The SFFaudio Podcast #772 – READALONG: A Meeting With Medusa by Arthur C. Clarke

The SFFaudio PodcastJesse, Scott Danielson, and Terence Blake talk about A Meeting With Medusa by Arthur C. Clarke

Talked about on today’s show:
under heavy pressure, Playboy, December 1971, the audiobook, superfamous, The Star and Nine Billion Names Of God, A Fall Of Moondust, Dolphin Island, a middle school library, an introduction to hard science fiction, all about characters in relationships, a mystery involved, a disaster movie, what he’s really good at, the twist at the end, sprinkled the hints, the paintings in Playboy, a hot air balloon, multiple gases, a giant medusa, aka a jellyfish, Jupiter, on Earth, the story this is most similar to by Arthur Conan Doyle, the Sherlock Holmes Professor Challenger guy, The Horror Of The Heights, pilots go up and disappear, crushed, giant jellyfish in the upper atmosphere story, Queen Elizabeth IV, an abrupt end, the sequel inside of it, awesome opening scene, imagery and everything, the shocking end of that section, really good, among the best Scott has ever read of Clarke’s, the structure hurts it, the beautiful writing, a bit of symbolism, an idea punch that hits you out of science fiction and into philosophy, he’s doing propaganda, he don’t cheat at all, is there an Arthur C. Clarke story where the knowledge of the solar system at the time of writing is ignored to tell an idea, he won’t write a story unless it’s plausible, petty concerns of being a human, deep time and cosmic depths, what does that make you, the Olaf Stapledon thing, characters, the guy in here, important to tell the story, solid, now he’s very solid, concentric circles of sense of wonder, a little bit in the future, almost cinematic action, some of the phrases are ambiguous, going on another mission, lightning reflexes, reconstructed him, after they reconstructed me, we’re just not fast enough, tai chi teacher, not explicit, his pilot’s reflexes, he doesn’t say this is the murderer, when they put me together again, the surgeons made some improvements, this is one of them, set more than 100 years in the future, treaty on first contact, the line that blew me away, the Mao Tse Tung in the American museum, what?, Americans got over their hatred of red China and think Mao is a hero as the rightly should?, the San Diego naval museum, war trophy, do you want to make friends with the Russians?, name an aircraft carrier after Stalin, or Ho Chi Mihn, named after people now, destroyers are named after cities, how do you embrace other countries?, incorporate their heroes, adopting Greek stuff, they’re ours now, we’re the inheritors of the Romans and the Greeks, it shook me to my core, what a good writer he is, it’s a good one, another ship that he named the Kon-Tiki, one man across the biggest sea, the prime directive in this, amongst six or more other phrases, Asimov, encounters with the American Indians and Africa, three laws, how to be in the world, don’t lie, what’s going to make you happy, start with that, it causes problems, fuck you is not a lie, be polite?, what would the basis of the prime directive, the categorical imperative, don’t use others as a means to an end, a negative, let them get used to you, not the Star Trek one, they break it all the time for purposes of plot, there’s something behind it, those are how you should act as a person, just replace the word robot with human, a human must consider other except where injure, my feelings are hurt, fuck your feelings, a person must protect his or her own existence, interesting application, we’re not robots, methods and plans of dealing with other people, taking stuff coming out of philosophy, parallel evolution, Asimov’s fourth law, the zeroth law, technically fourth, The Evitable Conflict, 1950, Chairman Mao, Nixon goes to China, detente, because Sri Lanka (or India) had to play a role, a tornado touched down, doesn’t cheat at all, an airship book, more of a hot air balloon than anything else, hot hydrogen of course, thinking through the scenario, the twist at the end that brings it up, this guy’s immortal?, a ship of Theseus scenario, rolls away at a calm 30 km per hour, 7 feet tall, to give him self-confidence, feeling separate from humanity, the ambassador between the ones made of carbon and the ones made of silicon, the aliens, radio dish heads, are they intelligent, I’m convinced that Medusa knew your blindspot, hunting, the intelligent species must be the predator species, a feint, a lightning bolt, why not, up for grabs, the aimed at manta fell like stone, Jupiter is a lightning bolt god, when we see him at the end, he’s turned to silicon, identified with his metallic aspect, Medusified, plummeting manta, I’ve studied a lot of jellyfish, Juliana and Luke on the Science Fiction Book Review Podcast, octopus books, a Ray Nayler book, spiders, eight-legged non-human creatures, the length of the story that’s required to do the job, an hour and half, somewhere in between, two parts, a view of humanity, superchimps/simps, clothes, slaves, brought out of mothballs, a POV of Earth from someone not interested in it, be a pioneer, no one could go, a super-pioneer, why this book exists, the opposite of the moonbus book, trying to conform, people want shitty romance cheating on your wife disaster relatable, I’m more like this guy, Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World, almost none of it is that interesting, his brain level, he’s just not interested in the normal things people are interested in, exploring the ocean, so interesting down there, Jacques Cousteau, collecting notes on hailing frogs, not the normal science fiction writer, maybe Olaf Stapledon, his personal life, not interested in slow pitch, Arthur C. Clarke goes to hell, develop a deep philosophy to deal with it, Howard Falcon, like HAL, Jesse I’m afraid that’s not possible, HAL has conflicting orders, The Sentinel, wow!, full of philosophical things, sense of wonder things, it’s all earned, if this then that, Criminolly, garbaugust, worldbuilding, there’s no distinction between science fiction and fantasy right now, cool ideas about how the world works, tried a few more, testing the theory, wanting to be engaged, turning into Jesse, why we have to be so enjoying about terms, The Kaiju Preservation Society, infodumps about made up facts, could you explore it?, honest, solid, he doesn’t cheat, he’s standing on what he knows, realities that might be interesting explored, he’s not a cheater, when Larry Niven cheats it’s so he can get to another thing, twists something, a third of the episodes, are there any Star Trek episodes that are hard SF, the closest they come is The Galileo Seven, a rip off of The Cold Equations, Spock gambles, there’s a percentage chance there’s a passing alien spaceship, why did I read this story, have their cake and eat it too, angry fights, be hard about these things, you inhuman monster, Spock’s being very logical, fan service episodes, not memorable episodes, social soft science, what should our relationships be, the good stuff, people watched a lot of television and movies with spaceships in it, wouldn’t it be cool if, aliens, almost none, Childhood’s End, even The Star, doing soft science fiction, why I don’t like science fiction and fantasy books, fantasy is a whole other thing, show me where Ted Chiang cheats, an interesting thought, The Merchant And The Alchemist’s Gate, Howard Falcon was unloveable, a novel called The Medusa Chronicles by Alastair Reynolds and Stephen Baxter, a sequel to The Time Machine, Terry Pratchett, the childhood of Howard Falcon, when Star Trek goes back and explains the early life of Kirk and Spock, a fallacy involved, for what purpose, what does it matter?, unless there’s an idea there, why it’s shit, this episode we find out Kirk has a brother, why?, a massacre on some planet, just to raise the stakes, to make the Holocaust personal, to do a technical job, a Chekov’s gun on the wall, Spock having eyelids, to press the reset button, a technical requirement of a show where it’s not serialized, Vulcan nerve pinch, the ears are not what make Mr. Spock Mr. Spock, an emotional being controlling his emotions, him being a spawning salmon Theodore Sturgeon episode (Amok Time), every time they bring up a Vulcan, there’s exceptions, response video, Michael K. Vaughn, he has good taste, a good youtuber, people say why don’t you, here’s a recommendation, seem to be following Luke Burrage’s podcast, a big thing in France, amongst the aficionados, how intelligent it is, boring, The Mountain And The Sea, quite into philosophy, coming at it from a philosophical side, setting the scene before anything noticeably strange happened, how long it is, judging books by their cover and how long they are, bad cover, does it need to be this long, poingant and mind expanding, the UK does better covers than the USA, the UK edition, RayNaler.net, translated into French, thought it was brilliant, June 2023, Cthulhu, Japanese style, maybe this book is necessary, another cover with more tentacles, almost doesn’t ever talk about tentacles, cosmic horror = tentacles, Antarctica, the melting and stuff, a giant frozen 17 tall penguin, Tekeli-li!, philosophies of writing, Robert E. Howard is writing for money, very successful as a pulp writers, 4 times as big, Lovecraft doesn’t write stories that don’t need to be written, this is what is selling right now, even when he’s doing very pulpy stuff, things that are not needed for the story (to make the cover), a born storyteller, writing story, they like stories too, they don’t have the chops, people who won’t write for the commercial market, antagonistic to commercialism, Clarke is a bit of both, very elderly collaborations, sullying his legacy, The Light Of Other Days, very disenchanted with Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov, Silverberg, cash-ins, a reader need not be subject to the whims of the author, because your friend wrote the book, fuck you, go back to basic principles, Clarke has a purity in him at times, Bob Shaw, an expansion, Light of Other Days, the New York Times lie list, Talisman by Peter Straub and Stephen King, Black House, shouldn’t be trying or able, necessary compared to Asimov/Silverberg, Clarke/Baxter, Olaf Stapledon wrote this, he didn’t write for cash, the unique fluke, King’s psychology, King has a limiter or a governor, he doesn’t use it for evil (or for good), hurts his own work, a fantasist of childhood and American life, a fantasy writer, we just don’t think of him that way, “fantasy realm”, The Goblin Emperor book, secondary world fiction, worldbuilding is mostly bad, silly worldbuilding, 2001: A Space Odyssey, psychedelic experience, intelligent worldbuilding, to fill pages, fall apart in a mush, a speculative component, the sensory impact of the trip, highly informed, standing on what is know and speculating, if there was life it would be in this zone, that kaiju book of Scalzi’s, wonder about your purpose, none of this is helping me in my life, what happens during the game, processing a magazine, sitting too long, certain number of hours, that’s fun, but it ain’t a novel, it ain’t good science fiction, what would our guy from youtube think about Philip K. Dick, make a magic system work, things are happening because they have to, if time started going backwards, still in the Roman Empire, spins up a world in order to explore it (not to fill pages), his novels are all worse than his short stories, just better, his short stories are better than that book (The Man In The High Castle), a children’s book, Galactic Pot-Healer, work and being out of work, a frontier where people are challenged to find meaningful work, that gunfight was really cool, some people act like robots, unemotional or mean, is sex with co-workers cool?, very fun and very rich, he didn’t need a setting for some characters, if your story doesn’t have idea at its core it’s not science fiction, imagine with ideas, live with ideas, a Philip K. Dick essay, Olaf Stapledon writes big long thick books that are science fiction but not novels, that’s interesting, how do you do that, a history of the last and first men, like reading a whole bunch of Clarke stories, unique in fiction, poor guy, there’s a lot not to enjoy, How To Build A Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later, until you toss it across the room, a good theory of fantasy, fantasy is pretty big, the hardest of the hard, uploading and downloading your brain, it’s not, Ringworld, a whole bunch of gimmes, smart aliens, an aggressive species, they generate a D&D party, the Larry Niven character, just an excuse, a gravitational feeling thing, complete bullshit book, everything is fiction, it would just fall apart, 100% cheater and it works because he has an idea at the core and everything else is to get to that idea, he cheats in every possible way, Clarke has a very different philosophy, even in A Fall Of Moondust, not his best book, a bunch of boring characters, people get lead astray, super-good, a lot of Silverberg lately, Tor Doubles, read about a third of half of each of those books, a Silverberg novella, especially with his novels, he’s a contemplative dude, he’s sorta artsy and literary, he likes old books, Heart Of Darkness on another planet, elephants for the economy, sex on the brain, human relationships, the worldbuilding is to get to the transcendent point, The Book Of Skulls, being a good writer helps, Passengers, what is he famous for?, made Majipoor maybe?, Lord Valentine’s Castle, Nightwings, doesn’t have a killer book, big stature for a guy who doesn’t have a killer book, Neuromancer by William Gibson, rather than the fixup, his standalone short stories are really good, Phases Of The Moon by Isaac Asimov, a writing machine, wrote for money, still alive and not licensing his name out, 2010, now that he’s not poor, not getting his pension padded, good story, good writer, Arthur C. Clarke, he knows what to do, Farnham’s Freehold, he’s gonna rant about it, it’s not as bad as you think, Paul, oh my god, at the time, Westlake, revving back up, The Colorado Kid illustrated edition, Justified: City Primeval, there are character in it, Elmore Leonard short story, Tommy Patrick Ryan, some random guy on the internet, through Eric, 11th ever published story, readability through the fucking roof, so much characterization, got worse at the end, No Man’s Land by John Buchan, early evening, a reasonable hour of the evening, save the hunger to be angrier, approaching it satisfied, Houston, Houston, Do You Read?, Ace Double, a subpodcast of only Tor Doubles, we started with the first one, The Screwfly Solution, The Girl Who Was Plugged In, Run For The Stars by Harlan Ellison, savage, a juvenile delinquent in space, clairvoyant ability, very Harlan Ellison, A Boy And His Dog, Eye For Eye by Orson Scott Card, The Last Castle by Jack Vance, The Dragon Masters, I love the lengthy, Ill Met In Lankhmar, Vintage Season, The Sword Of Rhiannon, Ursula K. Le Guin, Kate Wilhelm, Kim Stanley Robinson short stuff, they don’t list the table of contents, The Ugly Little Boy, Edmond Hamilton, Screwtop, Enemy Mine, Hardfought by Greg Bear, an idea man, he shoulve had a badge that said “idea man”, The Blind Geometer, Fritz Leiber, Universe by Robert A. Heinlein, fantasy, Damon Knight, Icehenge, Press Enter by John Varley, Death Of Doctor Island also The Island Of Doctor Death, Karen Haber, Home Is The Hangman by Roger Zelazny, Wheels Of If, Gene Wolfe, The Book Of The Short Sun, Conjure Wife is on LibriVox, Ben Tucker is good, a five hour book, unleash hell, we got this in our back podcast, shownoting, back in the day, Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle, Naxos, the torch of science, a metabook, 1831 novels, so many good ones, Scottish essayist, Fraser’s Magazine, purports to be a commentary, Godborn Devilsdung, a book review of that book, transcendentalist, German idealism, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Immanuel Kant, there are things in themselves, things as we perceive them, the laws of our mind, ways round, suppressing different premises, this book sounds really good, in a funny way, Johnathan Swift, Tristam Shandy, Laurence Sterne, founding text and serious organizing study of clothing, fashion theory, sartorial ambitions, clearly a book we both need to read, my all time favourite book, this is one of the books that makes life worth living, only seeing through clothes can we understand life, not composted, a half-mad saint, 320 pages, in the PDF, the torch of science, not the smallest cranny or doghole can remain unilluminated, what is he famous for?, some sort of hero worship, a precursor to the superman, the great providential men who make history, Hayy Ibn Yaqdhan by Ibn Tufail, like Tarzan, most translated, 1,000 Nights, the dream one, very solid, very Borgesian, Borges never wrote a collab book to make money, Frank Herbert son, Tom Clancy ghost author to write Borges books, a funny tweet thread, Hobbits and wizards, good morning as in fuck off, Justin fucked every Canadian for 20 more fucking years, he’s bought and paid for and corrupt as fuck, persist, not a big damn hero, very bad man, make some coffee.

Playboy, December 1971 - A Meeting With Medusa by Arthur C. Clarke

Playboy, December 1971 - A Meeting With Medusa by Arthur C. Clarke

Playboy, December 1971 - A Meeting With Medusa by Arthur C. Clarke

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The SFFaudio Podcast #771 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The SFFaudio Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #771 – Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs, read by Phil Chenevert for LibriVox. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the book (6 hours, 12 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Alex (Pulpcovers.com), and Evan Lampe

Talked about on today’s show:
Argosy in 6 parts in 1932, the scanning community, go by date, somebody didn’t renew it, sticklerish, The Mad King, The Girl From Hollywood, fantasy oriented, dedicated to the craft of pulpwriting, cranked out words, do 700 episodes, he’s really good writer, Evan was shitting all over this book on Twitter, quibbles, not his best book, let’s start with the poo, my thoughts on Pirates Of Venus, meme with Sorpanos, listen to yourself you sound demented, the attack is…, high on its own supply, its a fantasy, very fantasy, riding the line on self-parody, cutting lose and veering into self-parody, playing with the tropes, Burroughs is demented, what are your problems, strawmans socialism, the same communist revolution from The Moon Maid, wink wink to the KKK, the birdmen, the treemen, they’re simps, unless he’s being ironic, a really bad take, during the depression, escapism?, escapist, his politics, my entire reaction: “really?”, what a freak he is, four books in this series, a fifth book, the ending on this, you’re going to have to read the next book, John Carter books, wrapped up nicely, I’ve got gold here, at least 7 books in that series, signed up to write a bunch of books, see about the politics, gets his money from his great grandfather, soldier in India, continuing the colonial project, Will [Emmons], somehow doesn’t motivate me, why this series doesn’t get the attention that Barsoom does, the takeaway, written as a retro piece, 1912, sword and planet, closer to Leigh Brackett, Weinbaum, a sop to the older readers, Asimov is coming up here, closer to Foundation, we’re moving in that direction, deliberate throwbacks, Burroughs wrote this, no one else, Philip Jose Farmer, no one could do it like he did, these are Burroughs’ sentences, a really fun book, really interesting, there are merits to A Princess Of Mars, same plot, kidnapping dekidnapping, lots of animals and creatures, weird alien not quite monster, anybody there?, crab monster!, kind of annoying, not much happens at the end, she says I love you, there’s no more time in this episode, read the next book, flown away by a birdman, various art, pretty cool, treading water with a sword, pirate ships with no sails, powered by endurium or plutonium or handwavium, a sailing ship with masts removed, in order to recognize it, I’m vaguely familiar with this piece of tech, starts typing, his non-science fiction books, not enough pirates, not enough piracy, the third third of the book, too much trees, earthlike tech, a lot of gun-polishing, that Graeber book, paying close attention, when the revolution happens on the ship, our hero is in charge because he planned the revolution, yeah and if you don’t like it, obey me, that is never how a pirate ship, pirate ships are democracies, communist democracies, a takedown of communism, the Thorist are supposed to be communists, presented so weak, in 1930s America?, the communists were the badasses, he’s wrong not to like them, point to the mountains of skulls, the skull counting, once we start attatching names to particular skulls, 100 million counted Nazi soldiers as victims of communism, the parody of Victims Of Communisms, look at all those guys he killed, Carson Napier, Burroughs is in this story, via telepathy which he learned from a hindu, never uses his telepathy on Venus, only a mechanism to communicate the story, I got it from my uncle, you can go visit his tomb but he’s not really dead, great opening line, he’s not really again, master of illusions never pays off, framework to get it back to earth, astral projection, Spider-Man 2 (2004), Octavius is inventing nuclear fusion, AI controlled arms, a neuroinhibitor chip, build the fusion thing faster, invests 7 different groundbreaking fields of technology, I forgot the moon existed, silly, very instinctual, put the girl in, I need more girl, Sikorsky Amphibian, only left in the world, not a cheap peice of kit, became a stuntman because deathwish because his mom died?, rich and bored, built rocket cars in German, rocket spaceship, Mars is the ceiling, books and a year’s worth of food, Venus is fun, trying to see the Russian revolution, the narrative was so different back then or…, it’s not in the text, am I stupid?, socialism or communism, economic systems, violent revolution, that’s the core of it, everyone becoming equal and level, no more kings, complete leveling, giant dormitories, children will be raised by the state, strains of that, communal kitchens, the history of cooking utensils, the ideal city of the future, westerners writing about it, writing a place they’ve not, everybody eating in cafeterias, H.G. Wells, G.K. Chesterton, what drove people to socialism, socialist agitation, socialism in the 1880s, economic necessity, suffering in the streets, I don’t want to live in a tenement, the thinkers of socialism, William Morris, an idyllic and pastoral future, freed from stupid work, how pirates work, a great scene, I’m not giving up my weapon, if he’s really critiquing socialism/communism, that’s a parallel of that, prisoners aka slaves, clean guns all day, prisoners with jobs, seize the weapons, important officers, a new officer class, I’m not going to give up my gun, another guy laughs and the revolution is over, if I’m just handsome dashing main character, the NPCs fall in line, the pirate campaign, Pathfinder, the PCs: we’re gonna kill all of them, treat people as people, a lot of people operate their lives that way, some bureaucracy, denying someone a kidney, the United States is worse at than most countries, so many levels of bureaucracy, University Of Kansas, Uncle Remus magazine, these are really bad we don’t endorse these things, a 600 word essay, we hate racism, we don’t endorse racism, are you sure you want to click on this?, trigger warnings, a button on google: I feel Lucky, the whole point is they want to curate your experience of reality, a piratical revolution, the jongs and the thorists, the royal guy has a cute daughter, the extent of my thoughts, a serious critque of communism, you don’t know what you’re talking about, you can choose your master, choose me, some other boss you can work for, the surplus army of labour, Carson Napier doesn’t because he has inherited money, it’s been washed, his mom was perfect, extracting value from Indian colonialism, that’s not the way to make money, an absolute spendthrift, hire the Mexican government, rocket sled, sitting on an omnibus in the 1930s, that’s me one day, peak pulp era, when the Shadow was big, Batman, am lift, Doc Savage, independently wealthy, inherited wealth, found gold mine in South America, he owns twitter now, on the Wikipedia entry, it’s just not that, the main thing they do, separate class systems are a bad idea, each is respecting each other, when there’s somebody from the lower classes, bullshit statements, no such thing as marriage, also no infidelity, a fantasy of humans and how they, sword AND pistol, shoot your enemy from across the room, had I known this guy was so good at swordfighting…, once again sheer dumb luck, literally astronomical odds, living in the ewok village, a shared balcony, this is your big security system, the mansion can only be so big, absolutely required, this has a recipe, they’re always princesses, he is never a king, he’s an up and comer, I’m officer class, I don’t even believe in presidency, I believe in royalty, very successful businessman, hyping things, let’s make a movie out of it, Tarzana at this point?, WWII happens, I’m going to be a journalist now, put on military officer uniform, his own fantasy life, soup kitchens, moving from state to state, horrors of being superpoor, like Stephen King he has a knack, on the back of letterhead, compared to Robert E. Howard, always poor, he’s got a car, didn’t try to sell to Weird Tales, he has magic fingers, Max Brand, such a huge hit, $100,000 or something, WWI deserter to wealthy man right into WWII, he bought that whole part of southern California, maybe it was the movies, he was the #1 selling authors of the 20s, and those movie serials, Johnny Weissmuller, Sheena is sexy, everyboduy thought he was the greatest thing ever, later Tarzan, really crazy real fast, arab shiek, hunting lions, too close to the daughter, lost Atlantean colony, sexual dimorphism gone crazy, shipwrecked, where Tarzan’s parents died, lost Roman legions, hollow earth, Pellucidar, weird ghost letter, marriage, line marriage, should’ve been a line marriage book, obsessed with monogamy, whoever Mrs. Burroughs was, life extension, amazing laser tech, amazing medical tech, radios, effective maps of their planet, all fun, the NPC handwaving problems away, he has an explanation that’s bad, low fertility, the Thorists want both, secret recipe, the scientists, such a strawman, not recognizable, and Marx starved two of his own children, they were so fucking poor, we don’t have enough food, an immigrant, that can’t be true, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, he was sad about his kids dying, infant mortality was really high, terrible service, he may have said that, other people may have seen that, the pop culture view of communism, people say lots of bad things about Putin, that’s the character your making in your head, The Efficency Expert, The Mucker, Tarzan Of The Apes, cringey because of the hanging, we’ve done this before, fishmen, Lost On Venus, not enough time with the birdmen, Heinlein’s 4 years away from this, Heinlein’s Time For The Stars, twins shows up every once in a while in Heinlein, indistinguishable twins, Space Cadet, his plan for the UN and nukes, the intro part, joining the army, going through basic training, when you nuke your own city, very aware of his audience, you’ve got to close your eyes and drop marbles into a beer bottle, proprioception,, arbitrary tests, you’re a grown boy, the female princess daughter of Duras, green screen, darker skin, green skin space babe, Star Trek, hot alien, sometimes she’s brunette, vaguely Arabic looking, pretty, the trees are not green, presumed pink, in contrast to Mars being the red planet, green being Venus, in the injury to his buddy, the wounds, Shelob, this is a fantasy book in almost every respect, rocketships to the Moon before this, gun to the Moon, Cavorite trip to the Moon, an anti-gravity, Weinbaum comes in, well actually, she lives in a bottle, a jellyfish floating in the clouds, that’s your gene pool, you can romance it, laid eggs, women have breasts but they lay eggs, the element of the KKK, not a condemnation, why does he bring it up?, a thing that’s popular, making these alien names, Olthar, Camlot, taking sounds, Amtor, fiddling around, he is so not J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien goes to farm, elfish poetry, where elfen poetry was once read, he enjoys himself, nobody asked for this, Tolkien is the anti-Burroughs, noodling around in his own head, my books should not be lowered [to paperback], pirated in the United States, Evan making a defense of The Lord Of The Rings tv show, the orcs, the orc stuff was really based, the Galadriel stuff was really good too, just a woke cuck, Jesse doesn’t know what a simp is, you gotta watch more streamers, why do these guys come up every three years, Vaush, Matt Christman, Evan likes both, he’s like a troll, he’s pretty good at that, most of what Vaush says is on point, there’s something wrong with Evan’s brain, and yet I have not murdered you, these should all just be podcasts, Jesse doesn’t need video, playing Elden Ring and just listening to it, are people still Elden Ringing, we’re all boomers, we all live in the age of US supremacy, I’d have a boat, consumer republic, less and less relevant, 26 Tarzan books, lost colony of Atlantis, a James Bond figure, where Tarzan was seriously assigned, is Tarzan a book about empire?, a really good insight into this period of time, maybe My Little Pony is comprehensible, I’m a dude, I wouldn’t say no to a loincloth and a knife made out of stone but 26 books, L. Frank Baum, 14 Oz books, basic language, generational, coming out every couple of years, Harry Potter, the Glinken country, the Yellow Brick road is about the gold standard, William Jennings Bryan’s cross of gold speech, 100 years later, is it the fact that this is supposed to be a critique of communism, blatant, the state’s controlling you, as opposed to the king, it wasn’t a libertarian revolution, more parallels to the French Revolution, that’s what was happening, something racist about Oz?, all of it was racist, pay not attention to the man behind the curtain, the emperor’s new clothes, useful concepts that come out of literature, people knowing them, a psychological defense, a psychological arm-bar with concepts, a series of images, a girl away from home, all on a quest, place everybody’s talking about, going to Hollywood, that’s exactly right, the Emerald City is a complete lie, to keep the emeralds from blinding you, a good concept, as a young person, in a different way than Encyclopedia Brown, the sword that says awarded after the first battle of Bull Run, the Battle of First Manassas, the only kid with Wikipedia on his phone running around solving crimes, The Only Man On Mars With Wifi, detective solves with chat GPT, list the clues in chat GPT and it will tell you who did the crime, a telephone chat GPT that uses spam callers waste their time, Hello Mrs. Blah Blah Blah, if you’re in India or Pakistan and your name is Simon or Stephen, this person’s a little weird, oh there’s a bee on my arm, an elderly person who can’t hear very well, the chat GPT salesperson, email and phone calls have been destroyed by spam, this was a fine book, direct messages, Burroughs Sucks As Does This Tweet, an ideology that has killed millions of people, it’s not an argument, not even a satire, I need some bad guys, what do bad guys look like, the sequels to The Moon Maid, so he could get to the totalitarian communist future, Red Dawn-style, let’s not do that, they’re Moon communists, when Will read about, protestant emotional repression, her brows knit in thought, what is that?, love, it is wicked, is love wicked on Amtor?, whatever her name is, without sinning, the daughter of a jong, Korean word for king, what are the odds he knew that?, not good, he believes everything he’s writing, not a construction, but an explication, not a lot of ideology, the win condition is marrying the princess, a storytelling technique, little girls want to be princesses, its okay for the dude to marry up into a princess family, the girl wants to marry into a competent family, Edgar Rice Burroughs is a fantasy men, Cinderella is a fantasy for women, Prince Charming is faceblind, spicy foods for everybody to enjoy, laughing about him, laughing along, they’re not set aside, The Mad King, in all of these books, it can’t be just a regular girl, it has to be , even the one about working at Sears (The Efficiency Expert), daughter of a high class person, romance for men in the same way that Conan is, Conan’s class consciousness, American men have always been incels, Jesse doesn’t use that language, dreaming of marrying up, how the incels talk, chads get all the girls, left miserable, but they can read Burroughs, hypergamist, the men always marry up, marrying up, he’s not, Zenobia is not a queen, Conan makes her a queen, she was a harem girl, she was not a virgin princess, a class thing there, Howard would have been wealthy had he lived longer, he wasn’t in bookstores, Lovecraft would have been wealthy, the demand is high, when reading Robert E. Howard, different kinds of games, sometimes he says “what is the nature of reality” and then he stabs the wizard, satisfied for a moment, showing up on LibriVox, we’ve seen it before, Howard is capable of much more on this guy, he’s not substantive, YouTube podcast, frothy and fun and light, compared him to Stephen King, a different cast, Burroughs never talks about kids, King talks about kids, kid protagonists, he has a lot more to say, most writers have more to say, space em out, adventure, avoid execution, marry the princess, The Girl From Hollywood, a female finding a man?, none of his popular stuff, no Tarzan books need to be Jane centered, Lois Lane or Jimmy Olsen comics, Superman’s girl friend, Supergirl, Jungle Girl, everything is about Superman, she’s always sexperving on Superman, is this what girls want?, Cambodia, stories for boys, a female protagonist story, he was a brand, you don’t want to piss off the audience, what the romance writers do, hardboiled detective under another name, The Cave Girl, a lost world novel, 1913, Dolores Claiborne, chain people up on beds, Gerald’s Game, domestic abuse, Misery, Rose Matter, Lisey’s Story, Outlaw Of Torn, relaxing rather than engaging, a society made out of tree people, other criticisms?, Donald E. Westlake, Killing Time, territories respected, a fine place to live, an anti-corruption investigator, 210 pages, still working on a couple, Mating Center by Frank Belknap Long, Hay Ibn Yaqzan by Ibn Tufail, guys raised by a gazelle, time next year, not that great, Paul will be upset by it, too much mating, specialized job, we’re there, reproduction is also a specialized job, horny people out in society, a frightening view of life in 2061, hey, we’re guarding, that Ninteen Eighty-Four cover, Winston Smith and Julia, lesbians in prison, encourage Evan to finish, he’s andalusian, Andalusian Aristotelian, Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson, Rima The Jungle Girl, Green Mansions, a primitive girl, Abel, Tarzan from South America, Sheena, The Jungle Book, another Kipling thing?, Citizen Of The Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein, reading the writers who read stuff, it isn’t super-literary, reading material, Rocket Ship Galileo, Jack London would have made it the center of the book, the counter to Burroughs, fantasy strawman, fantasy animals, life is mean, let’s have fun, how much did Burroughs read?, hold my beer, he probably read the newspaper and a few pulp magazine, rips off Prisoner Of Zenda, today we have a lot of writers who are writing to make movies or tv shows, what’s so amazing about a good book, using the medium what it’s for, it is what it is, assigning a bunch of Ted Chiang stories, psychology, assign these short stories, grumble at first, they’re simps, they’re boomers, he’s short and he hits, they’re not designed to be adapted, Burroughs’ Tarzan is easy to adapt, some plants and a rope, Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker, how we use language, so psychologically relevant, substantive, that’s what you get for giving a historian the job, not your thing?, he marries a princess who’s an orangutan, like Robinson Crusoe, Rousseau would’ve loved this book, noted father, how to raise children to be free, Plato is wrong but he has amazing ideas, we can use those things, bad maps give us maps to territories that we can get to and give us better bad maps, commentary on education, the point of education, bye kids, I gotta go write about being free, Jesse is tryna be free, make the most of their freedom, what does Alex do about this, a weird high school, very lucky and happy, worry about college, college can be fun, top schools, Asians are the new white people, University of Minnesota Duluth, homeschooled, you’re going to horse school, you’re going to be a farmer, locked in, my cheques are going over there, homeschool, something to do, big college tip, under recognized as a great place to meet a spouse, just marry a princess at your college, this is the person I really like, Midwest cow college, with cows, between Indiana and the Rocky Mountains, north of the Ohio river, Brown, first major boss was a Brown Phd and a major dick, he really wanted to be a manager, he was right about that, fun trouble, save your anger up for the show, provoking Evan, the first 2 hours, the ideology that killed the most, this boring shit, Burroughs took quite a dump, he can go fuck himself, oh come on, not that much more to do, he has a lot of sequels, maybe if youre in a factory job, you’ve got a big commute, your escape on the way to work, 6 hour podcast, 8 hour podcast at work, putting up with a lot of shitty shit Jesse says, the secret to his success, doesn’t explain Stephen King that well, he knows people, brain mashing, Burroughs isn’t a character writer, both are incredibly smooth in transferring thoughts into your brain, there’s no difference, they’re blank slates, Carson is a lot less competent, incredibly stupid mistakes, he’s a sloppy researcher, John Carter was hypercompetent, he’s like The Highlander, hypercompetent, has superpowers, he’s Superman, gentleman adventurer, luck saves him again, coulda used a Woola, alien companion dog, an inversion of The Star Beast, explicitly just people, space tiger, Weinbaum’s a genius, he’s jokey, why the genre moved on, this is kinda retro, The Mysterious Island, the wish fulfillment engineer story, building the ship, inventing the thing, Black Priestess Of Varda, rawer, Erik Fennel, near the end, he’s just a romance guy, really, how do they even have the concept of a year, they don’t even have the sun, Farscape.

Toronto Star Weekly - artist Matania - Pirates Of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Pirates Of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs

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The SFFaudio Podcast #765 – READALONG: Shakespeare’s Planet by Clifford D. Simak

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #765 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Tommy Patrick Ryan, and Jonathan Manfred Weichsel talk about Shakespeare’s Planet by Clifford D. Simak

Talked about on today’s show:
1976, Clifford D. Simak, late Simak, probably the 1st science fiction novel Jesse read, Madeleine L’engle, steered Jesse right to Larry Niven, not a great book, a lot of Russian reviews, a weird choice, teenage boys, as it would, a floppy story, the Darrel K. Sweet, Carnivore and the robot, working on it, 1978 paperback, a robot and an alien, 1982, fourth Simak, Special Deliverance, Way Station, A Choice Of Gods, most famous, The Goblin Reservation, three robot brain, why is this here?, gestalt was really big in the 70s, Baby Is Three, a way of experimenting with storytelling, tribunal ship thing, shove however many pounds of crap into a ten pound novel, doesn’t interact, Eric’s group, sort of a sideshow, the main storyline, there’s no resolution, given Shakespeare in the title, the wyrd sisters, they’re not gendered right, why are the people there, why are any of them on the planet, why are we here?, why does he need the ship, a philosophical novel, different monsters, desolate, Starobin by Margaret St. Clair, paradise sucks, an existential philosophical novel, Elayne, a rose tattooed on her breast, finally!, that’s what its there for, white cowboy boots, finally somebody looked at my boobs, this is awesome naked chicks with tattoos on their boobs, all the kids who read this were set back in their misogyny, very non-sexual, you can pretend I’m your dead old girlfriend, a very mature Clifford Simak, the blaster on the hip, a loos game, all doesn’t work, and all doesn’t work, existentialism doesn’t take you anywhere, for a totally sexist objectifying scene, some women do like being topless, free love concept?, super-cringey, woke people these days are gonna ban this book, gratuitous and unnecessary, starts out goofy, behaves in the opposite way, a similar game, very clever and very sneaky, taking those tropes and cultural prejudices, all fictional characters, Carnivore is the best character, honor ideas, proud warrior race, first impressions, killed and ate Shakespeare, hunting the best game, he’s Caliban, he doesn’t have a mom, the wizard dude in The Tempest, incantations, where’s Miranda?, he had a copy of Shakespeare, his skull talks, is it just because it’s the book, Shakespeare is being channeled here, Ariel and Caliban, a terrific play, shipwrecked, nose and throat sounds, passive mode, brain was hallucinating, a trailer for Orson Welles’ Othello, he doesn’t have any special effects other than his words, no laser beams or motorbikes, one of the major props is Desdemona’s handkerchief, the central focus of a story, Shakespeare is a philosopher of the human condition, to tell us about ourselves, as men and women we’re jealous, we are fatally flawed, Simak is not interested in conflict at all, have you read Simak?, conflict is diffused immediately, aren’t we in this discourse now, eat me!, you probably won’t taste very good, don’t gag on me, that’s his nature, he can’t do let’s setup a strawman enemy, what makes him different from everybody else, Heinlein’s strawmanning, a Philip K. Dick book, pretty good, not great, sexism, he’s the hero, Carter, Horton, brain skits, I guess they don’t read Seuss here, quite to the contrary, Gail Neiman, most people don’t read, incredibly rare, most people don’t read at all, Neil Gaiman in reverse, can’t experience some of the fun things that humans can do, time tunnels, C.J. Cherryh, break causality, the whole idea of stargates, breaks the universe, its a setting, shenanigans, a stage, the island in the tempest, Elsinore, strut around, a lot of speculation, self-aware, the play’s the thing, why Shakespeare is so universal, he’s god, he’s the god of this planet, he winks himself off the screen, he’s better at short stories than he is at novels, a good book, Max Deboost in 2013, succinct introduction to mysticism for the young adult, what Scooby-Doo is solving, I read it 13 times, planets and carnivores, robots and galaxy gates, the brain computer interface, telepathy, brain computer interfaces, hey, this is fun, all that stuff, and easy-breezy, and thoughtful, we experienced something, should probably read more, continue to read, objectively much better, lodestone attraction, Time Enough For Love, Martian Chronicles, I, Robot, The Hobbit, when you’re young you’re a sponge, 1800 words, impressed on their brain, frustrated, see ya goodbye, to do what and go where?, explore the time tunnels, that’s the existentialism, Paul is not big into existentialism, we like him because he knows who he is and what he needs to do, whereas we’re more like Horton in that we don’t know who we are and we don’t know what we need to do, very unsatisfactory, 1904, he’s from 120 years ago, very traditional SF, could have been written today, the robot can program itself, swapable modules, fits with the actors on the stage, a man plays many parts, the dowdy cook, everything on goodreads is 3.something, on a grading scale, ahead of the average, human beings as locusts, the environment, her gun is a tool, his gun is a weapon, solid concepts, cringe, written before Tommy was born, a big book in the public eye, what he was going for, there’s biker chicks, I’m an embodied being, at the thrift shop, weird things, a videomicroscope, looking at the cells on my arm in realtime, little puddles of liquid coming out of the skin, hairs and broken hairs, a piece of metal embedded in your palm, macro creatures, haircuts, very cerebral, biological organisms, sexual creature, bringing up the topic, the book doesn’t work perfectly, explore them further, scattershot, 20 pounds of shit, good fertilizer, 20 pounds of emeralds, spilled over, a quarter of what he’s trying to present, the beautiful crown or tiara, Heavy Metal magazine, Mœbius, expected to be there, he subverted and explored the trope, a personality, a sense of duty, map the tunnels, feelings for Carter, a very boring Heavy Metal story, standing around perceiving, presentation, sizzle, have you ever thought about this?, they think about another thing, a good introduction to science fiction, appreciated, an existential science fiction novel, when they start talking about magic, there’s a dragon in the story, is Prospero really a wizard?, interpret Shakespeare, they usually get him wrong, entertaining and edifying the low class people, his low class audience, low class brain, I like robots, I like monsters, what are we all doing here, man, was that Neo, Logan’s Run, it’s the same thing, The Thirteenth Floor (1999), zero sequels, not an action movie, action scenes, Simak does it really well, conflict between nostalgia for the past and anxiety about the future, dispersed across all these planets, an idea out of Americana, unthinkable future, a metaphor for this American train of thought, a very American writer, the whole civil war angle, A Choice Of Gods, really really really weird, he loves robots in a way that Asimov doesn’t, the Indians were robots, Heinlein and Simak were almost exactly contemporaries, Simak starts earlier, Simak was a newspaperman, Wonder Stories, Amazing, fantasy magazines later on, Astounding and Unknown, the same age, the reference points to rural countryside housing and the landscape, more of the Bradbury style, Jack Finney, Charles G. Finney, he doesn’t talk down to the reader, here’s some ideas to explore, made it longer, the voice of Carnivore, stupid brute, David Drummond, X-Men’s Caliban, Days Of Future Past, H.G. Wells, ugly mutants, Wolverine, Beast, Futurama’s ugly mutants, the people who read it, mimetic fiction, give me a guy who only wants to be eat and a guy who wants to be eaten, realistic fiction, Bel Ami by Guy de Maupassant, falls in love with a prostitute, The Midnight Bell by Patrick Hamilton, secret crush, prostitute’s POV, 20000 Streets Under The Sky, A Man In Full by Tom Wolfe, Fools Die by Mario Puzo, no ideas there, enjoyment, enjoyment vs. appreciation, PKD points, appreciate what he’s doing, Philip K. Dick’s Progeny is probably the best take on autistic children with capes being raised by robots, yuck your um, harsh the squee, relatively enlightened, unintentionally sexist, super-forward thinking woman, talked about it too much, pulled Tommy out of it, The Empire Strikes Back, anything on Dagobah, get me out of here, wise I am, Yoda is wrong about everything, your training not complete is, a pendulum, the court of King Charles II, Senior Dildo, a dildo expressed in poetic terms, other poems, A Ramble In St. James’ Park by John Wilmot, Roxana by Daniel Defoe, from one extreme to another extreme, we have definitely beaten that horse, so tame, this one is female, Pond, what’s the story on Pond, the undercooked nature, this intelligence that can split itself, a beaker full of Pond, it’s strange to be carrying a glass of your friend, pour out Pond somewhere, Ego from Guardians Of The Galaxy, the Deep Space Nine aliens, the glory hole moment, the God Hour, rough metaphors for something, the splendour of nature, this is sunset?, the Golden Hour?, the main theme of the book, gestalting, group mind, doing Dunsany, The King Of Elfland’s Daughter, in service to the drama, is there conflict in this story and if so where?, instantly resolved, fate, part of nature, not so toothy, not so clawful, he’s cool with that, even though there’s no one to spread the word, their understanding of the universe, limited perception, let’s try to explain that to him, they don’t understand something, we can dialogue this guys, conflicts resolved through lecture, there are only misunderstandings, a friendly neighbour sitting down: “uh, you’re an alien from another planet. That’s unusual. I had a brother-in-law from Tennessee”, it never is, a great attitude, a really really good grandpa, Heinlein would be insufferable on Twitter, wrong in interesting ways, he’s undeniable, 3 Hugos 1 Nebula and Grandmaster, audio of Simak accepting his award, polygrip, the lady who is always getting canceled, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Grandmaster, Gandalf awards, engaged with Jules Verne, Dickens, poor people living in London, reading A Christmas Carol, I like him because I got to be him, he deals with class, Paul is related to Charles Dickens, doing something about class, first class, more poignantly, TSA lines, treating other people differently, their boobs, caste vs. class, the Sikh religion, eliminating caste by name change, you’re one of those people, defeats caste or class, a famous name, my young daughter: you’re a maid, I wanted to be a princess, nobody aspires to be low class, I’m a Disney princess, give Hunter Biden a foot massage, pen-name, telemarketer, James Williamson, too ethnic, an FCC violation, a bunch of consonants together, writing with integrity, somewhat agree, Mark Twain, Richard Stark, name changes, invagle their way into a jet-set class, laptop people, vacations on tropical islands, lie a lot, Vistula, sounds strange, memorable, 2016, Masters Of The Maze by Avram Davidson, time tunnel ghost, minotaurs, oubliette: a very Heinlein word, dungeon, this oubliette called Earth, Elon Musk wants to get out of the oubliette, 12 guys have gone camping on the Moon, one more note, early Known Space, Wunderland, planets aren’t that great, Dan Simmons’ Hyperion, mythology, Simak has a better life philosophy, Dan Simmons is a horrible person, it goes without saying he’s a monster, Mecca should be nuked, Islam taking over the west, a broken step, generally used for sexual predators, what’s that, urban dictionary, missing stair, 9/11 broke a lot of people, untrustworthy or “managed”, that is evil, con culture, whisper network shit, author x has grabby hands, of the worst order, Until The End Of The World (1991), Wim Wenders, meandering plot, trafficking in a machine that allows you to record dreams, watching their own dreams, an opal mine heist, music by U2, Jesse is not a U2 expert, indie director, giant canons on top of the mountains of Hollywood, The End Of Violence (1997), drones before drones, Paris, Texas (1984), a live recreation of Nighthawks, almost cyberpunk, genuine SF on film, Million Dollar Hotel (2000), Harry Dean Stanton, awesome and fun, so critical of nudity, make you two connect, a lot of nudity, I enjoy gratuitous sex and violence, a progressive novel, he’s so old, right-thinking, Jonathan may think I’m a douche now, book titles: Warrior Soul and Other Stories, Kitty Kat Massacre, that sounds horrific, Savage Headhunters, came across as a social justice warrior, you’re fine, too aggressive, triggered, conservative thinking is a “you’re not of the body”, we need to kill the disease, people turn off receiving data, it’s hard to understand, shortly after 9-11, months later, hot dog, do you know what just happened, trying to bomb the hot dog stand, unable to recognize, a blackout happened, why the car stopped, these people are really scared, what’s wrong with them, fear is contagious, they’re being affected in an irrational way, why Jonathan doesn’t like social media, ultra contagious pathogens, looking within yourself is hard, followers to followed, I’m considering reducing my followers, 11,000 people he was following, Stephen King, a TV show from 10 years ago, tweet about politics, posting Chicken Dinners, people use twitter in different ways, a slow minute, upset about some Republican idea, a steady feed of everything that’s happening with Paul, Fredosphere tweeted a candy bar he liked, something to do with the people and not the media, why people were obsessed with premature burial, the 2nd Red Scare, Dashiell Hammett, Atlanta, Cop City, what Hammett was arrested for, Dashiell Hammett’s a hero, he know whereov he spoke when he wrote Red Harvest, it wasn’t because of social media, more visible, mass hysteria on crack, post 9-11, pro-ano sites, pro-anorexia, propaganda, tips on how to lose weight, moral support, all the trans stuff, social memes, beings subject to thought control, we are social beings, maybe the Mennonites are right, Leigh Brackett’s The Long Tomorrow, Orphans In The Sky, instead I reading what I wanted, I’m deeply subject to this shit, I have to be careful, David Currie, political tweets, Smouldering Toxicity, Max Blumenthal, Natsec Media Lackeys, Kit Klarenberg’s detention, that’s kinda horrible, a tweet of support and then took it down, sighs: Jesse, this is something more people should know about, he’s really dumb, what makes me really dumb here, some principles, these things are valuable, not these books, reconciliation, people tar sources, Evan Lampe got triggered by Elon Musk, triggered by Taiwan related tweets, blocking all bluechecks, the Elon Musk tax, a really good thing, we’re all strange, a writer and and artist, the input is what you read and what you consume, the output is what you create, a complex mathematical formula, lazy after a while, not accustomed to searching, iconoclastic, tweeting old movies, The Good Place, this is dumb I’m out, get good, new stuff is very divorced from the old stuff, how I want my brain to work, 20 Books To 50k, mainstream media talks about it, indiewriter, dungeoncore, read 40 dungeoncore books, making a formula, they makes that are unreadable, weird set of people, indistinguishable, create unique books, reading old books feeds into what Jonathan wants to do, expand vocabulary, Orwellian newspeak, doing that in the background, if this was 1968, Frank Zappa, make statements, people disagree with them, the artist taught me something, sophisticated, these are great covers, random paperback covers, painted, the theory on design now, the assumption is the other books sell, a foreign idea, look at you aghast, why would you do that?, bad tropes or bad ideas, if you want to be published…, agents personal tastes, if you read older books that’s going to pollute that, you’re sabotaging your career, you’re undermining yourself, writers on twitter, cat mom, trans flag, kofi, venmo, follower counts, Dollar Tree’s book section, Our Opinions Are Correct, Jesse is not understanding how the economy works, for a buck 25, intellectually interested, Charlie Jane Anders, they were iO9, Victories Greater Than Death, somebody is buy this and reading it, most of the economy is fake, passing the same five dollar bill around, fake it til we make it, I become a Tor editor you become a Tor editor, BoingBoing?, Gawker, Jalopnik, back when blogs existed, write books and manage a website and have a blog, they have a producer, not a lot of, H.P. Lovecraft, E.A. Poe was overrated, compared to what?, Charles Dickens was overrated, A Tale Of Two Cities, historical fiction, just like a science fiction story, a doppelganger, serialized, you seem like a reasonable fellow, this guy who’s a lawyer who likes like a loser vagabond, impersonate each other, Jesse doesn’t love Stranger In A Strange Land, gripping, subterfuge, political anger and angst, chopping babies heads off, a spilled barrel of wine, a slaughter, too many roosters, butcher some chickens, farm animals, Jersey cow, I’m a farm now, obvious reasons, the agricultural land reserve, Maissa and Will, think about government stuff, party change in BC, the latest one on June 1st, 2023, 21 minor medical ailments, skin irritation, social health insurance, why did they do that?, government can actually make changes, a mountainous region, limited land for farming, if you’ve paved over all your land, they shut down the border, a shortage of Alberta beef, a separate system, food production in the place where you live, the egg shortage, buying incubators, chicken coin miner, no food supply to New York, horrible riots, deliberately trying to fuck things up, what the citizens want somehow, its not impossible for good things to happen, making work, an inefficiency left over from a previous system, toll bridges, let’s reduce the amount of traffic, too much congestion, $17 to drive across the bridge, they gotta cut it down somehow, Chris Christie, Fort Lee, a bigger island than Manhattan, and a lot of empty buildings, Manhattan sinking, capsizes, sinking due to massive corruption, the Bronx, Bronck’s creek, the Gotham, Kumbaya (come by here), Gullah, scheduled for both.

SHAKESPEARE'S PLANET by Clifford D. Simak

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The SFFaudio Podcast #744 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Skull by Philip K. Dick


The SFFaudio Podcast #744 – The Skull by Philip K. Dick – read by Scott Miller for the Lost Sci-Fi Podcast. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (58 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, and Scott Miller

Talked about on today’s show:
The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, Vintage Sci-Fi on YouTube, look up The Skull, 50 episodes, multiple short stories in one episode, super-short sci-fi stories, rave reviews, SFFaudio.com was broken, mostly not broken, the PDF Page, a long list of things you should record, great recommendations, sci-fi guru, just over 10 years ago, to get into it, a couple of good attempts, worthwhile, insulting by not praising, Jesse from the past, Michael Moorcock’s Behold The Man, a religious revolutionary from 1960s, The Variable Man, this weird category, unsympathetic, a hunt, his most technically astounding like stories, more pure Philip K. Dick, Paycheck, boob action, a big sweaty hair guy, he’s not a hunter, he’s not a criminal, H.P. Lovecraft, Dunsany or Poe, his own feelings, trying to write an Astounding story, stories are better than novels (plot wise), a really awesome and interesting, themes and ideas wise, undercooked, fleshing this out, maybe he thought he nailed it, read the whole thing, from start to finish, fascinating, Karl Marx, bearded, communism!, fascinating, old enough to vaguely remember, commie madness, narrated, fell in love with it, Human Is, a lot different, kinda dark, kill somebody, a fascinating story every way you can possibly find, why is Conger’s first name Omar as opposed to John?, or James, John Connor, Jesus Christ, a Jesus story, oh man that story’s so good, guy goes back in a time machine looking for the historical Jesus, makes a stink about a shepherd who’s also a fisherman, nailed on a cross, Mary and Joseph, Jesus is intellectually disabled, he is the guy he goes looking for, really cool, trips over himself, the relgious aspect, the plot for The Terminator, trucks and explosion, James Cameron, Harlan Ellison, who he was ripping off, beat for beat and scene for scene, Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2, Alien and Aliens, beats played against, why is The Skull the influence?, creating the guy he’s sent back by, the variation is God to Jesus vs. Jesus to Jesus, Paul didn’t see it, killing Mary to prevent Jesus, a thin read, Ellison’s Soldier, Demon With A Glass Hand, both are cited, Soldier (1998), to kill Jesus, the Roman Empire hires him to kill himself, this peace religion that’s screwing up, the savior of mankind, Cameron was wrong, general science fiction and a couple of stories by Harlan Ellison, part of the story of The Terminator, the time travel aspect, time vortex, back in time, Scott chose Paul’s side, Evan doesn’t care, they both exist, earlier than everybody else, pairs well with Prominent Author, religious ideas, earlier stories, naturalistic explanations, writing the Bible, dictating the bible from memory, really funny, the whole thing is for the joke, the context is this mundane, a commuter story, what Dick was trying to do, later Gnosticism, weird Valis nonsense, luddism, peace culture, where human progress comes from a lot on the frontier, stagnation, when the frontier dies, the bad guys, the empire, we’re in a cul de sac because of this religion, sympathy with the empire, fearful of stagnation, The Variable Man, Mr. Spaceship, Dr. Futurity, a weird death cult, based on violence vs. based on peace, restoring a culture of conflict, 200 years of peace is bad, they need to get rid of the dumb people, the survival of the fittest, a rejection of public life, apolitical people, a fascist idea, Conger’s reaction, you’re not a believe in this religion, fearful of some of its mysteries, those burning things on the wall, I don’t know, braziers, an unholy person, they’ve broken into this church and stolen Jesus’ bones, the ending, he’s the guy he’s waiting for, if I was this guy, I was confronted with my own skull, a comedy, the reason you keep a skull on your desk, there is no escaping death, thinking deeply, the religious teachings, why did Jesus act that way?, he’s got a piece of god in him, sacrificing himself, this fate, there’s peace in that, the evil AI plot, 1952, his fourth story, Roog, The Little Movement, Expendable, and Beyond Lies The Wub, a little alienating, stories about abortion, a technical achievement, the setup, the execution, the setting, the 1960/61, gives some lady a heart attack, science fiction explanation for resurrection, slem gun, a religious ecstasy, my lighter malfunctioned, swamp gas, the speech vs. what people remember from what he said, peace and non-violent action, the statement that gets remembered, those who killed will die, gallows humour, really ironic, Christ’s statements, if were were to read Jesus’ statements from a different point of view, unedited/unexpurgated, councils, tossed out, assuming a historical Jesus, the gospels, Omar Khayyam, Omar means long lived, Conger?, conquer?, too normal a name, Costa Rica, an exotic middle name, Jerome, a saint, raised Catholic, saints names, in hindsight, an animal, an eel, long lived eel, snakey shaped, an ouroboros or an infinity symbol, Karl Glogauer, a carpenter, the shining man, Joe, the communist element, interested in communism, he’s from Oregon, set in California, Colorado?, where the first church was founded, the jail where they kill him, arrested from being a communist, red scare, those reds, report anything strange or unusual, he’s not wearing a mask, he’s refusing a vaccination, how long?, the red scare is over in 1970, Nixon is going to China, movements, Black Panthers, the relationship is different, disentangling of the American left from Moscow, left movements, its gonna continue, reporting his fellow Californians he’s worried he’s a communist, the authorities and the people, waiting, a good fight, they had heard about the incident at the fountain, religious ecstasy, he’s gotta beard, police, closer and closer, one of the men tossed something at him, a rock, he smiled, don’t you have any bombs, throw a bomb, let em have it, toss a few a bombs, Colorado, 1960, burn him at the stake or we want change, the knife’s edge, kill the witch or embrace change, I have a gun he says, its a metaphor they think, my sword of truth, I bring not peace but an invisible sword, they want a leader, a subversive story, they’re interested in communism, he’s got a beard, a phenomenon, wearing beards is back in fashion, a mustache is strange, beards are in, beards are out, beards are back, beatnik beards, long pants will work for me, the only guy on TV with a mustache, copycats, clean shaven Space: 1999, the Klingons are, fashion has changed in the Federation, grapple with his religious beliefs, pioneering stuff, Behold The Man but better, more science fictional, Paul was convinced, monochromatic, The Age Of Faith by Will Durant, the furious number of sects, subdivisions, religions don’t remain unified, 200 years of Islam, get each other excommunicated, the first church, that’s not how religion works, Phil, he’s kind of like a Leigh Brackett hero, in prison for breaking the blockade, a trapper, grew up on Mars and the Mountains of the Moon, fur trapping stuff to Earth, this is not a well read man, defiant of Earth secular authority, resisting non-violently, mining that, in contrast to the people of 1960, anti their government, in favour of their government, their goading him, clever, the different social groups, 1961 and 1960s, underneath the surface, Small Town, Time Out Of Joint, paranoia, interested, why is she there?, why is this beautiful young woman at my door?, swami, a speech impediment, a future accent, not conforming, check his ID, First Blood (1982), a fantasy of we treated our veterans badly, what if there’s a reason people are acting this way, interesting and subtle, this joke element, anxiety about stagnation, hence the need for war, his ultimate answer, another solution, kill Sir Francis Drake, that weird collection of strange stories, author insert, when he grows a beard: I’m turning into Karl Marx, hitting on high school girls, the wife stuff, trial wife, his mistress, a product of that religion, how does that extract, Scott Danielson teaches new adherents, derived from the Bible, quite a stretch, he says a few words, very Heinleinian, Robert Silverberg, month wife, swapping wives, commodified, contractual, The Crack In Space, marriages around him, serial monogamy, four trial wives, the stuff about the universe, the newspaper, when he goes to the library, Cooper Creek, a flower in here, a set of symbols, flower, skull, an hourglass or an infinity symbol, the girl is supposed to be that, what the beef is about, the chocolate, older guy lusting after this young girl, comparatively lustless to his other stuff, teenage girls, the creeps, when you speak those words, he’s looking at her, the man looked him over critically, it was warm, the little kerosene heater, in her flowered dress, its a good room, Mrs. Appleton, another biblical thing, Chicago, the middle west, no foreigner, its part of the United States, he’s dumb, he’s ignorant, his words are profound, a riddle, an odd paradox, a funny joke, they laughed faintly nervously, they would puzzle over it, very neat, why Philip K. Dick is remembered, just really good, what happened to the skull he carried with him?, what happened to the slem gun, the time machine itself, something in his belt, the crystal cage, The Crystal Crypt, a pink beam style image, work it out, very biblical, per-ordained, he was the sacrificial lamb, exactly like Jesus, the major action of this is religious ecstasy for a second, car chases, false memories, at what point did you realize, pretty early, read so much science fiction, it is the obvious twist (now), Kyle Reese doesn’t know he’s the father of John Connor, but John Connor knows, sending his only dad, half way through the story, he didn’t notice the teeth?, he never studied the skull carefully before hand, Scott I’ve invented a time machine, go back and kill Hitler!, time travel stories are all over, repeat ideas, the original The Time Machine story, time travel paradoxes, Philip K. Dick is underrated, Valis this and Ubik that, Three Stigmata, Hugo or Nebula or whatever, other than Galactic Pot-Healer, everyone of his short stories is better than every novel, focused in on short sci-fi, outside of Isaac Asimov, the number one seller, Bradbury received more acclaim than Dick, people love Philip K. Dick, more comments and emails, only 130, commercially viable, its personal, Prominent Author, picture the guy near the end, with his shoulder thrust back, so proud of his work, what Dick does, I can see him in the church, a grotto, early Christian underground, catacombs, Beyond Lies The Wub, even if students don’t know what happened they still like it, consciousness transference, he’s eating himself, Jesus taking the eucharist, when the priest comes by eat the cracker and drink the grape juice, what does this mean?, Of Withered Apples, what a great story!, can I go play with my tree?, his brain was weird, pre-wired for weirdness, his earliest letters (to his mom), trying to get out of gym class, Mom, send my pills, CBD oil, sad to narrate, The Crawlers, it’s a hitter, it hits, take a break man, not something you want to hear, how dare you do this to me, The Pre-Persons, abortion trucks, Evan could handle it, Will, his girlfriend/wife wanted or got an abortion, get a bren gun and lay in wait at an abortion clinic,

Past the grove of cypress trees Walter — he had been playing king of the mountain — saw the white truck, and he knew it for what it was. He thought, That’s the abortion truck. Come to take some kid in for a postpartum down at the abortion place.

And he thought, Maybe my folks called it. For me.

He ran and hid among the blackberries, feeling the scratching of the thorns but thinking, It’s better than having the air sucked out of your lungs. That’s how they do it; they perform all the P.P.s on all the kids there at the same time. They have a big room for it. For the kids nobody wants.

Burrowing deeper into the blackberries, he listened to hear if the truck stopped; he heard its motor.

“I am invisible,” he said to himself, a line he had learned at the fifth-grade play of Midsummer Night’s Dream, a line Oberon, whom he had played, had said. And after that no one could see him. Maybe that was true now. Maybe the magic saying worked in real life; so he said it again to himself, “I am invisible.” But he knew he was not. He could still see his arms and legs and shoes, and he knew they — everyone, the abortion truck man especially, and his mom and dad — they could see him too. If they looked.

If it was him they were after this time.

He wished he was a king; he wished he had magic dust all over him and a shining crown that glistened, and ruled fairyland and had Puck to confide to. To ask for advice from, even. Advice even if he himself was a king and bickered with Titania, his wife.

I guess, he thought, saying something doesn’t make it true.

his parents, my god!, don’t do this to me!, Paul was at worldcon at the time, Joanna Russ, get Scott all depressed again, there’s nothing else like it in science fiction, That Only A Mother by Judith Merril, mutant babies, Richard Matheson, close to done, be depressed in future, The Hopkins Manuscript by R.C. Sherriff, Hugo worthy, lady business, compile suggestions, the podcasting group who host that spreadsheet, funny jokes, Paul, sexist, puerile, potentially eligible, Become A Teapot, Ex Urb Ad Astra, Hugo Girl, when is Scott going to get his nomination?, the problem is you have to be active in promoting yourself, put on three medals and parade down the street, The Story-Teller by Saki, look at those cows, that story sucks!, obedient and neat and never asked for ice cream after dinner, sent to a garden, this story is not good, a wolf shows up, there were no pigs in the garden that day, hiding in a bush, the wolf eats her, the finest story ever told, about being good and what makes a good story, genuine and interesting and scary rather than good for you, Robert A. Heinlein book club, Octothorpe, content warning for this episode: capitalism, content warning every episodes, falling out of boats, are you kidding me, The Octopus by Frank Norris, clean vs. explicit, the students spread rumors, listening for the swearing, all informers, feet on the desk, what happened to Conger, operating in a communist country, mad because in Calgary, Alberta, his main thing, WithoutPapersPizza, Trudeau is a communist, grade 10 stuff, this is really wild, worse than I thought it would be, California common core, really right wing stuff, if they are both, anti-communist, Stalin-Hitler pact, they’re going to do communism, the holodomor, terror famine in Ukraine, use over time, why is this suddenly so exciting, gotta distract, Nazis in Ukraine, the Gulag, all countries have prisons, world history standards, the Chinese Civil War, political and economic upheavals, its a revolution, reducing this history, the last famines, and never again, famines in British India, a comic book artist who quit DC, Superman with a protest sign, Babylon Bee, a big talker, parents from Libya, join my anti-socialist social club, truth, justice, and the American way, until they killed Gaddafi, this woke agenda, trying to jazz him up with no cape, interesting to somebody, the reason his dad was not welcome in Libya, highest standard of living in Africa, upset Cubans in Florida, health outcomes, if you look at GDP in the Mao era, development outcomes, built hospitals, universities, analyze the causes of the cold war, so blatant, still occupied by the United States, talk about a client state, when we do it it is not bad, whoever wrote this is not seeing a big thing right in front of him, appeasement bad, trying to avoid a war, the lesson we learned is he shouldn’t have done that, more like Churchill, hard to understand, so out of date, read a book, a school textbook from the 1970s, not Zhukov, leaving a lot of stuff out, the human cost of war, write essays?, show they learned through assessment, the Yalta pact, economic recoveries, biased in every aspect, the “free world”, within the context of this you could do a lot of fun stuff, bring us into space, you have to defeat the Nazis so you can Operation Paperclip them, very noisy here, different space, dog barking, economic policies, absence of free press, Stalin targeted them on purpose, liquidating the kulaks, cultural revolution, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Canada took some immigrants, my parents…, we’re getting their story, victims tell their story, being cut-off from his family, a country controlled by a domestic government, improving public education and health outcomes, against an entrenched state bureaucracy, the Shanghai Commune, Democracy vs. Communism, what do we call a society we’re in right now?, the concept of totalitarianism, the Axis of Evil, they don’t like freedom, authoritarian, you can’t protest, you have your bank account seized, you have to have something injected into your body, to make cash, capitalism is authoritarianism, all you need is a job to know that, triggers a meeting, make it better for the kids, nothing is going to change, unprofessional behavior, they don’t want Evan, resigned for spite, minimize your expenses, head of the social studies, administrative stuff, nod and smile, making their lives miserable, interesting debates, can’t we all get along I need this job, this is all real stuff, who cares?, what does it matter if the kids learn propaganda, that autism thing coming out, they don’t care about this stuff, the education business, we wanna have standards based assessment, it shouldn’t take as long as the second world war, The Shining is a good show, that first Heinlein juvenile, a lot of stories, Beyond This Horizon, a good long run, novellas, Universe, Common Sense, mostly a novel guy, like Philip Dick that way, Requiem, If This Goes On, sometimes its just a cigar, an insurance story, Let There be Light, patents something or doesn’t patent something, a black box, I don’t need to patent it, inaccessible to them, more like the cotton gin, a copyright guy, in the business, legally married, Fredrich Engles [worked in a factory owned by his father], he’s a human being, Karl Marx did speculation, pretty poor, fuck you do what I say, slave, being a hypocrite is a big deal, trying to live in a society, cheap labour to exploit, hold their visas over, to keep body and soul together, Thomas Jefferson.

The Skull by Philip K. Dick

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #726 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Isle of Pirate’s Doom by Robert E. Howard


The SFFaudio Podcast #725 – The Isle of Pirate’s Doom by Robert E. Howard – read by Connor Kaye. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novella (1 hour 24 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Connor Kaye, Alex, and Cora Buhlert.

Talked about on today’s show:
1975?, this story did not sell, 50 years after death, 2025, who has the copyright?, nobody the fuck knows, how can you claim to have copyright if you are not the artist, the author, I have copyright over something someone else wrote, Fred Malmberg would happily take your money, you would be surprised, unauthorized games, Queen Of The Black Coast audio drama, Red Nail, they changed their mind, this is the grift of the copyright system that we have, some corporation is sitting on the rights to insulin, all out of patent, a fairly little known story, willing to take the heat, Sailor Steve Costigan, Mark Finn, because it was rejected, the U.S. system is weird, when did Ambrose Bierce die?, stories that exist, Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, B. Traven, half the stuff of Midwood, she shared a name, a werewolf story, reminiscent in plot, recycles plot, The Fire of Asshurbanipal, 1927/8, Patrice Louinet, get into some new markets, Blue Book, Adventure, Argosy, in terms of its content, an adventure story, romance angle, it’s simple, reading it in context with the Valeria adaptation (in Savage Sword Of Conan), he didn’t put a bunch of research into it, a fight scene, the background lovecraftian horror temple is pre-Mayan/pre-Aztec, Mogar, Gower, not finished for sale?, Almuric, size wise, but more polished in some places, there’s something weird about how simple the temple scene is, trap-laden temples, the lesser Conan stories, Shadows In The Moonlight, Queen Of The Black Coast, with the gender flip, the POV character is following the badass around, a formidable female character, Novalyne Price Ellis, Dark Agnes, C.L. Moore was selling that sort of thing, she’s masked here, she’s a fop, pulls the motorcycle helmet off, the curls!, drama, very modern, adversarial, win each other’s respect, emerging as a trope in stories, a competent woman in a field that men are dominant in, something we can largely attribute to Robert E. Howard, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, not proud of their virtue, Valeria is not Valeria from Red Nails, Valeria would not cry, not about that, I have lived a man’s life, Black Amazon Of Mars by Leigh Brackett, Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, question my virtue, a very narrow thing, not having sex with all the men on the ship, Conan adjacent, beautifully illustrated by John Buscema, surprisingly close, rocks and knives with flintlocks, making valeria cry, I have no birth control, Conan, why her virtue matters, how immature Howard was, Mettalus, Island Of Pirate’s Doom, a “merchant” sailor, an owner of the ship, a mate, Robinson Cruseo, contempt for pirates vs. fear of pirates, a little naive here, the story we’re getting from Connor, guy in a tavern tells a story, two and a half days, careful not to sleep in the same place, gotta keep her virtue, write to market, not a spicy, Spicy Adventure Tales, how Belit is marketed, nude, a hat, a big coat, breeks, the sun be strong, the rapier she’s got, not doing that research on the temple, pirates don’t bury treasure on islands, pirates take their treasure and spend it, Blackbeard’s Ghost, Elsa Lancaster, bail out these old ladies, we spent every bit of that in one week in Jamaica, Klaus Störtebeker donated money for salted herrings, Robin Hood, a lot of heads, a great story, every north German kid thinks he’s really really awesome, Indian tribes did hide treasure, the temple here is awesome, more backstory, Fire Of Ashurbanipal, the rumors, the legends, cool backstory, a mechanism, metal, Iron Shadows In The Moon aka Shadows In The Moonlight, in the Vilayet, iron gods, the pre-carib elder race, waiting for the Lovecraftian, polished up that idea, why is there revenge working out that way, the blood, cracked through the altar stained with blood, the gem, when the blood comes down and gushes out of them, one last blood sacrifice, not enough setup, walking up to the gallows, Queen Of The Black Coast, booby-trapped altar, two endings, the weird version and the desert adventure version, snake bite vs. actual demon, a Weird Tales version, pump up the Cthulhu element, the vengeance, the anger, the hatred, they through their gems into the sea, they’re shiny, pirates want them, you’re a lich, that’s your reliquary, feather from an alien space god, Yag Kosha [Tower Of The Elephant], the work being done, a different kind of story at the end, pretend to be my sister, I need more adventures, she’s 20 years old, old enough for marriage, he’s not doing enough work to explain this island, the writing is solid, the motivation, why didn’t you make it an Aztec temple?, a new market, hot markets, long established, Spicy Stories, Fight Stories, Action Stories, he leaves himself open for more stories, the Helen Tavrel series, Steve Harmer, some other character, trained as a doctor, wounds being treated, written over a couple of days at most, the name “Steve” main character names, eight individual Steves, two Steve Costigans, Post Oaks & Sand Roughs, the most explicit example, when you see Steve he’s putting himself into that character, re-written and patched up into a much better story, a few off things in the ending, The Gods Of Bal-Sagoth, poetic irony, crushed by a statue of a god, setup and paid off, he played with it, it has to be a more important, the setup has to be better, to better effect, the payoff, Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981), uncovering the Ark of the Covenant, close your eyes, don’t look, we watch, should I close my eyes?, Nazis killed in various ways, one burns up, the reveal that there’s this jewel, the two heroes look away, their bonds are mysteriously cut (by God?), God was really nice, Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom (1984), Metallus/Steve, a much better payoff, a legend about a curse, Steve Harmer has been on this island a few days, a Robinson Crusoe setup, a nice ship, easy coincidences, a meet-cute, skating on his good writing skills, what would have made it something special, conked on the head a couple of times, disabled in one arm, a way of doing things, kicking ass, those Conan stories, the dynamic of Red Nails, a little back and forth, a mass murdering pirate, sleeping with the whole crew, feels kind of juvenile, he would have been 22, sexual experiences, a story problem, a good story, when people poop on Vale Of Lost Women, it cooks as a story, the implied raping, horrible slavery, an outline of an ending, gross racism, super-strong images, very very visceral, I’m not going to force women into sex, Conan doesn’t rape women, what he put into it, if we think of this as the research, this is the necessary work, The Pool Of The Black One, giants, a green pool, a stream of death, a strange Conan story, on the island of weirdness, “Conan, I was swimming”, the adaptation, a big ream of paper, they don’t have the firearms, they’re not from Spain, Zamora, Argos, where she’s Valeria and she’s talking about Conan, her adopted father, a sexual jealousy, who is this Metallus guy, Roy Thomas fucked up, if you put Conan in that role…, makes Valeria make no sense, you can’t change the relationship and not have it no difference, pre-Red Nails, it’s post Red Nail, it should have been Valeria backstory, the Red Brotherhood, Valeria likes adventuring too much, talk to my pirate dad, making Metallus a merchant, Roy Thomas misunderstanding, what makes Roy Thomas a good writer is he’s a copier (and we like that about him), bad decisions, he’s not a Robert E. Howard clone, from a mate to an owner of a ship, one is a hired worker and the other is a guy and a try to make business, why he got beheaded, Hamburg and Bremen, a hired hand, join the pirates, he should become a pirate, Valeria should have contempt for merchants, not enough research on pirates yet, he likes it, Belit’s a pirate, you have to learn about pirates, how Howard loves pirates, an essay about pirates, a biography of Howard, what happened to pirates when they were caught, a photo, a great spike driven through his head, this gruesome picture, sailing under the skull and crossbones, tried to runaway to sea, Robert E. Howard was an only child, he had a duty, everything is explained, Howard didn’t really like authority, gone Steve Costigan, he likes the romance and the adventure, the reality is something he doesn’t like, a good romance, the research for other stories, its better than this, there’s a girl, kidnapped by these pirates, the weirdest of the Conan stories, what’s the deal with this island, stuff happens, pirate Conan stories, The Black Stranger, L. Sprague De Camp, The Treasure Of Trancios, bizarre Conan, Black Vulmea’s Vengeance, a strange Conan story, discussing the character, the main quote, gigantic mirth and gigantic melancholics, his personality is weird, almost sadistic fun, very intelligent, Conan The Socialist, he’s very very intelligent, he’s a schemer in this one, Nudist Camp by Orrie Hitt, the climax, temple collapses, taken up to 11, Riptide by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, the treasure is the sword of St. Michael, this huge underground cave dome, that’s the end of the book, they get one coin, Oak Island, so crazy, its all based on the premise that pirates bury their treasure, zoom out a little bit, no x marks the spot ever, Captain Kidd, innumerable theories, where it could have come from, Vikings!, viking theories, they’re gardening, there’s something down there, 16 seasons into a reality TV show, you can’t admit there’s nothing there, why do you go to the moon?, do you want to make that your particular purpose, could you find something else to do, digging at oak island, that work, that obsession, proof you don’t need any payoffs, here’s a hairpin!, a literally sunk costs fallacy, bankrupted dozens, pretty good, a very Alex movie, Uncharted (2022), checks a lot of checkboxes, rootkits on movie CDs, action adventurey around the worldy Indiana Jonesy, Swordfish, a helicopter with a bus, they do that with Magellan’s ships, Magellan personally circumnavigated, still intact somehow, boarding actions, all special effects, passable entertainment, the kid who plays Spider-man, game lore, the guy on the beach is the voice of the main character, cargo nets and cargo boxes, run over in the sky, well put together?, Nicholas Cage has to find the constitution, a little lighter than National Treasure (2004), a 500 year old ship in the tropics, worth watching, just pirate it, Alex has read every Dirk Pitt novel before Clive Cussler died, goofy, Winston Churchill sold Canada to the United States, definitely not James Bond, amazingly goofy, lend-lease realism, Sahara (2005), evil billionaire, underwater archaeologist, vintage cars, 1929 Dusenberg, John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee books, a TV show, a private detective sort of setup, people love the series, a colour in the title of each one, The Girl In The Plain Brown Wrapper, Lawrence Block was a fan, people obsessed with the writings of John D. MacDonald, technothrillers, Tom Clancy, Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz, Abe Lincoln was kidnapped, the murder at the theatre was a coverup, ship full of gold, The Da Vinci Code but fun, clones Nazis in Antarctica, streak of ridiculousness, Ghenghis Khan’s tomb, a lost Viking colony, a lost Hawaiian island, weird cult living underwater, Pacific Vortex, The Mediterranean Caper, written with his son, born in 1931, Night Probe, a secret base on the Moon, the Nazi base in Antarctica, Sam Tripoli, Newschwabenland, Klaus Schwab, making everybody eat bugs, a grain of truth, Admiral Perry, did they find a Nazi base there?, no matter what it is, serpent men, George Bush’s back, no matter what it is, its always been written about in fictional literature, The Shadow Kingdom, why George Bush and his friends are all lizard men, its so true, its a metaphor, what resonates with people as being truthful, it resonates because it is true, passed along as a fact about the world, the description of aliens, glowing beings, the greys, H.G. Wells, a little piece, drawings of what man will look like, absorb our nutrients in a bath, he’s making fun of it, the newspaper makes fun of his making fun, 20 years go by, here’s my theory on aliens, The Red One by Jack London, an ancient alien spaceship in the South Pacific, how did that mega-structure get built, space helmets, focused on heads, shrinking heads, a giant ball impacted on this South Pacific island, a literary antecedent that comes out as a conspiracy theory, when we hear something we like we pass it on, watching Stark Trek, a retelling of Plato’s Cave, a retelling of The Tempest, steal from the best!, make some real cash, Connor has the adjectives for us, we find a lost Conan story written by Robert E. Howard, a retelling of Red Harvest, A Fistful Of Dollars and The Maltese Falcon Conan, Conan The Rogue by John Maddox Roberts, steal from the best, classic noir with Conan in the middle, a remake of Yojimbo, a redoing of Red Harvest, the Bruce Willis one Last Man Standing, prohibition era, the only thing that’s missing is the girl, brass bra no less, the new S.M. Stirling Conan cover, The Peshawar Lancers, the British Raj in India in the year 2000, a Russian cannibal cult you say?, cannibal culting is the way to go, not a series!, a standalone!, the audiobook exists, 17 hours, is it 17 hours good?, Space Cadet, Ministry Of Disturbance, Adventures Of Tom Sawyer, Easy Go by Michael Crichton, Drug Of Choice, almost a Philip K. Dick novel, a Hard Case Crime reprint, patients in comas with blue pee, Hollywood Scientology cult, soma, sex island you say?, Jeffrey Epstein island, it’s all in your fuckin head!, super suggestible, do you have tennis, sandpaper your elbow, shitty food you think is delicious, Klaus Schwab: you will own nothing and you will like it, down for At The Mountains Of Madness and The Mysterious Island, a quite long fairy tale, dedicated to the Rani of Sarawak, the super gay guy: Oscar Wilde, Black Priestess Of Varda by Erik Fennel, you’re going to love Nudist Camp by Orrie Hitt, a seething novel, to worship nature, sunbathe unclad, strange sect, voluptous Ada Holden, began to love nature a little to passionately, she-devil, her own glorious body, this is a smut book, Brother And Sister by Donald E. Westlake, Almuric is out tonight!, the second Cora show, time flies, see you on twitter.

Stephen Harmer art by Stephen Fabian for Isle Of Pirate's Doom

Helen Tavrel art by Stephen Fabian for Isle Of Pirate's Doom

SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN - Island Of Pirate's Doom

SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN - Island Of Pirate's Doom

SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN - Island Of Pirate's Doom

SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN - Island Of Pirate's Doom

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #715 – READALONG: The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett

The SFFaudio Podcast

Jesse, Will Emmons, Trish E. Matson, and Cora Buhlert talk about The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett

Talked about on today’s show:
1955, Edmond Hamilton’s wife, her other family, her parents, when they were courting, brought her back a little to late, a California person, a home outside of California, set in space, The Long Goodbye, The Big Sleep, detective California books, Californian detectives, westerns, super-religious, post-apocalyptic, the craft of it, the heat of the farm, the dust of the road, the mob scenes are scary, well executed, very believable, small town, city, island, religious craziness, nutzoid about religion, very well written, easy to follow, nice characterization, a slick writer of people, The Queer Ones, the Rediscovery anthology, small town atmosphere, gossipy, rural small town, a very American book, dying of cancer and radiation sickness, the fallout would have gotten them, a limited nuclear war, mutations, iodine, cesium, if you omit certain lines, Robert A. Heinlein, the viewpoint characters are not sophisticates in this stuff, a fear, a taboo, grandma remembers the mutations, dead babies, cancers, we could squint that away, the Radium Girls case, Isaac Asimov, skeptical of nuclear energy, life will go on, John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids, Amish or Mennonites, big cities have been destroyed, a line about France, the Soviets are the likeliest suspects, could have been South Africa (probably wasn’t), some years mentioned early, a barn built in 1952, 1854, 100 years in the future?, are people living extra-long?, didn’t understand the length of time, how long a century is, rural people, life organized by seasons, Esau flushed a little, on the gable end, four numbers, 1952, before even Gran was born, the meeting house (a church), down behind the lilac bushes, 1842, a child’s POV, the unreliable narrator, they have these dreams of what this technology was, radio, memories of having things nice, now they’re all Mennonites and they don’t like it, mechanical engineers with electricity, church oppression is physical, the warehouse burning, burning the whole town down, upsetting, a weird rural mindset, comes from the parents, enforced through children, restrictive, 11km from Bremen city center, traveled as a kid, visiting Disney World, don’t talk about Disney World (that’s bragging!), the 1968 anti-Vietnam war America is Evil generation, they all have leprosy in India, does not fit our worldview, this American experience, Doukhobours, Guatemala, Russia, biggest city in North Carolina, Presbyterian church, southern Baptists, fundamentalists, was Will a city boy?, the Creation museum, a monument to ignorance, evolution is a lie, dinosaurs on Noah’s ark, Leviathan and Behemoth were dinosaurs, plants aren’t actually alive, American Protestantism, fear of science, an alternative authority, the insidious part, they’re challenging the authority that I have as a mean bastard to discipline people, for adults its not the same, they lock you in there, indoctrinated, go about your business, forming your understanding of reality, Len and Esau, sinning by getting the radio, the wrong type of religious meeting, stealing books, no education, everything out of the bible except for math (sums), someone might build an atomic bomb again, deliberately kept stupid, an Amish exception, kept down by the schooling, Catholic areas, Lutherans are nice mellow progressive people, occasional throwback, rural Bavaria in the 1950s, weird American churches, religious nutcases, the Catholic thing, the opposite book to this A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr., monks preserving knowledge, Davy by Edgar Pangborn, mutants too, more about power than science or anti-science, making your own carts, they control the books, who stole the books?, more about power than denial of science, what bartertown?, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), two men enter one man leaves, George Miller, some wonderful tropes, methane, escaping from a cult, tragedy, lifestory, living in tragic times, a coming of age book, ridiculous task, wise adults, we don’t have an army, helping kids out, wrongthink, muddle through, always tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, build a city, refuge is destroyed, bottom up government oppression, five warehouses make a city, 200 houses and 1000 people, a local judge, the judge seems reasonable, Hofstadter, the mob itself, Dulinsky, just trying to do capitalism, believable, too believable, nothing good happens to anybody, they abandon their families, finding love, never returning to Piper’s Run, fanaticism, they do it to themselves, the return of the prodigal son, a horrible biblical story, pillar of salt, a sinner, dabbling with forbidden knowledge, quaint and harmless and peaceful, pacifist, new ishmaelists, The Walking Dead, the group who live with the zombies, take the discipline, hypocritical, demanded as tribute, how they freeze to death, race and genocide stuff, people who’ve been made homeless, live on the charity of us hardworking farmers, the dirty thirties, leeches vs. our duty, oppressed by the past, oppression from the law, use the fruits of knowledge, a stick, maybe Len and Esau could end up with those people, awfully close, too faint praise, the hopes that we have are destroyed, nothing good happened, quick fixes and Edens to escape to, their own kind of cult, don’t give yourself false hopes, you’re going to have to work for stuff, disappointing things in politics, reversions and regressions, the long cycle of things, working continually towards progress, a life of working towards better things, the Foundation from [Isaac Asimov’s Foundation] Foundation, working on this one specific problem, a bunker of some kind, conventional fossil power, a force field that stops fusion and fission, magical thinking, nuclear bombs bad vs. nuclear energy good, the Windscale fire, anti-nuclear power, opposed hated disliked, coal power, a fairly overcast country, solar power, co-generation, nuclear power is against god, getting to the library, they have a radio, getting power from the radio waves themselves, finding the mysterious box, an allegory for growing up in the radio age, screenwriter, a radio kid, mysterious transmissions, a form of education, the magic of radio, The Adventures of Fatty Finn, soap box racing, drawn from her own life experience, public domain clearances, noticing a pattern, her copyright renewed works got by a bank, the executors of their estate, the bank got Leigh Brackett’s retro-Hugos?, the first solo-work nominated for a Hugo by a woman, Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein, a very good book, The End Of Eternity by Isaac Asimov, a Kuttner/Moore story, women only exist to be wives, cover city, enlightened change, no women scientists, get married stat, Gran is amazing, deferring to the kid’s dad, hopes and dreams, the tragedy of this book, better ask your pa, that red dress, music and clean toilets, ice cream, chocolate rabbits at Easter, water that ran out of shiny faucets, two faded sparks, “flat-hat”, a red dress and a TV, a good world, it ended because it was evil, the world that was, hold her tongue and bow her head, great writing, post-war American dream, electric power, the great game changer, telephones, it wasn’t that great a time for women either, kicked out and sent back to the home, suburban towns, women scientists in the 1950s, in crisis times, the COVID pandemic, childcaring, why they didn’t have any kids, 2015, Kinsman, Ohio, Star Wars fans, where the force awoke for the series first sequel, her summers, The Big Sleep (1945) Rio Bravo (1959), The Long Goodbye(1973), Batman, more than 20 summers, Hamilton’s sisters, 1946, a century and a quarter, deer and woodchucks, I work in a small white wooden room, old boys book, a mug from “Duke”, John Wayne, the Vindicator, The Long Tomorrow is about the Kinsman house, the Canfield fair, age 13, Howard Hawks, No Good For A Corpse, William Faulkner, lovers of that genre, Ray Bradbury, Lorelei Of The Red Mists, buy a convertible and drive it all summer, Ed and Leigh, 1963 Corvette Stingray, Superman bought that corvette!, they were tied to their typewriters, “it’s good to be home”, writing under deadline, strikingly ordinary, Hatari (1962), round the world cruise, dig up the turnips, Yoda gift bags, what a charmed childhood, the cancer hit her, that first script is on the internet, so very Planet Stories, the small towns in this book, through a child’s eyes, delightful for them, a luxury sports car, the edge of fertility, they’re having fun, writing action adventure superheroes, Will has read some of Edmond Hamilton’s Superman comics, Under The Red Sun, zany post apocalyptic journey, robots of the people that he knew, he’s got a beard, Metropolis is destroyed, in a box somewhere, Krypton, my hair and nails have grown, under Earth’s yellow sun…, shaving with eyelasers and a mirror, inconsistent continuity, Edmond Hamilton, The Star Kings, Jack Vance, Captain Future stories, an anime series, Star Trek reruns, Space: 1999, Moonbase Alpha, The Daughter Of Thor, a polar expedition with a semi-frozen queen with a pet tiger, half vikings, Fantastic Adventures, Weird Tales, E.E. Doc Smith, unreadable, Crashing Suns, Interstellar Patrol, Brackett was a better writer, one of the best writers of the Golden Age, Clifford D. Simak, C.L. Moore, July 18th is Edmond Hamilton Leigh Brackett Day, Robert E. Howard Days, Cross Plains, Texas, Youngstown, if this her most depressing one, mostly shorter length, her mysteries, The Long Goodbye (1973) is so good, a noir ending, Elliot Gould, a jazz movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert Altman, the role of his life, so 70s, so weird, Humphrey Bogart, cat action, be up for it, a delight, a long and lazy movie, what kind of movie is this?, rotating crime shows, working class cop, no dialogue for five minutes, shocking German swear words, set the deal with United Artists, not exactly my idea of Philip Marlowe, a technical problem of this enormous, involution and convoluted, side tangents, its all getting to the thing, both California of the period, MASH, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), Robert Altman, still working, very elderly now, Bosch, renting movies based on actors, The Silent Partner (1978), Margot Kidder, so many great movies, fall into a wonderful world, A Bridge Too Far (1977), WWII movies, Operation Market Garden, take too many bridges, Die Brücke (1959), very depressing, war is evil, war: don’t do it, we still need them, a high point in the late 50s to the mid 60s, The Lincoln Lawyer, Michael Connelly wrote both series, Leigh Brackett’s great, read everything by her, get your hands a copy of The Long Tomorrow, Hatari (1962), Rio Bravo (1959) and Rio Lobo (1970), Faulkner, write a screenplay, Bogart made everything better, Elliot Gould playing Eric John Stark.

The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett

Action Comics, 300

SCIENCE FICTION BOOK CLUB - Leigh Brackett's The Long Tomorrow

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