Reading, Short And Deep #417 – The Wraith by Dora Sigerson Shorter

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #417

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Wraith by Dora Sigerson Shorter

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story from The Express And Telegraph, Saturday, June 1, 1907 (Adelaide, Western Australia).

The Wraith was first published in Pearson’s Magazine, (UK), May 1907.

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Reading, Short And Deep #412 – The Everglade Ghost by Benjamin Harrison

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #412

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Everglade Ghost by Benjamin Harrison

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

The Everglade Ghost was first published in Short Stories, April 1899

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Reading, Short And Deep #400 – In A Dim Room by Lord Dunsany

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #400

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss In A Dim Room by Lord Dunsany

Here’s a link to a PDF of the poem.

In A Dim Room was first published in the London Evening News, July 18, 1945.

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The SFFaudio Podcast #736 – READALONG: Blaze by Stephen King

Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Evan Lampe talk about Blaze by Stephen King.

Talked about on today’s show:
Richard Bachman, the intro and/or an interview, 170 pages and rewriting the first 100, a lost book, kind of a cool story, the least interesting Bachman books, the original when he dies, 300 years later, they’re going to find that the book is radically different, Thinner, Stephen King wrote that book and not Bachman, the reason he was outed, it was easy for people to tell, 8 hours 15 minutes, Ron Mclarty, obvious it was written by Stephen King, so pessimistic, gangsters, Roadwork, optimism in the novels, 35 years, 1972/73, 2007, Rage, The Long Walk, The Running Man, the things that he’s done to make it updated are very odd, The Smurfs, the updated version of The Stand, when a new Donald Westlake book comes out, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, updating the dates, the estate doing it, adding in cut pages, it’s inconsistent, the world seems of the 1970s, what year is it set?, set in the present day, all the profits from this book are going to a charity, sad house for boys, rich guy who wants to do good, Hard Case Crime, they don’t pay on time, maybe he cares?, why does he have to update it?, he needs to update it, something changed, salvageable material here, saleable, contemporary radio announcements, to make it more present, orphanages, the backstory vs. the frontstory, the present vs. the past, a fifty year gap, a kidnapping plot, Child Heist by Richard Stark, Jimmy The Kid by Donald E. Westlake, Parker, Dortmunder, Stark does the dark, Dortmunder finds a novel, follow this recipe, George created the plan, Blaze fulfilling the plan, the old Richard Bachman vs. the new Richard Bachman, redeeming Blaze, he loves the kid at the end, good question, very King, he almost kills the kid a few times, Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck, is it supernatural?, his son is smart, he shines, he’s actually not dumb, he’s been convinced he’s dumb, Charlie from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, George is the superego, don’t masturbate, displayed intelligence, there’s a wisdom in wash your hands, he’s not retarded, he’s just slow, bad at math, the hand of Stephen King vs. the original hand of Richard Bachman, he gives his full name, slow vs. stupid, why did he do that, you wanna get caught, raising the kid, keeping the money, going to someplace warm, we’re going to Disneyland!, that marketing phrase didn’t exist in the 70s, a much grittier book, afraid to think about it, the kid dies, the rewrite that saves the kid, comparing it to Mice and Men, George kills Lenny, too damaging to rabbits and ladies, he doesn’t know his own strength, the dustbowl, hobos, interesting characters, this only exists because of the rewrite, page 49, a pile of newspapers, raged about the redneck republicans, the republicans hated poor people, that goddamn wet in the Whitehouse, page 160, dumb shit, the republican national committee, page 125, a republican senator who had taken a bribe, 173, rich asshole republican millionaires, page 161, replacement republican, fuck those rich republicans, page 80, how the republicans fuck the poor, fat stupid republicans, “right wing”, who are we supposed to root for, we feel sorry for Blaze, he can’t be doing it to help the story, throw in HIV, the feeling is still in the 70s, the whole counter-culture narrative, hippies vs. the man, no need to think too much about it, he couldn’t resist, it doesn’t help the book, at the end of the book, the baby name, another junior, a cut on his forehead, forehead damage, trying to make some connections between fathers and sons, how a state raises a child, what we should do, what we should think, this little baby’s not going to have a scar, Blaze is snuffed out, especially for Lenny, if the town gets to him, Lenny is dangerous, societal problems, Fondly Fahrenheit by Alfred Bester, a disabled person, George tells him so, he’s sympathetic to the kid, raise him right, he’s incapable of it, this book’s message is unclear, he’s doing it AGAIN, a recurrent drumbeat, the politicians are taking bribes, campaigning for the Democrats, he can’t help himself, organized crime, in the machine, more cynical, zone out that stuff, like the boobs in Philip K. Dick, it has a woman therefore it has boobs, this is a tremendous tragedy, social programs, the orphanage, the schools, the prison programs, Bluenote the farmer, very Bachman, our institutions no longer function, that’s how capitalism works, The Running Man, why the society broke down, the best part of the book, at the local town meeting, they’re having sex!, it’s consensual, stealing stuff, leads to babies like Blaze, good upstanding Republicans, don’t beat your children, I’m going to take you on, not being a kidnapper, stealing sweaters, kidnapping is wrong, Bluenote is actively trying to fix society, his lecture about capitalism, the god of this book kills him off, direct message, The Philosophy Of Stephen King, positive reviews, of course, 50% is Dark Tower content, 25% shining related, nothing about IT, big into philosophy, the philosophy of Donald E. Westlake, in setting patterns, in some certain details, resignation is a kind of philosophy, how to be an individual within a society, Bluenote is the most Stephen King like character in the book, he kills him, why?, Bachman writing the story, in the end, a tragedy, if Blaze had stuck on the farm, his adopted son, a nice spot at the table, the farm supervisor, no poker, he’d be good at it too, that closes that door to Blaze, for this book to exist, to have him go down the path, wrong ideas in the history of humanity, evolution is a ladder, evolution is a bush, technology is progress, trying to make things less worse for some sometimes, what went wrong?, no social programs for people like Lenny, full of social programs!, you can’t own this kid anymore, send me a picture of you, major tragedy, trying to get his shit together, if I can get that money, a big hammock for me, a little hammock for him, the stereotype of the Democratic answer: throw money at welfare queens, he kills off the characters he can’t fix, an inheritor of capital, that Lovecraft trope that Evan identified, hide the past, kinda bleak, mostly right, King would have been better off, Bachman is dead, The Regulators is basically a King book, he shouldn’t have rewritten it, he should have published it with Hard Case Crime, a very 70s book, ever cover is shit, Blaze carrying the kid, the girl in the blueberry fields getting fucked, the saleswoman at the baby store, he’s fucked up this book, break into the university library and make a photocopy, more authentic, this feels inauthentic, because it was a Bachman books, more short stories, very brutal, very Bachman, what does that society mean, an allegory for life, not my life, live longer than me or not, it’s horrible, almost too easy, a baby being spoonfed, we don’t feel like Blaze is wrong, he kills the dog, he kills the old lady, when he kills the FBI agent, a movie agent, play up the FBI angle, the George angle, supernatural, the movie of Thinner, a gypsy curse, curses the lawyers, nice body horror, lizard skin, fuck you man, they meet with him, pass the curse on to someone else, cursed cake, fuck it I’ll eat the pie too, a bleak ending, Friday The Thirteenth: The Series, Red Letter Media on Creepshow and Creepshow 2, Ted Danson and Leslie Nielsen, The Raft, a very different thing than a novel, for an anthology series, a Twilight Zone with a harder edge, isn’t that strange, isn’t that a reversal, the worst part of The Mist, the religious lady, King’s point, we can’t actually get along, but is he wrong?, in The Stand too, once the government is gone we’re all going to kill each other, ruined for King by Bachman, The Running Man, They Live (1988), a politically active story with a solution to the problem, operating on instinct, George is an inconsistent character, when he’s a ghost, kill the kid, I don’t want what Bachman wrote, George is not mean to the kid, George is a different kind of dumb, what can you do?, this book offers no solutions, one of those Fugitive movies, he was innocent the whole time, I don’t care that you’re not guilty, Blaze goes to the paupers field, his kid is gonna be a football player, very dissatisfying, Stephen Kinged out, Fairy Tale, the pictures, the reviews are quite good, not very many good reviews, Pauline Kael, what Evan is doing on his podcast, a bunch of theories, what exactly is Evan doing, reviewing vs. writing a review, this podcast is not a review podcast, a two hour discussion of a book is not a review, some amazing insights, It is too long, The Stand is longer, 7 books, 4000 pages, an investment of time and energy, another one like Revival, it dug pretty deep, Firestarter, a daddy daughter adventure, the mom’s dead, kinda sweet, The Night Flier, The Mist, Rage, Roadwork, Revival, Everything’s Eventual, Danse Macabre, the big house book: The Shining, Pet Semetary, 90s stuff, playing with ideas, before he was injured, high concept stuff, Dolores Claiborne, Bag Of Bones, his twitter account, people he’s following, he doesn’t follow many people, defunct TV shows, using twitter as a way of journaling and sending messaging, you can’t read that many things, what does it really even mean, Stephen King plays Bachman on Sons Of Anarchy, he’s the cleaner, 80s preferably, he’s a cool motorcycle man, fun character fun scene, off the air for years, he’s not interacting with probably half the people he would see, people who tweet at him, is it not a bubble, Jesse is in a bubble, 24/7 interested in rescue animals, desert running, 10,000 or more following, 10,000 or more followers, dog about to be put down send money now, actively trying to save the world of rescue dogs, vote and give money to charity, clearly what Jesse is doing is not solving it either, drink more beer, smoke less cigarettes, in the genre space and as a person, sentimental and squishy, fun fact, very disciplined, eating less is hard, other sins, Evan found food kinda boring, half Polish and Ukrainian, cautiously exploring the food of Vietnam, how was it Paul, [TIME TRAVEL HAPPENS], the changes didn’t help, what Smurfs?, an issue with King, Cell, engaging with the ideas of cellphones, stupid but kind of interesting, Samuel Jackson, a zombie movie with cellphones, transmit the virus by having a phonecall with somebody, a new collective consciousness, a science fictiony idea, no tech, a payphone, he fucked this book up, he’s gonna wait five years, I can fix Rage, I can fix the school shooting book, he can’t fix that book, a pretty funny project, make Stephen King fix rage, Misery, Cujo, I’m going to break your legs unless you fix Rage, I need sequels, writer friends, writers being threatened by fandom, Misery is pretty good, the captivity and the torture he endures awakens creativity, a very meta book, hardcover Misery, a Hard Case Crime, there’s life in this character, if you bully the author enough, appreciated, send Evan an email, a genuine listener to Evan’s actual podcast, a quiet listener, a year of Mark Twain coming up, a total Mark Twain readthrough, 7 or 8 volumes, Cosmic Computer/Junkyard Planet, regular time, a [Larry] Niven story, a political point about the lefties, Stephen King and Larry Niven should write a book, the Dungeon series created by Philip Jose Farmer, he can’t even write with himself, Bachman’s dead, Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain, The Many Headed Hydra by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Skull by Philip K. Dick, jetlagged and no wifi, The Story Of Civilization, the origin of capitalism, Shadows In Zamboula by Robert E. Howard, Prince Alberic And The Snake Lady, Bartleby The Scrivener, Black House by Peter Straub and Stephen King, to honour him, Ghost Story, they’re all 22 hours, he bulked it up, thin volumes, writing in the modes of [James M.] Cain, [Jim] Thompson, and [Richard] Stark, Wisconsin people like long books, Sinclair Lewis, highest per hundred person presence of bars, not a lot to Wisconsin, man, the scenery, the longest most brilliant books of the 70s, August Derleth, Robert Bloch, is Joe Hill the baby in this book?, literally the kid in Creepshow, Cabinet Of Curiosities, like an issue of Weird Tales, the new you skin, a horror story for girls, body horror, she kills her supportive husband, so bleak and dark, based on a webcomic, the Lovecraft adaptations, the Pickman, Popeye’s accent, they fucked it up, The Dreams In The Witch House, a bad choice, Gilman, The Graveyard Rats, The Hound, the practical effects, relies on CGI, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, necromancer, cliche Lovecraft, they’re all period pieces, Lot 36, a new star even tho he’s old, Tim Blake Nelson, a Cohen Brothers actor, Watchmen, punished, traditional, The Autopsy, Michael Shea, infodump is bad, exposition is good, The Outside, a comedy, so gruesome, morally disturbing, putting the goop on, The Murmuring, The Walking Dead, The Viewing, a 70s period piece, how big Black Mirror was, two stories from Weird Tales, movie based horror, weird fiction, the whole point of the weird, Lovecraft [isn’t] a horror writer, a science fiction writer, a good example of weird fiction example, the relationship between students, “Dicky”, a class based thing, an age based thing, the colloquial language, “dropped him”, Arkham, the subways, Boston, Salem, that annoying plot, the immigrant woman, her families heirlooms, cliche end, EC Comics is not weird fiction, a realm of knowledge beyond you, the way it was done, the hopping never pays off, NOTHING, focusing on the can of TAB, bad direction, bad editing, a prisoner in Vietnam, the class analysis was fucking awful, this guy is racist so he should die, listening to right wing radio, hate listening, “right on”, we’re supposed to hate this guy, after that monster kills him, the whole thrust of this story is to see a deplorable destroyed, having debts, spite, selling him lots on the sly, he’s punished for being an asshole, in a Lovecraft story, punished for his ancestors, Jesse is politicizing the story, they had the same problem, physically attacked for debts they owe, a gambling problem, David Hewlett, this is very cool, most people wouldn’t do it that way, chopping up rabbits, I’m glad I’m not a woman, try to appreciate it, Brown Jenkin, underrated masterpiece, see you in two weeks, don’t disturb me.

Blaze by Stephen King

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The SFFaudio Podcast #727 – READALONG: Space Cadet by Robert A. Heinlein

Jesse, Frederick Gero Heimbach, and Karl K. Gallagher talk about Space Cadet by Robert A. Heinlein

Talked about on today’s show:
former space cadet, such a fine upstanding proto-officer, the episode of Star Trek The Next Generation that is an adaptation, also an adaptation, Coming Of Age, taking some starfleet entrance exams, a fake holodeck emergency, make a hard decision, Troi wanted to have command privileges, Geordi needs to die of radiation poisoning, Star Trek: The Next Generation is to Space Cadet as Starship Troopers is to Aliens, did Wesley get whipped?, Sgt. Zim is almost in this, the space marines, a precursor to Starship Troopers, the attitudes towards the marines, leaning into something heavily early then changes its mind, everyone is an officer, O’Brien gets demoted, Chief Warrant or Chief Petty, everybody being officers is pretty weird for regular military, the Space Patrol is NATO?, the list of five people, the numbers are pretty amazing, better numbers than CNN, author of The Devil’s Dictum and Ronald Reagan’s Brilliant Bullet, that’s by H. Beam Piper, sidetracking, jokes on twitter: Heinlein was 41 when this book was published and John Scalzi is 53 and still hasn’t replaced this book, Scalzi’s background, midshipman or ensign Heinlein, marines are cool, you’d never cut it with the marines, they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about, Hugo winning podcasts have had such claims, the more mature distillation?, YA vs. adult audience?, going for the same audience, intended as a YA, the editor threw a fit, we’re divorced now, Starship Troopers is about being the person who protects your tribe, 100 hunter gatherers, put you body between the body and the danger, between beloved home and war’s desolation, impartial service trying to keep the peace (not NATO), blow up your own home town, relax, the captain will confine you to quarters, the darkest moment in the book, theoretical, “Space Cadet is a sequel to Solution Unsatisfactory“, dictator over the world, an elite patrol to enforce peace, the best title Campbell hung on Heinlein, four names mentioned at every roll call, the origin of that tradition, founded as a military coup but we’re better than that now, abolish global democracy, what people are claiming, national democracies, politically naive?, William O. Douglas, educated and reasonable people who think just like me, a panel of experts vs. corrupt bozos elected to congress, an adult actually believed that, what’s missing in the analysis, who pick the people who pick the people who get to be in the Space Patrol, the Federation, peacekeepers, solving problems, exploring, their job is be peaceful and officers and correct, they’re not elected to their jobs, approved by the authors above them for promotion, we can’t ask questions like that, they’re not democratic, a cadre of elite warriors, samurai 18th, 19th, and early 20th century Japan, the crusading orders, nobody in Space Patrol gets laid, a YA book from 1948, nearly naked, nudity, he loves his nudity, monks with nukes, deus volt, they’re defining the overton window, stay inside the box, very revolutionary, oh shit is this a rah rah military book?, mom and dad and sibling, they’d never nuke us, just to make the others feel better, Matt Dodson, we would nuke you, post-national, 2075, the North American Union, Sikhs in the Space Patrol, Asians, Africans, a South American, South Americans, Texans are barely American, a mistake to break away from Mexico and a mistake to join the Union, the plot, they go to Venus, Luke Burrage’s review of S, a Rene Girard hater?, mimetic desire?, everybody is a woman on Venus, Heinlein is very interested in transgender stuff, constantly, “All You Zombies”, I Will Fear No Evil, polyamory, and incest, a theme that he’s been telling me, he was really serious about it, manners are incredibly important, they study all these planets, kidnaps somebody he shouldn’t have, being polite, managing manners, he shocks them to our core, he really does really care a lot about manners, one of the Lazarus Long lines, manners are the oil, degenerated, she kills somebody for bad manners in Friday, cannibalism incest is fine as long as you’re polite about it, politeness demands, his boss is his mother, very noisy, a pronoun argument, call her she because she’s a person, the earliest argument about what pronoun to call people other than Shakespearean cross-dressing disguise, what Heinlein would be like on twitter, would his pronouns be in his bio and if they were what would they be?, trying to be polite, Mark Finn has pronouns in his bio, stand in solidarity with other people, the long grey beard saves everyone the trouble, not a justification in the book, we’re seeing that all in English, why pick she?, venerian males are never seen by humans, egg layers?, what were they eating, ovulations, insect paste?, mashed locusts or cockroaches, some byproduct of reproduction, the Mexican jumping bean, Uncle Bodie was the most interesting character, yeah Karl Gallagher, Thomas SFF180 saying Matt and the crew of Space Cadet are so old fashioned, they’re using slide-rules, they have cellphones, the SLS launch, Shaun Duke, how little science fiction authors, Bill Christensen’s Technovelgy, 185 ideas of inventions from the works of Robert A. Heinlein, the Torchship trilogy, doesn’t need batteries, it cannot become self aware, a strong advantage to the slide-rule, a solar powered calculator, one of the headmasters, do the calculation in your head, running math drills, Apollo astronauts, they probably had slide rules, all the math got done on Earth, why do you need a knife when you have a jedi stick?, presumably jedi sticks run out of batteries, atomic calculator, bring a slipstick with you, that kind of thinking is so fucking stupid, what science fiction is, we should be surprised if there’s anything, very easy to criticize on that level, what this book is about, we developed a fucking nuke now what are we going to do, a one world government, this is what it looks like in the best scenario, living in luxury by extorting nations, send more spacebabes the celibacy is getting very tiresome, Star Trek technobabble, Geordi or Data, how they got into this plothole, a bunch of sounds that come out of their mouths, where the plot of Top Gun Maverick is, Iran had a deal with the USA and a president canceled that, trench run, very simple, the countries that have nukes don’t have to be dictated to, go to war with China or Russia because they have nukes, a proxy war, a proxy war in Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden, a big game, a decentralized network or popular movement, he has a real idea behind it, anybody who misbehaves gets nuked, special highly trained negotiated, complaining about Heinlein’s major sin: he thinks hypo-learning is a real thing, that is the tech that sucks, hypnolearning, socialism’s bodycount, team-antisocialism’s bodycount, Earth is a super dystopia, Starman Jones has the best sliderules, the Scribners juveniles, Farmer In The Sky, a Ganymedian boy, Earth is so shit, one room apartment, not enough food, his most valued possession is his belt pouch, Star Beast is rural, what little we see of Earth here, minus the occasional craters like Denver, who did Denver, unexplained details is a smart move, that phone conversation, that tweet thread, whether he was lying to his dad or not, the reason Matt and all his buddies pass is because he’s just so gosh darn honest, looked stubborn, a Heinleinianism, they don’t have call display, how’s your leg, Matt dodges the question, all sorts of interesting, relationship between being honest and manners, that was delicious, mid-century masculinity, ow, I need some me time, a standard expected of men, rural traditions, farmer stoicism, not showing weakness, drill sergeants beat out the complaining not-fair attitude, why Heinlein put the question in, “Heinlein was a…” an endless list of ists, racists, misogynist, fascist, ableist, sexist, pederast, incestuist?, what about the …ians, libertarian, he’s anti-racist, Sixth Column, he worked it from an outline Campbell, he had re-slant it, after removing a bunch of racism, actively anti-racist, is there a parallel female service?, winnowing, hyper-selective for certain traits, other than those traits, precisely missing the point, take down the big figure to move up, ten years ago Heinlein, don’t read anything after 1980?, clicks by being obnoxious, that’s twitter, go full Fred conservative, an all male service, having females in the service undermines the formation of an exclusive military culture, Tunnel In The Sky, the Amazons, mid-thirties, make somebody dinner and become a tradwife, tradhusbands, most of human existence, sex and occasional other things, half-raising of children, women gravitate to some jobs, Scandinavian countries, more capital per individual, sexual preference, men and women are very similar, I’m good enough I’m strong enough and I can work a slipstick as well as any man, woman-hater, a concession to the very juvenile set, bad at predicting, dealing with the consequence when countries plural, 1948, it’s amazing, steer ships around the solar system, making serious attempts to really think through, he’s totally a hard science fiction writer, the gyros, he’s keeping up with the Willy Ley illustrations, the phrase has come to mean the opposite to what Heinlein was going for, spacey, you have to be ahead of the game, Rocket Ship Galileo, Nazis on the Moon, even going to the Moon, international commerce with rockets, ex-mail rockets, an intercontinental missile is easier than getting to orbit, double the delta v to get to orbit (vs. getting another continent), 10 times the structural performance, great power competition, motives to get to orbit, the Concorde, sonic boom, really fast travel has problems, Heinlein did expect that, supersonic trains, people would just live with it, cows going deaf, invent better glass, the reverence for the four crewmen who are always present and always , such a sentimental guy, on the level of literature, one of Fred’s favourites juveniles, the favourite scene in the book is not in the book, Astarte, the corpses, they were ghosts, ghostology, permission to land we have honoured dead, shut up and get off this channel, repeat, Fred has lived that scene, instantly legendary, you didn’t even right that!, write the fanfic, that’s the best scene in the book, connect some dots that were missing, remember the beaver people, so they weren’t bring them home, very Christian imagery, bringing Karl back to his cadet to active duty days, weather satellites, a space guy, telling satellites what to do, sitting in a silo, turning a key to launch an ICBM, contemplating space patrol responsibilities, do I turn the key?, how the US does nuclear missiles, a scene in WarGames (1983), it takes two, dozens of meters under the Earth each with a loaded pistol, we have our system set up, the elected politicians make the decision, those countries don’t do nearly as well, the logic of it hasn’t changed, the recent or current presidents, having the military make the decision, we don’t take our orders from people on the ground, you as an officer will ultimately take whatever orders you’re giving, excepting illegal orders, when you’re in a silo, browsing the internet, Q is telling me what’s really going on, the Starship Troopers defend your tribe thing, don’t do that or we’ll nuke Moscow, NATO has to step in, making the cringe face, a helluva noise, a very different situation, NATO is supposed to defend NATO countries, if you go the other way, have Russia join NATO, Russia asked to join NATO and was declined, one influential person into vetoing it, do you understand how to funnel the money into your friends pockets, you can’t have an enemy if you’re on the same team, now we have to go fight in Afghanistan, this one patrol for the solar system, they inspect whatever they like, the ultimate force, Wind From A Burning Woman by Greg Bear, to do terrorism, the Moon is also good at throwing rocks, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, a rock throwing contest with a guy at the bottom of a well, Between Planets, dragons, three legged and ball shaped martians, the destroyed planet, Red Planet, Stranger In A Strange Land, destroyed the 5th planet, they nuked themselves, ignite the nukes, it can not happen, don’t worry mom, it can’t fall on you, a different continuity, compatible, make the safety interlocks disappeared, other authors, prior to Heinlein, the asteroid belt being a planet, sedimentary rock, a simple plot, training, more training, interrupted cruise, cruise home, go to Venus, divide the crew in half, the distress call, the sub-crew, one lt. and three cadets, what Heinlein really wants: three boy scouts, Nothing Ever Happens On The Moon, in Expanded Universe, the only tree on Ganymede [Farmer In The Sky], a boy scouts book, Boys’ Life, a continuity, naval academy experience, the idealized, Karl believes in nation states the way he believes in trees, that’s what the chipmunks want you to believe, the classic Plato line, who will guard the guardians, we’ll muddle through with good virtue and boy scout honour, he gives the wrong salute, standardized testing, he was the squad leader because his name came first on the list, he goes for officer, it is forced upon him, it’s my duty to these apes, I am officer material, sidetracked as usual, the four ghosts, Rodger Young, a 1946 song, as an analogy he fits the same story as these heroes, Heinlein being ableist, is your leg okay after the operation you had where you were born a cripple?,the National Guard, blind and deaf, pacific atolls, inspiring Heinlein, the marine tradition, the pride in the individual heroicism, Fred’s dream: the confabulating of the scene, what Heinlein’s inducing in Fred, how they can be good silvermen, these traditions, he dramatizes, over a century, would have become corrupt, they’re ghosts, this corp has traditions, that mystical spiritual ghostly, into their bodies, all that crap that happens in the middle, boring vs. relaxing, looking at it from a writer’s point of view, legendary status, doesn’t matter he’s in a coma, rises from the coma to respond with the name of one of the four heroes, leapfrog in status, once they land and the word, the inevitable cellphones come out, seeing the video now on twitter, in keeping with tradition of the corps, these heroes coming back!, the post mission interview, there’s nothing to say because they did an okay job, that insight is very good, the actual crusades, a lot of people on a lot of missions, a lot of crusaders books, H. Rider Haggard’s The Brethren, She And Allan, he would have been huge, a personal crusade to the holy land to get back their cousin who is the niece of Saladin, assassins, two terrific female characters, two brothers who go on a crusader like mission, another half-Christian half-Muslim lady, in keeping with the Christian tradition, a moral heathen, generous with his victories, magnanimous in battle, one of Heinlein’s greatest sins is he strawmans characters, his villains are whiny entitled lazy incompetent, as a cadet, can’t we just break the rules, decides to go work for his dad, coincidence, lampshaded, he’s the one who’s responsible, je soif, the frogs, let’s give him from water, Heinlein is very good at plotting, meandering, always asking for showing what the main character’s goal is, get better at the job so he can stay in the patrol, he wants to grow up, we don’t know what we want , Heinlein can guide us, reading as an adult, Fred loved it as a 12 year old, dismissing Heinlein, I never need to read them again, I wouldn’t recommend him to people even though I read all of his stuff, how the corruption begins, Space Cadet is not a tightly plotted book, here’s what your world government looks like?, do you really want to have it?, he’s not saying this is not a good plan, if he’s secretly saying, utopias or dystopias, here’s a scenario people are asking for, exploring it, you can’t really say Heinlein did a bad job, almost objectively true, what is the book for?, it works really well for kids 12 and above, kids who have never seen a rocket that went to space, appreciating in good stories, thoughtful reminders, not leaving things hanging, when Matt goes back and does the job of his cadet supervisors, you’re getting your hunger back, new academy kids coming in, not so many people get to pass through, people retire in their 30s, mostly they’re not fit, what not fit means is they’re dishonest, they’re overly attached to their tribe as opposed to the truth, character, Rodger Young was short and disabled, rewarded with death, a song and book naming a space ship after him, the right thing to do, what makes you a good patrolman, a model for stability, what’s the point of military or civilian service, Heinlein is a utopian, people who’ve actually seen combat or put in service, made fun of in the Verhoven movie, service guarantees participation in the ruling councils, citizenship vs. the vote, graduate children into adulthood by means of testing, a very utopian and interesting idea, overwhelmed by people saying he’s a fascist, all these retirees, do they have an outsized influence?, he thinks that he benefited from it, a lifer was someone who got in at 20 years, you don’t need that many admirals, the patrol breaks your ability to be a part of your parochial group, had to by my own belt buckle?, Jesse is a Zelazny character, very different from a lot of people, this guy hates me, this guy doesn’t understand me, an asshole on twitter, abrasive on the podcast, sometimes other people have ideas that are cool, why Heinlein has people retire out, the Starfleet Academy training program, retirement in Star Trek, how to change society, you need more training, I notice you like spending times naked in the growery, the essences, the officer was a monk he didn’t care, some of the monks stay in the service and don’t ever get married, when you have a military service that is conscription, in for three terms, training for humanity, we can be done, this very solid book, majority of the population going through federal service, a distilled fraction, a very good point, sometimes he’s a socialist sometimes he’s a libertarian, winged, marjory taylor green, Assange should be gotten out of prison, Rand Paul is right about a helluva lot of stuff, one axis, one of the less interesting axes, people are stuck, what modes can we get out of, he was ahead of the game with his anti-racism, its an ideology of anti-ideology, this is the way you talk about the subject, these are the words you should never say, if you are a very shallow thinker, what is the correct word, black as the ace of spades, the word spade is not an insult, the kind of thing that someone would quote tweet, learn to appreciate by reading a fucking book from more than ten years ago, worked up about words that were in common usage, family text channel, is wetback a slur?, a paper on immigration in the 1950s, Operation Wetback, the teacher freaks the fuck out, privileged of visiting the uncle who keeps you apprised, are guineas Italians?, continent by continent, three guineas in Africa, there’s a guinea in Asia, its a coin, the observed behavior, racism is still around, it’s not a science, ignorance, thoughtlessness, pseudoscience, people who just don’t like those people, when you’re uncomfortable, Fred’s shy, when Jesse can talk for five.

Darrell K. Sweet - Space Cadet by Robert A. Heinlein

NEW ENGLISH LIBRARY - Space Cadet by Robert A. Heinlein

FULL CAST AUDIO - Space Cadet COVER art

Space Cadet HARDCOVER

Vincent Di Fate - prelim for SPACE CADET by Robert A. Heinlein

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Reading, Short And Deep #371 – The Dead Remember by Robert E. Howard

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #371

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Dead Remember by Robert E. Howard

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

The Dead Remember was first published in Argosy, August 15, 1931.

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