The SFFaudio Podcast #778 – READALONG: Houston, Houston, Do You Read? by James Tiptree, Jr.

The SFFaudio Podcast #778 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Scott Danielson, Trish E. Matson, Will Emmons, and Jonathan Weichsel talk about Houston, Houston, Do You Read? by James Tiptree, Jr.

Talked about on today’s show:
a collection of feminist science fiction, 1976, Vonda McIntyre, Racoona Sheldon, what dynamite on my bookshelf, me, and yet you showed up, cardboard box with sawdust at the bottom, The Screwfly Solution, she has a hobby horse, a point of view, Robert A. Heinlein, what people on twitter were saying about this book, interested in what the text says, the audio drama, the acting, the choices that the editor made, the ending, the central metaphor, it’s a pun, girls don’t read, classic history, a lot of sparks, pretty good, time jumps and transitions, what the hell’s going on, in chronological order, the novella jumps around a bit, the audiobook narrator, not great job, textually complex, she wasn’t terrible, all those voices, the Connies and the Judies, Australia, the Canadianism, the one word: aboot, northern Canada, northern Alberta, any kids?, no evidence for that, still under copyright, good prominence, more actively marketed, we are digging this stuff, we readers, we heard good things about this author, Hollywood is making so much Philip K. Dick, the estate is trying to sell that stuff, the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate, not being exploited, getting books into hands of people, Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, especially Andy, a tremendously translated narrator, Oliver Wyman, a vocal chameleon, Katey Sagal would be ideal, a spark of comedicness, a very serious story, a little too serious, I’m holding a skull while reading a book, wry humour, not brought out by the narration, super-subversive, the men were just being drugged and put back to sleep again, being put down like dogs, the “good one”, he has no brain for him, why he drinks the hemlock, Socrates ending, sweet smiles, he’s drinking it willingly, the circumstances are such, antidote for the drug, it makes a choice, he’s saying that unknowingly, pretty horrible, tastes cool going down, peace and freedom or death, so horrible, everybody is making their own decisions, hive mind, girls talk it out, it’s a pirate ship, Jesse, is this anarchism?, the answer is: maybe, approval from them, on a pirate ship, orders when in battle, the platonic ideal, Blackbeard, the golden of piracy, mutineers and slaves, the consequences for breaking one of the articles, quartermaster, share you out, this is not a pirate ship, an anarchist society, how your house works, the husband is the captain and the wife is the first mate, a horrible household, patriarchal households in the US and Canada, religious ones, a lot to say about religion, not organized like a captain, corporations, a lineal structure, flatten the structure, a company vs. a corporation, we never go to Earth, three drunk guys, the entirety of the story, did she have a POV, what people said about this, psychopaths, I’m so glad you are not my boss, this is horrible, quotes, back up your evidence, while Jesse does a search, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, The Tyranny of Structurelessness, observations of various feminist groups, the loudest voices dominate, nebulous, a more ruthless power, a world being inherited by woman, this is not facts, migrant, reproduced by cloning, rich white women like herself, Alice B. Sheldon, your faces oh my sister, from the male perspective, a culture of women who no longer have that problem, David Santa something, irradiated itself, quite the read, SinclairJM1987, if all men die, we are already capable of impregnating ova with another ova, in the 1970s, all the human males died, you girl girl!, holy shit!, women studies department, discussions of the books we’re reading, we think cloning is bad, Hitler’s army of clone Hitlers, making millions susceptible to disease, 11,000 different clones, 4 lines, this is a problem, so provocative in this book, the way some people think about Heinlein, good for me, dangerous for you, second wave feminism, Herland, The Yellow Wallpaper, Will should love this, three men get in a balloon, a retelling of The Lost World, a lost plateau covered in women, three American men show up, let’s party, active rape scenes, the sequel book, entirely Amazonian society, women do men’s jobs, so hard, to the nth degree, this is nightmare world, mom killing you, this guy’s a fuckin monster, protecting women from other men, giving no fucks, there are good men, in vino veritas, Thomas Ligotti, Wayne June, that sounds interesting, even harder than The Screwfly Solution, the hard feminism of Tiptree, uncompromising, ruthlessness of a pleasant smile and a faraway look, this is for your own good, sperm samples, Ethan Of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold, get some eggies, artificial wombs, needing genetic diversity, why did she put it into space, just for the joke?, the pun?, money, farmers, everybody takes turns, four industries, activities, the loom, there for fun, Venus is boring, two million people, interest and work, a very ambitious book, cut down, too much at the beginning, the meat of the middle, the jokes, bad take about H.G. Wells not needing to be read anymore, oh my god, no idea, right away, told by the narration, Andy, androgen, funny jokes, what was the name of the chess move?, Dagmar’s gambit, a real person, a celebrity, mononamed celebrity, like Madonna, Prince, singer, comedienne, actress, stunning physique, dynamic personality, towers over Frank Sinatra, plays dumb but is smart, Judy, the Australian, American and British actor, Cary Grant, Archibald Leach, tripped out on drugs, shoved into the girl’s shower, dick in his hand, such a girl, sympathetic to the women, stereotypes about men, why she’s so dangerous, we don’t need men, set the deck, frustrated with the story, not kind to the women, she’s mean, some ideal utopia, no!, Heinlein’s worlds as utopia, The Boys, Homelander is a hero, she’s suicidal from the beginning, hates the structures, wants change, she wants to smarsh the patriarchy, making a statement, not going to be the ultimate solution, women as cold, things of interest, it’s kind, it’s not like they tortured dogs, a laboratory experiment, almost clinical, rape scene, how are you feeling, deliberately off-putting, she’s making a statement about women, shame and humiliation, power, like a scientist, nobody has had sex in 300 years, is he going to emit sperm now?, emasculating the rape, not about power and violence, how interesting, the male perspective is embodied by these three guys, canny, too much of, Lorimer, most sympathetic, he gives in, impenetrable, need to drink this hemlock, can’t we all get along, written omnisciently, playing a character, hypermasculine stories, unable to write, edited by Vonda N. McIntyre, David G. Hartwell, when her name was found out, her spigot dribbled out, Racoona Sheldon is a new hidden identity, no big gap, gets something wrong, introduction is so interesting, on Archive.org, on page vi of the introduction, The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin, who is sacrificing whom, and return to his own time, the world of the future, his name is on a plaque, we did not mention our epidemic, editorial take, Lorimer doesn’t die in the end, causes the deaths at the beginning, utter buchwa, women on the ship, “our epidemic”, the context, 6-65, as to your first point, space cadre, 0.0, notice the tense, the men’s polio shots, killed virus, childhood diseases, he does not mention their epidemic, x-chromosoming epidemic, they’re gonna die, let this sit for a minute, Y: The Last Man, the premise, one dude and his male monkey, three astronauts, it’s a tour of earth, visiting a whole bunch of women, who’s gonna do this, he’s not really important, he’s a juggler, society continuing on, a much softer take, more ruthless, the simplicity of The Cold Equations, a birth defect, infanticide, suckle, stroke, clean, bury after you strangle, the horror of this story, mischaracterizing Jesse, such a mean lady, we all have aggressive fantasies, pop into your head, society tells you a lot of stuff, finding your identity, this language thing, this history thing, notes of their lives, she’s revolutionizing so many things, couple of hours, she’s brilliant, one image, crucific in one hand gun in the other, volume of information in one image, Zardoz (1974), the gun is good the penis is evil, symbolic heavy, negative female stereotypes, chatty Cathys, if you read this as a woman, that’s so wrong, women don’t innovate, tweaks, legit stereotypes, she doesn’t only do stereotypes, smorgasbord, a buffet, a time travel book, women kill all the men, a female utopia, men need to hurry up and die, who are the sympathetic females, sympathetic, very interesting too, when he’s all excited, I felt like hitting somebody, we need to make one strong for those manual tasks, open this pickle jar, extra hormones, anywhere near queerness, if somebody wrote this today, of course I love my sisters, unrealistic, how much Connies and Ingrids, this is not a sex bus, lose a lot of context, the sex act is consequential for a lot of people, can result in babies, a lot more casual, changes the focus, that’s how the one guy, put up a statue to my penis, they dose them, the truth drug, lack of inhibitions, let’s find out the truth of these men, shade the truth, omit things, unskilled liars, change slightly, the central joke, we do for a fact, our so called great books, who do you read, there’s our future Surak, Shakespeare, not very realistic, talking to other women about books, being frustrated by that, this is not all women, terrible episode of The Twilight Zone episode Not All Men, the consequences of this, let’s take this story and say it is not a cartoon, not a dystopia, humanity has lost its soul, half-species, half broken, trying to keep the language the same, the sick part, where the men won’t understand the women, if you’re not going to write books anymore, real trouble, studying history a lot, not realistic, outside of their experience, Andys perform the roles of males on stage, all set in space, an interesting stage play, when the rape scene starts, hard to watch, we don’t get a travelogue, soulless broken, a knife edge, it could fall one way or fall the other way, nobody is right in here, really mean, very cool, everybody sucks here, Am I The Asshole (a reddit forum), is this really a normal thing, a family of violent alcoholic, hard-ass, is Jesse gonna feel oppressed, smothering, if she was dumber and tried to do this, smart, wise, typical man, they need a gun, kind of American, if written by a non-American, the captain is religious, is that allowed by NASA, he’s number 2 on the ship, Buzz Aldrin, fumbled words from Armstrong, magnificent desolation, prescripted by a committee, a lunar base, that’s not our world, in 2023, circumsolar expeditions, page 14, he often says that too, the sparkle of Spica, like a blonde fu manchu, what’s his plan, evil world domination, those orientals with their devious ancient knowledge, reverse colonialism, planting the seeds for what she’s trying to say, hard to take a good take, what’s the good take, the evil Kirk separated from the good kirk, Scott’s wisdom, the good Kirk can’t make decisions, they’re gonna be suckin my cock all day, that episode is so strong, one Kirk running around the ship raping women, Yoeman Rand, that wasn’t like me, that’s not how women would run things, some women are really fuckin bossy, Margaret Thatcher was a woman, evil lady, city garden societies, more vicious that men, Mayor Daley, that’s the theory, Jesse doesn’t buy it, personal experience, a head nun, the abbess, fraternal brothers order with different characteristics, a benedictine nunnery, who’s most experienced at this particular thing, deferring too much, everyone in this podcast today, Will, Scott, Trish, Jonathan, don’t forget Paul, we’re on a boat in the middle of the ocean, solution solved, Heinlein, anybody been on a boat before?, Jesse has been on a lot boats, who knows how to swim, how to solve this problem, seniority is the traditional way, these are the elders, they have seen many summers, many winters, society, we’ll have a meritocracy, what have they developed, fertilizing ova, some innovations, only 2 million people, all we see is the ladies on the ship, what they tell us, a 17 book series, so much idea to be mined, very easily could have been a novel, keep it small, to the idea, very very good science fiction, it doesn’t even need to be set in a spaceship, the pun first, what’s the difference between men and women, Jesse is reading too much into the play on words, it’s not the focus of the story, having the word read in there, difficulty reading, partially occluded, a very fun metaphor for what she’s doing, we’re partially blinded, Earth should be here, October not April, a tiny little package, it couldn’t be any shorter, 1972, When It Changed by Joanna Russ, a planet settled 30 generations ago, a plague wiped out all of the men, whether the women want it or not, dueling scars, killed three women in duels, dueling scars, German empire, Nazism is a distraction, ova fusion, mainly agricultural society, a couple more generations, overwhelm us, a contrast to Tiptree, violence certainly still exists in this female society, a mayor, other political currents, a different view of an all female society, just one point of view, play on gender in the 1970s, The Left Hand Of Darkness, very New Wavy, Again, Dangerous Visions, a biography out there, 1976, one preceded the other, a male activity of practicing violence, no violence from the women in this book, very soft/passive, not demonstrative violence, men went after getting these scars, dueling class, guards all over their body, fencing, to prevent eye damage, you give the guy a scar, they don’t want to lose an eye, it works either way, put on your armour, if you don’t have one, people would cut their faces, the Nazi ideology, showing their masculinist, a John Sanford book, scatheless, glass fragments to show the boys back home, cutting women in the face, a man with a cut on his face is more male, heightens his desirability, Otto Skorzeny, cheek with the duelling smites, being tall, women are acting like men in that situation, men and women are different, we have more range than that, a lady who’s proud of their dueling scars, Paul can imagine a society where women are in charge, the hot thing, the one episode of Star Trek The Next Generation, where men are tiny and women are amazons, the very male of the audience of the show, lot of heterosexual women liked that, Jesse is not a heterosexual woman, ideas by the footload, it hurts, more other works, Seven Eves by Neal Stephenson, doorstopper, cloning and other techniques, the definite this, the definite that, yet to be , Brave New World is not a cloning book, eugenics, 888 page, is it a definitive cloning book?, quasi-sub-species of humans, traits and subtraits, chemist, farmer, biology is not destiny, way to long, if you like that sort of thing it’s your thing, Jurassic Park is a cloning novel, the scientist in the book, sinister in the book, genial in the movie, sparknotes, analysts say, Cyteen, your definitive clone novel, a masterpiece, the most ambitious sci-fi novel, what makes it so good?, Will’s just a young buck, the concepts of nature and nurture, the basic plot of the novel, multi-generational cloning project, get this brilliant chemist to come back, stuff in the background, free labour, citizens, clone brothers trapped on this compound, attracting all this attention, wheels within wheels, a lot of crunchy intrigue and shenanigans, a secret colony, the whole Cyteen world, cloning and tape learning, the old fashioned way, two ideas of feminist theory that are different, become leaders in those institutions, the women should leave and start their own institutions, radical feminist, maybe that would be horrible, right up to the end of this book, I don’t want to hate her, women are capable of a lot, a contribution to society if given equal rights, wait sixty years, what would happen if women had a society without men, this is horrible, twitter takes, maybe we just need to give them more books to read, getting focused on one part, an idea that a lot of people have, the author is advocating, his vision of the future, the characterization that comes in the movie, smiling handsome children, Doogie Howser comes on with a Nazi uniform, rooting for these Nazis, sometimes Heinlein is bad at his strawmanning, humanity has been strawmanned, reading Starship Troopers as fascism, putting murder in their book, deliberate misunderstanding, a deliberate missing of things, a sophisticated story, Lord Of The Flies, foisted upon children at school, find out what this means, the answers are made up, this is human society?, no girls on the island, hey high school kids, I need to tell somebody about this book, it’s gonna hurt, too strong, it isn’t that subtle, the material is smarter than the scholastic material, always, skipping all the inconvenient because parents would be upset, with a particular ideology, from a fundamentalist perspective, don’t give women any power ever, Scott is that in the Bible?, man is the head of woman, women should submit to men, is he right about that?, should men submit to women?, David G. Hartwell, the way the old human race used to run, bisexual, maybe it’s not as horrible as we think?, trust their words, returning to Earth, pitch pumping, Return From The Stars by Stanisław Lem, different solutions, an interesting parallel case, integrate back, the lost astronaut problem, a Planet Of The Apes story, kind of an asshole, fucking monkeys, kissing one at the end, 247 pages, Will could read that, 1966, a long tradition, deep freeze, coming back from star missions, disruptions to society, in January of 2024, Jesse likes short stories, Sword Of Welleran, Radium Pool, short stories pack a punch, sometimes there’s nothing to say, The Cave Girl, ad 250, in the Koran, 300 years later, no technology has changed, your king is the same name?, a role playing game, we haven’t stumbled over a railroad yet, back in time, a cutoff for the sewers, Romans had sewers, centralized heating, when some piece of tech began, differences between the various steam engines are very subtle, China before Europe, smartphones existed before the iPhone, old social media sites, an unrelated question, start a company called twitter, if you don’t use it you lose it, this tweet doesn’t exist, tweets don’t exist anymore, Skippy Peanut Butter, old Marvel or DC comics that come back, an Unknown Soldier, Obama is giving Batman a congressional medal of honor, if they don’t do it, Superman movies, Captain America with a van, Fantastic Four, serving a particular point of law, it’s not going to work Jesse, laying fallow, Weird Tales is technically still around, they’re separated by incontinuity, all the old titles with any sort of cachet, this is that old thing you like, Babel by R.F. Kuang, what makes a Scott book?, coming into Scott’s orbit, experience it for yourself, did not make the Hugo list, capital R reason, the locus award, fantasy Japanese invasion of China, not a Jesse book, T. Kingfisher, extremely, very charismatic, not a Jesse author, character focused, Jesse hates characters, historical fantasy battles, Evan might like this book, The Oxford Translator’s Revelation, what Evan likes, non-Americans, set in Oxford, Jonathan likes provocative stuff, What?!, oh good, starting to get a sense of Westerns vs. science fiction, hard to get a read on, they like books you would get at the library, the Dragon Awards, less radical, certain subset of fandom, still trying, decrying, this is terrible, own set of blogs, leftists ruining science fiction, evidence, proof, slide into the dms, Wells is archaic at this point, socialism was just a theory, are they trying to look for a fight?, Wombat Soco, a Morlock P. thread, the same mindset, we didn’t know back then, same idea, the strength of Wells is how he presents his ideas, he never says that, communism, socialism, they’re synonyms, a weird and dumb thing to say, even the Our Opinions Are Correct, just a troll of Jesse, okay whatever, don’t read Wells, Wells was passe, they think that, maybe they haven’t read, a chicken or egg thing, otherwise your missing good stuff, fish for squid, hallucinations, fermented kimchi, Heinlein promoted long pig, if there’s a restaurant and it is humanely prepared, thank you Trish, we had a delicious conversation, not even a cannibal, cannibal curious, cannibal flag, we all had mother’s milk, it’s attractive, overstating the case, no cannibal restaurants, lab grown human meat, on a farm for a week, a mink had gotten into one of the chicken houses, summarily executed, deboning two chickens, homegrown rooster, the differences are massive, radically different creatures, very different meats, bones and skin, chicken breeding, 22 rifle, firearms acquisitions certificate, nobody kept the fur, mink in the trap, not of the execution, Evan quit harder, facebook, dms to people, like their comics, what’s life like outside of twitter?, free and easy, focus on particular thoughts, wind in your hair, dog at your side, a playtex commercial, The Mysterious Stranger, more Twain, the Library America, Twain recently, that’s the problem, more definitive than others, the audiobook really shapes it, Francis Stevens, Behind The Curtain, The Elf Trap, we’re booking way into the future, strong ideas, fantasy, the Amber series, very absorbing, tripped out stuff, Robert E. Howard, Conan, doing philosophy, they don’t believe in god, like Triumph Of The Will, a canny hobby horse, gothic novels, hah, defeated it, he’s know for this characters, that’s really cool, Conan is basically the anti-christ (but not in a negative anti-Christ way), he doesn’t die, Trump: I likes sons of god who don’t die, the Christ story is really cool, it relies on love, lust and vigour and love of adventure and love of living, almost falls in love with Belit, he has his good cry, he’s fine with it, comes back with the dead, thank you very much, in the year 6000, reconstructing Jonathan’s personality with AI, what a reviewer wrote about it, that meant that I was in charge, Vomit on the moon book, another leap for human kind, first openly transgenderwoman on the moon, the irony, a lack of progress, satirist, people don’t know what satire is, Adam Chronos, the strong beautiful, black transgender woman in space, who the hell wrote this?, both sides, strength and beauty, what on god’s earth is this crap, missing the irony in the text, a hot topic, in 1000 years, distance, people forget, its much easier to see after a little bit of time, reading Jonathan Swift, the big enders and the little enders, a religious dispute, thou shalt crack the egg, some religious fight, the annotations, Jesse doesn’t trust annotations, the original publications, people’s bad ideas, the guy in the big red shirt wants to murder Jesse, he’s a communist or whatever, even Penguin books?, do tons of research, Schmoop, Trish, Sparknotes, where’s the quote, not quotations, Bokanovsky’s process, just look at the text, that’s illegal, that’s what the news is for, following a lot of libs, a hatelist on Biden, the argument wasn’t about the things that were posted, if it’s true I don’t care, always look at the original sources if possible, clon is not in it, google ngram, clone is a very old world, 1867, it’s happening in the 1940s, copy down what chat GPT says, cloning humans, the mammals don’t survive, a barrier to continuing, not a real viable solution, she’s clever, no, Jesse’s right, Scientific American, Popular Science, this is very interesting, Dolly the sheep stuff, most people don’t read a lot of science fiction, she’s very good at it, The Game Of X by Robert Sheckley, Strange Exodous is Abernathy, also an Italian movie, Seventh Victim, sign up for this game, hunted or hunter, the sevens club, bullet proof jackets, a girl who is suicidal, you don’t have to keep playing, if you’re in the game it’s fine, The 10th Victim (La decima vittima) (1965), The Monsters, Galaxy, H.L. Gold, blow will’s socks off, the newest thing that has happened for some time, where the new thing was happening, a substance resembling fire, on his thick tail, the fifth day of lugat, I have to go home and kill my wife, I’d hate to be late, Mindswap, so many good books to read, wait 10-15 years, the whole series thing, a sequel, everything has to be a series is deadening, counterexamples, The Stainless Steel rat series, Harry Harrison, they’re funny, very enjoyable, making exceptions, the first 3 Dragonlance books, too many, The Weirwoods, gets bad in the middle, good again at the end, plot holes, each one grates on you, a real dip in quality towards the middle, thank you so much.

Tor Double 11 - Houston, Houston, Do You Read? by James Tiptree, Jr.

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Reading, Short And Deep #423 – Starvation by Fredric Brown

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #423

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Starvation by Fredric Brown

Here’s a link to a |PDF|.

Starvation was first published in Astounding, September 1942.

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The SFFaudio Podcast #777 – READALONG: Zero Cool by Michael Crichton

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #777 – Jesse, Terence Blake, and Cora Buhlert talk about Zero Cool by Michael Crichton

Talked about on today’s show:
1969, very impressed until the end, there’s a DVD, he re-wrote the book slightly, opening and closing chapter, the etext, old man Grandpa Ross, nephew, grandson, Todd, a very non-60s name, was it true you once visited Spain?, Grandpa nobody will believe this story, DVD?, it was a true story!, of course it was, you could get videotape in the 60s, these two sections are not in the original book, historical document, became famous, Janet Evanovich, a SpongeBob t-shirt, considered dated, it doesn’t work, complained Stephen King under the Bachman name, if I fix it up, replaces contemporary references, puts the Smurfs, flashbacks to the 50s, all the tech is of the period 1970 or earlier, Stephen King’s shitlib politics of today, 10 references to the Republicans are bad, in the middle of this book, words left out to make it shorter, some words were put in to make it explanatory, no other pattern, stylistic, the additions at the beginning and the end damage the center, he’ll soon know about my falcon, it’s not first person, you can’t have that frame make a lot of sense, kind of a James Bond story, two James Bond villains, Herve Villichez to playh the count, henchpeople, character actor, no voicebox, machine gun when he answers the door, a strange omission, changes hair colour, editing mistake, Karin is blonde, Angela has dark haired, blonde on the original cover, Eric John Stark, on the Hard Case Crime cover Angela’s the beach lady, raven haired, the nurse, Karin, European Karen, what was Angela’s actual profession, henchwoman, she’s not working for the count anymore, a few moments where the rug is pulled out, a radiologist standing on a rug, rugs all the way down, she pulls out a gun, where’s the jewel, if I give it to you what would we do, we’d go to Capri, I don’t trust her, pretty good, not great, on the latest cover (from Blackstone), didn’t notice his girlfriend had been replaced, stubble, she’s a transwoman, she hasn’t shaved for a while, very progressive, movie logic, not that different today, in colour, people have cellphones on the beach, Costa Brava, young attractive women, families, he didn’t have eyes for them, show off their bodies and get seen, another holiday he went on, he sexed it up, what percentage of the book do we not know why anything is happening?, 60%?, our Hari Seldon figure, Sherlock Holmes’ smarter brother, Mycroft Holmes, some of that was fake, round numbers, you’re both watching the show, the count, James Bond villains interests, perfumes, falconry?, and you’re a dwarf, cognitive estrangement, he’s not as smart as you thought he was, very pastiche, the whole doctor thing, radiologist, gynecologist would have been funnier, an autopsy, like a Hitchcock plot, more Donald Westlake, disappointed, not the right relationships to his experiences, facts he likes to throw down, shortest lifetimes of all doctors, exposure to radiation, that changes it, back at the hospital, extext?, republished with a new intro and new extro, breaking it down, really missing some core goodness, The Last Run (1971), a big jewel that Montezuma had, lost and found, in the Bermuda Triangle, that’s what you say grandpa, that’s another story, solve it, what does the grandpa story do?, successful radiologist, daughter or son had a son, didn’t marry Angela, what did this adventure prove?, nothing, the center story is an anecdote, makes the book less, looking for an idea, radiologists see things in black and white, the conversation wit the blonde, accepts him as a lover, the game has no rules, how detective stories or thrillers or whatever ultimately we mean have no foundation, it doesn’t work on the back end, a kid’s eye version of reality, thinking grandpa is cool, don’t tell any of my friends, grandpa tells sex stories, contradictory personality, pick up hot girls, he’s 11?, he might say that ironically, he aged backwards, a screwup, fine with it, doesn’t react in the right way, he had children, an interesting video, Caleb Maupin, American communist christian, why the liberals turned against Michael Crichton, State Of Fear, a rich kid, he went to Harvard, we knew these things, high graded kids, really smart, not that great academically, clever, interested, not the ultra rich, traveling to Europe, not glamorous, becoming democratized, part of the jet-set, travel to Egypt and Spain, Amsterdam, Nice, Cannes, he’s not there on a Eurail pass, life experience, reading paperbacks and being a doctor, rich assholes, those are his people, drinking beer on the beach, not doing his medical stuff, good at doing the cramming, Hunter Biden is a lawyer, you don’t have to be a good lawyer, pass the bar, test intensive, ways of cheating, medical school, wanting the title, not how he defines himself, a lot of people will do that, I’m a filmmaker, I’m a writer, a confection, supposed to be sweet, made up of a bunch of things, no major nutritional substance, a Philip K. Dick book written by Michael Crichton, a massive list of these?, set in the Spanish hotel, pretty good, a computer path analysis, not very big, Odds On, an island hotel, Scratch One, Easy God, Egypt, Grave Descend, Drug Of Choice, Binary, set a very high bar, ranking these, the most substantial, the best fun book, well written too, somewhere in the middle, too long, Harold Robbins, doctor stuff, doesn’t stay and dwell, drug aspect, perfume acting, hawks use their sniffers?, maybe Jesse is wrong, he personally has discovered, what does it add to the book, murderhawks, having a gun, the count, traveling is Spain, Grenada, that’s going in the book, ok, that’s cool, one or two European locations, it’s all fake, a commentary on vacations, really well structured, no major commentary on reality, there’s something to it, Grave Descend, ranking, the order in which we read, on a high high, three good ones in a row, starts off really well, stuck with the smuggling and the snakes, Jesse why don’t you write a novel, inauthentic hurts, Jesse can you write this for me, originally it wasn’t his name on the book, just money, that guy is a different guy than the John Lange that wrote it in the 60s, embarrassing, the central plot of this book, not something you’re supposed to think about, a beach reader, an airport novel, a little deeper, wanting to do something and not having anything to do, something to do, tomb raid, the puzzle of that, if it were told from another POV, from the femme fatale’s POV, why is this stupid radiologist in this book at all, erectile dysfunction, a republican presidential candidate, mirrors of each other, two forces coming together, a science fiction novel painted as something else, a show like Magnum, P.I., anything cool, it’s mentioned in there, he has zero cool, cool title, surprised you’re taller, not the exact age, I’m a doctor, I’m a writer, but you’re six foot four, basketball players are tall, prestigious college, librarians have classes, football players are big, in reality it’s a bell curve or something like that, North Americans are smaller than north Europeans, Dutch, notable, clothes, made for completely different, 6 foot 9, join my football team, that’s a basketball player, goal keepers, guards, take up more space, something that probably happened, dropped his sunglasses, because he’s rich, he’s a doctor, he’s tall, above the norm, what women want, 7 foot 9 is preferred, we’ve got a dwarf, uncomfortable, he’s not a count, a descendant of Montezuma, a similar story, Sharpe series, Bernard Cornwell, your peninsular war porn, Sharpe’s Gold, treasure in Spain, the TV adaptation was written by Nigel Kneale, surprised, the cross cultural exchange, the conquest of Mexico, writing it for a film parody or satire, finding this corpse, why is he being obtuse about it?, Washington Irving wrote about the Alhambra, what was he doing in pain?, Edgar Allan Poe went to Scotland, trips to Europe, far fetched and weird, worshipping in the right way, the moors, going underground, witchcraft in England, the protestant reformation, semi-plausible, a lot of implausible stuff, the professor could have had his own book, Hari Seldon, a proto-Hari Elsdon, his book is The Dynamics Of An Asteroid, a supergenius and a dwarf perfume collection, what happens to Tex?, the humour aspect, wacky development, I will put you in my dungeon, am I supposed to buy this as defiance, a parody of those things, Peter Ross, he’s nobody, we’re supposed to be him, he’s chasing the girl, keeps getting pulled off track, German, Sindey Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, two other Peter Lorre roles, being the bad guy, the sympathetic villain, at least 25 characters, random henchpeople, the guy with the voicebox, one and dones, some random guy with women’s clothes on, why is this a good idea, wacky, the pulling the rug out at every opportunity, Karin with a wig, when we get the first time someone gets sprayed with cologne, overhearing his captors, very interesting about the splatter on the ceiling, the height of the ceiling, another character, the cop has him in jail for murder, his girlfriend, boy is he mad at her for five minutes, the author is telling us we know that the character is not privy to, trying to work with Michael Crichton, a mystery to be solved or something else, the prison scene, the embassy walk on character, this may have happened to him, still garroting people, a joke about Franco, an East German guy, a false passport, until 1975, during the Franco era, the last Spain book, The Clash, during the Spanish Civil War, police on the streets, go on holiday in a pretty nasty dictatorship, the background, Portugal was also a dictatorship, a revolution, members of the E.U., school atlas, a developing country, it’s not in the first world, just slurs, the Third World doesn’t mean developing country, at one point he starts describing an assassination attempt on Charles de Gaulle, The Day Of The Jackal, unknown motivation, a hardboiled noir story about a deeply philosophical idea, he gets sex, non-Spanish people for holiday and sex, eat some food, drinking the beer, going to the pool in the hotel, socialized, reading books, the bastardization, updating and framing, some of them are really good, we did the best ones first, had we started with The Venom Business, in print with Blackstone, saying it’s like a Philip K. Dick novel is a high compliment, more boobs, fairly rapidly forget Zero Cool, retain an impression, we had a good talk out of it, those three are a lot more memorable, reminded of a lot of scenes, rich guys obsessed with something, easy girls, sand, which one was Zero Cool, easy come easy go, the original covers, the top row vs. the bottom row, by the 1970s, is this the order of publication, the target audience, why anybody would read those, people are hard to understand, James Michener, if you try to talk to people about them, The Mists Of Avalon, the reason Terence read this book, Hard Case Crime cool covers, reading books for weird reasons, The Name Of The Rose, this book is full of references, so big, conspiracy in the Vatican books, The Da Vinci Code, unstoppable steamroller, run for high ground with your old Heinlein paperbacks, a pretty good fantasy book, why would anyone read Fifty Shades Of Grey, taps into class?, some era of people, even if you aren’t reading it, that chatter, a Scandinavia book, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Swedish politics, Men Who Hate Women, an airport paperback for very short flights, thin paperbacks, five-six hours, people read old books in old books, television at home, I Love Lucy or Star Trek, go out to a movie or read a book, as a form of casual entertainment, audiobooks are replacing that, the paperback genre, a drugstore spinner rack, the new format size, mass market size, fit in a jacket pocket, back pocket of your jeans, super-portable, reading can become a fashion accessory, on a bus holding a paperbook today, justify the price, is larger better for the printer?, more glue, more ink, a bigger format so it feels more substantial, cellphones started getting bigger, folding phones, if you’re going to pay $2000 for a phone, people are kinda simple that way, controlled by the price, it can radically effect the book, perhaps the reason to add those opening and closing chapters, older books, bigger fonts, small and physically thin, break your wrists trying to read a book, too many characters, too much running around, a lot of scenes in Scratch One like the scenes in Zero Cool, early on in the book, the French feeling of deja vu, a sample on Audible, the girl on the beach, the restaurant, the relationship with the girl, I love you, that femme fatale role, never bought into it at all, half a villain, happened at the end, epiphany at the end, can’t we punch this up a bit, I don’t really buy me, sarcastic, more along for the ride for a lot of it, not contributing much, not the long arm that got him out of prison, she was in the same room, did you kill that guy?, she did get him out, they’re the same guy, switching sides, not his best book, watch The Last Run (1971), read Binary, Drug Of Choice, Easy Go, maybe Grave Descend, whip up something for dinner, Cora’s dad, really annoying, needs to go to the gas station, you tell him how things are, move on to other Crichtons if necessary, The Andromeda Strain is a solid book, Eaters Of The Dead, Antonio Banderas as an Arab, The Thirteenth Warrior, AD 922, 1976, Norsemen, Rus, a retelling of Beowulf, a real guy, the Marco Polo of the Arabs, lies on the copyright page, fake notes about references to actual incidences, a meta-text, The Great Train Robbery, Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland, super-funny, he put all his good stuff in one book, cold and clinical, as a piece of writing, really cool science fiction, coming out of a different writing system, make sure it’s a good one sometime, The Terminal Man, 2nd novel under his own name, serialized in Playboy, epilepsy, a brain pacemaker, let’s do it, a plutonium power pack, takes place over four days, pre-cyberpunk, Elon Musk’s computer brain interface, read by Luke Daniels, right after Lowdown Road, November 12, gluttons for Crichton punishment, series about a girl, goes into adulthood, early 20th century, in the middle of WWII, why is she flirting with young men?, childrens books in the 1930s, heart racing trip across 70s America, CB radios are hot, 70s truckers movies, learning all the lingo, phrases that get turned into normal English, fender bender, CB radio jive, sex stuff, information, list of CB slang, Smokey And The Bandit, bear in the air, full grown bear, local yokel, a subculture of people who don’t have a fixed community that they live in, truckers live all over Canada and the United States, their community is their people they communicate, like BBS, Convoy (1978), a ballad, civil disobedience, authoritarian war measure act, you live in the capital, trying to get a meeting with the prime minister, protests are supposed to be inconvenient, gluing themselves to the road, idiots, a good cause, the method isn’t so great, the names of cities, Beantown, The Big Apple, why is it called that?, Cowtown (is Calgary), Disneytown, Hotlanta, California is Idiot Island, not all cited, Motorcity, Emerald City, Dallas, Texas, Rhymes With Fun, (Vagina) Regina Saskatchewan, super-ephemeral, preserved in film, a way of being connected, there’s an app for that, a way of being in touch with that community, same money different stamps, too slow, convinced, culture, a fun book, nobody knows really, Hayy Ibn Yadhan by Ibn Tufail, a book from 1185-ish, most translated text from Arabic, boy raised by a deer, the gazelle boy, supposedly a true story, the wolfchildren, has to keep up with his mom, a permanent baby, animal-raised children, wolf-children, never snake children, they don’t have the milk, dodo-child, extincted family, the self-taught philosopher, going after Avicenna, in the bosom of an antelope, Frankenstein, 2023 politics, Genghis Khan was really cool, it’s been a while, a conversation with Deleuze, nomads, Genghis Khan, trying to cancel Nietzsche, Jordan Peterson, so many people are triggered by him, read a Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, semi-ignorant, he’s not a politician, gives speeches, clean up your room, get married, you have to clean up your room if you want to get married, a simple idea, a lot of people need, good advice, very good on the Bible, Maps of Meaning, a rationalist, good analysis, thinking mythical, symbolically, more coherent than Slavoj Žižek, systematic ones, Sex And The Failed Absolute, that new movement of leftists, for Freud and Lacan, Less Than Nothing, more conceptual meat, youtube is not great for good feedback, participating in their engagement systems, corrupted by spam and failed updates, emails, moderation, because blogging was destroyed, rss is defeated, we defeated them, now were stuck, the other things, we’ll see, you should write a novel, 13 year old blog, why would I write a novel?, a terrible idea, buying a printing press, what if I typset it wrong, that’d be a lot better, Cirsova guy, magazines and books published, no feedback, lying, Jesse doesn’t want headaches, 200 people listen in the first week and a1000 over the next ten years, evolving all the time, people can’t believe their own thoughts, they want an official stamp of approval, the phyiscial copy of the book, Appendix N by Jeffro Johnson, Jesse loves blogposts, a real shame they’ve been de-platformed, what is Cory Doctorow doing, BoingBoing.net was a thing, probably still going, on Twitter, pluralist something, too much, his interests are not the same as mine, a really good science fiction idea guy, Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom, Robert J. Sawyer, interactions, his ethics are spot on, made a wrong turn, where’s my RSS, there’s no way to get them, there’s no ecosystem, let’s get that blogger who we really like reading, finding people who blog and bring them on, deplatform non-twitter blogging, and why did they do that, all consuming, this is where all those blogs went, jokes all day, threads, dream at the beginning of blogging, guest posting, dialoguing, narrow and eat everything, resilient against what google, trying to kill the internet, we can talk about our blogposts on our podcasts or youtubes, you in the past, no longer me now, vivid dreams, physical things, listening to a Doctor Who episode, politics, writing that down immediately, really interesting this guy is brilliant, different medium, short stories are also weird and hard, putting on a play, people want dialogue, arbitrary rules, Terence reads Jesse’s dreams, a cliche from the past, plans for the future, tell me when you want to be a doctor in the future and ride a horse, “last night I dreamt”, boring people have boring dreams, stress dreams, obscure kinds of dreams, a warehouse full of product, I need this capital, assorted chocolates, Sigourney Weaver, dark alien chocolate, mam, something about xenomorphing, esprit d’escalier moment, Bob Hope had come to visit and someone had ordered 36 cases of red wine, the sociology of dreams, social class, different jobs, not the last word on dreams, last night I dreamed, just a fantasy, just a joke not a dream, Baldur’s Gate, people are doing it for themselves, she had a white dove in her hand, a long black sedan, the inventor of non-philosophy, François Laruelle, this is close to a non-philosophy dream, a door to the beach, translucent toaster, little feet and hands, it’s organelles glowing yellowy, Mr. Punch, a living alarm clock, back to back, a supplement to this analysis of The Road Warrior, pithy, concise, observing everyday life, cash reserves, a reverse Edith Keeler style, vintage 1960s money, the purpose for my time-travelling, it was garbage day, broken bicycle pumps, dozens of photo albums, shiny new dimes, I audibly swore, a man stepped out of an alcove nearby, bud, the artifacts, we are collecting across the whole stratum, there was a lot more work ahead, that guy stepping out is me, these are like experiences you become amnesiac to, they can’t leave physical scars, you’re ignorant of them, phases, seven years of writing dreams down all the time, 2000 dreams, the old reflexes, read it again and put a title on it, it’s good, it gains in meaning, not wanting to write it down, this is really good, I need to remember this, the only way to preserve, loses the detail, the extemporaneous immediacy, it didn’t come in text, not copying and pasting, the sleepy voice is not present in the experience, the transposition is good for the dream, writing it down the first time is the definitive form, typos, get it all down, always start with the same word, dreamt, he’s talented, an art contest in Israel, takes job, 120 characters, transport all this stuff to another blue sky, it won’t be public if it’s not there, deleting tweets, major typo, spelling rules in French, straight away, part of the archive, reconstruct your life in 212 years from now, let’s bring Terence back online, somebody like Bobby Derie, sure he was racist about spaghetti, but he also says good things about ravioli, full of soybean oil, spaghetti’s feminine, you choose the stars, macaroni, they all taste the same, with our brains, which one should I choose, the cheapest one, call up Mr. Job, a good show and good talk, curse Jesse a little, see if you like it, mutilated versions, ThePirateBay, the 1971 film with 4 seeders, qbittorent, reddit is a really horrible place, so censored, super-censored, people talking about the letter mu, qbittorents the new mutorrent, what a great website, more bitcoin to give them, mined bitcoin, windshield repair, heat the apartment from mining, it might be a classic, as philosophically deep, philosophically famous, she’s got a Hugo as well, a lot of location based, southern France’s roads, a boy movie, there’s a girl in it, a pretty substantial role, plays some games.

John Lange books

SIGNET - Zero Cool by Michael Crichton

Hard Case Crime - Zero Cool by Michael Crichton

Hard Case Crime - Zero Cool FEAT. Grave Descend

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Reading, Short And Deep #422 – Frozen Stiff by Lawrence Block

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #422

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Frozen Stiff by Lawrence Block

Here’s a link to a |PDF|.

Frozen Stiff was first published in Manhunt, June 1962.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #776 – READALONG: God Save The Mark by Donald E. Westlake

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #776 – Jesse, Maissa Bessada, Evan Lampe, Will Emmons, and Cora Buhlert talk about God Save The Mark by Donald E. Westlake

Talked about on today’s show:
1967, pretty sure I haven’t read this before, just assumed, “nephew novels”, explicitly a nephew, second great uncle nephew, saying things in contradiction of the rules, the quiz for you: where does the title come from?, from Shakespeare, a marks as pointed out, a conman wants to con, the nurse in Romeo and Juliet, what she is saying, please forgive me, I hesitate to say, the death of Tybalt, he’s got a hole in him now, during a midwifery session, a “birthmark”, birthmarks are defects, it needs to be bless so as to avoid cursing the child, subtle things here and there, incapable of resisting talking about literary stuff, research for work, a lot of jokes that are not obvious, well over half a century later, what does he do for fun?, makes crossword puzzles, particularly proud of, the answer is frost, Robert Frost, Oliver Wyman’s great narration, the great, wait a second, dropping these things all the time, red herrings, a murder mystery, some of them are just for fun, a joy ride, a lot of fun, a theory 3 hours in, possibly wrong but possibly right, a question, what was in the oven other than naugahyde, the bible!, a vital clue, just another scam, a madcap movie from the 60s (or 1979), a great cartoon, a likeable narrator, like a breeze eating it, a weird mixed metaphor, a humour to it that is delightful, shouldn’t we be frustrated with him, how hapless he was, a crime novel, Mickey Spillane, this cac thing, you’re not going to end the book this way, Jesse was conned, too cynical to believe in CAC, CAC is shit, very cynical about government, the one Donald Westlake thing, Jesse will go down in history for, insurance, complete coverage, the character stand-in, independent research, crime and cons, South America, one with Lawrence Block, sex book, where they end up going, like a badman, from the New York Times, a pot-belly, he’s the character, Maissa’s theory about this whole book, on the phone with Wilkins and Grant, ok, he can’t be this, this whole book is a con, this guy is a conman, he didn’t, but then at the very end, he gets together with Gertie, Westlake is the conman, it’s his con now, on Discord, 2010, a chameleon, his main hapless guy voice, sounded familiar, screen time, the murderer, the elevator operator, it was Christopher Walken, a black man, train conductor, very funny stuff, Karen and Gertie, great characters, the doctor, slight of hand over and over and over, very cartoonish, Wile E. Coyote, we’re kinda lucky, the main character was gonna be played by Bill Cosby, Cora never liked him, how wholesome does it look now?, comedy chops, creepy actors, Woody Allen, very New York, the right stature, Hugh Grant, too handsome, it coudn’t be set in London, New York of the sixties, relistening to the beginning, a signature Westlakism: the hands, a fun prop, the shrimp on the folk, who put this shrimp on my fork?, the ink-stained wretch, such a Paul book, the book is hilarious, with airpower, he utterly conquered the Gauls with airpower, Fred thinking maybe I should give him the money, self publishing to start up, the vanity was another scam, everybody was scamming everybody, scammed her bunko squad boyfriend, he’s never going to divorce his wife, you know what they say about the staff of life, a sex book, Gertie: the body secular, the Artillery Club, she’s a bombshell, you haven’t tried her mayonnaise yet, the Edgar is the Nebula for crime writers, an Ira Levin book, Rosemary’s Baby, once you’re in the club you’re in the club, which is a better book, they’re so different, this is a comedy book that’s a crime murder mystery conartist book, the formula for Burglars Can’t Be Choosers, a winning recipe, our hero, he stole that bicycle, the bicycle chase, back pedal brakes, the bicycle stopped on a dime and gave 4 cents change, he’s got such good control over the reader, there isn’t a misstep, his agenda is there but so subtle, such people are everywhere and what can you do?, do you’re best, probably won’t, 100%, you’ve inherited money, email, casting a much wider net, Clifford, COD roommate, a responsibility, once they’re in the hallway, not answer the door, not have cash on hand, this is fuckin terrible, there are people in need, to scam you, it’s called The Red Cross, Haiti Relief, that’s the Red Cross, massive giant agencies are there to scam, a homeless person on the street, it’s really everywhere, you can’t imagine doing that yourself, con little old ladies out of money, you think of them as marks, it’s not like you’re hurting them, very different from mugging, kidnapping, he’s hit a real target, con operations, making a valuable point, everybody’s a scammer, half-con-man himself, a big bushy black mustache, he’d be a criminal if he wasn’t a cop, confess, the homicide duo, we are manipulating into thinking they are corrupt, caricatures characters, confidence man, “grifter” on twitter, a superhero, WILDCATS, based on the Jim Thompson novel, The Grifters, a hard movie, Angelica Huston is John Cusak’s mom, you wanna go where you’ve been, Annette Bening, Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), J.T. Walsh, beat’s Angelica Houston with a bag of oranges, this is a cozy, Agatha Christie but funny, flip it, brutal horrible, incest but mean, in smut novels, he goes into a smut shop, three guys standing around a table in the back room, anatomically improbably photos, a movie rather than a serial, an animated version, too far, the soundscape, boings, wheeep, full of sound effects, bedsprings, he’s so good, the ending, fixing it, not getting together with Karen, getting together with Gertie, an interesting funny and silly promising ending, gullible, she get’s the romance of the situation, she doesn’t need a husband if she doesn’t want one, Greenwich Village, bongo player, Brownstone houses, if the two incidents of street groups of kids together, indeterminate gender, all talking about different things, a comment and a commentary, the judgement is minimal, the homosexuals, I knew what gender they were but they didn’t know, altered books for much less, altered German children’s books, deleted a book from the series, WWI, changed the setting, Eastern Prussia or Silesia, Russia, Poland, Hanover instead of Leipzig, we’re safe, Aunt Gisela, early 20th century language, really really offensive term, not so bad N word, Pippi Longstocking, he was the king of the negros, a South Seas king, Ian Fleming, Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, sexually harassing our hero, drag queens or something, high school kids, the price of sandwiches, 67, pre-Watergate, birth control pill, the sexual revolution, a time capsule, not just an entertaining book, it doesn’t make any sense to change, reading it in 2023, this other quality, a really fun book, in a sense riding, he’s a little smarter than Jesse, his life, through the narrator’s mind, everyone is a con-artist except for him, Times Square, largely commercial, red light district, Amsterdam, in the middle of the city center, Antwerp, a good sense of it, Westlake and Block, what it is like to walk through these street, weird beards, Samuel Delany’s book about Times Square, turned it into Disneyland, corporatized, a rainbow sidewalk crossing, a congregation place for weirdos, a lot of gays, weird poets, Reichstag, rainbow and Ukrainian flags, irritating, the New York Post, a political reason for it, off topic, Murray Bookchin, Liptick Traces, 60s groups and The Sex Pistols, the dominance of capital in cities, cities less and less livable, that’s people’s jobs, the mafia was people’s jobs, do people feel bad, take their shower and get on the phones, horrible things at their jobs, non-violent, taking money that the people don’t need, books about con-games, very interesting, the tools that they have, words, to convince people to give people freely something, The Sting (1973), Robert Redford, Better Call Saul, the fifty was a real and the 100 was a fake, a Rolex, a lawyer too, behind the psychology of it, Saul is childless, the family, he says he’s doing it for his family, being prideful and being a man, he’s smart and they’re dumb, it’s fun to do this scam, she loves it, it’s too addictive, it does hurt people, so cool to have that much power, ads for Ukraine on B.C. Ferries, what the fuck are were doing?, all the politicians are wearing Insane Clown Posse makeup, Insane Clown President [by Matt Taibbi] a bottom up group, Detroit guys, drinking pop, religious beliefs, tattoos, singing, they like their girlfriends, guys dressed in business suits with the face makeup, Lord Buckethead, Anarchist Pogo Party, “work is shit”, a serious critique vs. seriously running to win, Rhinoceros Party, Reaganomics, Republican in name only, stepped out of a time machine from 1967, it would look as stark, LBJ wore a suit, these guys wore a suit, the politics in here, the senator who was a real senator, not offending anybody, step lightly with the politics, everyone agrees that senators are corrupt, the Senator from Coca-Cola, campaign contributions, buy my son’s paintings, taking the frame on this, is this a political book?, he does do politics in his books, no solution other than being aware of it, politicians are products of their material conditions, Gertie’s political stance, cynicism, no idea of collective action, if Jesse was Will, terrible politicians, Germany’s chancellor, War Measures Act, we gotta stop authoritarianism, literal bombs going off and foreign ministers being kidnapped, we got it bad up here, there’s this guy in the mountains of Arkansas who can teach me some skills, healthcare, barring collective action that’s going to work, infiltrated, to not feel so horrible all the time, We Own This City, David Simon, gun task-force, the institution is so corrupt, a pessimistic cynical look, straight up robbing people, top to bottom corruption, plainclothes units, we gotta stop crime, every David Simon story is the same one, this is really rough what can you do, The Wire, drug enforcement free zone, reduced deaths, we’re not as completely corrupt here (in Canada), universal programs, if you’re as cynical as Donald E. Westlake, people can equate cynicism with being depressed or blackpilled, stoicism, expect pain, how do you deal with that pain, maintenance of your individuality, not a call to action, not a whole confection, political observations, challenging, a very Westlakian point of view to have, a very American take, and church leaders, Tommy Douglas, weird Christians in the prairies, Christian values, the Catholic church, kill the priests, Central America, in the DNA of this kind of crime fiction, The Continental Op, essentially a Pinkerton, Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald, the solution is to drink, no call to action, have enough grifts happen to you in the course of five minutes, when you’re in the Black Iron Prison, don’t you remember promising me that letter in camp, a way to get money, it could be really sad, conning me out of my shoelaces, I waited, finally I’ve decided, I’ve got an uncle who is a judge, this stuff actually happens, kids can’t make promises, this is all silly, a philanderer of the greatest kind, you can’t enforce a contract on a child, an expiry date on these letters, high school reunion, when Cora was 13, former fiances, are they millionaires now?, oh yeah, I have leverage now, lottery winners, the lottery is a scam, a tax on the stupid, quite poor, thousand marks, save the money a little bit, conpeople prey on old people, grandmothers scammed, this is your grandson, I’m in jail, twice, in the past five years, grandchild scam, court translations, a lot of money, somewhere in Africa, the really horrible thing, the Nigerian Prince scam, as soon as email became a thing, used to do with letters, because it’s free, there is a scammer who sells scam kits to people desperate for money, lower themselves, take money from grandmothers, sold a list of people to call, a bad list, the scammers scam themselves, buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo, long cons, short con, the phonecall from the lawyer wasn’t a con, long cons are relatively rare, House Of Games, a David Mamet movies, The Spanish Prisoner (1997), Steve Martin, Rebecca Pidgeon, FTX, bitcoin investing company, biggest donor to the Democratic party, they can’t arrest him, in reality long cons are everywhere, they’re not elaborately planned, how long can we keep these balls in the air?, develop into actual countries, how the Hudson’s Bay Company?, Queen: how much do I get?, an investor group, the profits are so big, spanning a continent, the relationship between long cons and history, the most famous one would be the Netherlands Tulip frenzy, Beanie Babies, Magic the Gathering cards, people don’t want to know who gets hurt by their Wall Street investments, by not looking into it, Bernie Madoff, William H. Macy and his wife were put on trial for a university scam, you have to not see how the game is played, scammed too many people, as soon as you start researching it, am I gonna outsource my trust to these people, constantly question is the only way, such dire situation, their critical faculties, and they have savings, lack social contact, loneliness, a friend wants me to invest in his business, total scammer, I hate this guy, traumatic for Cora, trying to sink a ship he was supposed to sell, an old friend, sign on for a six month contract to do all Westlake in future, this book was a long con in and of itself, the murder of the uncle, we all got conned, happy to have gone for the ride, Evan’s dad outsmarted a con-artist recently, the gift card thing, they gave up, super common, Chinese, what the scam is, you’re Chinese there’s a problem, a tenuous situation somehow, as an immigrant who doesn’t speak English, elderly Chinese woman at home, house sitting, solve this using this credit card, all automated, why email is so broken, since calling, Skype sexy ones (maybe not a scam?), catfished, automated spam calls, very profitable, so persistent a problem, Will’s scammy world, Kentuckyian scams, strange text messages, Rhode Island, selling property, have you sold your house yet?, strange sexy Whats App texts, emojis were racy, heart emojis, sad story, people want to be loved, lived in public housing, this woman in the Philippines, is it a scam if providing emotional comfort over the internet, both people can sell it on both ends that way, after he died, online girlfriends, older people who are vulnerable, directly addressing Will with a name that is not his own, grifter, that guy is just a grifter, this guy wrote a book, crowdfunded the book, didn’t write the book, didn’t sell the book, Spare, why do I even care about this idiot, people who care about royals, curious, the Barbie thing, it’s pretty good, you can fake that interest, flexing and exerting power, extract publisher by being a legislator, merger, when he’s sitting down to fake write the book, I killed 29 guys in Afghanistan, the ghost writer, Taliban killed themselves out of despair, 25 enemy fighters, during 2 tours in Helmand, you can hear the ghost writer in the room, that’s a scam, buying an actual book they actually receive, drugstores, oh my sad life, rags to riches, he sold his book at his drugstores, shoved into your face, H.P. Lovecraft, birthday today, 7 months now when people are listening to it, scammed by August Derleth, he’s not a liar, shade the truth, opposite of a scammer, desperate for money, starts a business with Frank Belknap Long, Adolphe De Castro, offended, Weird Tales wasn’t paying, slowly, not on time, later, half, if you’re the editor of Weird Tales, Hugo Gernsback, the company doesn’t have the money, a compromised person, didn’t want to move to Chicago, you kind of have to be a scammer to work through this horrible capitalist system we have, a nobleness in the way Westlake handles this stuff, I didn’t lie to people, gave them some entertainment, his son Paul is working hard on his website, the son, he’s the only one who was doing something for the estate, the next six months of Westlake, the Donald Westlake podcast, every week twice a week, chronologically, too fun to read, not enough meaty material, when you read Heinlein, this formula works, doesn’t make for dense meaty material, a grand unified theory of Westlake?, after Evan unmutes himself, numbered episodes, book club, about Robert E. Howard too, Lovecraft, Stephen King at 100 pages at a time, so thick, other American science fiction writers, Asimov isn’t very American, Philip K. Dick is a weirdo and also an American, Joe Haldeman is American but not very American, he’s a good writer, Cora held the door open for him, Evan’s prejudice for America is wrong, Evan has to wrestle with this country he’s not in, a flux, a change, class awareness, the nature of the class, more static in British lit, race and slavery, women’s lib by Americans is great, those groups, Clark Ashton Smith is too literary, serious political thought, Howard can be super-political, a great adventure story, stylist, very rich, The Black Diamonds is very easy to read, get behind some sex book, just the Westlake Smut podcast, fun and funny, vintage sex books, John Lange’s The Venom Business, the sex makes it worse not better, funny silly sex books, a serious book, Harold Robbins, Peyton Place, gossip, nobody reads it anymore these days, weirdos interested in old books, finding out what books were shit, go to Abebooks, the most famous book of 1970, an obscure book, all over every used bookstore, Swedish family saga, no one can even read this stuff these days, romance novels lose their value instantaneously, 2 for $1, disposable in the same way a pulp used to be, hardcovers, 8 hours felt like 4, he’s gonna run out of space, a perfectly executed thing for what it is, it’s perfect, spot on, a mater professional writer, not clouded, just pure, so distinctive with the hands, that’s pure Westlake right there, their hands, their voice, so good, sold on Westlake, putting my money on Westlake, Bothers Keepers, monks trying to save their monastery, Call Me A Cab, thrift shop Hard Case Crime, asleep yesterday, infinite amount of time to read, Christa Faust’s book, in a year or so, the Norton Anthology of American Literature, deep dive into literature in the historical and material context of that period, 1770-1780, The Turn Of The Screw, The Great Gatsby, N.K. Jemisin and Ursula K. Le Guin, Hawthorne vs. Edgar Allan Poe, Young Goodman Brown, The Minister’s Black Veil, The House Of The Seven Gables, drill down on The Gold Bug, The Black Cat is super-American, bogged down, something more scripted, Henry David Thoreau, feed Cora’s father, material realities of America, big picture, scripted, a leftist a Marxist, Caleb Maupin, got in trouble for spanking, an American nationalist, a Christian communist, borderline MAGA communist (whatever that’s supposed to be), a video about Michael Crichton, State Of Fear, when books are taboo it makes Jesse want to read them, global warming is going to destroy us all, work hard play hard regular liberalism, something we need to degrowth with, never means closing military bases, you gotta not have babies, you gotta eat these bugs, Naomi Klein, do a survey, do your carpets need cleaning?, reducing our greenhouse emissions, rebuild, dismantling the military, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate, the democrats are not on the left, that guy’s Right, ok whatever, she say’s shes a socialist, so is Bernie Sanders, a co-person, he reads books, he’s a tankie, sounds like a slur, a well deserved slur, what defines somebody as a fuckface?, leftist circles, expressing support for one party communist regimes, fascism, Nazi, although Zelenskyy has Nazis all over and around him, he doesn’t have the sonnenrad around his face, doing the sieg heil, “white power” on the backs of her legs, doing the salute, the standard anarchist position, a tension, some North Korean Instagram girl’s account is deleted, this is wrong, not all starving to death all the time, humanizing them, should North Korean model be embraced, Jesse doesn’t believe in Canada, the western powers never left, China’s doing its best to make the world more Chinese, talk to local conditions, arguments are in the canon, to talk about socialism, mmmm Jack London, friends with the @ sign of library of America, Sam Glanzman, The Law Of Life by Jack London, he bought story ideas from people, he’s doing Jack London, North-West Romances, Jack London is writing literature, ok there’s a prospector, western civilization, what it is to be indigenous, LibriVox, Louis L’amour, what it means to be American, class struggle, cattle baron vs. small proprietors, Swag, The Big Bounce, swag bag full of cash, that was a punch and I didn’t see that coming, 3:10 To Yuma, late in the Western game, people in the middle, Max Brand, they’re the Heinlein and Clarke and Asimov of American Westerns, Markie Post, Glitz, lady falling from a high window in her underwear, Justified, 85 novel, serial rapist, Jimmy Smitts, psycho-mama-boy, beautiful Peurto Rican hooker, A.C. dazzle, random Elmore Leonard plot with a movie, Out Of Sight, never done an Elmore Leonard, don’t read Tishomingo Blues, Pronto, Ezra Pound stories, retiring to Italy, Peter Falk, Riding The Rap, Jennifer Lopez and the E.R. guy who lives on Lake Como, Out Of Sight (1998), mutual attraction, kinda or really sexy, Luis Guzman, Don Cheadle, Albert Brooks, Teddy Roosevelt, the Cuba war, George Guidall narration, The Moonshine War, The Sopranos, hilarious, David Simon back to back, The Plot Against America, the Philip Roth novel, Charles Lindberg becomes president, that 1940-42 period, the Jewish community, a selling feature?, the response of the Jewish community would have had, generational stuff, Ed Burns, out of the HBO loop, All The Way, Lyndon Johnson, Bryan Cranston, shitting on the toilet scene, jumbo didn’t make an appearance, got a lot of tail, more killed than JFK, he didn’t get Marilyn, presidents were way hornier, FDR, she was gay, open marriage, very modern, religious stuff, Reagan, Nancy, maybe not even her, Jeb, The Revengers (1972), we’re talking Hollywood mainstream film, Tarantino movies, Jackie Brown (1997), Pam Grier movies, Sheba Baby (1975), Coffy (1973), the ketchup and mustard and thing, Jesse’s seen all the big westerns, William Holden, The Seventh Dawn, quite quite good, Malaysian war of independence against the evil British, reverse surprise, symmetry, a rip-off, The Wild Bunch (1969), The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Dirty Dozen (1967), you like what they do, a revenge movie, it’s simple, he’s got principles, the criminals don’t, Jesse likes westerns, The Shootist (1976), the end of the West, the greatest gunslinger ever is now dying of cancer, set in 1901, electricity, The Grey Fox (1982), Ron Howard, Scatman Crothers, reserving judgement, an upcoming hurdle, if the cancer just takes its course, Woody Strode, a football player he became a movie star, super-teacher of the year, does it come with money?, a certificate, no promotion, headcanon, not incompetent enough to be promoted, not lackey enough, spewing all over AI, interesting, gonna fuck up a lot of people’s businesses, a book emote, as in read a fuckin book, Evan move, enhancing the library, awesome social studies library, bought em all, endless budget, a decent library, the key to the library, just read some books, the whole point, the whole system has been gamified, the whole reason is because they have to, read a little bit, how’m I gonna get my kid into this school?, things students can and can’t use AI for, we have to prepare them for the future, teach them how to write prompts, he’s trying to help the kids cheat, you’re trying to help the kids learn, pirouette around it, guilty until proven innocent, here’s how we can improve your teaching, how to use AI, embarrassing to read, email, using chatGPT as an educator, a whole paragraph prompt, a mini assessment, submit, could you guide me with a prompt?, he thinks he’s being helpful, he’s trying to do his job, how to cheat through their classes, everybody’s in on this scam and you’re refuse, we’re here to make money of the requirement by law, get with the program, that’s your job, you wanna play baseball because you love the game, runs batted in business, now everyone can moneyball, [Moneyball (2011)] the worst team in baseball, it can’t be stopped, sabermetrics, is the baseball bat the saber?, SABR, this dude who was a doorman, Bill James, kept stats, we’re making choices about players wrong, Wayne Gretzky, stadium, rink, new stats, dieting, Zero Cool, Houston, Houston, Do You Read?, Colorado Kid, he’s a congressional medal honor winner from the Civil War, any senator can nominate, son seems fine, goes out for some reason, massacred his dog, evil comancheros, buys six slaves, tie em up, outfitted, they all turn on him, they get to talking, he’s his dad, he has blue eyes, the cavalry, one young officer, Mexican kid, claims William Holden is his dad, structural things, really well written, makes a big difference, High Plains Drifter (1973), a Clint Eastwood one, out of Spaghetti Westerns, December death hoax, yet another example of fake news, still alive, took his money and started making his own movies, Malpaso, mayor of Carmel, California, two spouses and three domestic partners, at least 8 children, great film actor, good film director, great on screen, not all westerns, Cry Macho (2021), they didn’t de-age him, action scenes, a boy and his rooster, the pirate area, too much Mission: Impossible, always trying to overthrow governments in Mexicos or Easters Blocks, romanticizing, minimizing harms, different from the movies where it’s some vague internal threat, commercial for the planet, rogue Russian nukes, trying to release in China, The Peacemaker, John Cena and Jackie Chan, plays Splinter, in Iraq?, John Cena lives there, mercenaries from China?, white guy living in a small village in Iraq, vague badguys, John Cena’s brother involved with other mercenaries, tryna not offend anybody, buses full of people, if you increase the number of people in danger you make the , two bums fighting over $10, nobody can empathize with $10, big stakes, structure, it’s fun, writing exercise, made it part of Jesse’s job, be like Jonathan and get paid by wealthy old ladies who worked in Hollywood, a ghost writer, prurient, Sunset Boulevard (1950), 36 years and not have seen…, William Holden!, dude!, dude!, Billy Wilder, The Major And The Minor (1942), Five Graves To Cairo (1943), woke shame, film shame, Double Indemnity (1942), Raymond Chandler, Barbara Stanwyck in a wig, Edward G. Robinson, oh my gods!, Soylent Green (1973), I haven’t seen Soylent Green!, I don’t even see how ironic this is!, while scraping you off the pavement, alcoholic movie, a black comedy, real life old time silent film movie guy, that trope, ghost writer, a retainer, fun, you only have to please the one customer, worried about perception, being a ghost writer, under an NDA, talk about everything, Jesse envies Will, watch some good movies because it spoils you for bad movies, better and better caffeine, a tolerance for heroin, searching for a higher high, any old shit that has animation, appreciate genre stuff, I heard about this Russian movie called Come And See (1985), I can see why they said that about this, Spaghetti Western, weird euro-trash with sweaty Spaniards and Frenchmen and the occasional American, Lee Van Cleef, great eyebrows and then he’s balding, actors like Lee Van Cleef, a karate movie with Bruce Lee, kun fu movies, John Saxon, you’ve seen his face, man with eyebrows, then he goes bald, sad story, even when he was bald, John Woo movies, he was so hot in Hong Kong, cheesy shit, when he does it in Hong Kong, pure shit, Chow Yun Fat is Humphrey Bogart but Chinese, too ohs, Face/Off, Mission Impossible 2, The Killer (1989), Chinese laserdiscs, corny and bad, so handsome of screen, reinvents techniques, churches and doves, Hard Target (1993) with Jean-Claude Van Dame, Christianity, doves are very deep, this is what a handsome man does on screen, you just fall in love with him and melt on the floor, shoot guns at each other, drive cars around Hong Kong, archive.org, how good for how low trash, A Better Tomorrow (1986), subs are the way to go, dubbing is not the way to go, just so charismatic on screen, it was a huge deal before the changeover, hardcoded English subs, cast media with chromecast, in the TV buying business, the ideal is you get a dumb tv, Nvidia Shield, google is better right now, Fire TV is the second best, Roku is eating everybody’s lunch, ability to do anything, a thumbdrive hole (a USB hole), a file explorer program, VLC, hook a laptop up, more wires, Playstation 3, Nintendo Switch, from ’99, a nostalgia thing for Meg, Final Fantasy, SquareEnix, zaniness, gunsword, computer games were more forgiving for poor people, computer games were cheaper, a 3DO, 1993, Road Rash for 3DO, a Wii, competitive Tetris, so ignorant, not enough time, Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto on horses, shooting people while on the stagecoach, shooting is the default, RPGs, isometric, when Doom hit, everything turned into a first person shooter, can see the appeal, go over to somebody and ask them about their day, criminals over there, a life simulator, a quest where you have to stop a stampede, westerns are fun, pretty dedicated to PUBG, guy in Senegal, a good chat about being colonized, the French are fuckers, a lot of Americans, generally sad and smoking weed all the time, such is the state of the situation, large part a lot of people are opting out, playing games all the time, not a random sampling, Chinese guys, weird ideas, strategy, how dumb people are, all very safe, they’re not going to ask you for money, the strategy of the game, chunks, there’s no natural way to get off of Red Dead Redemption, more self-discipline, Paul plays a lot of games like Age Of Wonders, Civilization, Civ is like crack, why are you doing it again?, rule a fantasy realm of your own design, a tabletop RPG about being a cowboy, Cowboys and Cattlebarons, Cowpokes, then you get girls, Blades In The Dark, a weird west mod, sorcerers in my Ranch Romances, Indians and iron horses, some big medicine from the Piute, the module is the big eastern white faces say they’re going to give our land to their settlers, how many scalps are we gonna collect?, turn them against their evil government, Mormon Utah, Dogs In The Vineyard, DMd for students, kinda weird as adults, kinda immature, I’m an elf, you’re a guy who works at the video rental store, it was fun tho, that’s really sad, autistic or what, they got the problems Jesse doesn’t need more of in his life, a module of Edgar Allan Poe Dungeons And Dragons, they do their best, they don’t know it’s a dungeon hack, you have a phone with a flashlight, a troll, owls, ghouls, a house with a big crack in it, everybody should make their own rules, d20, damage points and rolling up stats, you forgot your glasses, not a normal roleplaying game, I get in the boat, roll D20, sorry you drowned, a big outlet, cool ideas, Paul’s life is a lot of that, a good hobby, staying out of the casino and not doing too many cracks, filling time before you die, giving away your money you don’t think you earned, baccarat, you buy the shoe, James Bond, he’s not pulling the lever on the one armed bandit, the saddest movie ever, a sexy lady across the one armed bandit from him, betting against the bad guy, a collection of cards, like blackjack, there is no dealer, they win all ties, a bidding round, there is a minimal amount of skill involved in 21 or blackjack, poker, playing against a particular player acting like the house, sad and pathetic, quickly lost $75, there’s no person you’re giving your money to, socializing, roulette, craps, luck involved, sad kinda socialness, happiness from them, it made a lot of noise, a lonely person less unhappy for a moment, something to do with your friends who don’t read books, evil because of what it does, smoke dope all day while playing games all day to escape their terrible life, Jesse has killed Will, accidentally muted himself, try to DM a role playing game in a western setting, make up a shopping list of things for people to buy with their coins, pick a movie you like, you’re family has been slaughtered, in order to get your revenge, you are a convicted criminal of rape of 17 women all over the age of sixty, and yet you’re not gay, that’s a heavy backstory, you want redemption, gets shot, gets redemption, redeemed in the end, ranch romances, a bordello instead of a tavern, a cathouse, Klondike goldrush, claim jumpers, lots of opportunities to freeze to death, You Are A Wolf, not enough about being a deerchild, about philosophy, how weird people were a long time ago, Hoboes & Harlots, pulp style painting, everbone is knocking about, converted burlap sack full of, used garters suitable for sniffin, a fake award, achievement in gaming, what modules will be like, tutoring 2 days a week, 1 class a week, 4 classes a week, 3 hours is fine, Jesse loves his job, would still do it if not being paid, showin up, I’m in, stone soup, a snip of parsnip, looking for sex and food, run that for your students, 7 to 18, a broad range of South Koreans, east and west and north Koreans, Dok Do Koreans, PyongYang Koreans, a very interesting history, the United States is very very bad, the Soviets and the Chinese, not set up a country there, very bad in Asia?, yes, maybe the Japanese were worse, numbers matter, did you steal?, did you lie?, how many did you kill?, not caused by communists, caused by imperialists, make the case the soviets were expanding their empire, look at the geography of it, assisting, freedom from foreign rulership, being in the way of larger nations, very aggressively European for an Asian country, militaristic, we’re gonna do the Euro thing in Asia, what’s the United States doing there?, not geographically adjacent, foreign adventurism, what was Canada doing there?, best friend to the big bad bully, pleased with her farming, your teaching license has expired, still thinking about it, who’s going to take care of your animals when you’re away teaching, she still wants to have the paperwork, she enjoyed being a teacher, sister still teaching?, she seems to have money, something like a job, this problem with paying for things, the thing to do is to have a job, get apprenticed by an Appalachian back to the woods herbalist, limousine from the airport to the hotel, everything’s fine, what’s going on in the community, enlightening, the guy looks like a druid or a wizard, lived off grid for 50 years, Chinese gardens, tinctures of herbs, if you’re conspiracy minded, how the AMA defeated herbalists, it happened, herbalism stuff, grows his own food, orders seeds, mailing away for seeds, still work you just don’t get paid, it is a lot of work, your work is based on what you need rather than what you need money for, a job that’s not real, only things you really need, a lot of the work that’s going around, a nursing home inspector, needs to be done, a shortage of nursing home inspectors, anti-psychotics, the long and short of it, random inspections in the middle of the night when you’re awake, nursing homes are kind of unfair, how scared I should be about ending up in a nursing home, better in British Columbia than Kentucky, a guy who was trying to get out, why he shouldn’t be getting out, his body is good but his brain is bad, whereas this druid guy, 80 year old man’s body, more of a wizard’s staff, like RFK Jr., human growth hormone, Marianne Williamson, her new book’s out, good “values”, you have to know what the scam is in order to not be scammed, that’s no way to get the right answers to things, considering how fuckin dumb Trump is, goes with his gut, they’re scammers like movies, shirtless pushups go viral, 69, unflattering on purpose, Curb Your Enthusiasm wife, used to be a heroin addict, being RFK’s child, my dad was assassinated by the government, I’m a rich boy, become a lawyer like he said he did, Hunter Biden has really struggled in life, having a liar for a dad, don’t you listen to the president, listen, fat!, I write all my own speeches, speaking truth to power, interviewed on Jimmy Dore, totally unprepared, Hillary wants war, she’d get tricked into doing it, the biggest of all time?, how they sold it to him, a tiny little thing, a tiny little thing Biden making a North Korea deal, move the troops out, let the South Koreans work it out, get assassinated along the way, he likes bad ideas, nobody has done it before?, it’s unprecedented, you’re speaking my language, she says nice things, a poetess, a self-help guru more than anything, what’s her background, twang, New England private school accent, how she got on the stage at all, born in Houston, conservative Judaism, author, teacher, politician activist, theater and philosophy in California, wasted decade, lived in a geodesic dome, live in a pyramid too?, a cabaret singer, distracted by bad boys and good dope, existential despair, lost soul, A Course In Miracles, a great sweeper of things aside, torches and pitchforks, we’re gonna mediate our way to health, everybody gets free meditation, facebook live.

God Save The Mark by Donald E. Westlake

God Save The Mark by Donald E. Westlake

God Save The Mark by Donald E. Westlake

God Save The Mark by Donald E. Westlake

God Save The Mark - Cosmopolitan, May 1967

God Save The Mark by Donald E. Westlake

God Save The Mark by Donald E. Westlake - PAPERBACK

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #421 – Mimic by Donald A. Wollheim

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #421

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Mimic by Donald A. Wollheim

Here’s a link to a |PDF|.

Mimic was first published in Astonishing Stories, December 1942.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!