Jesse and Alex (Pulpcovers) talk about Congo by Michael Crichton

Talked about on today’s show:
1980, watch the movie?, skimmed through it, segments, the etext, a giant works cited, the audiobook from 1980, people who mess with books, 4 versions of Congo, an abridged version, commercial cassettes, the book for the blind version, stuff at the beginning, we know you’re blind, a regular person, we’re gonna give you everything, the chapter names, the appendices, Mr Michael Crichton is a bit tricky, a faker, a hoaxer, Eaters Of The Dead, checking my footnotes, I made it up, hoax yourself, the Egypt one, Sheba, a lost world sort of book, the John Lange books, The Venom Business, a snake catcher, Scientific American articles, hanging out with his old friends, what’s bad about it, everybody in the book is venomous, they’re toxic, they’ll poison you, more of a bookstore and docks guy, toxic rich people, familial stuff, the people they knew, an extraordinary person, well researched, world traveller, thoughtful, good writer, the way this book was made, it was gonna be a movie, a movie maker, book writer, he created ER and wrote the pilot episode, 15 seasons, a book we should do, The Great Train Robbery, great movie, starred Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland, fun and funny movie, a modern version of King Solomon’s Mines, the great white hunter role, this book is a book, when it came time to make the movie, Jurassic Park blew everybody’s brains out, we have the right!, when it came out, I don’t hate it, it is not a good movie, a flick, forgettable, the fake gorillas, fairly well done, CGI today, couldn’t do hair yet, Bruce Campbell, a small role, Ernie Hudson brings a charm, the highlight of the movie, his accent almost makes it better, keeps it mostly, I’m your great white hunter, movie is fairly accurate to the book, the differences, Amy stay with the gorillas at the end of the movie, less than six foot tall woman, gender flipped, Michael Crichton’s the woman, engaged, have the diamond thrown away, so boring in the is movie, just there to be eaten, an assistant, Tim Curry, nothing like him is in the book, a weird accent, the same accent in Red Alert III, the premiere of alternate steampunk Russia, trying to be a comedy and also be Jurassic Park, play it for humour, married to Kathleen Kennedy, a power couple, if it is based on the book, he’s great, Looker (1981), MK Ultra, people lose time, Zoolander (2001), real stuff, his pattern, his big breakout novel as him was Andromeda Strain, his version of The War Of The Worlds, very clinically vs. a personal narrative, Frankenstein, The Terminal Man, Elon Musk’s brain chip, tin foil cap, the creation of a new being, aiming in that direction, this book is King Solomon’s Mines, references H. Rider Haggard, an after action report, psuedorealism, it’s a solid, Eaters Of The Dead, he leans into the tech, the most dated part of the story, enough metal in the earth, up the megabytes a bit, he tags it in 1979, slightly in the future and perfect cloning technology and rotary phones, a good read, pitch an idea, in 1991, please make this into a movie for us, 20th Century fox, asked James Cameron to do it, there are scenes in this book, badly paralleled in the film, basically the plot of Aliens (1986), a rescue mission, the smart gun scene, the greys are attacking, maybe deleted from the main Aliens movie, another way to get in, they’re smart, as smart as a monkey, Conan and Thak go on an adventure, the grey gorillas as a Conan reference, very smart and psychotic, excited about talking monkeys, popular science, history and archaeology and old books, world travel, high tech computers, at the end of the book, let’s bug out, the volcano, shaped charges, the hippo attack, not have Ross be at fault, her psych profile, the female lead has to be perfect, the final scene, the hot air balloon, she hands the male Amy tickler, so forgettable, could you throw this away for me?, the laser, blowing up a satellite wasn’t enough, we need this emotional catharsis, we need to have the guy have something to do, they made the corporation be the bad guy, life insurance policy, in and out alive, take no more risks, they’re not slave drivers, very charitable to the mineral exploration unit, a Hollywood thing, you can’t get nuance in film, lay it out for the reader, this character is heroic and this character is a coward, puts the diamond in the laser, setting greys on fire, brutal compared to what’s in the book, some sympathy, the clapping on the head, the rock paddles, Michael Crichton is way better than Hollywood, even the jungle looks fake, second unit out to Africa, Costa Rica, the Zinge city was okay, if they had done it in the sixties it would be a really nice matte painting, ruin, a lost city in the modern day, plausible, the gemstones are gone, industrial diamonds are still there, a cool driver for the plot, explain, backstory why his idea about computers needing these things for WWIII, his focus on the importance of tech, satellite communication and analysis, repurpose it for translating, a lot more work, it all comes down to the real stuff with Koko the gorilla, in the text, 10-15% of the book is just that, up to speed on what they’re doing, the night goggle, what kind of growth, a lot of this in Brazil, lost ruins everywhere, all these mounds, this used to be a cultivated land, some sort of civilization, the idea of a lost world, the Hyborian Age, Archeron, Younger Dryas, Queen Of Sheba a real lady, cities in Africa long ago, a Robert E. Howard or H. Rider Haggard style story up to date, racial memories, a theory come back with MK Monarch, they’re designation, mind kontrol, people trying to make wind up assassins, we seem to have a lot of, genetic memory of where to go and what to do, generational trauma, the CIA and DARPA spent a lot of money, remote viewing, based on reality, a guy had violent seizures, put a chip in him, detect an oncoming seizure, Mengele style experiments, not from the killer’s POV, control his kills, this has racial memory, they had what Amy had done to them, I like tickles, become an attack dog, control these slaves, prevent people from stealing, this goes back to Thak, taken away from his parents, weren’t much of tools and clothes, under the control of a local billionaire, sympathy for the grey apes and the regular apes, Amy?, Munroe is fun, the competent one, so much action, the war starts, jump out of the airplane, river rafting, the Michael Crichton website, he went after, he was a mountain climber, a scuba diver, a real adventurer, a funny scene, when the hippopotamuses attack, the trainer/tickler, he looks over at the female form of our heroine, a moment later he sees the sweat on her back, that desire passes, Travels by Michael Crichton, selected part of his life, guru training stuff in the desert, drinking too much, hanging out with movie stars, went to Belize with his sister, almost died down there, wasn’t dead, an immediate desire to have sex, that was really fucked up, I resisted, basing your writing but on your noticing of your interests and then projecting, he overplays that, the excuse to get the lost city of Zinge, looking around the area, Dian Fossey, as it happens Sigourney Weaver, Laura Linney is a housekeeper, blast these aliens with the laser beam, put them on the endangered species list, Love Actually (2003), brittle smile, Delroy Lindo, the guy from Oz, Crichton loves the side characters, delve into the Kikuyus, time spent figuring out what Amy is thinking, we only get her words, a power glove, speak and spell, Amy Love Tickles, kind a goofy, this book being a science fiction book, a Canadian author, [Peter Watts’s Blindsight], this is there place, these invaders come in, walk around the place that’s our, a microscopic colonialism, this far and no farther, stone clappers and our culture of skull crushing, they’re meat eaters, they also killed gorillas, a weird half-civilization that stood apart, co-developed, once they got up to speed with language, they develop a culture, got a visit from Robin Williams, she’s still in the zoo, I want to be a mother, I wanna be a mom, they gave her a kitten, another one, treating these creatures equally, wish fulfillment, everybody gets happy, doing monkey things, we’re taking over your expedition, runs out of money conveniently, closer to the book somehow, more like Aliens and Terminator, fragile smile, Linda Hamilton, a soft girl a hard woman, Cameron does girls well, one of his wives, the lady who made No Escape (1994), Ray Liotta, just gang war, very b movie, the greatest b movie every, Deep Rising (1998), Wes Studi is amazing, The Last Of The Mohicans (1992), so evil, motivated, very specific revenge, nephew loves it, Dance With Wolves (1990), you don’t need 7 movies to be a champion, the epicness, the way it is done, the story proper is fine, why are people shitting on him, who wants to hang out with rich assholes, the weirdest Michael Crichton book, of an age, volunteering in the library, teen service hour, the new one was Airframe, the plane goes haywire, lands successfully, something went really wrong, the TSA investigation of what happened, basically Boeing, dueling conspiracies, a fascinating book, aircraft incident investigation, the pilot let his son come into the cabin, that’s the end of the book, it seems to not fit the pattern of the books prior, on the other hand, a mix of real life interests and a literary version of that, Zero Cool [Grave Descend], a tropical island, what is going on here?, Michael Crichton is his books, deep dive, we see these airplane disasters, every couple of years, Gander, Newfoundland, coming back from Suez, supposedly doing peacekeeping, Lockerbie, Scotland, the ideas are better, Binary, a tv movie, an assassination of republican presidential candidate, some hacking going on, mind modelling, think like the killer, Manhunter (1986), Michael Mann, going on airplanes with liquids, make a bomb, he’s come up with an interesting idea, Easy Go, getting in behind character, The Andromeda Strain, a crying baby, we don’t care, old man with a stomach problem, very busy saving the world, the Artilleryman, round up some women and go underground, what kills the aliens, the common cold, a twist, fat actor, used to be thin, kid dies in airplane accident, still producing, monkey hybrid book?, State Of Fear, the one about climate change isn’t real, after he died, he completely wrote that, Pirate Latitudes, Micro, Dragon Teeth, posthumous publication completed by James Patterson, a Shadow novel, a modern take on The Shadow, The Phantom (1996), Billy Zane, I want to do a Spirit movie, the 2nd RoboCop movie, Frank Miller, perfect enough as it is, Rising Sun, a little horror of the Japanese, that period, RoboCop 3, a samurai robot, Black Rain (1989), Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia, they kill his partner, when James Bond goes to Japan, some Japanese version of Michael Douglas, yakuza, Crocodile Dundee, fish out of water, a Neuromancer for Apple, hard to adapt, the plot of Neuromancer, living in freezers in orbit, grubby, war in Russia, ai just wants to be free, putting a team together, heist itself out, the mindwashed special forces guy, the Turing police, clearly terrifying, rogue ai, we’re blowing everything up, our viewpoint character, Case, the guy who wrote Vampires, John Steakley, Armor, both main characters are named John Crow, I have a limited set of skills, over emphisise Molly Millions, strong female characters, her backstory, instagram whore, an onlyfans worker, giving herself claws, be an ninja, razor blades in my fingers, Case is in her body, gives Case a thrill, full of sparks, cohesive plot, the opening line etcetera, what they do with the sky, gonna be blue, grey, omit that scene, kind of the problem, what colour is the sky, even referencing television, the cold war stuff, an alternate history, Cold War II, which one would it be?, Pirate Latitudes, Dragon Teeth, Sphere, The Abyss, except for the aliens, Timeline, Paul Walker, rock and role jousting, Heath Ledger, blonde white boys, his version of The Time Machine, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, Connie Willis books, she always won the Hugo award, a professor, studying a certain period of time, The Domesday Book, way to long, WWII, the Blitz, bellringers in the blitz, very much a girl, girl book, King Of Attolia Megan Whalen Turner, good to make babies with?, middle age Greece if Christianity never happened, some Italian kingdoms, France exists in some flavour, weird mix of Byzantines and Persians, flintlock weapons, the old pantheons, fantasy world, late medieval Greece, the Invaders, some version of Rome, functionally, very little of magic, freaks characters out, the guy with his hand cut off, a really clever guy, constantly underestimating this guy, how did he manage to make himself king, cut his hand off, married to a Zenobia who cut his hand off, Elizabeth I, in charge, the cold queen, well written, all about the same length, is that a bad book, if you don’t enjoy it is a bad book, he crossed the border one time and the border police beat the shit out of him, convicted of assault, reprimanded or something, give people lip, keep him in detention, really good and spark and very hard to follow, Greg Bear books, Superstring?, amazing short stories, difficult to understand, Darwin’s Children, Foundation novels, Blood Music, a grey goo problem, plasma based, his writing is hard to follow, he explains what’s going on, a hard to follow Larry Niven, an interesting phenomena of science, The Wind From A Burning Woman, so different from each other, walking cities, kill the earth, it’s hard, hard ideas, hard science fiction, wild, not tame, not controlled, they know what they mean but they didn’t write that, making things clear, your awesome idea, intentional desire to struggle with the text, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Man Of The Crowd, playing chess with a guy who’s better than me, The Gold Bug, one of the few ones with black characters, an actual bug that’s gold, ciphers in there, a treasure hunt sort of thing, A Tale Of The Ragged Mountains, the M. Valdemar story, hypnotism, M blank, stories set in the future, they tend to be humorous, many Poes to still be investigated, School For Virgins, Timeline sometime, Black Cannan.

Posted by Jesse Willis