The SFFaudio Podcast #446 – READALONG: The Night Flier by Stephen King

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #446 – Jesse, Scott, Paul Weimer, and Marissa VU, talk about The Night Flier by Stephen King

Talked about on today’s show:
1988, Prime Evil (New Stories By The Modern Masters Of Horror), the movie, The Running Man is a powerful book, was Jesse wrong about Stephen King?, Salem’s Lot, he’s long, faithful, killing Dees?, lean and mean and sharp, essential goodness, cute, where It was set, All You Zombies, Predestination (2014), Marissa really loves his writing, creeped-out again, how bad writing happens, translates thought onto the page, Elmore Leonard, Donald E. Westlake, not enough there?, maybe Jesse is wrong, depth?, evidence that Jesse is wrong, social commentary, the flower children of the 1960s became the cannibals of the 1990s, real cynicism, pushing hard, the depth is in the characters, caring about characters, hard to film, what’s missing is its all a metaphor for something, the story in the telling, apart from the obvious metaphor: journalism bloodthirstiness, fake journalism, having the story in their minds, tabloid newspapers, what’s that about?, the social phenomenon, analogies to blood (and guts), typical Stephen King, a depth of connection, part of the appeal, feeling these things happen, we know him, we get him, the Weekly World News, on the edge of reality, Kolchak crossed with Lou Grant, “You’re real!”, backward and forward in time, anticipating what he’s going to see, a Cessna Skymaster, you sleep in the belly of that thing, don’t publish what you believe, finding evidence, Maine, small aircraft at small airports, a story idea, who is the titular character?, he’s more real than anyone else, he pointed to it right there, Dwight Renfield’s aircraft: the Toyota of aircraft, a push-pull, a bit like a bat, Dee’s aircraft: Beechcraft 55 aka the Baron, their “crosstown rival”, Cessna vs. Beech, Wichita, Kansas, playing up that parallel, extending the ending, anticipatable, creating the creature for his story, the writer spinning his story, soft human emotions, “Reader’s Digest emotions”, Miguel Ferrer, the anti-hero, a kind of bloodthirsty dude, he’s the vampire, to exploit the trauma of other people’s lives, lying, he glamours them, practicing, “a little boid”, is that what makes King so popular?, he does humans well, problems with endings, unlike the movie, vampiric traits, that ending, there’s no evidence of a vampire, did he get framed, making explicit the metaphor that’s going on in the text, take the film out, if that’s true…, why does Dwight let Dees go?, chasing a phantom, self mutilation for fun and profit, we are supposed to infer Dwight has glamoured the folks at the airfield, following but not with, was Dees doing the killing, an X-Files episode, very Kolchak, an asshole as the main character, we know he’s a bad actor, comparing him to the monster that he’s chasing, practicing in the mirror at hotels (his true home), the fake human emotions he doesn’t actually feel, a Tim Powers lecture, Dracula as a statement on feminism in the 19th century, the horrors are real int he context of the story, The Turn Of The Screw, the comparison is valid, our position, persuaded by the editor, good instincts, he’s losing it, a fracture in his mind?, taking photos, enough, seeing himself from outside himself, super-powerful stuff, dual personality, Stephen King’s world, the monster is a monster (not just imagination), what Jesse likes: very ambiguous stories about what might just be a madman, The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe, the scene with the mirror, I like your work, Dees as the fall guy, a reset button, the ending of the movie, he’s alive and the vampire’s out there, horrifying stuff, he might deserve it, traumatized for the rest of his life, Julie Entwisle, as cold as he was, a good moment, more powerful ending, Stephen King worked with the film-makers, more time seeing than describing, “STAY AWAY” in blood, a dog, the album, more concrete evidence that he’s a real guy, the graveyard and the tombstone, he’s not creating the story out of whole-cloth he’s spinning it he’s framing it, the National Enquirer, reading this now in the wonderful era of fake news, readers like dogs, the cynicism, it’s right, cynicism is dangerous, cynicism’s etymology, he’s done this, Salem’s Lot, The Strand, a peaceful Dracula, a kind of psychopath, muted feelings, it came out, the wall was broken down, 1408, John Cusack, making stuff up, Frank Muller, we have evil inside of us, deep honesty, he has the model of that, doing it in real life and doing it in fiction, a horrific way of being, that’s what jokes are, if I said very rude about one of you, a joke is a thought, the evil angels inside of us, bad impulses, humanity, princess and happy cartoon creatures, “oh shit, this is what adults think!”, they do fight and they are unfair, the exact same feeling, a revelation, a clown with a balloon doesn’t appeal, anybody who writes a lot, thinking about what other people don’t have to think about, his job is to think hard about real things, why is this phenomenon so pervasive?, what’s behind it, what’s underneath it?, a different kind of truth, undercurrents vs. facts, the insights by the editor and the author, poking at the why, bad boob jobs, alien abductions, not interested in the why, interested in the what, more honest than other kinds of newspapers, at an instinctual or animal level, an indictment of humanity, ratings, Gawker and Peter Thiel, the online equivalent, Inside Edition, Bill O’Rielly, a horror of a human being, Geraldo Rivera, wjhat got Gawker got in trouble for, breaking real news stories, National Enquirer has broken real news stories, unpopular facts, Nightcrawler (2014), the monsters are all human, making a story, the movie was so low budget that the editor’s office doesn’t have a desk it has a dining room table, he’s too short, Jesse forgives The Night Flier (1997) a hell of a lot, crappy little movies that do a lot with what they’re given.

Stephen King's The Night Flier (1997)

THE NIGHT FLIER

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #419 – A PODCAST ABOUT PODCASTS

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #419 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa, and Bryan Alexander talk about podcasts.

Talked about on today’s show:
podcast hardware and podcast software, Jesse is stuck in Apple’s iOS, Android, does good hardware matter?, Marissa’s Nexus, podcatching apps, Player FM, play later, playlists, Stitcher, speed controls, Downcast (a former SFFaudio Podcast sponsor), volume booster, VLC, Dan Carlin, still in the 20th century, Paul’s decrepit iPod Mini, manual syncing, the iTunes nightmare, space, the search function, Bryan’s crappy internet, Galaxy Note 3, Pixel vs. Samsung S8, sausage fingers, the No Sleep podcast, RISK! offers The Moth style stories, the downsides of Stitcher, bad broadband, isolated on the internet, 30-pin connector, churning iTunes, 5 minute feed checks, WiFi vs. 4g, programmability, the glory days of podcasting, RSS reader, manual downloads, organization, between Google and iTunes podcast search is very hard, iTunes is an abusive relationship, the dwindling of RSS, Google and Facebook, Sam Harris’ Waking Up podcast, autoplay on Facebook and YouTube, the “Tragedy Of The Commons”, the death of RSS, Louis Rossmann: “Repairman Philosopher”, UBC, YouTube search, the world’s single greatest cultural venue: YouTube, the open wild west internet, Secrets, Crimes & Audiotape, their Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale audio drama, the Hulu series, fiction vs. non-fiction, Welcome To Nightvale, Hello From The Magic Tavern, podcasts about podcasts, audiobooks, on the Serial wagon, Missing Richard Simmons, book revisions, S-Town, The Black Tapes Podcast, Rabbits, Tanis, The X-Files, paranormal events, urban legends, investigating an alternate reality game, serial storytelling, serial stories, mystery, the Pacific Northwest, meta-podcasting, almost Borgesian, listening while walking to work, connections, a very Tanis like thing, Wormwood podcast, Escape Pod, Pseudopod, Podcastle, BBC Radio Podcasts, Mythos, the podcast audio medium has infected itself, a gimmick, a gag, Drama Of The Week podcast, William Shakespeare, the Dangerous Visions series, Lenny Henry, The Stroma Sessions, Goodrun’s Saga,The Hatton Garden Heist, King Solomon’s Mines, X Minus One, Fritz Leiber’s A Pail Of Air, Reading, Short & Deep, The Star by H.G. Wells, a terrific new Philip K. Dick podcast We Love Dick, The Philip K. Dick Philosophical Podcast, what makes a good show, start with great material, The Man In The High Castle, becoming stellar, talking through and thinking through great stuff, the hall of mirrors effect, each medium has its own strengths, what podcasts are good at, Decipher Scifi, The Thing, I Am Legend, the science psychology and linguistics, hidden gems, we don’t have a term for this, GE Podcasts Theater: The Message and LifeAfter, like Her (2013), rich and dense, Limetown, a novel for the ear, quasi-fiction, Doorway To The Hidden World, a fictional Alex Jones, fake ads, conspiracy theory, surreality, Suspense Radio Drama or HERE, Robert Sheckley, Fritz Leiber, Far Below, The Horla, Robert E. Howard, Cool Air by H.P. Lovecraft, The Fire Of Asshurbanipal, Fireside Mystery Theatre, Campfire Radio Theater, Earbud Theatre, Signal Hill Radio, The Long Dark, when TV talk-shows trying to act like podcasts, people who make TV shows that have podcasts about their shows, Better Call Saul, celebrity podcasts, even PC games have podcasts, meditation, movie review podcasts, a radio show without a fixed length, The SFFaudio Podcast, Jenny Colvin’s Reading Envy, The District Of Wonders Podcast, Tales To Terrify, primary sources, Luke Burrage’s Science Fiction Book Review Podcast, an emotional visceral reaction, pulling punches, ugly babies, Bryan’s video conference series, we need a YouTube scraper, Wednesday Adamms, Creepy Pasta (from Copy Paste), Slenderman style stories, public intellectual podcasts, sequestering academics, what podcasts are good at, Michio Kaku, a godawful lying idiot, he’s read some books, Stephen Fry, if Isaac Asimov had a podcast, The Bell Curve, race and intelligence, fuck that bullshit, interesting points, challenging, challenge me, make me question my assumptions, Hardcore History, Common Sense, there’s something great about public intellectuals able to do podcasting for a living, Joe Rogan, professional pit fighters, depressed public commentator, podcasts are rebellious (or were), the new main medium, splitting, BBC or NPR or major funders vs. DIY podcasts (like this one), Julie Hoverson, Mr Jim Moon’s podcast: Hypnogoria, the history of zombies, going deep instead of wide, werewolfy, a 15 part series on werewolves, Witchhouse Media’s The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, Frankenstein, paying for podcasts, actually visiting websites, The Partially Examined Life podcast, academia is sorta screwed, this new “readalong” podcast phenomenon, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, Voltaire’s Candide, life sucks: hahahhaha, a thing like that can exist, there’s no other medium that could have a show like this, CBC Podcasts, BBC Podcasts, a first and foremost podcast, aggressive British imperialism, In Our Time with Lord Melvyn Bragg, history, John Clare, something from everybody, Nigel Warburton’s Philosophy Bites, we’ve been held back by idiot television and Michio Kaku for so long, kindergarten public intellectuals, The Lovecraft Geek with Robert M. Price, The Bible Geek, Marshall Mcluhan, the shape of the media informs the content, pity those without podcatchers, The Bible back to front, they’re in your ears, getting together with your friends who you’ve never met, an intimacy to sound, more non-fiction podcasts, Revolutions, The French and Haitian Revolutions, sounds good, The History Of Rome podcast, the Revolution of 1830, so cool, walking around learning crazy stuff, better than university level, HW = homework, The History Of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, the history of mistakes, skip it, always find another, again the big problem of search, avenues and resources, all the best podcasts are via recommendations, an underground now, google’s distinct lack of interest in podcasts, an audio search engine, audio search went away, the weird history of Twitter, like Slack, the Techdirt Podcast, patents, looking at history, copyright and patents, Canadaland, The Young Turks, The Jimmy Dore Show, Slate podcasts, the elite East coast media bubble hates Science Fiction, Behind The News with Mark Henwood, Radio Open Source, The Economist: Babbage Podcast, it has it’s issues, Oh No with Ross & Carrie, joining religions and cults, convince us, how creepy and damaging it was, Outside Podcast: The Science Of Survival, haunting, hypothermia, 2nd person, another Long Dark experience, learning, a thing that happens, of niche interest, Kenneth Hite, Ken And Robin Talk About Stuff, rpg ideas, strange bits of history, Mad Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, twelve weird books, LEGO, good fodder, on the eme of audio, Archive 81, three different levels of sound, a frisson of mystery and horror, Clive Barker, slowly unfolding mysteries.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Tantor Media doing Robert E. Howard audiobooks

SFFaudio News

Meego ConanA February 28th, 2009 Paradox Entertainment press release (in Swedish), indicates that Random House/Del Rey has signed a deal with Tantor Media to release the “CONAN” licensed Del Rey’s series of paperbooks by Robert E. Howard as audiobooks. Paradox is the parent company for Conan Properties International.

I expect Tantor to do a terrific job with these. Tantor already has many other public domain texts in its audiobook catalogue, including works by Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Of course this whole situation still smells godawful coming as it does less than a week after Paradox’s subsidiary sent another bogus legal threat to Broken Sea Audio Productions (a non-profit fan audio group). Hopefully the horrific stink CPI’s put on the CONAN brand won’t rub off on Tantor’s R.E.H. productions.

Posted by Jesse Willis