The SFFaudio Podcast #706 – READALONG: Everything’s Eventual by Stephen King

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #706 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Evan Lampe talk about Everything’s Eventual by Stephen King

Talked about on today’s show:
Stephen “Shitlib” King, on twitter, Marissa, what’s a shitlib?, explaining without being derisive, at the heart of his character, urban dictionary, portmanteau, leftist, spinelessness, hypocrisy, vote blue no matter who, hit the phones, an American treasure, fear of political radicals, Randall Flagg, Under The Dome, anxiety about radicalism among boomers, he’s not stupid, blinkered on some political issues, Fantasy & Science Fiction, October November 1997, novella, his psychology is on display, JFK, he can’t get JFK out of his mind, he’s not willing to accept, of more than one mind on things, why his characters can be so good, a terrific story in terms of readability, a small idea sustained for 2 hours, not that much material going on, the little drips, the chronology of this story is so well done, he hints that he murdered this guy, murder, what he can do and what he did do, a trailer, 2008 adaptation, “dollar baby”, SK will let you adapt anything for $1 (for no commercial students), what makes him a shitlib, I’m wealthy, I want to make everything post scarcity, he can’t be that, he does this half-measure, John Scalzi, no where in the league of Stephen King, filmmakers have a lot of interest in this, you want to do it that’s great, that’s why we don’t get to see this movie, an advocate of public domain, decry, an exemplar of his shitlibbery, he’s also a brand, offensive adaptations, diminishing his stature, it has hurt Shakespeare’s reputation greatly, a right wing screed, how could Stephen King let Trump do that?, he’s not going to get shit on by random people, Caitlin Johnstone, Australian, an online twitter commentator, you work for RT, you can do anything you want with my stuff as long as you’re not racist, you can’t really control what other people do unless you’re Stephen King, what piracy is, worrying, Stephen King knows JFK’s assassination isn’t on the up and up, who is this transcorporation, a dinky tranny, why he hasn’t been canceled yet, he wants to keep his reputation as a shitlib, trying to reconcile and can’t, a generous person who loves are but can’t, Richard Bachman, books, an extreme critique of American capitalism, massive dissatisfaction, this nefarious corporation, the government, a secret organization, people who shine, The Dark Tower, Firestarter, kill off people who are threats to the system, written around 1997, these are the people the system allows to exist to give them legitimacy, critique the system slightly from the left, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, they’re who Stephen King wants to be, the true threats to the system, the general who turns his back on war, and who is going to run for office, a lib columnist, the pope and the dog (Muffins), they’re not targeting prison abolitionists or anti-capitalists, that’s true, he could have highlighted any three people, he sees them as threats to the system, if this story was set in the 1960s, would Martin Luther King be targeted if this was set in the 1960s, Dolores Claiborne, he can’t resist to demonize a character, an obsession he has, Camelot and what might have been RFK, JFK was not a shitlib, a tool of American empire, he was trying to dismantle, why did they kill him?, he was fighting the military industrial complex, he was a cold warrior, he talks like a cold warrior, invading Cuba, aircover for the Bay of Pigs, a great betrayal of the deep state, the CIA, the Cuban expatriate right (wing), Florida, too soft on Kennedy, Jesse denies killing killing Kennedy, The Devil’s Chessboard, the Dulles brothers did it, the FBI was run by a guy who had massive power over presidents, J. Edgar Hoover, Allen Dulles was fired by JFK, why Oswald killed JFK, in the area, the Zupruder film, suppressed since the 1960s, he wrote a book 11/22/63, there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark, he’s not willing to accuse his Uncle [Sam], what this story is about, why Evan picked this story, Call Him Nemesis (is a) superhero origin story by Donald E. Westlake, three help Roland, Dinky Earnshaw, his one true multiverse, like Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Empire, Robert A. Heinlein, The Number Of The Beast, Gulf, Friday, why is Pug in this story, the guy at the super-saver, The Mist, autobiographical stuff, the themes of the story, most of us, the vast majority of our talents are wasted, like Stephen King, this grocery store, the recruiter, the mom, Sharpton, what’s so powerful about this story, your talent is useful, so seductive, fall into the trap, trained to do horrible things, give them a home, easy to justify, wipes out a wedding in Yemen, Afghanistan, more egregious, a seductive reality, people want to be useful, do nothing all day, take photos all day, free of economic constraints, wasting real talent, how many Mozarts are working in some coal mine, Ansel Adams working as warranty administrators, recruited into the military, your country needs you, if you work hard you can advance up the ranks, the army made me the man I am today, Starship Troopers, the satire, my doggy thing, an image of a guy throwing change down the drain on the side of the road, fire hydrants, rain gutters, as a kid that’s what you’re close to, as a shorter person, those summers last forever, your grade 8 summer, not sending to Nyarlathotep, why would anybody throw clothes down there?, get rid of the money, great writing, what isn’t answered, pug is also a funny name, fuck Mrs. Buckowski’s dog, he hates the dog, his hatred for dogs, Muffins is a dog, transforms in his dream from Pug into Skipper, he knows he’s killing innocent people, he’s killing pugs, what we know about psychopaths, killing animals, Dink is a very nice guy, pizza face, chocolate, we like him, at the end of the story, it’s going to go there, the tie, “company”, a cutout for the CIA, The Men Who Stare At Goats, Courtney Brown, remote viewing, DARPA, a great job, but its a cult and you’re doing evil, rescinded, a shell company, the bombsight metaphor, surrounded by homeless people, a super-analytical mind, Philip K. Dick, boobs, coffee, religious philosophy, the names in here are not nothing, Excalibur, Neff’s suicide, white haired New York Times columnist, good humoured fuck, Double Indemnity, Walter Neff, suckered in by a hot lady, murder, he can’t quite put it all together, faces out of the earth coming to haunt him in his dreams, I’m the tool, Stephen King knows what the problem is, he can’t make that extra step, King with a Ukraine shirt, he’s on board, he won’t rock the boat, he’s a good boy, he can write another story, I got another story to write, bringing out the psychology of himself, a very frustrating situation, he can’t escape, somebody comes and saves him?, that’s the ending?, the opening of a novel, not an ending, a gap in the writing, Mr. Sharpton is not the boss of this company, he’s killing some guy who’s like him, I’ve been hypnotized and maybe drugged, he’s the handler, how spies make assets, Chuck, The Americans, the things that shitlibs say: “Russian assets”, ex-CIA guys on Twitter, Mike Baker, Joe Rogan, a time clock, the relationship will fall apart, starting with a negative vs. a positive, human assets are time limited, revenge, blackmail, recruited as a positive, apple pie, swank mag, his internet was censored, when things shifted, browsers in 1994, other people are watching him, he’s being spied on in the past, post-cogs, JFK was killed by a woman, even Stephen King doesn’t think that Oswald did it, mostly a love story, he can’t come to terms with it, he can’t grapple with it, JFK, RFK, more right wing, Catholics should have loved JFK, conservative Catholic, as an alternative to Nixon, LBJ, what might have been, he was murdered, even the president can be assassinated, banned from twitter, Trump should have nationalized twitter, nationalizing gas companies, if you can ban the most powerful person in the world from communicating, who’s really in charge?, a very 1960s film, Dr. Strangelove (1964), James Coburn, The President’s Analyst (1967), Gravy Planet aka The Space Merchants, Martha Wells’ Murderbot series, the Aliens universe, working hand in glove, al the way back to Smedley Butler, the business plot, War Is A Racket, an agent of corporations, a mercenary for United Fruit, enforcing the Monroe doctrine, Oswald was Dink, if you buy the official story, recruited by the CIA to live in Russia, pro and anti-Cuba in Florida, who was his paymaster, Robert Dwoney Jr., Air America is a CIA plot, drug running and gun running, a fun movie, those are Dinks, illegal, off the books, if the president is playing the game, is all of King like this?, how this story is told, how things are revealed, a Dark Tower connection, Ted Chiang’s Understand, intellectual powers, The Dreams In The Witch-House, making a guy off himself, paranoid shit like that, Steven Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme, stream of consciousness, Gerald’s Game, he’s still really relevant, non-euclidean, he doesn’t even know the world eldritch, talents, a metaphor for him, why he is Dink, why he banned his school shooting book, he thinks this power is real, crazy but also true, he doesn’t want to have this on his conscience, much bigger than he is, what if he is wrong?, not the Stephen King that we have, they’d have to deal with him, maybe?, George Orwell, Animal Farm is a CIA tool, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Animal Farm is the one they push, this is not bullshit, he can’t be responsible, he hates Trump, and he’s a good boy, the tower can’t fall, you just can’t go there, why he’s so sucessful, The Dark Tower is reactionary, the last cop trying to hold together the universe, a traditional liberal, it doesn’t outline the issue, he’s not willing to accept what he knows is true, he’s writing it all over the page, Understand is much more simple, Limitless, the power to predict, super-analyze, taking knowledge, the’s correlating all the contents, a one man psychohistory, he’s pretending like he’s dumb, Paul has a day job, wordle, a nice relaxing game of Civ, sunrise and sunset photos, putting things together, what writers and comedians do all day long, putting it all together, truing to understand reality, the mainstream media, the transcribers of CIA talking points, Abby Martin and Chris Hedge’s back catalogue on YouTube were deleted, the Russians interfered in our elections, stop the steal, the same narrative and the same set of beliefs, the same unfounded set of beliefs, they’re swimming in it, NPR, PBS, Democracy Now used to be anti-war, Yemen (war) is vaguely bad, the AirWars website, the numbers don’t go down, the narrative wont allow it, he wont allow us to see the final conclusion, killing off the Excalibur guy, he can’t solve the story, it really is a disappointing ending, he isn’t exposing anything, if you want to escape, he hasn’t followed it up, taken back in by another recruiter to be a breaker, a secret book, here’s what I really thought, Galileo can’t say what he really thinks, and yet it moves, a tell-all, why he has to keep writing, he’s gotta avoid making that conclusion, too afraid of disorder, Secret Window, Secret Garden, Rest Stop, beats up an abusive man in a rest stop toilet, fearful of disorder, his greatest fear is the fear at the ending of The Mist, I just have to kill my family, what if I’m wrong?, the dark ending that Hollywood couldn’t handle, the movie ending makes it more explicit, makes the subtext text, highlights the mistake, good and stability wins out, is stability always good?, Dungeons & Dragons, good vs. evil, order vs. chaos, a lawful evilness to the American Empire, we define what lawful , James Clapper: “not wittingly” is lying to congress, weapons of mass destruction, mistakes were made, when people get divorced, I want to not be married to this person, I’m going to go to the garage more, circumstances that will lead, the life wish vs. the death wish, we should always be thinking about our own psychology, I’m married to the United States, happy wife, happy life, because if it rhymes it must be true, if the glove doesn’t fit you must acquit, write more stuff, if you do look into the dark pit you , what is the end goal, I want to be the last man standing, a lot of people do the hot drop, feeling the stress building over a half an hour, a miniature version of life, to understand truth, killing people doesn’t make you survive better, being aggressive doesn’t make you less likely to be killed, the life instinct and the death instinct, to be stressed out, a very immature thing, its lunch time, alone in a classroom, building a house of cards, blow on his house a cards, what would child Paul, most boys would exercise their vital power, they want to see stuff blow up, that felt bad, stop the bully, we have both instincts, to be the bully and to stop the bully, what play is, puppies and kittens, 100% natural, as an adult you don’t do this anymore, not a dis just a fact, there’s consequences to his actions, Dink is immature, ignorant, socially isolated, why King is playing him as a less savvy version of himself, interesting Catholic stuff, King’s a Methodist, the pope being assassinated, Stephen King is dink and the plot master, Mercedes, Mr. Mercedes, symbols of power, jeans are for fucking around, suits are for business, King doesn’t wear a suit (because he’s not a businessman), what keeps him writing, suits are almost always bad news, technical dress code shirt, a shirt with a collar and buttons, a 70s shirt, Leonard McCoy’s chest hair, a pretty big collar, Kirk with the arm hair, giant belt buckles, a tracking device, a little off topic, a little Star Trek talk for Chowbacca, it’s fun to hear your name called out, how’s Picard season 2 going?, the Red Letter Media, enjoying their discomfort, another national treasure, how their collective works, their editing is good, their insights are good, commercially interesting, the Critical Drinker guy, Red Letter Media aren’t interested in the Batman movie, their Darkman (1990) review, its a good time to consider Sam Raimi, how this podcast works, what’s the hot new book out?, no interest, N.K. Jemisin, I consider her a friend, Nora, Paul considers them all friends, a moderator on her twitch channel, free labour here too, how many PUBG games has she played with you?, more of a guy game, DaRose, nobody wants to here his civil war stories, their ideal audience, people don’t read civil war anthologies, Sinclair Lewis, nobody knows him, Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry, Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, 1st hundred pages are poetry, the ultimate thesis on The Raven, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ben Franklin, John Adams, inventor, intellectual, Evan was triggered, hard on John Adams, sacrificed his presidency to stop a war, he was unpopular, greater moral considerations, Andrew Jackson, oof size large, trigger Evan about Poe, strictly monogamous, Poe is so rich, he’s super-intimidating, he’s like William Shakespeare, having issues, away from the , In And Out Burgers, having Paul adventures, more shitlib King, the Dark Tower is too big, anything long will trigger Jesse, the 70 hours The Devil’s Chessboard [is 26 hours], Ariel and Will Durant, a history of pop, a history of car tires, take decades off your life, H.G. Wells’ [history] stuff, The Outline Of History is 44 hours, double speed, Everything’s Eventual narrator was great, it’ll be on sale at some point, Justin Long is a good narrator, movie actor, Dodgeball (2004), Accepted (2006), Idiocracy (2006), the Bruce Willis thing, Tusk (2014), aphasia, low budget bad movies, he shouldn’t be doing this, he might need the money, offensive to the craft, like Jean Luc Picard is offensive, ORson Welles hawking wine, debase themselves, Nicole Kidman out on the street hooking, that’s a shame, with the proper camera placement, aphasia is an inability to speak, almost nobody knows what this word means, Alzheimer’s is tarred, some brain effect, we’re being lied to, definitely an issue, dementias, we’re eating it up and reporting, if he can’t memorize scripts, Saturday Night Live, Andrew Dice Clay, performer vs. actor, on live television, Hail, Caesar! (2016), Ethan Cohen’s short stories, something wrong with their writing, they enjoy their writing more than, Fargo (1996), O Brother Where Art Thou (2000), smug, the lady with the big lips, Billy Bob Thornton, The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001), big fish in a small pond, Inglorius Basterds (2009), The Hateful Eight (2015), Elmore Leonard, Jackie Brown (1997), El Mariachi (1992), Robert Rodriguez, Spy Kids, his best self, not to the level as Quentin Tarantino, as much like Hitchcock as Hitchcock, human flourishing, seeing the great master at work, another Rock movie, direct to Netflix, Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), odd obsessions, an irony there, The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), Frances McDormand, Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Army Of Darkness, its Phantom Of The Opera, they didn’t make that connection, a monster not a superhero, the Amber Chronicles, unlike all the other Universal Monsters, the werewolf, the spiderwoman, the creature from the black lagoon, Frankenstein creature, a solid science fiction backstory, how the plot is the same as Robocop (1987), ladies falling off buildings, sold out to do all those spider-man movies, film is a strange medium, Doctor Strange, multiverse fiction, Morbius the living vampire, literary characters were allowed, nobody is willing to shill for it, it must be dogshit, audience score, people in the genre community, Dracula shows up in Marvel Comics, nudity!, reasonable, rational copyright, Stephen King has the ability, and chooses not to do that, two things you can do, creative commons, LibriVox makes a frowny face, the regime of this stuff doesn’t compel authors to keep their copyright term, filmmakers on YouTube, back when we were trying to make the web good, as soon as it leaves your pencil, while we keep it in print, particular contracts, work for hire, he can’t reconcile, Brandon Sanderson, contracts are not copyright, Jesse waved a wand, movie rights are not included, why it has a baby in it, his babies maybe?, the festival circuit and educational purposes only, Mute, good stories, he feels guilty, I wanna be generous about this, exploit his writings, he’s stuck, full blown Alan Moore, fawk them awl, the Dark Tower audio drama people, cock blocked, trying to get a series done, the law is two, phones with no headphone jacks, android phones, even Samsung, another way, you wanted to put your little Dinky in there, a little MP3 player, phones are becoming worse and worse, LG went out of the cellphone business.

Fantasy & Science Fiction, October November 1997

Eveything's Eventual art by Jill Bauman

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The SFFaudio Podcast #609 – READALONG: Anarchaos by Donald E. Westlake

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #609 – Jesse, Scott Danielson, Evan Lampe, Maissa Bessada, and Will Emmons talk about Anarchaos by Donald E. Westlake

Talked about on today’s show:
Curt Clark, Jesse’s favourite writer?, talkin bout Westlake, Lawrence Block, 1967 ACE paperback, less than a finger thick, Paul’s reaction, the audiobook is much abridged, that’s what they did back then, Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, the Columbia House, the Science Fiction Book Club, Scott’s origins (YouTube), night and day, all the anarchist stuff is not in the audiobook, the CBR, how vast a difference, about 70% of the book is cut out, the history, an experiment in anarchism, this is really bad anarchism, into two cassettes, Tomorrow’s Crimes by Donald E. Westlake, when Westlake quit science fiction, it could have been half of an Ace double, a super-interesting guy, Chuck Wendig, Under An English Heaven, a weird writer, peripheral writings, characterization and crime, Xero, I’m not sitting around bragging, no place for it?, I cannot sell good science fiction, John W. Campbell, gatekeepers, science fiction’s lost is crime’s gain, Analog, a side bit character, $450, the economics of writing science ficton, a go fund me, one of the most popular science fiction writers, a kickstarter to make ends meet, how good this book is, subjective reactions, rafts of stuff, the anarchy and the philosophical, the butchery is surgical, a very good abridgement, Stefan Rudnicki, decisions being made, only a few characters, this guy just gave up, rewriting the book, Westlake doesn’t waste words, parsimoniously, Westlake’s trademark: the movement of hands, the whole tell, Richard Stark, a fast writer, Man Of Action, December 1960, supplementary homework, Or Give Me Death, Patrick Henry, 270 years old, an editor getting pitched, in 1823 he almost died, November of 1954, a highly political story, it makes a point, Who are the heirs of Patrick Henry?, Robert A. Heinlein, a libertarian, the founding fathers, it is a good book, he’s fudging a little bit, another version of The Call Of The Wild, he think he’s the toughest dog around, over the horizon, the uninhabitable zone, John Thornton, men are dangerous and dogs are subservient to men, the king of the slaves, Buck doesn’t talk or think in words, Buck did not read the newspapers, the house slave, the top dog, his true nature, the man is a man, Rolf Malone, he basically murders a dude, so shocking, our main character is an evil murderer, his real reason for coming to the planet, the society, he kills dozens and dozens of people, he wants to kill the planet, Lybia, would people be like this?, Newton’s first law, Malone was the external force, that one strangling hand, Cloak Of Anarchy by Larry Niven, the origins, Mikhail Bakunin, an insurrectionary anarchist, Peter Kropotkin, how cooperative systems can exist, post-scarcity, the conquest of bread, an anarchist utopia, corporations came, anarcho-capitalism, slavery without a state, marriage without states, a meta-element, a whole series of novels, Cockaigne, a prison planet where the natives cant leave, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World‘s reservation, the U.C. is interfering with the running, the immigration official, a very unwise priest, Dracula, Jonathan Harker, The Woman In Black, repossess a computer, being sent to be killed, these are my people, the corporations run this planet, an economic shit zone, the offworlders moved in, in the hands of profit-seekers, anarchism sounds really great its gonna get co-opted by corporations, no government that can hold the corporations accountable, pirates eating into their slavery business, the polities, guns, who is a slave in a west African society, state making taking place, more laws that lead to more people being criminals to make them slaves, definitely the political, extracting the resources from Anarchaos, Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries, get the pronouns right, a big multi-national corporation and a nation, a body, it has arms, if this was a completely cut-off planet, its supposed to be a failed utopia, how Westlake cheats, the star is Hell, the names of the cities, Ulich and Nigh, Cockaigne is middle ages fantasy of young monks, Valhalla, afterlife places, tidally locked, the temperature, 29 Celsius, how the ecosystem can work, The City In The Middle Of The Night by Charlie Jane Anders, a drug that can take away his responsibility, we can trust what he’s saying or what he’s doing, the femme fatale, time itself, usual rituals, Will should have some thoughts about this book, the hard science is not what this novel is about, an anthropological big think, soft science, Vietnam after they win the war, the Chinese path, the worker state welcomed investment back in, how can this little socialist utopia exist?, purposely isolated, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), self-reliance, The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose Farmer, how respectful of physical space, Texas with no rangers, a comedy, the products of the authors, a long time ago this planet had some sort of galactic relationship with the other planets, Atlanta, an airport hub, a straight-up planetary romance, not a fun adventure planet with cool creatures, the hovels, this tradition, Kirinyaga by Mike Resnick, a fix-up novel, an asteroid terraformed into ancient Kenya, the mundumugu witch-doctor, the Transmetropolitan reservations, the Coventry reservation, the Westlake Review, Westlake was interested in SF, Nackles, anti-Santa Claus, Xmas, it’s not me it’s you, what this book is an indicator of, we withdraw our society from you, society and individual and crime, how Jesse wants to frame this story, John Savage, the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, a kind of similar relationship, that savage lifestyle, she’s non-functional, nice food, a soft bed, new clothes, a shower, to be drugged up and not be, might makes right, colours in this book, the red light of Hell, a single name, Ice or Sledge, a Disneyland Chenzen special economic zone, an Alaska, a free extraction zone, cesspools and tailings, where the animals went, no mention of race, the state of nature argument, a raw canvas, an anarcho-syndicalist utopia for about 15 minutes, big offshore corporations, what anarchism is, in what circumstances could it work, that premise, the post-apocalyptic works, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, The Walking Dead, big walls, in a context, a rich network with other groups, a different kind of slavery, the kind of slavery that parents have to children or to family, the relationship between marriage and slavery, the Roman Empire, Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber, go to the neighbouring community and get some girls, the caveman cartoon, the carrying over the threshold, the collar around the neck kind of slavery, women can be slaves but not men, he’s a bad dude, go wherever you want, exporting troublemakers, exporting their worst corporations, Jerry Pournelle’s CoDominium books, hello Australia, the west, Evan kinda likes this model, where all the wild ones are, The Many-Colored Land by Julian May, exporting of excess population, the Greeks were doing it with their colonies, an alternative to prisons, Siberia!, an open-air prison, Escape From New York, how shocked were you all when Malone gets his hand cut-off early in the book?, The Dark Tower, unless it gets infected…, he gets his brother’s college ring back, the ring finger of his left hand, some guy chewing on his hand, the limited contact we have with the natives, youre my slave now (cuz I found you in a ditch), you’re my brother or you’re my son, their aren’t teams and syndicates other than corporations, who is keeping the stuff like that?, the slum-dwellers from being unionized, doubly abridged, so heavy and dark, slightly higher gravity, the gravity thing, a subversion of a traditional planetary romance, subversion, confederate veteran, John Carter, weighted down morose lethargic, mentally and physically, the Colonel’s secretary, A Princess Of Anarchaos, the planet killed Gar, and two women, his mind flex, give me a planetary romance exploring an idea, a sixties slim paperback, full of SF ideas, Humans by Donald E. Westlake, angels are real, a very experimental writer, Smoke by Donald E. Westlake, The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, crime books, very philosophical, those crime books can be very philosophical, what makes crime bad?, killing’s just something you do, fearful for my own life, an imposition on their liberty, a pure goal oriented…, Parker is deluding himself, he wants to kill vs. he wants the action, why we’re reading it, find his brother’s killer, he didn’t have the stomach for it, feeling sorry for himself, now I have to kill the whole planet, essentially a villain, there is no hero, Jesse loves the ending, eighteen hours and twenty three minutes, oh shit, kill a whole lot of people, Morogeth, revenge on the actual people who killed his brother, the heart of the monetary system, rot in its own juices, absurd anarchy with some protective colony, how the story started, the boredom of travel by shuttle, Rolf I’m going to have a second chance, the only real relationship he has, the only person he respected, the only person he admired, a reverse inversion of this, from the other side, Fight Club, another political book, man’s relationship to himself, how’m I spossed to live now in this modern world with Ikeas, Fight Club 2, the comic book sequel, tear it all down, Phail and Gar, met across a loaded gun, Phail -> veil?, the names are weird, the veil of rule of law, pull the veil away, the naked relationship, the look in Colonel Whistler’s eyes, Anarchaos was a cancer, thus the suitcases, that promise, voyages to seven planets, the other planets in the UC system, Jack Vance, The Moon Moth, a planet full of people wearing masks all the time, The Lego Movie (2014), Cloud Cuckoo Land, framings and levels, interpreting what’s going on, a popular genre in the middle ages, young monks, writing poems, satirizing their lives,Land of Cokaygne

There is another abbey nearby,
a great nunnery in fact,
up a river of sweet milk,
where there is great plenty of silk.
When the summer’s day is hot,
the young nuns take a boat,
and go forth on that river
rowing with oars and steering.
When they are far from the abbey,
they undress to play,
and jump into the water
and swim secretly.
The young monks who see them
get ready and start out
and come to the nuns immediately,
and each monk takes one for himself
and carries his prey away quickly
to the great grey abbey,
and teaches the nuns a prayer
with their legs up and down in the air
The monk that can be a good stallion
and knows where to put his hood
he can easily have
twelve wives each year.

the power of translation, the power of writing, the power of reading, goddamn it I’m a monk, the nuns in that nearby abbey are quite sexy, it rains cheese from the sky, a comedy reaction to the difficulty, the place where they took his weapons away, richness that went into this, he loved the process of creation, Planet Of Adventure by Jack Vance.

Ace F-421 - Anarchaos by Donald E. Westlake
Ace F-421 Anarchaos by Donald E. Westlake

Donald Westlake's Anarchaos - illustration by Patrick Dean

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Review of Razor’s Edge by Martha Wells

SFFaudio Review

razorsedgeRazor’s Edge: Star Wars (Empire and Rebellion)
By Martha Wells; Read by January LaVoy
Publisher: Random House Audio
Publication Date: 24 September 2013
ISBN: 9780804148269
[UNABRIDGED] – 9 hours, 57 minutes

Excerpt: | MP3 |
Themes: / Star Wars / rebels /
Publisher summary:
Times are desperate for the Rebel Alliance. Harassment by the Empire and a shortage of vital supplies are hindering completion of a new secret base on the ice planet Hoth. So when Mid Rim merchants offer much-needed materials for sale, Princess Leia Organa and Han Solo lead an Alliance delegation to negotiate a deal.But when treachery forces the rebel ship to flee into territory controlled by pirates, Leia makes a shocking discovery: the fierce marauders come from Leia’s homeworld of Alderaan, recently destroyed by the Death Star. These refugees have turned to pillaging and plundering to survive—and they are in debt to a pirate armada, which will gladly ransom the princess to the vengeful Empire . . . if they find out her true identity.

Struggling with intense feelings of guilt, loyalty, and betrayal, Leia is determined to help her wayward kinspeople, even as Imperial forces are closing in on her own crippled ship. Trapped between lethal cutthroats and brutal oppressors, Leia and Han, along with Luke, Chewbacca, and a battle-ready crew, must defy death—or embrace it—to keep the rebellion alive. 

Razor’s Edge takes place between Episodes IV and V and involves Leia trying to acquire funding for the new rebel base on the planet Hoth. It’s part of a new trilogy taking place during that time period that has each book focusing on all of our three favorite main characters: Leia, Luke, and Han. I was excited about the idea of another book during this time period because Allegiance was so good. I’m sad to say that the book didn’t completely live up to my expectations.

Considering that the Empire is the major force in the galaxy during this time period, I was surprised that they only play a minor part in this story. The Empire is there, but the majority of the story involves a group of pirates. The result is that you have lots of new characters to get to know during a time period when you’d potentially expect to be on more familiar ground. There are so many new characters that when they’re all finally together, Wells has to list all of them to describe who is doing what when the group splits up (this happens a few times and is kind of awkwardly worded). Don’t get me wrong, the book was full of the action and adventure you’d expect from a Star Wars book, it just didn’t really feel like a Star Wars book to me.

There were times in the book that it felt like I was being reminded that this was a Star Wars book – such as random lists of Star Wars races when a group passes by (2 Bith, a Rodian, and an Ithorian…or something like that happened a few times) or describing a messy office as looking like it was hit by an ion cannon (wouldn’t that just short circuit all their electronics? What would that actually look like?). The thing that really got me was that Han suddenly has a satchel he keeps having to grab or secure…is that supposed to be like Indiana Jones constantly having to grab his hat?

So why do they get roped in with these pirates? Now that is a good question. Leia is still coping with the loss of Alderaan and makes some rash/irrational/impulsive decisions based on those feelings. That would be fine except this is the same Leia that stared down Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin and lied to their faces while facing torture…I just didn’t buy that she would irrationally put the hopes of the Rebel Alliance on the line because of the actions of some people from Alderaan.

Overall, I’d say that this book is good for die hard Star Wars fans but not really the casual reader. I’d give a much stronger recommendation for Allegiance by Timothy Zahn since that was a much better ride that fit really well in the same time period.

As for the audio performance, I can’t say I’d give much of a higher recommendation on that part. I’m sure January LaVoy does a great job on other books, but she just didn’t fit this book very well. Every other Star Wars book I’ve listened to did a great job with impersonations of characters we all know but they weren’t very noticeable here. Most of the male characters sounded pretty similar to each other and the female characters’ voices sounded pretty similar to the narration voice.

Star Wars books are also normally known for their effects and music. The production was decent, but there were moments where some sound effects sounded more like a game of Galaga than Star Wars.

Posted by Tom Schreck