows, an old disabled retired lady, a picture of cows, 9 chickens, 3 cows, 4 dogs, farmhands?, milking, a spring thing, how long does a cow gestate, raising for beef, commune with the cows, Maissa and Will, Will must be in a depressed mode, handsome cows, funny looking, furrier, spottingness, hobby cows, what they think of themselves as, happy cows, there’s a Joe Rogan episode, a Spotify person, a cattle guy, regenerative farm, chemicals and hormones, beef for eating, learn a lot, wrestling or whatever, an apiary lady, sadly no apes, a bee lady, Erika Thompson, her heroes were Jane Goodall and the ape lady (Dian Fossey), pr, full time bees, a tiktok star, a bee problem, the bees have taken over, more suitable for everybody, practical stuff, bee stuff, what their society is like, bees are not like humans, that hive-mind things, the queens are the sex organs of the superbeing, how are queens made, is the queen in charge, the drones are all females, the males don’t do anything, really fascinating, interesting questions, interested in interesting things, talk about bees for 3 hours, Joe Rogan gets a lot of shit, how the smoke works, “drowsy”, the smoke prevents them from detecting alarm pheromones, a shield, interesting people talking about things they’re interested in talking about, book focused, some person who wrote a book, popular with guys, depending on the subject, fighting stuff, a commentator, working on Fear Factor, some farm somewhere, until they sort it out, fight to the death, individually bees have no intelligence, as a collective they act like a big organism, the sad life of a male bee, when your skin cell falls off, not important, give it royal jelly, a collective consciousness, neurotransmitters are outside their bodies, school fucks up, hanging out with the bee lady, school doesn’t teach the right things, sad story, interesting podcast, go for a walk with the bee lady, kitty litter, cream, fear of black coffee, after a good podcast, tea, absence makes the stomach go fonder, just enough, playing it close, cream on the regular, milk her cow, eggs, enjoy your walk.

ad for The Heads Of Cerberus by Francis Stevens from The Thrill Book, August 1, 1919

The Heads Of Cerberus by Francis Stevens from The Thrill Book, August 15, 1919

The Heads Of Cerberus by Francis Stevens from The Thrill Book, August 15, 1919

The Heads Of Cerberus by Francis Stevens from The Thrill Book

The Heads Of Cerberus by Francis Stevens from The Thrill Book

The Heads Of Cerberus by Francis Stevens from The Thrill Book

The Heads Of Cerberus by Francis Stevens from The Thrill Book

POLARIS - The Heads Of Cerberus by Francis Stevens

POLARIS - The Heads Of Cerberus by Francis Stevens

The Heads Of Cerberus by Francis Stevens

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Reading, Short And Deep #379 – The Unseen Blushers by Alfred Bester

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #379

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Unseen Blushers by Alfred Bester

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

The Unseen Blushers was first published in Astonishing Stories, June 1942.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #375 – Everything And Nothing by Jorge Luis Borges

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #375

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Everything And Nothing by Jorge Luis Borges

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

Everything And Nothing was first published in Spanish in Versión, Autumn 1958.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #729 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain


The SFFaudio Podcast #729 – The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain – read by John Greenman for Librivox. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novel (6 hours 42 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Trish E. Matson.

Talked about on today’s show:
1876, conflating some with Huckleberry Finn, the whitewashing of the fence, the whole business with the caves, the pirate incident, pretending to be dead, the business with the graves, Injun Joe, why people thought they were dead, play pirate, engaged, bosom friend Joe, what’s with his cousin, Sid, half-brother, Aunt Polly, single parent families, Judge Thatcher’s wife, Huck’s dad, gone, because the civil war, pre-civil war, set in the 1840s, disease?, pirates?, re-written as a science fiction book, there’s no outside communication with big cities, time placement with technology, lucifer matches, middle ages tech, St. Petersburg, Missouri, newfangled, no slavery we can see, the absence of industry, so kid oriented, so kid focused, a traditional plotted book, a bildungsroman, a picaresque, Twain’s first novel, incidents, a memory of growing up in this place at that time, not plot driven, Hannibal, Missouri, a made up town, the Illinois shore, going downriver to Illinois, he’s not making a mistake, we are making some misunderstanding, I had eleven toes, the bottom right hand corner, a fictionalization of his geography, an island, a sandbar, detailed fantasy map, how the cave system works, karst topography, mid-19th century American stuff, Ballou’s Dollar Monthly, right after Poe and before Twain, Atlantic Monthly, contemporary fiction magazine, a bent towards the fun, An Adventure Under Ground by W.D. Harrington, blooming for the grave, a story about a treasure in a cave, afeared, no companion Huck Finn, a body that has been covered in limestone, almost Lovecraftian cosmicism, stalactite dripping, a robber completely covered in limestone, turned into a statue, externally fossilized, locked inside of a tomb of limestone, a waterfall, the treasure was the escape, The Beast In The Cave by H.P. Lovecraft, Becky Thatcher, turned into a troglodyte, a C.H.U.D.?, a ghoul, The “Minions Of The Moon” by George L. Aiken, highborn noblemen rapists, pirates vs. robbers, the red handed, why he has to keep going to church, foster mom, you have to be a nobleman to be a robber, ancient tropes from the penny dreadfuls, Robin Hood, a Saxon nobleman, a lowborn local hero, pirates raid the triangle trade, pirates of the Caribbean, ex-slaves, Our Flag Means Death, unrealistic fantasy elements, Stede Bonnet, the romanticism of piracy, be and do that, all the fantasies that Tom and Huck have, what we remember vs. the majority of the book, fantasies interrupted by real events, keeping the guns in the cave, haunted house, adult versions of Tom and Huck are evil, actual robbers, murderers, low class people, absolute pronouncements, he’s read the books, overhearing adults, getting engaged, what’s consistently proven, blood oaths, children always report on each other, Huck’s rich!, when the beans are spilled, when Sid rats him our several times, a tattletale, preying on his conscience, jailed unjustly, the trial scene, “stealthy” or “stealthily”, I stealthily left the river, an interpretation, hiding behind a log, making silent agreements, things that would upset stories, when the murder quarrel sprung up, graverobbing, hidden agendas, through Tom’s eyes, protecting their own, strange dynamics of adults, male adult role models, judges, a source of awe, the senator isn’t 25 feet tall, a prize for excellent trading, an excellent businessman, so Twain, we’ll draw a veil over the rest of this, the meta-materials, that blue covered bible, Gustave Dore, that book didn’t exist yet, pre-Civil War, Mart Twain was in the Civil War for a brief period, when you read Mark Twain, using these racist epithets, this is not a racist book, the low class people use the n word, nobody but an injun, everybody who listening to this, the lack of racism with regards to blacks, one half-breed in this book, he’s about to name Injun Joe as the murderer, escapes into the wilderness, revenge, free range, whatever, free ranging, greatly disappointed, she thought of him that way before, a hanging crime, testifying against a murderer, move towns and change your name, all sorts of crazy things we can’t imagine in our society today, missing kids, a known murderer escapes, casual and expected daily beatings of children, it is unbelievable, historical fact, if this were a fantasy novel, corporal punishment, distasteful as a reader, conflict, love, punishing for the good of his soul, spare the rod and spoil the child, Sid breaks the sugarbowl, refuses to apologize, her conscience reproached her, parallel with Becky, the noblest lie, George Washington and the cherry tree, how interesting Twain as a man is, Stephen King’s It, sympathizing with children, not a trauma book, the adventures of not the travails of, Tom has Agency, very 19th century thing, a politeness/impoliteness contest, if you cross this I’ll beat your head off, two soldiers confronting each other, two medieval knights, some random kid, equal contemporaries, is Huck Finn a little older?, how old are these boys?, a timeless age, not older than 12, his interest in Becky, a kiss, chivalrous love, no vestige of sexual attraction, a wife, girls are yucky, he’s too old for that, Tom gets it, Huck’s not there yet, what are girls good for, when you’re a high class robber, Huck Finn doesn’t hate that idea, when Becky and Tom are missing, they’ve run off to the cave to have sex, they’re dead, between 9 and 12, how much death is a part of life, orphans, drowned in the river, stabbed by a half-breed in the graveyard, he’s so funny, they trade everything, a rat on a string, you can swing it, weird superstitions, incantations, spells, step on crack you break your mother’s back, step on a line break your mother’s spine!, witches, pictures himself dead in great and loving detail, fantasize, when I’m dead people will appreciate me, part of the fantasy, I’ll show them!, coming back in the middle of the funeral, too strong a coincidence, bury a dead cat as a cure for warts, special spell, works great!, a kitten with one eye, my cat with one eye, a knife that doesn’t cut things, a doorknob, a piece of blue glass, I’ll trade you my tooth, if you were an alien, a little kid on the playground, getting clout, telling lies that could be true because they’re so authentic, complete lies all the time, not exactly hypocrisies, taking sweetmeats and apples is hooking vs. stealing a whole ham, piracy vs. stealing, what is going to keep Tom and Joe from becoming Injun Joe and the other guy, found dead, the whole town wanted him hung, they want to pardon him, eating bats and candles and dying of thirst, The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, black racism, the plot intrigue, figure out the throughline, the plot, the resolution, the description of how he’s died, the unspoken thing, the natives: where are they?, its sad but they were savages, a most horrible thing in this book, they don’t exist anymore, he’s not a specific kind of indian, what was the reason Nigger Jim left with Tom, he’s a runaway slave, Huck’s conscience torments him, that’s stealing from the owner, friendship or basic respect, a love story, a fellow human being, Hook vs. Huck, another pirate story with children, living in barrels, he’s Diogenes, living in a hog’s head, somebody adopts him, he’s a homeless kid who loves the lifestyle of being homeless, all the other kids admire and respect and wish they were him, he can swear and smoke, he doesn’t have to go to school or church, no chores!, grotesquely and lovingly described clothing, the seat of his pants is empty, ultimately respected, good at tricking people into doing things, the famous fence scene, completely free, he had to do this he had to do this, I’m way more free than he is, I have to have a job, he gets money from his parents, childhood psychology, fantasy reality, beautifully and classically, three or four sequels, Tom Sawyer, Detective, League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, timelessness, anywhere and anywhen, he understands kids, one of the best books ever?, a very good book, so American, easy to fall into, completely immersive, Paul was a kid again, the world through Tom’s eyes, adult insights, “work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do”, a classic for sure, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a more “important” book, Huckleberry Finn has a greater standing, a mighty theme, Moby-Dick, autobiographical, To Kill A Mockingbird, white knighting, look at it in its time, rewrite the book, maybe it is wonderful, it’s not one groups job to not write a book so another group can, who is To Kill A Mockingbird for?, who was it written by?, written by a white lady for a white audience, it’s a movie for a white audience, a book (and a movie) with a message, the message is don’t be asshole, help people when you can, that weird metaphor, killing of a bird vs. killing a rabid dog, a symbol, we don’t have anything like that in this book, an axe to grind, it has a huge axe to grind, more adventurey, much more memory, there’s no growing up, how do you end a book about children: they grow up and get married, Tom Sawyer, Abroad, bringing his experiences to this book, fun and funny, appreciating it as an adult after reading it as a kid, too young for Paul?, quite to the contrary, go back and listen to it, four different comic adaptations, caught up in the fence painting scene, in the trailer, a very personal memory, health problems, a stroke, visiting the hospital, reading the whitewashing scene chapter, she was crying, feeling nostalgic?, it moved her, a generational book, shared thoughts and feelings, thematically less important, a cliche, a trope, reverse psychology, why it is so iconic, it’s the trope maker, a lot of classic literature is dreck that got carried over, considered every now and again, “careful, Jesse”, she hid these signs with a forced gaiety, what her sex call a “good cry”, some things humans have that other animals don’t: language, thoughts that can’t be formulated into words, infer she wants water, yes and no, we are not just talking communicating narrative characters, we are also animals, moved to tears in a positive way, a funny scene, hanging out with Mark Twain is just delightful, Mark Twain’s relationship with Dorothy Quick, old men and young girls, a special empathy, a young person who thought he was amazing, he is his own character, a transatlantic crossing, a correspondence for the rest of his life, what makes this book so special, he’s mighty good at what he’s doing here, a pretty good narration, Nick Offerman, Mark Nelson, Becky Thatcher is barely in the book, quasi-fantasy, a Jules Verne spoof, across Africa, a long great writing career, delightful to read, The Curious Republic of Gondour, Robert A. Heinlein, Missouri boys, Heinlein’s cute not funny, wrote a lot of juveniles, Heinlein’s juveniles are 13 to 20ish, an octagonal writing shed, a podcasting shed, soundproof it from the dogs cows and chickens, John Greenman is pretty good, first novel thought to be written on a typewriter, a printer’s apprentice, super-interested in technology, inventions, running out of money so he wrote books, Tom Sawyer Abroad by Huck Finn by Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer is three people I know, he’s Becky Thatcher as well, Mark Twain is not his real name, a pretty good job getting in Becky Thatcher’s head, the very sympathetic Aunt Polly, how she feels, punishing for the wrong reason, that logic holds, Mark Twain thinking as an adult, an empathetic guy, he would have been a great dad, a troublesome husband, two daughters, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, Innocents Abroad, chunky, 25 hours!, how is this longer?, Grover Gardner, The Mysterious Stranger, what is existence really?, an unfinished collection, a supernatural character, No. 44, translated from the jug, The Mystery Of Edwin Drood, get Maissa or Evan.

The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Classics Illustrated - The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

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