The SFFaudio Podcast #757 – READALONG: Odds On by Michael Crichton

The SFFaudio Podcast #757 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Cora Buhlert talk about Odds On by Michael Crichton

Talked about on today’s show:
John Lange, 1965 or 1966, first under John Lange, not published in order of writing, writing back to back, while studying medicine, an excuse to make money, he doesn’t need money, enjoying the good life, the jet-set life of the 1960s, Spain, Costa Brava, the European tour, Caribbean stuff, grist for his mills, Mexico, ex-military American, a subtle Caribbean connection, a little bit of a mess, Live And Let Die by Ian Fleming, an explicitly Caribbean novel, books people are reading, all actual books published in the early to mid 60s, Miss Shaw is an Agatha Christie character, the evil Miss Marple, Angela Lansbury, the digital rights to her head, the Murder, She Wrote era, On The Beach by Nevil Shute, a little bit of a mess, two dozen named characters in a short novel, the computer has spit out, obliquely with the smuggler, the rich girl, not a real man, famous politician, who’s our main character, Miss Shaw, Jencks is the mastermind, his partners, the author insert?, doesn’t look like him, an Agatha Christie heist novel, very ambitious, interesting, not a great great book, The Venom Business, some pain in this, the halfway point, all these people, supposed to care about them?, women are unknowable people who have sex and otherwise are bitches, some of the female characters are overdeveloped, not enough pages for their personalities, the receptionist, Jenny the rich girl, he’s not man enough, New England rich guy, wants sex, capital R capital M Real Man to take charge, trying to goad him into it, who is Crichton in this book, George is trying to write a novel about a smuggler, he thinks he can sell that, he wants to invert it, that computer, the technothriller sort of thing, this Crichton phenomenon, bad theories, Jstor, Crichton is creating a new genre: the ficta, it’s called science fiction, Tom Clancy, Cold War stuff, executed someone with gas, a Benjamin Disraeli quote, our old friend, Pierce, something about logic, C.S. Pierce, semi-famous American philosopher, William James, his favourite philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce, Paul Stamets, real life mushroom scientist, a lot of penetration in this book, a surgeon, a doctor, piercing with drugs, with needles, with a knife, Richard Stark, Parker is a terrible name, Parker parked the car, Dirk!, something swordy, polymath, geodesy, 19th century sciences, Johns Hopkins, I like DNA, I like monkeys, computers, statistic, hotels, chemistry, invaded by geese, Paul cmon let’s go!, the ghost who isn’t there, Francisco Franco, Franco’s relative, you’re supposed to know, 1975, people go on holiday, democratic Spain with a king, very democratic, the history of the 20th century and fascism, it happens three time, a vacation spot, British movies set in Spain, Costa Brava, an idea marketed, the success of Cannes and Nice and Monte Carlo, we could build hotels, on an island that doesn’t exist, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, middle class now, still exclusive, German tourists, campgrounds, Mr Jim Moon, they way Canadians treat Mexico, lay on the beach and have affairs, nobody bats an eye, he who shall not be named, why all these cops are here, Spanish prisons are not nice, still garotting people, an East German drifter, execute this anarchist, not his real name, Salvador Puig Antich, how do you feel about having your husband being garotted, Spanish Bombs by The Clash, the problem of going on holiday in Spain, the Spanish Civil War, hard hitting lyrics, Pet Shop Boys’ Opportunities, bombs and shootings, let’s talk about the bridge, a Michael Crichtony scene, a Philip K. Dicky scene, there’s a robot in the room, there’s a husband, he thinks his wife is cheating on him with the robot, sweaty boobs and there’s a cup of coffee on the table, picture and shape, takes the aqualung, sets the charges, one of the bridge scenes, some couple stops on the bridge, whether she packed the razor or not, why did they stop on the bridge, I’m exposed, pretends to or actually does love flowers, the book derails itself with another scheme, observed by the staff, an armful of poppies, new wildflowers, leaving a note to somebody under a bridge, a very specific thing, an interesting aside, a James Bond dead drop, a tourist playing dead drop, a tourist playing thief, the way this novel was written, went to a hotel, Costa Brava, up the coast, soaks it all in, all the staff, I do like money, jewels, think like a thief, why do people do aqualung, setup to be a vacation, literally 24 characters with names, random people, boring doctor, Italian, a confection book, not a cut of beef book, another set of thieves, this lady who loves bananas, a chauffeur, what is their relationship, they come to an agreement, a complete derailment of all of these things, doing pretty good, head hops between point of view characters, Binary is the simplest one, mirror images of each other, by reading a dossier, why that book is better, faster paced, the same kind of psychology, how can I sell books?, sex sells, what do women want and how do their brains work?, the marijuana haze, a lot of sex in this book, Spanish for marijuana?, she doesn’t matter, aiming at the sleaze publishers, Brother And Sister by Donald E. Westlake, Nudist Camp by Orrie Hitt, well done sex scenes, he’s very good at this, designed to be in the same place as Richard Stark novels, maybe the computer is actually in charge, an early vision of Neuromancer, predicting songs, using a computer to min/max solutions, garbage in/garbage out, programming with the cards, a raging technophobe, worse after Jurassic Park, he’s a good writer, more respect for him now, the To Catch A Thief reference, Worldcon in Nice, terrifying to drive, Count Fenring, Grace Kelly, strange karma, a book quote, Stanisław Lem, a programmable computer, essay sort of bits, statistics, The Investigation, German translated Lems, Solaris, Return From The Stars, a fish out of water, Joe Haldeman in Russia or Poland, the American philosophers phenomena, father of pragmatism, oh its an ideology, let’s be real here, you’re a paralyzed dude, your career, are us sure ballerina is the place you want to go?, I’d like to have a Ferrari, this Toyota looks like a Ferrari, opposite of being a dreamer, how smart Michael Crichton is, he can’t be James Bond, six foot nine spies, it always was a comedy, Doctor No, it’s got a dragon, immortality, mechanical hands, win big for Britain, even Ian Fleming knows he can’t be James Bond, heightened reality, why Peirce resonates so much, not neurotic like Philip K. Dick, he’s self aware, why are their motivations, his dick doesn’t work so he has to start an anti-republican party, yeah goddamn it, he’s got a big axe to grind and it is a Michael Crichton shaped axe, always planning crimes in his head, smuggling, how to poison his cigarettes, murders sports teacher, Agatha Christie works in a hospital, poisons are also medicines, toxic substances, getting rid of unwanted family members, arsenic serial killer in Bremen [Margarethe Gottfried], murdered mostly family members, I need to play this poisoner, where her head rolled, they lost her head in WWII, killing one gym teacher is enough for most people, Zero Cool, Scratch One, they all have girls on the cover, Signet 1969, an American doctor goes to Spain, perform an autopsy, in France, handsome, charming, privileged, sounds like Crichton, the setup for Dracula, mistaken for a CIA agent, Dracula crossed with North By Northwest, krik-ton, travel fellowship, the Cannes film festival, wrote it in 11 days, “no-good”, don’t ask writers, whichever one which just came out is the best one ever, I’m not sure this one works, the ones that sell the best, dashed off really quickly, an idea for a Christmas story, just like a tweet, Arthur Conan Doyle, his fairy stuff, Georgette Heyer, a gothic romance, an antisemitism problem, forthcoming Charles Stross is a regency romance “Laundry Files” novel, the Stross that finally wins me over, a great guy in person, Olav [Rokne] is upset, he [Stross] needs to eat, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Berlin, change trains, cheap euroticket, trains, safer than American trains, a waste of time to fly, suffered through very carefully, some good stuff in here, wrong and too long, Miss Shaw is awesome, every so often she goes and pulls a heist, evil Miss Marple, criminal Miss Marple, stabs people with her sharp umbrella, trying to make this today as a film, Glass Onion and the other one [Knives Out], done as almost a comedy, Death In Paradise, golden age of crime, locked room tropical, good detective, otherwise idiot, male cops, old fashioned traditional mysteries in a different setting, the inkling, are there a bunch of alternative female heisters, kinda yeah, a fun move, by the numbers with a twist at the end, thank you for the birthday wishes, Cora’s mom in Helsinki, of course I know who Paul is, known by grandmothers all over Germany, a late baby of late babies, careless of you to lose them all, they look like foreign invaders, a panel crashed by a Mexican street vendor, Pirate Enlightenment, Logan’s Run.

SIGNET - Odds On By John Lange

Odds On by John Lange - paperback back

SIGNET - Odds On by John Lange

Hard Case Crime - ODDS ON by Michael Crichton

Blackstone - ODDS ON by Michael Crichton

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

Recent Arrivals: Hachette Audio

Aural Noir: Recent Arrivals

Here’s another pair of recent arrivals. Ummm… 2008 is recent right?

The final book in Rankin’s long running Inspector Rebus series. “Gritty Scottish urbanism” and “tartan noir” never get old right? Right?

HACHETTE AUDIO - Exit Music by Ian RankinExit Music
By Ian Rankin; Read by James MacPherson
6 CDs – Approx. 7.5 Hours[ABRIDGED]
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Published: September 2008
ISBN: 1600244548
It’s late autumn in Edinburgh and late autumn in the career of Detective Inspector John Rebus. As he tries to tie up some loose ends before retirement, a murder case intrudes. A dissident Russian poet has been found dead in what looks like a mugging gone wrong. By apparent coincidence a high-level delegation of Russian businessmen is in town, keen to bring business to Scotland. The politicians and bankers who run Edinburgh are determined that the case should be closed quickly and clinically. But the further they dig, the more Rebus and his colleague DS Siobhan Clarke become convinced that they are dealing with something more than a random attack – especially after a particularly nasty second killing. Meantime, a brutal and premeditated assault on local gangster ‘Big Ger’ Cafferty sees Rebus in the frame. Has the Inspector taken a step too far in tying up those loose ends? Only a few days shy of the end to his long, inglorious career, will Rebus even make it that far?

Author George Pelecanos wrote for The Wire, narrator Dion Graham was an actor on The Wire. Perhaps Pelecanos asked Hachette to get Graham to do the narration after seeing the fine actor, in a scene from one of the best episodes (below) – be the only actor in the room without a line.

HACHETTE AUDIO - The Turnaround by George PelecanosThe Turnaround
By George Pelecanos; Read by Dion Graham
5 CDs – Approx. 6 Hours [ABRIDGED]
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Published: August 1, 2008
ISBN: 1600242367
On a hot summer afternoon in 1972, three teenagers drove into an unfamiliar neighborhood and six lives were altered forever. Thirty five years later, one survivor of that night reaches out to another, opening a door that could lead to salvation. But another survivor is now out of prison, looking for reparation in any form he can find it.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #077 – READALONG: Strange Case Of Doctor Jekyll And Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #077 – Jesse talks with Julie Davis and audiobook narrator Wayne June about Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case Of Doctor Jekyll And Mr. Hyde.

Talked about on today’s show:
AudiobookCase.com, Fred Godsmark, Audio Realms, Wayne June is “naturally creepy”, narrating audiobooks is hard work, how do you read to people?, word pronunciation and Lovecraft’s invented language, I, Cthulhu by Neil Gaiman, Gaiman is a modern master, The Rats In The Walls by H.P. Lovecraft |READ OUR REVIEW|, devolving and retro-volving and retro-retrogression, “it’s a sentence but what does it mean?”, H. Beam Piper, reading for the ear, reading aloud is a juggling act, physical copies of audiobooks vs. downloads, The Essential Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde: The Definitive Annotated Edition edited Leonard Wolf, Kevin J. Anderson on Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, as a parable for addiction, the temperance movement, religion, “an almost theological work [or treatise]”, “the war in the members”, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde as an homunculus, Mr. Utterson, Cain’s heresy: “I am not my brother’s keeper.”, Dickensian writing, Charles Dickens and Henry James, how evil is Mr. Hyde?, what about those vague debaucheries?, the Greek origin of the word “obscene”, Lovecraft’s indescribably unspeakable prose, The Statement Of Randolph Carter by H.P. Lovecraft, The Thing From Another World, Michael Caine and Cheryl Ladd version of Jekyll & Hyde, The Story Of The Door, the difference between doing good and not doing evil, evil as being self-centered (and prideful), natural selection vs. evolution, ladders vs. branches, progression vs. change, evolution vs. free will, the notoriously optimistic Victorians, Alan Moore’s The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Hulk and Two-Face, Brad Strickland on Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, Marxist and feminist critiques, BBC Radio 4 radio drama version of Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, Let The Right One In (movie) vs. Let The Right One In (book), Poole (the butler), Inspector Newcomen, Jekyll (Je-Kill, I-Kill, Jackal), Forrest J. Ackerman‘s real middle name, Geek-ill, Edinburgh, Soho, a “fine bogey dream”, cocaine usage in the 19th century, Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, The Reapers Are The Angels by Alden Bell, Jayne Slayre (The Literary Classic…with a Bloodsucking Twist) by Charlotte Brontë and Sherri Browning Erwin, Assam And Darjeeling by T.M. Camp |READ OUR REVIEW|, zombies and vampires, The Loving Dead by Amelia Beamer |READ OUR REVIEW|, mindless sexualized creatures, if you were an urban fantasy author what would you bring together and what would your urban fantasy name be?, the science of lycanthropy vs. the science of zombification, airships, Charles de Lint, Emma Bull, Jim Butcher, Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, parallel worlds, proto-urban fantasy, Territory by Emma Bull, The Castle In Transylvania by Jules Verne, Melville House books, translated by Charlotte Mandel, can you do a Transylvanian accent?, Amy H. Sturgis, calling Jules Verne a Science Fiction writer is probably inaccurate, Around The World In Eighty Days by Jules Verne, Phileas Fogg is the most English of all Englishmen, The Vampyre by John William Polidori, Ken Rusell’s Gothic, Switzerland, The Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym by Edgar Allan Poe, the strange case of Strange Case, “it’s full of Octobery goodness.”

Airmont - Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Classics Illustrated - Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

Dr. Jekyl And Mr. Hyde - Chapter 9 - The Transformation In Dr. Lanyon's Office - illustration by William Hole

The Twilight Zone 14 - Robert Louis Stevenson

Guy Deal illustration of Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde
Guy Deal illustration of Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde
Guy Deal illustration of Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde
Guy Deal illustration of Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Pulp Reader’s project and some audio drama picks

SFFaudio News

The Pulp ReaderThe Pulp Reader blog is an ongoing experiment in “computer generated audio books.” Sez the webmaster (Shonokin):

I read a lot. I also drive a lot, stuck in long commutes every day. There’s a way for a reader and a commuter to do both at the same time. And for me that is through audiobooks. But alas, most of the books I’d like to listen to are not available anywhere, so what to do? Make my own and that’s mostly what this is about. I create Text To Speech (TTS) audiobooks for my daily commute. Since I make them, I might as well share them. So here we are!

Shonokin places the files on Archive.org and then links to them on his/her blog. Shonokin started this project in 2006. And coincidently in 2006 I had a similar problem myself. There were a lot of ebooks out there that weren’t being turned into audiobooks. But with me being a hater of the robot voice I came up with the SFFaudio Challenges |First|Second|Third|Fourth| to solve my dilemma instead.

What Shonokin and I can both agree on, I’m betting, is that audio drama is not best done not by robots* – but by people – real people! Not those damned thieving “Silicon Americans” that Shonokin is employing.

Anyway, here are Shonokin’s thoughts on some recent human done shows that he/she has been listening to:

First off, there’s my love hate relationship with Wormwood, an excellent supernatural detective mystery. The acting is mostly good, the stories are sharp and exciting and the incidental music and sounds effects are great. My only complaint is that it is mixed very poorly. In situations such as driving in a car or surrounded by other ambient noise, you may find you have to fiddle with the volume knob of your radio or mp3 player to alternately listen to quiet dialog and back off on sudden crashing loud jabs of sound. Quite unpleasant aurally, but the stories are good enough to keep me going, annoyed as I am.

Also, the latest seasons of Black Jack Justice and Red Panda have started, which are a joy all the way around. Red Panda is a fun detective pulp with sprinkles of scifi/fantasy and comic book hero action. Black Jack Justice is a hard-boiled detective comedy. Both are great fun but written and played in very different styles.

And then there is also McLevy, an audio drama from the BBC which airs weekly on their iplayer. I find this to be a very fascinating series and have put together a mini webpage about him. In short, James McLevy was a real detective in 1800’s Edinburgh. He wrote several memoirs about his exploits which were very popular. There’s some speculation that aside from the obvious homages to his teacher, Doctor Joseph Bell, that Arthur Conan Doyle may have gleaned some bits of inspiration for Sherlock Holmes from McLevy’s memoirs.

I was fascinated by stumbling across the existence of McLevy but have not found an ultimate website or font of information about him, which is why I put this together. Please visit McLevy The Edinburgh Detective to find out more.

[via The Pulp Reader blog]

*with apologies to Robotz Of The Company for slander.

Posted by Jesse Willis