Rudyard Kipling – Page 2

The SFFaudio Podcast #610 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Star Hunter by Andre Norton

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #610 – Star Hunter by Andre Norton; read by Leonie Rose

This unabridged reading of the story (3 hours 37 minutes) is followed by a discussion of it.

Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Will Emmons, Trish E. Matson, and J. Manfred Weichsel talk about Starhunter by Andre Norton

Talked about on today’s show:
Ace Double d-509, Voodoo Planet, 1961, Planet Of Alien Monsters!, a thrill packed account, an interstellar safari, All Cats Are Gray, plotting, geography, this planet somewhere east of the Sierra Madre, a planetary romance, Burroughs’ Africa, Colorado-y, southern Appalachians, water cats, The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose Farmer, relationships vs. biome, safari planet, the sounds of little animals, its the seas are so shallow, Beast Master by Andre Norton, Eye Of The Monster, The Sioux Spaceman, it feels like a series book, space buffalo trap, the sloth people, the takeaway, colonial planets, the county library, The Crystal Gryphon, Quag Keep, bait and switch, Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein, a lost heir in space story, the alien mystery was not even solved, People Of The Crater, Star Born, the preliminary art, Jesse is always seduced by the art, a big hole, a famous science fiction writer, Tarzan as a scam (Tarscam), reframe it from the boy’s POV, Lovecraft’s The Outsider, YOU ARE LORD GREYSTOKE!, every time there’s a piece of technology in this story it fails, the alien field, nevermind about that, as a piece of science fiction all the technology is basically useless, let’s have the kid genetically tested, a half-assed plan, a D&D character rolling a 1, provide complications and fill pages, compare this to Kim and The Jungle Book, Citizen Of The Galaxy, Romulus and Remus, my Robot Jox (1989) movie was not inspired by Transformers, I can do that, an heir to something greater, the greatest spy in the Great Game, a mop boy, a dive bar on a cantina planet, part of this Mandalorian religion, a drugged cup of joe, the fake lost heir, intrigue on an alien planet, maybe they’ll find the actual boy, a The Prince And The Pauper situation, writing it over the weekend and handing it in, the Time Trader novels, could Paul draw a map of where they go and what the geography is?, a safari for what?, that looks like a great book, hiding in the foreground, TECHNOLOGY!, sloth man, even the sloth kid doesn’t get the star treatment, spy vs. spy stuff, in the background of the universe, it could have been a cool story, their sociology their anthropology, if you have a science fiction premise, implanting memories in people’s minds, what would that mean?, I am from the future and here is my rocketship to take you to the Moon, promises to the reader, skeptical straight from the getgo, the sloth people, this should be some sort of mirror to our hero, what is he doing there?, turns out nothing important, (drawing Jesse in), aliens secretly running a planet, the Jack Vance Planet Of Adventure novels, Fredric Brown’s Arena, that story is all symbols, a plastiform hand just like Luke Skywalker, Cool!, make him cool!, gentlefemme, one of the things she’s famous for, pardon Paul’s language, economic classes, ethnic groups, an external mystery or threat, Jumanji, Finnish for God, why?, how much drug taking is going on, maybe this *IS* the Great Game, sort of a YA novel, the relationship that Kipling had to his wetnurse, an analog for him, sympathy for the lower classes, of earth stock, because billionaires, a fascinating universe hidden behind the meandering weak plot, special skill, now he wants revenge, it doesn’t work, what was all that for?, an episode of Johnny Quest, if you follow it closely, the art of Johnny Quest, for small children, disrespectful to children, Lord Tyger by Philip Jose Farmer, create a Tarzan in real life, an interesting premise, counting on Farmer for more fun, more interesting than fun, decepticons stuff, Farmer doesn’t know what he’s doing, explanation (don’t care so much), heavy at points, sexual violence, what Tarzan would be like in real life, bad things, a bad person, lynching black men who killed his man, an aesthetic choice, chaste on camera, the whole wild child phenomenon is fascinating, when these things happen, it has happened many times, parents abandoning children, adopted by animals, a logic to it, what is what we do to all our pets, domesticating them as a part of the family, my furbabies, dogs are a part of out society, we have capabilities that they don’t, why Jesse?, I know how it ends, Jesse has his own systems, everybody is immoral in this book, the systems they live within are immoral, sloth guy, that’s a lie, totally immoral, that’s the name of the book, he feels guilty about it, the kid has no future anyway, killed in a bar fight, there’s another way to run this, Andre Norton tries for a saving throw, c’mon man, going along with it would be immoral, you can’t lie to animals exactly, maybe Will would look at it from a legal POV, what are they liable to be charged with?, unlawful confinement, the police’s involvement, condoned by the state, intelligence circles, that’s all they do, yo, programming people, kidnapping, a capital crime, the quasi-police, entrapment, she doesn’t know what she’s doing, ok I’m writing a book this weekend, a Norton quirk, criminals are heroes in the past, Robin Hood, Suicide Squad, The Many Colored Land by Julian May, in the news this week, statues getting pulled down, they were given statues, Winston Churchill, you can’t be a good person and run the empire, the only good person, he’s vying for power?, Jesse can be wrong about books, The Mound by Zealia Bishop and H.P. Lovecraft, maybe totalitarianism and…, the gaining of knowledge is the only thing worth doing, I was promised a headless ghost living in a mound, that’s shit, their heads are inside their torsos, fine here’s your book, dismiss Norton as not worth reading, this is her worst book, Sea Siege is worse, that’s not cool, a nuclear war, trails and goes nowhere, the scene on the cover is fairly early in the book, some ace books, The Zap Gun by Philip K. Dick was written to order, a philosophical meditation on the meaning of weapons, it tricked me, the power of a really good cover, when you were young, on an island with no electricity, Smaug sitting on that pile sold me, John’s selling his book based on the cover, the promise of the cover, Lawrence Block doesn’t make bad books, this speaks to me, Jon’s first science fiction book Starman Jones, an aerospace museum gift shop, there’s a little monkey guy on the cover, there’s always Starman Jones, an up and comer, Red Planet, their best friend Willis, a YA thing, the hero or heroine and his furry companion, Star Beast, a pet in the family, we should have just read that, Star Beast is fun, how the economy works, the avuncular wisdom of Heinlein, off planet, these are competing books on the used bookstore bookshelf, more of the same (more cool interesting stuff), more of the stuff you love, Animal Kingdom, crime, Isaac Asimov, Donald E. Westlake, Larry Niven, playing fair, The Long Arm Of Gil Hamilton, Blaking Bad, there is a kind of detachment once you realize the government isn’t going to help you, a quasi dystopia, that perfect setup, he did the right thing, his students are making fun of him, I’m going to use my skills for evil, your background premise, it shows the deficiency even more, orphanages, debatable, unchecked institutions, surplus kids dropped off on people’s doorsteps, orphan trains, WWII, The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe, Ellen Barkin, a family of adult boys, they all hate the mom, willing to kill people, they have a lot of money, you cant go to the cops or the church or the neighbors, sharpen some weapons, put some food aside for a rainy day, following a situation like that, The Shield, he gets a desk job, a weird kind of punishment, at least he’s not happy, the audience for that show is all the people who don’t have that day job, what do you think Andre Norton is thinking, the drugs and the orphans, a massive dystopia outside the tiny little view of it, expand please, the traumas of the post war moment are right under the surface, America in 1961, before the War on Poverty programs, back from WWII and the Korean War, taking turns at the uncle’s house, the backdrop, our society, in this strange sci-fi setting, plenty of orphans, Fake Heiress, another survival technique, assumed identity, past the Mississippi be a different person, Henry Morton Stanley, Joseph Conrad, ornamental last names, the morality of big game hunting, accidentally hunt humans, trophy hunting, grandbosses, contact protocols, implied shooting of aliens, another technology failure, this stuff never fail, there’s only a few of them, a class thing, the guides, the rich guy doesn’t need the food, this trap may be there to kill water cats (over hundreds of years), very small planet, passive fishing, shortly thereafter the megafauna disappear, anything we cant domesticate becomes food, having a distaste for big game hunting, ridiculous and stupid, maybe hippos are yummy, a taste problem, go read a book yo, just something to do, like jetskiing, what the billionaire class does, I must have my water cat, rich clueless idiot tourists, the collector who wants to classify every butterfly, on the level intellectually of really liking go-carts, a very basic visceral thrill, something to brag about, The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, he’s exactly like Zaroff now, this is his castle now, that’s a Jesse thought, Jesse just wants to hunt people, check it out, Trish has a different conclusion, the most popular download, more than a quarter of a million downloads, the Russian angle, a 1924 story, his noble seat, now he’s gone too far, Shiptrap Island, a different show, recommendations, Sneaky Pete, bonds vs. bail bonds, satisfying, Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey, great great great, Jo Walton review, doppelgangers, earth stock vs. space stock, compact vs. elongated, The Smoke Ring, The Integral Trees, big ideas, small plot problem, their tree is falling apart, those big ideas sure are big, we squeezed this very slim volume dry, something she does often, it is not PC, it is PC, it can be both, identifying with the natives, an anti-colonial novel, The Sioux Spaceman his hawk-man style costume, a very political book, she changed her name to match her pseudonym, that sounds like fun book, it sounds like Star Trek, investigate the universe and fix it all up, a stagnant galaxy, a Foundation TV show, let’s get on this spaceship and have a conversation, one day there should be books in a library, on the other side of the galaxy, one day there will be a Mule, that will be important, Paul Krugman must be wetting his pants, a superhero movie about The Mule, the I, Robot (2004) movie, The Naked Sun, a murder mystery.

Andre Norton's Star Hunter - preliminary art by Ed Emshwiller

Star Hunter by Andre Norton

ACE DOUBLE D-509 - Star Hunter by Andre Norton

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Reading, Short And Deep #225 – Æpyornis Island by H.G. Wells

Reading, Short And Deep #225

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Æpyornis Island by H.G. Wells

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

Æpyornis Island was first published in the Pall Mall Budget, December 27, 1894.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

The SFFaudio Podcast #578 – READALONG: She by H. Rider Haggard

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #578 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, Will Emmons, and Trish E. Matson talk about She by H. Rider Haggard

Talked about on today’s show:
how hard it is to listen to podcasts, 12 hours, jam packed with ideas, all the movies, both audio dramas, comic books, a cartoon adaptation, sloshing together, starting with the ending, Job not Job, Job died, the everydayman, he has a very specific descendant: Sam Gamgee, less pleasant language, racist assumptions, she’s evil, they don’t see it, get the elephants out of the room, not a racist book at all, four movies, the 1925, the 1935, the 1965, the 2001, the 1909, the 1984, the Flash Gordon episode, great perfect film, Will is a troll, laying out Jesse’s case, none of the adaptations are faithful, the 2006 audio drama, Tim Mcenery (from Blackadder), a very wise person wrote it, compressing 12 hours down into 2, they don’t usually set it in Africa, Samarkand, filmed in Bulgaria, set in the Arctic, what were they thinking?, silent, Bulgarian extras, Ultima Thule, themes, shells of locations, the UK, the backstory, out of Africa and Greece and Egypt, this visit to Zanzibar, the land of Kor, Egyptian Arabic Black, even more fictional, Natal, South Africa, they’re basically Tharks, Ayesha is Princess of Helium, the prototype to Galadriel, she’s Circe, an immortal wizard, the 2006 audio drama, Mohamed was killed off, the brown man in the hot pot, they fear for their own lives, cannibals, they attempt to come to Job and Holly and Leo come to his rescue, defending their own from being anthropophaged, revenge, resentful of the orders of She, not allowed to eat the whites, killing people in anticipation of being cooked, a cartoon, two explorers in pith helmets in a cauldron, its more complex than that, its not focused on race, what what?, delightful and not racist, the fictional people who live around Kor, the descendants who intermingled and degenerated, racial degeneration, the inversion of British customs, eminently civilized, one of the savage tropes, you’re reading that in, every couple of hundred years we slaughter them, this is a book about gender and gender relations not about race, not especially racist, snow white, she has ivory breasts, the whiter you are the more beautiful you are, that’s gender not race, she’s an evil white goddess, white savior syndrome, colonialist themes, he’s pretty conscious of a lot of things, a vehicle for the tropes, this myth of Africa, the inversion of our customs, an inversion of our hospitality, The Africa That Never Was by Dorthy Hammond and Alta Jablow, a justification for colonialism, literary sensationalism, titillating enough, a literary theme, fairy tales and nursery rhymes, a vivid new variation, the negation of European values, semi-matriarchal culture, the two who are noble savages, one of the best characters in the novel, my baboon, falsify it, cannibalism as mythological, ritualistic cannibalism of loved ones, headhunting, all over the world, its wonderful to eat Jesus’ flesh and drink his blood, a sexy subject, Melville’s most famous book (in his lifetime), when that book blew up, amazing story, everyone else is doing the cannibalism, he didn’t have anything good to say about Irishmen and Greeks, unpleasant passages, thieves and sneaks, our insular prejudices are most of them based on common sense, these black gentry, fit for muck, thinking during the book, so beautiful, a compliment, he looks English, droopy or something?, race science and social darwinism, his weak genes give out, stronger genes, a perfect time, yucky racism instances, totally obsessed with this trio, a board game, Horace “Baboon” Holly, Leo is a lion, Job is a pig, going back to Circe, SHE is a snake, undulating, both become obsessed with her, a terrible beauty, massive one page notes, IMMORTALITY, how it got into H. Rider Haggard’s hands (as the editor), THE FLAME, MUMMIFICATION, a bonfire, mummies for firewood, the mummy craze, mummydust as medicine, when we do it its cool, driving Job to the hotpot, when Odysseus lands, pigs at the dinner table, never explained in the story are the wolves and lions, enslaved to Circe, tame, women being dominant, different kinds of cultures, Philip K. Dick’s Strange Eden, tamed by the witch, the first WAND as a magical instrument, there’s no monkey or ape on Circe’s island, Horace studies ancient languages, a keen mind and a freaky body that’s reminding everyone of Darwin, let’s go look at each other in the mirror, so interesting, Ayesha does the same thing to Holly, look at you and look at me, your quasi-son, never explicitly explained, why does she die, yo?, providence, has she done it before?, she hasn’t been back there, dancing in the flames, the flames vs. the gauze, she’s wrapped like a mummy, literally wrapped, veiled in every respect, she’s TOO pretty, TOO beautiful, makes men stupid and men evil, she has Darth Vader powers, she’s an evil Jedi, she can kill people with a look, why does Leo go on this trip?, his name means avenger, he doesn’t act like he’s out for revenge, the mystery, all the women love him already, fawning women, terrible for him, a rebellion against his adoptive father, Horace gets excited about all the good shooting down there, youth being inquisitive, he ends up fulfilling his atavistic destiny, she’s getting him back, showing that vision, Christopher Lee, he’s been wizarded, Peter Cushing doesn’t look like a baboon (he looks like a greyhound), Ayesha shows up in three other books, Ayesha: Return Of She, Tibet, Lost Horizon, She And Allan, contrived reason to visit Kor, uppity Zulu woman, an H. Rider Haggard trope, a desire to love native women, unnatural and doomed, they’re all wearing the ring of power, they’re all turning into Saruman, the Haggard/Tolkien connection, C.S. Lewis, the White Witch is based on She, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, similar in the face, the year this story is set, martini rifle, Zulu (1964), the book ends 22 years after the events started, there and back again (two years), the play in the caves, the whole lost civilization thing, Edgar Allan Poe’s Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym, Conan, Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, something even older, Plato and Atlantis, Philip Jose Farmer, when the Sahara was green, there were dinosaurs there, H. Beam Piper’s Omnilingual, the pots and heads, and the pot sherd, Plato’s the Myth Of The Cave, group-think, religion, the 17th of March 2029, the scarab, the ancient connection, Kor as Pompeii, one note on lost race – lost colony, ancient active civilizations, Mormonism, Andrew Jackson on the Indian mounds, the great Zimbabwe, it has to be an ancient race of white people, race sciences, an ancient white source, Hadon Of Ancient Opar, Time’s Last Gift, the green Sahara, a deity in that pantheon, a rumour of Her in Tibet, in the framing, they’re planning to go off to the East, James Hilton’s Shangri-La (Lost Horizon), Iron Fist, influential on Henry Miller, J.R.R. Tolkien, Margaret Atwood, H.P. Lovecraft,

The romantic, semi-Gothic, quasi-moral tradition here represented was carried far down the nineteenth century by such authors as Joseph Sheridan LeFanu, Thomas Preskett Prest with his famous Varney, the Vampyre (1847), Wilkie Collins, the late Sir H. Rider Haggard (whose She is really remarkably good),

Lovecraft favourites, holy shit! that’s a Lovecraft line, Algernon Blackwood, a survival of a hugely remote period, and called them gods, She is a Goddess, She talks a lot about death and change, Shadow Out of…, Facts Concerning The Late Arthur Jermyn And His Family, and Arthur Jermyn soaked himself in oil, his peculiar personal appearance, peculiar features, learning was in his blood, the Congo region, supposed antiquities, Observations On Several Parts Of Africa, when in his cups, under a Congo moon, abysmal treasure vaults, even a Pliny, weird cravings (carvings), his grandmother in her box, the Horace Holly story, he looks like a monkey, this horrible truth revealed to us via Darwin, Ayesha is lily white flames and gauze, this tension between atavism (reversal to type), get your breeding right, the super-concerns of 19th century people, racism as a reaction…, lichy ancestors, Innsmouth, race-mixing, interbreeding with fishmen is a problem, mind-transference, Cushing and Lee and Ursula undress, after WWI why?, Roxanne, The Man Who Would Be King, the Mountains Of The Moon in Uzbekistan?, blowing minds, as if nothing has ever happened, North By Northwest (1959), Paul’s case, blonding her up, reasons for being blonde, our racialization of Arabs, the money shot, her raven hair over her white porcelain body, the whole hair thing, Galadriel and Gimli, Tolkien’s version of immortality, let’s just go off to the West, Primeval Thule, drug addict elves, high on lembas, black milk, types of immortality in She, reincarnation, a Greek who’d falling in love with an Egyptian, Ayesha as Cleopatra, would Haggard have cared or known?, that Egyptian asp, a callback vs. a throwback, the death glance, though at times they sleep and are forgotten, how enchanting some of the language is, poetic level language, written in six weeks, the original serialization in The Graphic, The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle, Victorian photoshop, fake documentation, verisimilitude, a true document!, when She actually shows up, dreams and visions, the lessons of Jurassic Park and Jaws, everybody speaks English, the 2006 audio drama, the translation, a ton of poetic repetition, all these conversations are happening in ancient Arabic, Holly is the main character, she leaned back on the couch, oh man, things upon the earth though knowest not, Jews, there be a thing called Change, three times 2,000 years have passed, The Doom That Came To Sarnath, the body moves, She’s force powering him back to life, what does this all mean?, she burns up the corpses and steps into the flame, stranger is my name, here I tarry, why dost though believe, the beauty of Helen, wisdom of Solomon, that ye cal death, barbarians lower than beasts, in the original book, you can’t look at god, Moses is permitted to see his hind parts, a Lovecraft swoon, beautiful and terrible, all about Jesus, her historical connection, Horace talking, she’s a wizard, she’s a lich, Wisdom’s Daughter, she’s travelling around like a wizard, gone for a whole generation, force glance, laser eyes, why the book is so fun, She’s that living connection, The Boat Of A Million Years, Jesse is sorry he has to read so much, they’re rivals for her affection, all about chosen family, you’ve been kidnapped, long strong arms, a martini rifle and a revolver, he’s got a good heart, a good word for Job, the mark of civilization is not knowledge but compassion, it’s fine she killed my wife, this section is insane, the terror of the leaping flame, the wise sadness of the tombs, all metaphor, the white shroud she wore, lovely tempting womanhood, she’s a virgin, so my Holly, the lagnuage is biblical, Allan Quatermain and Solomon Kane, I’m inclined to flattery, now my waist, this golden snake that is to large, she doesn’t like her clothes, that lady has a wasp waist, huge baboon hands, he has to squeeze her a bit, oh Holly, I am but a man!, Heaven knows what she was, I worshiped her as never woman was worshiped, what about gay men?, so horribly wonderfully, She is so fuckin evil, She cast a spell on him, the sight is sweet, the dear pleasure that is our sex’s only right, a buttoned down Cambridge don, century days, she’s lonely, she doesn’t have any books, spend all your days getting paler and paler talking to corpses, she has her TV, it is no life, She says She’s in Hell, a good thing for everybody, I’m going to England and replace Queen Victoria, it’s Dracula, Anno: Dracula, this book is really influential, the only thing comparable, an adventure of history, Jules Verne’s extraordinary voyages, Roman guards, the 2nd Brenda Fraser Mummy movie, riffing off of She, Mountains Of The Moon (1990), Burton and Speake, Stargate: SG-1, why its important to have diversity in its command structure, Space Vampires aka Lifeforce (1985), female seductresses, women’s rights, the Victoria stuff, you can betray your queen, what the hell are we accepting them for, foisting kids and relatives, The Rock, its really important: this is about class, Sam Gamgee is a servant, this race thing is used to divide us, when She says want me to kill her now, should I kill him now?, Kylo Ren and evil vs. good, how formative, an early adventure quasi-fantasy, its all science, rules for what you can see in the glass, she’s elf so she has magic, now I know how this works, what are they gonna do for twelve hours, Maissa had no idea what was coming, wow!, so lyrical, metaphysical, all the Lost World books are here, finding a fount, needed wanted more of it, his first big hit, She is what he would be remembered for, Indiana Jones did that, Rumpole Of The Bailey, the comic, Horace isn’t baboon enough, I wreath a corona around his head, what makes this book so good, Horace Holly’s a great character to see it through, why didn’t you choose Horace?, She does choose him in a way, why She chose Leo, its all about the physical beauty, her whole basis for him, he was pretty, I poured all my love into her, more importantly you’re ugly, which of them is actually ugly, Ayesha is the most monstrous hollowed out garbage person, a whole level of how do you judge a person, this person looks like they’ve had too many sandwiches, you might want to marry a supermodel, hockey shoes, beauty vs. personality and principles, abandoning principles, Horace sees his adopted son as a rival, he fantasizes about polyamory, she’s saving herself for the guy she murdered 6,000 years ago, hidden herself in a tomb, a pyramid, a story of horror, at the end of the 1919 hardcover:

To H. R. H.

Not in the waste beyond the swamps and sand,
The fever-haunted forest and lagoon,
Mysterious Kor thy walls forsaken stand,
Thy lonely towers beneath the lonely moon,
Not there doth Ayesha linger, rune by rune
Spelling strange scriptures of a people banned.
The world is disenchanted; over soon
Shall Europe send her spies through all the land.

Nay, not in Kor, but in whatever spot,
In town or field, or by the insatiate sea,
Men brood on buried loves, and unforgot,
Or break themselves on some divine decree,
Or would o’erleap the limits of their lot,
There, in the tombs and deathless, dwelleth SHE!

a life after its life, its an immortal book!, the Citadel of Truth, the Goddess of Truth, the dead orb above and the dead city below, long departed glory, their all mummified, they worshiped Truth to much, styling herself as the goddess of Truth, She dies after getting what She wants, the 1935 ending, immortality’s all great and that, the hope we might be reunited again, traditional Christian belief, pushing it away, forever in Heaven, the inverse of Heaven, if She keeps coming back, every sequel, a metaphysical aspect, a theosophical aspect, vehicles for philosophizing about man’s place in the universe, a sock puppet for H.R.H.’s theosophical ideas, what is the novel actually doing?, maybe a stand-in for H.R.H., so surprising, what’s the meta-text?, the Victorians and the things they didn’t want to face, compartmentalizing, he is his life, a very English thing, let’s go see this movie (because I need spend time with a human), my only friend, dying wish, you’re not fit for society so you may as well raise my son, almost homoerotic, appreciating a male form without being totally gay, basically bribes him, a bizarre opening, Christoph Waltz, I’ve been watching you for two years, why you don’t get married right away, gauzey goggles, a vision, gametes gotta gamete (meet), that outer society, women choosing the men, social security, a social safety net, a nanny state, goats, a communitarian society, why we need to expand the public domain, the writer gets paid, Andrew Yang ‘1K, bro’, Playstation 5, there are alternate ways, how writers gotta be paid, living authors should be paid royalties for your works (unless you’re in a country that cant access them for legal reasons), going away from a money based society, the average Canadian writer gets paid $7k per year, free healthcare, how the postal workers in Yugoslavia had their own vacation spot, why not do that?, postal workers aren’t going away anytime soon, alternative forms, the artificial scarcity system, you clearly haven’t listened to my piracy, join my pirate team!, let’s do these shares out equally, with the internet now, the amounts of research we are able to do for this book are insane, spend more time not doing horrible things for cash, bodies rented out for paying the rent, alternate, mercy killing, maybe rose twitter knows what its doing.

She: A History Of Adventure by H. Rider Haggard from The Graphic

She: A History Of Adventure by H. Rider Haggard from the 1919 book publication

Stories By Famous Authors Illustrated No. 3 - She by H. Rider Haggard

Marvel Classics 24 - She by H. Rider Haggard

She by Les Edwards

She by H. Rider Haggard - art by Stephen Fabian

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #223 – M.I. by Rudyard Kipling

Podcast

Reading, Short And Deep #223

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss M.I. by Rudyard Kipling

Here’s a link to a PDF of the poem.

M.I. was first published in The New York Tribune in 1901.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Reading, Short And Deep #171 – The Gardener by Rudyard Kipling

Reading, Short And Deep #171

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Gardener by Rudyard Kipling

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

The Gardener was first published in McCall’s, April 1925.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

The SFFaudio Podcast #517 – READALONG: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

The SFFaudio Podcast #517 – Jesse, Julie Davis, and Maissa Bessada talk about The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Talked about on today’s show:
2008, a children’s book, hardcover, a book for kids, better than most adult books, Neverwhere, Coraline, who hates Neil Gaiman?, Sandman, pictures slow it down, he didn’t feel competent, a genuine classic, character and sentences, crafting language, the wisdom of his prose, insights into basic human beings, you know its true, his evil characters, thinking about The Jungle Book, he started with chapter 4, MouseCircus.com,

“We were young, and very poor. The rooms I was renting above a shop were in a building tall and spindly and old. The kitchen and lounge were on one floor, a bedroom and my office and a bathroom on the next, and, at the top of the house, there was a big attic bedroom, and a low, long room in which an adult could barely stand up straight and in which there was a crib and a playpen. My son, Michael, who was two years old, loved his tricycle more than anything, but there was nowhere to ride it in the house, not without him tumbling down the stairs, so I would carry him and his tricycle across the narrow lane to the grounds of the local church, and he would pedal around to his heart’s content, and I would sit and read a book in the sunshine, and watch him, and look at the grey gravestones, names half-erased by time, and marvel at how comfortable a child looks in a graveyard. That was where it started. I’ll call it The Graveyard Book, I thought. Like Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book.”

listening to it, ghoulheim, there it is!, the monkey scene with Mowgli, Silas is Bagheera and Ms. Lupescu is Baloo, the tribute to Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, the rubberfaced night gaunts, something Lovecraft dreamt as child, they became his friends, they tickle you, creepy and wonderful, chew off any meat left on the bones, tip-up the lead-lined coffin and all the juices, when the angles were wrong, a city built to be abandoned, just as odd, to find the equivalent, King Louis, the Emperor Of China, the 33rd President of the United States, Harry S. Truman is a ghoul, the full cast version, recorded in a Minnesota radio station, so fantastic a narrator, no better author narrator, Gaiman’s reading of Coraline, Scott Danielson, a boy story and a girl story, The New Mother by Lucy Clifford, Heather Ordover, the CraftLit podcast, very insightful, The Count Of Monte Cristo, a man and woman in a box, glass eyes and a wooden tail, the cycle repeats three times, never naughty enough, live on berries, worse than the Other Mother, children in Hell, where Coraline came from, no redemption, no mercy, fairy-tale-like, very Neverwhere-ish, has he ever written a book that isn’t about gods, regular Neil Gaiman stuff, the Endless, is there a god in this book?, who is the grey lady on the grey mare?, she’s Death, the sickle and the hood, The Old Gray Mare, she ain’t what she used to be, the Hounds of God, Romanian soup, boiled cabbage is kinda a good, eating Twinkies, Mr Lupescu by Anthony Boucher, Mr Jim Moon’s Hypnogoria (Hypnobobs) podcast, Neil Gaiman’s breadth of reading, Mr Jesse, macabre (macabray), imaginary friends, Thus I Refute Beelzy by John Collier, Scarlet has an imaginary friend, Scarlet’s story is a mini-version of this story, a kid romance, the angry teenager, play houses, meany, totally girl, so cute, very brave, going into the dark, five years old, before Julie was 3, barely remember yesterday, summer used to last several years, the perception of time, how you could get bored really easily, the world is so boring, tapped into the youth, the Sandman series, the conference of the Jacks, serial killer convention, where is Silas going?, he’s like Gandalf, standard mean horrible character, time-traveling hit-men, Connie Willis, the characters that work, there’s the deepness, Jack Frost is Shere Khan, fresh, very fresh, quite refreshing, the comic book adaptation, some of the art in here, Jill Thompson, P. Craig Russell, Galen Showman, the scale is bigger, the horizon is bigger, the ghouls, comic gross humans, monkey creepy horrible awful, the sleer, Gaiman gives you the outline and then you fill it in, the Indigo Man, the broach, the graveyard, the antique shop, super complementary, look how Silas dominates the room, there’s never a haircut scene, so intriguing, why does he hang out in this graveyard, knowledge of the prophecy?, the whole plot is way less important, why is the Danse Macabre in this?, Death is so beautiful, living forever, the living with the dead, each to each, names aren’t really important, find his name, one day everybody does, how come death’s so cool?, really smart, what’s true and what do we need to remember, the dead should have charity, Elizabeth Hempstock, Toomai of the Elephants, referential, winter flowers, we’ve crossed worlds, within generations enough, the other book that was homework, A Fine And Private Place by Peter S. Beagle, Beagle’s narration, ended up perfect, brought to life, ride that raven, they are both stories about a human living in a graveyard and they are fantasies, very gentle and slow, it could have been a little bit shorter, he made his case for all the relationships, overcoming fears, only 19 when he wrote it, mature, living a fantasy world life, a raven, taking some inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, Ezekiel in the desert, a loose connection, the raven is what kept him there, psychopomp, a real personality, a ride in a back of a truck with a squirrel, set somewhere in England, so rich, find some weird house, adventures in her back yard, fully realized, how stiking is it that 10 year old kids and adults can enjoy it and not be lost, Coraline is not as amazing as this book, aimed at the children’s market, 188 pages for $10 US, images conjured by the book, no description of the lines on his face, the relationship has to Bod (she’s not going to eat him), it takes a (graveyard) village, out of time, his parents are almost the least interesting characters in the book, the poet who punished all his enemies by refusing to write his poems for the public, from my cold dead hand, kinda like Scrooge, some Lord Of The Rings stuff, the broach the knife and the cup, the Sleer is awesome, Elidor by Alan Garner, a family of jerks, William Shakespeare’s King Lear, a sword, a spear, a bowl, and an anvil, escaping into a fantasy world while you’re a kid, The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, weaving in true history, he liked the roads, Celtic mythology, the ring connection, the barrow wights from The Fellowship Of The Ring, Jesse’s Roof Bear calendar, there has to be rules behind stuff to make it interesting, Roof Bear can’t leave the roof, Ghost Horse is waiting for his master to return, lifting from the Sleer?, children’s adventures, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, fun stuff for kids (and for Jesse), remembering the sort of fun you had as a kid, we don’t get to play house anymore, the pretend has a lot of value, mud pies, hanging out in childhood, beautiful, children and grandchildren, so Christmas becomes magic again, that acknowledgement, Bod’s getting too old, talking to Mother Slaughter, you’re always you and that don’t change, truth, I’m still me, that double memory, one of those profound things, LEGO robotics on Apple II computers (LEGO Logo), you really do loose something, its impossible, something you loose and yet retain the memory of it, Locke & Key: Welcome To Lovecraft by Joe Hill and illustrated by Gabriel Rodríguez, the head key, take out memories, the gender key, you forget, exploring a big old house, a menace, it works in the same way, brilliant and well worth reading, The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin, This Perfect Day by Ira Levin, 1984 by George Orwell, “Christ, Marx, Wood, and Wei”, very 1984, The Giver by Lois Lowry, a remake, the witch chapter, time in libraries, what forms your imagination, what tempts Bod is an apple, wish I’d left…, the groundskeeper’s pile of grass, she’s just a girl (who was murdered), “then I did my death curse”, when Bod falls out of his crib, a pile of plush toys, a nice doubling, do this kind thing, sends him out into danger, all the influences, nothing is forced, the mechanisms of writing, a six sentence story, all unconscious, it feels very natural, I want the magic, it takes him years and years, Tolkien: there were all these Catholic things in there, a good book, a good movie, what Neil Gaiman can do, just crafting your work, a lot of it is unconscious, an apple orchard, seeing things evolving, re-reading is not Jesse’s thing, when you run out you have to go back, re-watching, all these little things, Julie’s project, have they earned my shelf space?, deep in our cultural unconscious, 43 Bollywood movies last year, legal/police/moral situations, western culture branched-off, vengeance is looked at very differently, cultural thinking, shocked and taken-aback, northern Europe is full of apple trees, a ghost outside, Good book, what’s Ace barking at?, thought-yells, a Man Jack in the yard, a fun read.

The Graveyard Book - comics adaptation

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman - with illustrations by Dave McKean

The Graveyard Book illustration by P. Craig Russell

Posted by Jesse Willis