The SFFaudio Podcast #764 – READALONG: Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #764 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Cora Buhlert, Trish E. Matson, and Jonathan Manfred Weichsel talk about Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson

Talked about on today’s show:
1967 novel, George Clayton Johnson, string writer on Star Trek, The Man-Trap, the salt vampire one, coherent, William F. Nolan, sequels, a fall out, just crap I wrote to get money, they’re both right, a full two hours, which is better?, in some ways, very visual, psychedelic visuals, psychedelic writing, druggie writing, architecture and carousel, more depth, one of the first science fiction novels Paul read, quite a trip, all the sex stuff, the drug stuff, how much nudity in the movie, there’s an orgy scene, just PG, kids would’ve fallen asleep, heart rip-out scene, mid-to-late 80s, merit, the book is bad in multiple ways, a lot like Harry Potter, a series of scenes, a very movie way, and simple way, Oliver Wyman is the narrator, a little overbearing sometimes, how about the little girls?, sounding like a woman, it was weird, one of the styles, he’s doing a performance, a very deep voice, Logan or Jessica, there are some times where this is brilliant, most of the time this is brilliant, the pacing, serious problems with the book as a good novel, scenes and ideas, the movie fixes problems but not completely, really good at the very end, 60% of the movie is bad, another scene, a little set piece, changing the ages, actors over thirty, not a teenager, a short guy in his 20s, Farrah Fawcett Majors, is she bad or the dumbest blonde on earth?, that woman was the voice of the computer, Last Day lady, to make it filmable, Carousel, so visual, fixes problem, set in Plato’s cave, back into the cave, in the though experiment, Kirk the computer, the computer Kirks itself, blows itself up, very Star Treky solution, this metaphor that the book doesn’t do, The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster, a big problem for the book, great scenes, the chapter running through the Burnside Civil War re-enactment, tourists, propaganda, brave young men, the glory of self-sacrifice, Francis, this hunt, they’re psychopaths, maybe she’s really good, uncooked message that is in both, you can’t have real human beings without having parents, she’s just doing whatever Jessica says, is she remembering or just hypnotized, very hard to show, a chapter that’s all flashbacks, adorable, these creches, hypnotized by mumbling voices, sleep tapes, Zardoz (1974), C.J. Cherryh’s Cyteen, Starship Troopers, one kid with a radio, similar but a little different, action scenes, made it book length, all these action scenes, attacked by mutated animals, RPG style writing, they don’t develop skills, the action doesn’t grow them, artist robot, Box, they loved each other, they got to see each other naked (in a different way), Box is God, the new eden, god wants to kill them, one of the scenes that they kept, one of the most outstanding scenes in science fiction, the mom is crushing him to its breast, strong implications, a powerful scene, collage of scenes, it doesn’t really do anything other than pad it out, the film is good (but boring), wrote it serially, taken turns, the throughline is non-existent, the reveal, Francis is Ballard, the film fixes so many problems the book chucks up into the air, not fully fixed, more radical changes, not in this case, the film is iconic and excellent, fixed in radical ways, the old man who likes quoting McCavity Cats, Peter Ustinov, he doesn’t remember his name, problems pointed to in the book, psychopathic children, they’re all going to starve to death in about 10 minutes, cannibalism might be part of it, Wall-E (2008), Edenistic and bucolic, nuked Washington, D.C., Crazy Horse, extremely unfinished, they got the face, that guy was obsessed with that thing, oh yeah, the serial nature, they didn’t know where the ending was gonna be, that passion for that project, don’t trust anyone over 21, gone off the rails, 1966-67, Galactic Journey, protesting, later 20s early 30s, qualifications in evening schools, Bremen 1968 protests, young people, baby boom, wore weird clothes, took drugs, had a lot of sex, an intense if this goes on, fear of overpopulation, The Population Bomb, that same logic holds with a lot of people, W.E.F., a Malthusian story, Soylent Green, ZPG (1972), so silly, a good book to start this, both items are incredibly flawed, environmental or population, mostly starring Charlton Heston, Family Guy, depressing 1970s starring guy in a turtleneck, revisionist westerns, Star Wars killed science fiction cinema, spun off its own thing, the hero dies or the world ends, Logan triumphs, Luke destroyed the Death Star, strongest when looking at Star Wars clones, Jaws, monster movies, Razorback, changed science fiction into Star Wars science fiction, Ice Pirates, a comedy of Star Wars, 30 years later, Planet Of The Apes, Dino De Laurentiis, not this cerebral shit, movies of ideas to movies of action and adventure, blockbuster, E.T. is the model, this movie is not a small movie, hundreds of people dressed up, this many actors running around on the screen, 40,000 aliens in the senate, Rollerball (1975), not for art purposes, they’re food, frozen dinners, microwave them later, I’m getting hungry, the missing tigers, mistakes, imagine a whole book centered around the tourist attraction, a powerful image, real human clothes, buildings designed to collapse, it is Westworld, how sick the society is, Paul’s gonna love this book, the Republican party was destroyed, standpoints, Friday by Robert A. Heinlein, a quest for identity, did Heinlein read Logan’s Run, when did Civil War re-enactment really get going?, Civil War monuments, 1961-1965, the 100 year anniversary, the parents who went out in the 60s, their kids do it, a participatory attraction, like hunting or camping, self-renewal, renaissance faire, self-associated, only two teams, I’d like to participate, black powder rifles, a certain kind of authenticity, wearing homespuns to the event, different than a renfaire, arquebus, the family broken up, the audio drama, very bad, more faithful to the book, Colonial Radio Theatre, a malfunction early on, why the end up in the Arctic, things are falling apart, the TV show, the film has to change it, sexuality for children in the book, a real no no, if this book were written today they would be in trouble, pulled from Amazon?, someone might freak out, 11 year old boy, whoever is writing that chapter, differential calculus in grade 2, a need for any of these skills?, Sandmen have vocations, clothing designers, streaming lectures to people on twitch about Australian music in the 21st century, the Machine is stopping, mom, people are bored and dissatisfied, impending fear, religious whackjob organization, DS men, cops, 21 is the cut-off, what does that do to a society without any actual adults, the fear of juvenile delinquents, JD novels and JD movies, Rumble Fish and The Outsiders, West-Side Story, gypsies, killer hippies, part biker gang, Damnation Alley, there’s no continuity within the book, age 14 you need a job, egalitarian, there’s always a job opening, the Spartan society, how Spartan boys were raised, test of manhood: kill a helot, live off the land, a runner, persist, if you’re indoctrinated, scene by scene we’re engaged, there’s no continuity, the rules change arbitrarily from chapter to chapter, six different kinds of bullets, they just dumped that, this is a gas gun, changed from scene to scene, even so, it didn’t go this way, steps into someone else’s appointment to revisit his memories, cyberpunk, a good chapter, a preview of his future, if Philip K. Dick had written this, all on rails, his continuity is his weirdness, more breasts, if you want to play with AI, more boobs and coffee, this book is bad but it has good things in it, tobacco is bad, psychedelic drugs are bad, pay off the cops, lysergic foam, the voyeur scene, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, a need for voyeurism and voyeurism is normal, trying to be private, the setup for the film is incredible, Logan’s in his apartment and turns on the Tinder wall, Jenny Agutter character, the Ankh, a connection to the past, she’s suicidal, I don’t fit in this world, why are you on Tinder if you don’t want to have sex?, casual use of sex, the destruction of the family, could’ve been any one of those ladies over there, that’s sick, that horror is incredible, a callback to the Spartan era, martial virtue, mom’s are too soft, not connected to each other, communes, fixed pair bondings are bad, shocking, all the people who are against divorce, line marriages, moms are importing, give the baby to a machine, all the women were expected to work, single mothers, more benefits as a single mom, widowed, blowing powdered sugar into their ass, we call it daycare, considered terrible, compelled to do it, cleaning the floors, in the spirit of, Brave New World, connect the book to the movie, how the original book works, a savage coming into the society, raised on William Shakespeare, doesn’t know anything except for cats, they are not disconnected in the savage society, open in the same way, they can travel to Australia they just don’t, a vehicle of conveyance, that’s not important, touch grass, connect to the real world, plants, no grass, one of the filming locations, Texas?, Houston, abstract sculpture, glass elevator, atrium, Convergence science fiction convention, the hand with the crystal, the flower, more colours to get to 30, green means go, yellow means caution, red means stops, an adaptation of the book Logan’s Run: Last Day, radiation badge colours, so connected to Soylent Green, Saul’s death scene, a drug trip, nature as it was, outside of the cave, a reptile crawls up her leg, the giant statue of Abraham Lincoln, why does he have all those cracks on his face, portrait of the same guy, vines covering everything, a much more grounded and connected thing, a positive, grabbed by a bunch of cops, Logan is trying to tell everyone, not the end of the movie, the computer Kirks itself, story structure, incredibly clear, the film improves in almost every way, Invasion Of The Body Snatcher’s you’re next you’re next, is it the same character?, running around for 20 years, 20 years of screaming, spread to San Fransisco, New Line Cinema, motion picture distribution, windows, theatrical, premium cable, home video, broadcast, airplanes, make money off that movie for 20 years, constantly on TV, a hit movie, decades after it was released, laserdisc, DVD, BluRay, streaming, prime, wish movies, be this movie, what is this crap?, restrain you, the TV station got a lot of letters of complaint, such a terrible movie, ageist, a terrible 1950s German movies, let’s make a movie that no one will be upset about and everyone will love, making you feel something, watching something very vaguely, streamers changing the blood colour to green, Fortnite is a cartoon version of PUBG, the stormtroopers were robots, drone robots roger roger, killing is wrong, we wanna have lots of killing, The A-Team, m[ini]-14 rifles, violence, a tiger can eat you, massively upset about violence, sex was okay, sex-heavy, RoboCop (1987), cut to ribbons, the rip-the-heart-out scene, Star Trek, glorifying violence, Captain America would turn you into a Nazi, Conan was very bad, He-Man was very very suspicious, religiously connected?, the taboos, religious parents, not allowed to DM Dungeons & Dragons anymore, very honest, fuck your parents, why aren’t we playing, the satanic panic, cultural thing, WWI and WWII having ptsd, boring and harmless, Nazi propaganda movies, inept, sympathizing with the badguys, He-Man veterans, a feature of He-Man: he punched his enemies, making a big deal about this, are you watching this He-Man show, this He-Man punches people, as left wing as you could possibly be, he uses violence to solve his problems, Saturday morning, no GI-Joe was bad, connection to war, U.S. propaganda, G.I. Joe in Europe, not intended for me, random criminal organization, C.O.B.R.A, a James Bond villain organization, pro-military, pro-war, military toys and war toys are bad, hitting each other with sticks, The Frost Giant’s Daughter, brooding guys who shouldn’t join gangs, not a religious thing, parental and societal censorship, Predator should be seen in the movie theater, the Comic Code Authority, not showing some kind of horrible reality, I think chicken eating is fine, censorship of the videos being factory farmed, this video has been removed from the internet by court order, everybody should be able to do whatever they want all the time, controlling people by telling them stuff and leaving out some of the facts, nonsense about Conan being a Nazi, leaked into society via teachers and the news, by the power Of Greyskull, I want to see this movie, take me now, the MPAA code, can not show revenge in modern times, ancient times, the same loophole in comics, Dracula is allowed, how Werewolf By Night snuck into comics, Marv Wolfman, classic comics, not allowed to show blood, Morbius The Living Vampire, not allowed to show the undead, police and judges cannot be shown to be corrupt, Atomic Blonde, the 1954 Comic Code, threaten to legislate, YouTube and Twitter, almost every major website, sympathy for the criminal, punish the juvenile delinquents, a sordid or unpleasant activity, disrespect for established authority, you can’t want to be like Kingpin, scenes of excessive violence, necessary gunplay, gory and gruesome, horror or terror, depravity, lust, lurid, gruesome, to illustrate a moral issue, injure the sensibility of the reader, worrying about other people’s kid, ghouls, smut, vulgarity, nudity in any form, Conan’s out, suggestive posture, have you read comics?, illicit sex, seduction or rape, sex perversion, clothed figures, good tastes or morals, government whim, a letter’s page, a regulation that the postal service used, take control over entire industries, congressional hearings, voluntary self-control of the movie industry, see the movies that were not allowed to be shown, you have to see a lot of gross stuff, cut all the stupid stuff out, breast cancer movies, a new Donald Westlake story: Matin’ Place, a parody of Peyton Place, melodrama, people lusting after each other, bad writing techniques, Francis, more akin to the spirit of the book, reading ahead, the best part of the book, undercooked, sexuality, Edgar Allan Poe, something we don’t reconcile, we can’t wrap our brains around it, society now consists only of age 0 to age 21, planet of the grups, Miri, just starting to bloom, extended lifetimes, a salt vampire looking thing, good at their jobs, plastic surgeon, speculative fiction and imagining a wild futuristic society, a 13 year old coming on to him, I’m gonna go get me, weird man, people have babies older now, 26 years old, go through school, 14 you have a baby, a real science fiction idea, a scary one, there are kids dressed in yellow, robot mom, or robot doll, the doll that gets put away, we needed more of that, Billy Wilder, age squick factor, a romantic comedy, child discount, unaccompanied minor, The Major And The Minor (1942), a hilarious romantic comedy, sexual panic around age, bye Paul and Trish, Some Like It Hot, Five Graves To Cairo (1943), on Quentin Tarantino’s list, do blitzkrieg, Double Indemnity (1944), Sunset Boulevard, The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes, very Shakespeare, also on a train, two guys dressed up as a woman, one ends up with Marilyn Monroe, women dressing up as men, The Spessart Inn (1958), fight Napoleon, The Page Of Gustav Adolf (1960), narrated by a balladeer, J.G. Ballard, the names are terrible, boxy, living a double lifetime, one of the worst novels of the period that Jesse’s read, very new wave, the experimental style, what makes the film superior is it is doing Plato’s Republic, The Myth Of The Cave, fully explore, if not for the movie, Silverberg, as a book, of the same period, he worked the ideas, the comic book changes some of the ideas to its detriment, fucked it up a little bit, kinda boring for 45 – 60 minutes, attitude about adaptations today, most of Hollywood, most Hemingway adaptations, Will Smith’s I Am Legend, the Charlton Heston adaptation, his cleverness at the end, what the “I am legend” means, The Incredible Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson, a ride from a pedophile trucker, standard truckers, what would happen if you start shrinking, your shoes don’t fit, your wife starts treating you like a child, Ant-Man world, every kind of exploration of what would happen if you started shrinking, metaphor, science fiction is a superior genre, this is all metaphor, what makes Ringworld a good book, what would happen if…, that’s what that would be like, you’d be bored, you’d be dying your skin yellow, Star Trek is all metaphor, The Galileo Seven, Spock and Kirk, an ethical dilemma, a hodge-podge of good scenes and unfulfilled promises, boring, a space station around Mars is your sanctuary, steal a dog first, calling for your rover, Shakespeare’s Planet, Invitation To The Game by Monica Hughes, I like this science fiction stuff, Cora’s first science fiction novel, Crisis On Conshelf Ten, moves to the moon, Keeper Of The Isis light, YA, hard SF dystopian novel, government schools, various illicit drugs, the juvenile delinquents in the movie, never explored, yells at the kid: you’re going to be old soon, the penitentiary in the snow, too organized, an anarchist society, never explored again, picking things out a hat, Jesse is obsessed with A Wrinkle In Time, the graphic novel, 26% audience score, hype before hand, Oprah Winfrey, quasi-fantasy, quasi-science fiction, young adult science fantasy, a gang of kids, The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, a reading in a public library, we don’t read that anymore, required reading, the world has changed, drag queen story hour, “I get the sense they’re trying to hide WWII from us”, the Allies and the Axis, all WWII, 2nd German Empire, Weimar Republic, French Revolution, commemorations on TV, history abruptly stopped in 1945, school is terrible and should be abolished, reformed, trying to fix unfixable problems, the teacher says the class your English is probably better than mine, a formalized essay, problems generated by schools, no specifics, we can learn so much together, the opposite of school, babysitting and generating problems, psychotic interference, prison, should we abolish it?, exile, put them on an island, we can learn a lot, especially on our own, school is so fucking bad, university is getting a lot worse, more like school, a top Jesuit university, pragmatically, career wise, guidance counselor, Monster (job search website), secretarial, Plato and shit, using chat gpt, she didn’t write it, how to make something that’s not hers hers, that part was really interesting, its yours nows, Shakespeare wrote that, I, George Clayton Johnson, the myth of the cave, why The Matrix (1999) was a huge hit, you need this concept in your life, democracy, slaves, Socrates was cyberbullied into killing himself, after one of the shows, a way to send files to people, making jokes, penance tweets, don’t read about what the republicans are doing this week, the Green Party of Germany, you’re a bad person, 10% political stuff, lock the comments, German randos, we don’t know what Nazis are anymore, Roger Waters, the swastika is illegal in Germany, Wolfenstein, because rules, serious art, comics don’t count, trashy thriller novel, imported paperbacks, Mark Felton, Hitler’s “Jewish Daughter”, you have to stop coming here, the overall scheme, that doesn’t fit my ideology, nice to his dog until he killed it, nice to talk to in person, Obama would be fine to go to a bbq with, droning weddings, when the Nazis invade a place, an American SS unit, free soldiers, none of these details come out in the broad brush, Ukraine, the reports on Bandera, too hardcore for us, the ideal German solider, Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers, forging people’s papers, great grandmother might have been Jewish, in case you need it again, against censorship, Jonathan has to go to steal a dog, the Vistula River now in Poland, when it becomes German again, things are shaking up in Europe, how do you get all those Russians to move out, 2 million Russians living in Germany, an Israel Palestine thing, Kaliningrad, born in Prussia, Silesia, 79, if you were 85, occupy an empty city, evacuated over the Baltic, breeding or fighting age, meetings into the 2000, Cora sometimes trolls the elderly, nostalgia for things from before you were born, a secondary goal, a memberberries additional thing, that story is done, artificially alive, post-war housing estates, an old York, just a name, no meaning, a map of North Eastern Prussia, random Victorian house, .4% is German, more Armenians than Germans, lost countrymen, kind of weird, Lebensraum, colonizing the east, anti-Slav, obsession and hate for Russia, pathological, racist, psychopaths, Russia under the Tsar, any kind of revolution triggers the people in power, WWI is actually WWII, almost as big, everybody is involved, Mexico, at sea on land in the air, cannonballs, Orson Welles documentary on Nostradamus, JFK, a Muslim terrorist, define your terms, there’s no better story, Hitler’s back and rolling tanks, the criminal Hitler war, dehumanized SS bandits, why this plaque, why here, every second house in Berlin, colonized by McDonalds, polished and everything, one of the reasons Hitler is disliked, he’s not of the upper class, nothing triggered the United States more, committees made up of people, whatever class it doesn’t matter, Britain, brains have gone to mush, the Rhodes Scholars, an obsession, they can never be forgiven, then they got an Emperor, King Charles, that funny hat, try and take em out, war over that stupid doofus, let the empire slip away, fully corrupt, incompetent government is preferable, libertarian/Heinlein, addresses problems and puts out fires, my dad didn’t win that war properly, that other guy shouldn’t have tortured those folks, start 5 new wars, no new wars happen, deep state runs riot, all of the top management can’t get sentences out, a chancellor with amnesia, the agenda is scarier, Green utopia, we hate trans people, I hate nuclear power, the guy in charge, fucking up putting out a fire, how leadership is, go back to your fucking office, just put out the fires, we’ll let you know, your the manager, obsessed with heating systems, what people eat, completely embarrassing, we don’t even have that, they don’t last very long, Trump is gonna get back in (unless he’s assassinated), weird agenda, I don’t like Disney either, same sex kids, one side staying home, voting rate, a one party system with two wings, people who hate Hillary Clinton, assuming, I’m going to smash the CIA into a thousand pieces, a good discussion of a pretty bad book, sighing, at least it was short, too long at the same time, Sixth Column was not boring, random shit randomly placed, they’re mutants now, an exercise, for a contest, mostly forgotten, a modern movie of Logan’s Run, I’ve got it in the can, he likes Star Trek, garbage.

Frozen Runners from Logan's Run

Logan's Run - FRENCH

Logan's Run - FRENCH

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #480 – READALONG: Jack London: An American Life by Earle Labor

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #480 – Jesse, Paul, Bryan Alexander, and Evan Lampe talk about the audiobook of Jack London: An American Life by Earle Labor.

Talked about on today’s show:
Tantor Media, 2013, dynamo, biography, H.P. Lovecraft, non-fiction, after 1899, as a kid, the future, the turn of the 20th century, Evan’s 100 Pages podcast, black writers, important fin de sicle, Victorian to Edwardian, a time of massive change, his parents and his quasi-parents, to see where London came from, looking at the past, don’t watch the news, William the Conqueror, seances and spiritualism, 30 years into spiritualism, morphing into other practices, the Chinese believe in ghosts, Americans believe in all kinds of things, UFOs, angels, credulous, Warren Chase, Wisconsin, utopian socialism, the Civil War, free labour, free soil, the connection between all these ideas, pamphlets, autobiographies, the rise of science and capitalism, Marx and Darwin, what are the laws?, utopians, the Horatio Alger story, I’m gonna make my fortune–and I can, coming from poverty and misfortune, complaining and bragging, Martin Eden’s problem, when Jack London was in Australia, died at 40, debilitated vs. lively and fierce, the noseless stranger, John Barleycorn, a novel to take as truth, alcohol, alcoholism, whiskey, a philosophical tangent, white logic, pink elephant, fatalism, existentialism, filling Nietzschean logic with religion, Steen Hansen, when still a teenager, delivering newspapers, teeth knocked out, hoboing around the United States, sheer physical movement, London’s connection to socialism, child labour, incredibly hard and varied work, the family economy, supporting his parents, travel, love of literature, the London epic, blown away, London’s Klondike experience, perfidy by Canadians, how many stories, the blood brain barrier between life and fiction, frequent life raiding, worship and fascination, The Call Of The Wild, Buck is sitting by the campfire, seeing a caveman, a race memory, a kind of brilliant thinker, hackwork, this is horror, enjoin, The Red One by Jack London, ancient astronauts, a dark and twisted story, Jung, symbol laden, lying sick and unable to move, astounding to see, Philip K. Dick, neighbours and wives, reworking his own thoughts as fiction, he interviews himself, thinking aloud on paper, how close Earle Labor got to understanding Jack London, more accurate, defining my position, the rent man, hope, the half-baked economist, the stout gentlemen, they wouldn’t be socialists they’d be beer sodden wrecks, scabs, full fledged graduates in anarchy, he’s a firecracker, George Sterling, the Weird Tales circle, Clark Ashton Smith, tilting the whole continent towards San Fransisco, Ambrose Bierce, the giantness of London, London’s mother was 4 and half-feet tall, punching Japanese officer in the face, not like another writers, J.R.R. Tolkien, going for walks and smoking pipes, Charmian and he were restless, Jack London couldn’t stay still, England, People Of The Abyss, on Jack London time, smoking and drinking, not sleeping enough, The Shadow Out Of Time, a Yithian takes over Jack London, conflicted about the work ethic, The Sea Wolf, Brisenden = Sterling, he didn’t have the spark, Weird Al, is Jack London still in school libraries?, White Fang, The Iron Heel, older dystopia, It Can’t Happen Here, London’s engagement with racism, the mestizos of Mexican Revolution, so many of London’s stories are skewering stupid racism, the white race lives on the destruction and putrefaction of the societies they’re crushing, The Wisdom Of The Trail, adopting the white man’s mentality, white men’s burdens are to be carried by red men, surrounded by racism, everyone around him people are using race as an excuse to do things, a whole critique of social Darwinism, the peak of European imperialism, it doesn’t get you anywhere, loneliness and despair, To Build A Fire, China, British literature, committed to teaching, he still glowed and grinned like a madman, bonding over Melville, War by Jack London, mad mythic, Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, living in extreme cold (in Vermont), “the cold of space smote the unprotected tip of the planet”, science fiction, looking at reality, not about the relationships between people, look at this fascinating phenomenon, psychology or economics, The Cold Equations, a hard Science Fiction story, muscles in motion, when he does it it becomes, man against nature in the extremis, a story about spacesuits, Thomas Huxley, a literary critique of race in London’s work, Jack London’s Racial Lives: A Critical Biography, Campbell, the state of nature and the state of art, Herbert Spenser, The Shadow And The Flash, sibling rivalry, the mind at work, The Scarlet Plague, a social Darwinian document, the Chauffeur tribe, old idiots are interested in book reading, The Strength Of The Strong, Moon-Face: A Story Of Moral Antipathy, The Cask Of Amontillado, Guy de Maupassant, seeing into the mind of the other, empathy, “my-culture-is-not-your-prom-dress-ism”, cultural appropriation, dogs, Wolf Larsen is an odious character, academic arguments, Wolf Larsen is like Tony Soprano, Edward G. Robinson, a weird disease, was Jack London a precog?, seeing the psychology at work, Jack London (1943), A Thousand Deaths, a deserter, torture, wow!, almost everything in this story happened, I am not your father because I was impotent at that time, six marriages, fewer divorces, a hard mother, a family curse?, the seven year itch, looking for father figures, the man of action in the salon, Everhardt, Doctor Who, worshiping the man, Irving Stone’s Sailor On Horseback, the dream sandwich, The Star Rover, everybody should read Jack London, mapping reality.

Jack London: An American Life by Earle Labor

Sailor On Horseback by Irving Stone

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #434 – READALONG: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammet

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #434 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Julie Davis and Maissa Bessada talk about The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammet

Talked about on today’s show:
Peter Lorre is not in Dracula, 1929, Black Mask, Sam Spade, The Dain Curse, 1941 movie, Star Trek: The Next Generation: “The Big Goodbye”, Mr Leech, Laurence Tierney, Cyrus Redblock, Sindey Greenstreet, Gutman, Brigid O’Shaughnessy, The Black Bird (1975), Wilmer, The Twilight Zone, Effie Perine, his mom is his secretary, watching for kicks, seeing the bird in colour, Satan Met A Lady (1936), the BBC Saturday Night Theatre adaptation, John Huston, Constantinople became Istanbul, we disagreed!, too right to fool with, we agreed!, Raymond Chandler vs. Dashiell Hammet, same genre, so heavy on description, a Pinkerton man, doing the right thing (for different reasons), hard-boiled to the core, a narrow code, moral problems, big on description and framing scenes, immersed into the world by following the words, seeing the movie in the book, seeing the power, an ‘impatient grimace’ is stage direction, text devoted to description, the opposite of a Philip K. Dick novel, what film does, the scene where Bogart leaves after pretending to be angry, that shaking hand, best screenplay adaptation, unlike Philip Marlowe, who is the homophobe? the author or the character or both or neither?, a perspective, we notice like she does, don’t blame me for being a fake, is there a homophobe?, Brigid is baiting Cairo, the one you couldn’t make, when you’re slapped you’ll take it and like it, you could make a strong case, Jesse was baiting, what Spade is doing, who is the gay man in this story, Wilmer gets the slurs, Joel Cairo, smells of gardenia, fruity, a Greek passport, speculation that Gutman is gay, a gay gang or a queer gang, genial, William Dufris’ narration of the novel, thinking for oneself, a blonde Satan, the teeth thing, a trademark, Humphrey Bogart, another kind of gay man, “the boy” “Wilmer you’re like a son to me, but sons can be replaced. There’s only one Maltese Falcon”, a really strange family, where Julie goes for her gay family information, Wesley Crusher’s mom, touching Picard, a weird family meeting in Picard’s ready room, the Klingon, Data the Pinocchio character, the characters in the holodeck story, the detective friend, all after “the item”, what makes the dynamic so awesome, the highest point in the film, “I spent 17 years looking”, let’s go to Constantinople, Peter Lorre has purpose and meaning, they invite Spade to come along, the movie makers loved, it the audience loved it, and that’s how we get Casablanca, reuniting over and over, three kinds of men, the tough cynical tough guy with a code, the sycophant (the leech), I need you stand with your hands behind your neck, every future episode, that pistol, that is why we love Joel Cairo, the Gutman Sidney Greenstreet is so dynamic, I love talking to a man who loves to talk, the palming of the $1,000 bill, I have to have my games, apologizing while insulting, the key to his relationship with Wilmer, Gutman loves manipulation, find me a character that isn’t manipulating, even Effie is manipulating, everybody is manipulating everybody, what the hell!?, a hetero sort of version of the gay team, Archer’s cheating, there’s a woman out here, she’s a spectacularly bad judge of character, everybody is cynically manipulating everybody else, even the cops are in on it, the Star Trek adaptation, sharing pickled pig feet, not with those caps, here to offer insight, Julie’s going to disagree halfway through, why does this novel work so well, as opposed to any of the other Dashiell Hammett novels, chasing a whatsit, almost identical plots: Ronin (1998), an international cast, San Fransisco, “I need a kiss”, everybody is manipulating each other, the great whatsit, the McGuffin, Mike Spillane a glowing suitcase, the room lights up and you’re face comes off, Pulp Fiction, why does this all resonate, in a world without God we do not have any purpose for existence, the price of the Maltese Falcon goes up and up and up, it could be worth an infinite amount of museum, something worth chasing after, maybe my life can regain a purpose, we get a sense of ‘oh yes, this is something can chase after’, why we love they don’t kill Gutman is they are allowed to go one along with their quest, that god shaped hole, high five, Scott! Scott!, the Flitcraft case in chapter 7, looking at it very obliquely, death is real, not the life he wants, he recreates the life he was living, the proper pronunciation of “Spokane”, what’s the point of the Flitcraft story, Spade telling a story, fleshing Spade out, how Spade wound up in San Fransisco, coming out of the mists, backstories, a ball of snow rolling down a hill, Cairo’s backstory, that’s why he’s a private detective, captured by pirates, lost in France for history, not Mr Wells’ history, a history of humanity, a micro-story,

He knew then that men died at haphazard like that, and lived only while blind chance spared them.

“It was not, primarily, the injustice of it that disturbed him: he accepted that after the first shock. What disturbed him was the discovery that in sensibly ordering his affairs, he had got out of step, not into step, with life. He said he knew before he had got twenty feet from the fallen beam that he would never know peace again until he had adjusted himself to this new glimpse of life. By the time he had eaten his luncheon, he had found his means of adjustment. Life could be ended for him at random by a falling beam: he would change his life at random by simply going away. He loved his family, he said, as much as he supposed was usual, but he knew he was leaving them adequately provided for, and his love for them was not of the sort that would make absence painful.

how perfectly fascinating, she’s always lying, Tacoma, you’re never going to change, she doesn’t get it, I’ve lied so long I don’t know how to do anything else, s specific note, a specific word, thank you for saying “fuck”, this book had censorship, the word “gunsel”, punk, a male prostitute or sex slave, projecting homophobia, a back and forth exchange, in the lobby of a hotel, “the fairy”, New York aren’t you, Baumes’ rush (the 1920s equivalent of the three strikes law), bums and hobos and gunsels, shove off, you can tell G I said so, he never brings his eyes up, he’s almost not there, shove off, performance art, that would go over big on 7th avenue, censorship, sailors, where sailors go to pick up…, to shake loose information, he’s employing homophobic language to provoke, Miskatonic.org Rara Avis (the rare bird), bulletin boards, amateur scholars, he can’t act, a Lux Theatre adaptation, Hollywood actors recreating movies as radio dramas, Edward G. Robinson as Sam Spade, a strange line, You’re the sister of the boy who stood on the burning deck, Casabianca, we don’t know how Casablanca came to be, a great classic out of a filler, a wonderful confluence of events, strange international relations, Vichy France, the Nazis, that great speech, a romantic positive speech, come around to me in 20 years, do you think either one of them loved each other?, his philandering, they’re all angels, what does love leave to them, he’s the hetero version of Cairo, sent to sleep with the Russian, a fun speech (pure bullshit), the ending of Casablanca, this could be the beginning of a beautiful…, Jesse’s independent research, the letter of transit is the Maltese Falcon, they ripped this off!, a solid but unspectacular hit, a work of genius, standing the test of time, you’re principles, she’s worth and so is the boyfriend, cipher, what does that amount to?, not a hill of beans (in this crazy world), here’s my code, I’m not playing the sap for you, low spirits, by late 1941, the cynicism, a comedy by accident, comedy, you’ll forgive me but it’s not good for me to be alone with you, poor Joel Cairo, we can give up you, it’s really striking when they replicate that relationship, Spade made a cigarette, Lauren Bacall, a kind of remake of Casablanca, To Have And Have Not, Bold Venture, Slate Shannon and Sailor Duvall and King Moses, set in Havana, playing to type, ideas vs. character, a story full of ideas – but demonstrated, Hammett leaves you to put it together, what was going on his head?, Red Harvest, even leaner, his style is amazing, he’s super-smart, he doesn’t put genius into the characters, people make movies about his life, fought in both WWI and WWII, evil mercenaries operating for giant evil corporations, Lillian Hellman, HUAC, throw a veteran of two world wars thrown in prison as “unamerican”, The Thin Man, The Adventures Of Sam Spade, talking everybody’s space away, the original Rat Pack, Errol Flynn, Eva Gardner, quite a pack, the den mother, a good to do list for anybody, she’s wise beyond her years, self-possessed, a match for any man, You Must Remember This podcast: Bogie Before Bacall, Bacall After Bogie, so 1945, asking Peter Lorre for dating advice, another really wise guy, better five good years than nothing, go for it you idiot!

Black Mask, September 1929 - The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon and Humphrey Bogart
The Maltese Falcon (Folio Society)
The Maltese Falcon meets The Call Of Cthulhu - illustration by DOUGLAS KLAUBA
The Maltese Falcon - art by Tim Foley

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #226 – READALONG: The Iron Heel by Jack London

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #226 – Jesse, Jenny, and Bryan Alexander discuss The Iron Heel by Jack London.

Talked about on today’s show:
Jenny is not an economist, a Heinlein vibe, God Emperor Of Dune, The first half of this book is talk, a terrible novel but an interesting book, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, the distancing narrators, 700 years into the future, the audience is for seven hundred years in the future (or is that six hundred), prizefighting, grub = food, the purpose of the footnotes, The Sleeper Awakes by H.G. Wells, Avis Everhard, alternate history, Michael Bishop, an underground book, an underground society, that Buck Rogers stuff, Armageddon—2419 AD by Philip Francis Nowlan, exchanging socialism for the Yellow Peril, Asgard, Seoul, set in the year 419 B.O.M. (Brotherhood of Men), A Thousand Deaths by Jack London, The Island Of Doctor Moreau, predictions, war with Germany, a surprise attack on December 4th, William Randolph Hearst, war economy as a solution to national surplus, Trotsky’s letter to Jack London, London had good reason to be a socialist, work conditions and natural disasters, a chaotic time, Jackson’s arm, race vs. class, Jack London’s racism, The Heathen by Jack London, the dog stories, class consciousness, grinding out the middle class between the 1% and the people of the abyss, The Shadow And The Flash by Jack London, manly overachievers, oligarchy doesn’t use race to divide people, do you want you fruit to be picked or not?, Japanese segregation in California classrooms, Canadian politics, Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John Steinbeck, ‘temporarily embarrassed millionaires’, the quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln:

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country… corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower, “the military-industrial complex”, Eugene Debs, why was The Iron Heel not more popular?, The Black Hundreds, Das Kapital, Marxian fan-fiction, ‘social evolution is exasperatingly slow’, sooo sad, Marx’s essay on Napoleon III, a Darwinian model, do we live under an oligarchy?, government regulation (anti-trust and child labour laws), why socialism didn’t take hold in the early 20th century USA, Larry Summers, the Chilean cover of The Iron Heel, Salvador Allende, a novel read by revolutionaries, Science Fiction within the novel, the aesthetic end, the role of religion, the God of the Oligarchs, mostly air with a little bit of vertebra, Chicago, religious revivals and the apocalypse, Azusa Street Revival, the 1906 San Fransisco earthquake, William Randolph Hearst, Patty Hearst, John Waters, Cecil B. Demented, personal charisma and bulletproof arguments, Everhard is a porn star name, Benjamin Franklin, London’s didactic reading, Marx’s surplus theory of value, economy is not a science, power wins, the French Revolution, the Commonwealth of England, George Orwell’s review of The Iron Heel, 1984 is in The Iron Heel, coincidental dates, London’s insight into fascism, too much love from the strong and not enough love for the weak, Eric S. Rabkin, unmanning, ‘designed to be crucified’, father figures are destroyed, the chapter titles, The Call Of The Wild, a powerful beast is unmanned, builds up and builds through interaction with others, a sated king, a dominant primordial beast, The Sea Wolf, reading London is like a shot of adrenalin to the heart, surplus value, colonialism, the machine breakers, the trusts did not advertize, consumerism, Paul Krugman, petty bourgeoisie, the genocide of Chicago, the Paris Commune, gothic wooing, We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Looking Backward: 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy, the education of the oligarchy,

“They, as a class, believed that they alone maintained civilization. It was their belief that if ever they weakened, the great beast would ingulf them and everything of beauty and wonder and joy and good in its cavernous and slime-dripping maw. Without them, anarchy would reign and humanity would drop backward into the primitive night out of which it had so painfully emerged.”

excusing colonialism, the white man’s burden, ignoring the starving masses, the Roman Empire, steampunk, Lloyd Blankfein “doing God’s work”, Margin Call, oppositional films, “The Social Network deeply hates Zuckerberg and the online world”, Nine Inch Nails, Michael Douglas, Wall Street, the cleaning lady, why isn’t The Iron Heel more generally appealing to SF readers?, British Space Opera vs. American Space Opera, Commune 2000 A.D. by Mack Reynolds, a broken utopia, job cash vs. job love, the social end of SF, the storytelling technique doesn’t attract, the unsuccessful revolution, Winston Smith’s diary, looking back when writing doesn’t have the same power, the Goldstein Book, brainwashing, the bomb in congress, spy and counterspy, Starship Troopers is a series of lectures punctuated by gunfire, Frank Herbert, “a raving genius”, doing Dune (and Dune Messiah), Chilton Books, the boot crushing the human face forever, the leaky suspense, a Norton critical edition, how to record The Iron Heel, the footnotes are problematic, a crazy wild marvelous book, WWI, WWII, Metropolis, armoured cars or tanks, The Last Man by Mary Shelley, a terrifying future found in a cave written on leaves, A Journal Of The Plague Year by Daniel Defoe, The Scarlet Plague by Jack London, Idiocracy, The Marching Morons by C.M. Kornbluth, on Lenin’s deathbed he was read Jack London, The Cold Equations, To Build A Fire, The Empire Strikes Back,

“The cold of space smote the unprotected tip of the planet, and he, being on that unprotected tip, received the full force of the blow.”

cosmic and Lovecraftian, as snug as a Jedi in a hot tauntaun, Robert Sheckley, Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky.

The Iron Heel by Jack London (Viva Allende)

The Iron Heel by Jack London - Capital V. Labour

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #166 – TOPIC: SFF FORMS (Short Story, Novella, Novellete, Novel, Fix-up, Trilogy, World)

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #166 – Jesse, Luke Burrage, and Eric S. Rabkin discuss, at length, the SFF FORMS (Short Story, Novella, Novellete, Novel, Fix-up, Trilogy, World). Here’s the premise:

Science Fiction Forms: Short Story, Novella, Fix-Up, Novel, Trilogy, and World. Respectively, they might be exemplified thus: Short Story (“Mars Is Heaven!“), Novella (“Flowers for Algernon“), Fix-Up (The Martian Chronicles, which contains a revised version of “Mars Is Heaven!” or The Seedling Stars, Accelerando, and Beggars In Spain, all of which began as novellas), Novel (originals, like 1984, and derivatives like Flowers for Algernon or Varley’s novel Millennium coming from his short story “Air Raid“), Trilogy (original Foundation series), World (the ultimate Foundation world or Heinlein’s Future History [shared with others] or Banks’s Culture or LeGuin’s Hainish series [created just for the authors, but let’s not forget about fan fiction]). What are the special challenges and rewards in reading and writing in these diverse forms? What special challenges or rewards attend on reusing material in another form? Is the formal plasticity of SF unique among literary genres?

Talked about on today’s show:
Eric’s suggestion, literature with a capital “L”, The Dead by James Joyce, The Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, Luke’s Science Fiction Book Review Podcast, the format, the themes, the variability of short story form, the feghoot, Day Million by Frederik Pohl, Accelerando, Stories Of Your Life And Others by Ted Chiang, The Tower Of Babel, stripped away vs. embellished to the nth degree, Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes, Understand by Ted Chiang, The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe, The Black Cat, fantasy, the unexplicit story, valid reactions, the etymology of “text”, Earth Abides by George R. Stewart, a persuasive existential journey, The Scarlet Plague by Jack London, San Fransisco, short stories as objects of frivolity or training, the brilliance of an idea is not always enough, a novel can act as a community to an individual, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury vs. The Fireman by Ray Bradbury, is the novel inherently more participatory than a short story?, the failure of technology vs. the power of nature, The Masque Of The Red Death, teaching Science Fiction with short stories and novels, The Science Fiction Hall Of Fame (Volume 1), the composite novel, Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson, A.E. van Vogt, the fix-up, The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, Accelerando by Charles Stross, Lobsters by Charles Stross, the cat changes function, “an intellectual framework”, Robert A. Heinlein’s future history, the composite novel, Isaac Asimov, future history vs. psychohistory, Michael Moorcock, I, Robot, Robbie, the three laws, Stephen Byerly and Susan Calvin, unAsimovian assumptions, the full dose of SF, Reason, The Evitable Conflict, is Stephen Byerly a robot or a man?, the Mérode Altarpiece (a medieval iconographic trope), art history, Luke doesn’t think Asimov is that clever, R. Daneel Olivaw, the three laws are fairytale laws, positronic brains are positive, the three laws are for people (not just robots), The Bicentennial Man, Asimov’s powers, Asimov’s business acumen, Brandon Sanderson, shared worlds, gods, Mormonism, Daniel Clowes, The Death Ray, Elantris, “The Alexandria Quartet” by Lawrence Durrell, reading The Martian Chronicles backwards, Luke’s fiction, Alastair Reynolds, Sherlock Holmes, Baker Street Irregulars, whodunit ain’t the attraction, The Adventure Of The Speckled Band, a matter of cutting, A Clockwork Orange, it’s better without the extra chapter, the commercial effect (or the effect of commercialism), popular literature, the flabby novel, Robert J. Sawyer, Hominids, Calculating God, William Shakespeare, The Royal Ontario Museum, horse evolution, God needs a starship!?, where to find a paleontologist, “a hundred pages of nothing happening”, a circular argument, writing to the story’s demands, Kevin J. Anderson, commercial constraints shouldn’t be points of pride, the thickness of books, The Lord Of The Rings, does more succinct = more better?, novellas are novels with threads missing?, The Hobbit, the ambition of the author, Luke is rejecting the basic premise, The Stand by Stephen King, is it a better story short or long?, changes and updates and additional material, don’t let Asimov near a typewriter unless you want something written, Against The Fall Of Night by Arthur C. Clarke, The City And The Stars, expanding everything, Monster Story, “it came to me in a dream”, Minding Tomorrow, Nightfall (the short story) vs. Nightfall (the novel), “it’s a lot like a perfectly nice novel that eventually becomes a masterpiece”, The Lion of Comarre, it’s not a commercial podcast, a civil rowdiness, Eric’s Coursera course: Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World, rechunking, forums, essays, 18,000 registered students, University of Michigan, only the competitors are qualified to judge the competitors, a history of the U.S. Civil War, Luke’s kitchen, grades, “there is no absolute abstract grade for anything”, Science Fiction and Politics (Courtney Brown), the governor of a steam engine, Luke confuses two professors, “yes, by golly, that was a very good thing of it’s kind”, The Odyssey by Homer, a foundational classic, The Bible, the Benjamin Franklin bible, there should be an SFBRP review of The Odyssey, Luke’s Matthew Mark Luke Skywalker, Star Wars, Joseph Campbell, time for coffee!

The Mérode Altarpiece

Startling Stories, November 1948 - Against The Fall Of Night by Arthur C. Clarke

Against The Fall Of Night by Arthur C. Clarke (page 11 of Startling Stories, November 1948)

Against The Fall Of Night by Arthur C. Clarke (page 12 and 13 of Startling Stories, November 1948)

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #153 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Small Town by Philip K. Dick

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #153 – Small Town by Philip K. Dick, read by Gregg Margarite. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the short story followed by a discussion of it with Jesse, Tamahome, and Gregg Margarite!

Of Small Town Philip K. Dick wrote:

“Here the frustrations of a defeated small person — small in terms of power, in particular power over others — gradually become transformed into something sinister: the force of death. In rereading this story (which is of course a fantasy, not science fiction) I am impressed by the subtle change which takes place in the protagonist from Trod Upon to Treader. Verne Haskel initially appears as the prototype of the impotent human being, but this conceals a drive at his core self which is anything but weak. It is as if I am saying, The put-upon person may be very dangerous. Be careful as to how you misuse him; he may be a mask for thanatos: the antagonist of life; he may not secretly wish to rule; he may wish to destroy.”

Talked about on today’s show:
Gregg is getting better at girls, girls are always questioning you, horror, urban fantasy, The Twilight Zone, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Rod Serling, paranoid Verne Haskell, a lead quarter, the redistribution of wealth, playing god, “…and he rested and he made a sandwich”, god games, SimCity 2000, churches can’t be stopped, Microcosmic God, “shoved into the next dimension”, is it slipstream?, Stopover In A Quiet Town, transformers are the science, diorama, the train doesn’t run them over, “moral”, “extremely moral”, train guys, Lego, erector sets, Lincoln Logs, Meccano, matchbox cars, small towns can be hell, comic book stores, “urbane-al-ity”, is Verne the god of Woodland?, pet shops and mortuaries, little man, SFSignal’s Sword And Sorcery Panel suggest characters should be the focus, “Finished!”, world warping, John Carter, handwavium, “make out”, Beyond The Door, Dick’s faithless women, Clans Of The Alphane Moon, how risque were SF mags in the 1950s?, San Fransisco, Silvia is one of Dick’s most common female character names, a life sized diorama, The Tell Tale Heart, The Days Of Perky Pat, The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch, the game of Life, Barbie, chew-z, the documentary Marwencol (2010), “he wants love”, Mark Hogancamp’s world is open, living in a real dream world, Deja Thoris has a time machine, Jeff Malmberg, A Clockwork Orange, adding layers, “well done Jeff”, R. Crumb, Blade Runner‘s androids take photographs to take memories, “reality and consciousness are fluid constructs”, crazy vs. differently enabled, Esopus magazine, a world without irony, authenticity, people are complicated, Greenwich Village, cross-dressing, WWII.

Small Town by Philip K. Dick second publication in the April 1967 issue of Amazing Stories

Marwencol

Posted by Jesse Willis