The SFFaudio Podcast #894 – READALONG: The Handle by Richard Stark

Jesse and Misha Burnett talk about The Handle by Richard Stark

Talked about on today’s show:
book number 8 in the series, he has fun with the titles, The Green Eagle Score, a bunch of scores in a row, what the word “the handle” meant, Run Lethal, feels a little bit like The Mourner, they’re all the same, they’re different, outside the bounds of the U.S., the setup is different, calling back to Karns from The Outfit, the child molester, moving parts, Nazi war criminal, the actual war crimes, dropped threads on purpose, what comes of Yancy?, he’s a fun character, never see him again, the way real life works, Grofield shot five times in Mexico City hotel, 3 Grofield books, dropped threads, a 1 day delay, not on the ball, time to go over this book again, Parker’s problem with him is he doesn’t have a tan, he raped an 11 year old girl, Salsa is a fun character, the gun dealer, they’re always more of the same, the morality is not social morality, efficiency morality, Parker is essentially, everyone else is suffering from main character syndrome, Parker is the stranger, Poul Anderson?, a Bezerker story, Fred Saberhagen, The Adventure Of The Metal Murderer, is Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes Through Time And Space, he’s got a little bit of a personality, Data from Star Trek, he’s not a normal human being, Springfield, Missouri, a 4 hour drive, one of the Dortmunder novels, Bad News, the differences between Parker and Dortmunder, hyperfocus thing, really Westlake, Crystal is trying to make a pass at him, doing the job, parallel evolution, Kelp, they fulfill the same function, annoying but useful, ground the other, when the principals are lost in thought, just as autistic, the insight, Westlake with a new assignment, rewrote the ending, needs to be a series, the worst Parker book, clunkers near the end, the character is not there yet, revenge is absent from every subsequent book, what we love about Parker, he is so efficient, makes Westlake’s character work, another dropped thread, far more intelligent, bimballina, standard good writing, she wants to take pictures of Salsa unclad, what do I care?, about to have sex with Crystal, telephone girl, great book, so good, The Green Eagle Score, sure why not?, in the etext, Michael Kramer, dropbox, Stephen R. Thorne, if this cassette stops working, almost robotic, they’re fancy, so cool, Westlake can’t help himself, the red Thunderbird, broken taillight, the heat was bright, heavy, oppressive, all the comforts of home, Gulf freeway, top 40, no wait for warmup, so full of gimmicks, tinted glass, joyknob, a stuffed toy tiger, Houston, each thinking his own thoughts, a seedy bar, Tropical Palm Lounge, little tables, shiny black formica tops, amber tinted mirrors, DW in large letters, so in the book, he’s so funny, it is funny, that thing in Dancing Aztecs, always drives Fury III, a car called Kill, this is the series, Stark fans, really hardboiled, popular with hardened criminals in prison, he has to have fun, we’re gonna look at the guns, the comic relief for the Hamlet of Stark, any character in a Westlake story could be the main character, Grofield opened the door to Parker’s knock, a man to be our Charon, he has no knowledge of popular culture, but Westlake is Grofield, he loves all the literary references that he’s throwing down, a meeting with Gold Medal, two more this year?, setting up the assignment to get it done, it is absolutely a recipe, styles of chunks, new characters, Handy McKay, that idea, we set up these pins, bringing in the cops, the FBI, the scene with Parker there, assessing their situation, disarms the other guy, a butcher’s knife, he knows about coffee, he’s never read a paperback, recreation, on top of a hot sandy bitch named Michelle, he’s not a connoisseur of anything except getting the job done, gets Grofield involved, the money doesn’t matter, writing for money, that’s his living, he loves the exercise of writing great stories, he made a break with science fiction because it didn’t pay, The Curious Facts Preceding My Execution, The Spy In The Elevator, Anarchaos, he loves science fiction, Lawrence Block, Fredric Brown, didn’t go down that path,wrote good science fiction and fun fantasy, paperbacks and hardcovers, crime was what he could sell after the sex market, a writer who enjoys writing and not just having written, one of the best books about writing, out of print, Paul Westlake, running the website, it wasn’t just him in the estate, they all have to agree or have semi-interest, movies, a new Parker movie, in the trailer for the latest Parker movie it mentions this book, a casino off of the coast of Texas, Grofield is black, Parker’s not right, nobody is Parker, Brent Spiner to play Parker, Jason Stathem came closest, none of them are Parker, [The Outfit], Prime Cut (1972), Lee Marvin, a discussion with someone on the internet, always a mistake, on twitter, nobody’s gonna read, you can just do ai images, you can just see it, in an audio visual medium, epic poetry was the main mode for most of human history, go into the cave, paint an animal or two, mostly computer games that are the main media now, books were huge, plays were pretty big for a while, appreciate the medium what it can do, The Grifters, what Jim Thompson was laying down, fuckn hardboiled, first person narration, small town sheriff, of course I had to destroy him, absolute psychopath, two face, coming from a real abusive place, one about a girl, childhood sexual abuse, she’s got this baggage, a family of abusive psychopaths, Westlakes gets it, translates that to film, The Stepfather (1987), a game and tv show, reading the Star Wars novelization, The Predator (1987) novelization, Alan Dean Foster, music, back to Grofield, just as dangerously messed up as Parker is, how he visualizes things, in terms of a movie, a different symptomology, a narcissist sociopath, a show with Mr. Pulpcovers (Alex), Two Much, 3 movies, a Tamil version, how evil the main character is, we love him, justifying the murders he’s doing, lappin it up, part of Westlake’s genius, Kelp for example, the Kelp/Grofield connection, likeable, steal some money from an institution, puts the salt in the beer, oh my god i’m devastated, too much trauma, the same kind of stuff, there’s no murders, funny situations, hardboiled murderers, as a suggestion, Enough, one of them is a great movie, A Slight Case Of Murder, so good, William H. Macy playing the movie reviewer, James Cromwell, first person narration to the camera, I’m safe, breaking the fourth wall stuff, every chapter is a different detective story trope, A Travesty, Ordo [“Orrie”], a sailor, he finds out about it, a spread of her in Playboy, her biography mentions her marriage to him, the French get him, and Poe and Lovecraft, the amateur detective, the red herring, the book was published 60 years ago, framed for a murder that he actually did, another really good one, we should talk about the actual book we were supposed to read, Cockaigne, an ongoing theme, his obsession with insurance, institutions are always and all corrupt, the more corrupt it is, an “outfit”, the “organization”, even that is full of incompetents, her dysfunction, a little bit neurotic, babbling, has to take her hand, make her shut up, while Yancy went off to get the glasses, proud of himself, a hand drawn map, shaped somewhat like a rubber life-raft, medieval trouble, rows of waves, a complex arrow and letter N, sometimes it ran for the sake of running, like a man tromping an automobile accelerator, a souvenir, the pride still in his voice, where’s the frame, Westlake can’t help himself, our man kind of got enthusiastic, what’s the scale of this map, the other map, graph paper, this one simple bear and neat, there’s so much in it, only 4 hours long, it feels complete and it is complete, there’s no island in the Gulf there, a little bit like the Most Dangerous Game, count Zaroff, General Zaroff, after Red and White Russian war in 1919, Sanger, blood-dripper, hunters, big game hunters, it’s all about that fun setup, the FBI wants him for some reason, he runs the island, same reason that Karns wants him, goodie points, InterPol, Westlake’s pretty cynical, on a Navy ship, Congress was annoyed, this island belonged to, the Sea-Bees, a very cynical eye, just laughs at it, like that of General Zaroff’s island, they’re invading it, a mini-bay of pigs, a guaranteed heist, the money on hand, a sobriquet, Charles Willis, dates, professional heister at it for 20 years, they don’t have his face, he had all that work done, to get away from the Outfit, meta matters, what Westlake has to do to make the series go on, loose threads, Parker and Grofield, slowly bleeding to death, follow the Mexicans, Parker shows the gun, one sentence, he sees the handle of the suitcase, in casinos the amount of money that’s on hand, The Jugger, so interested in writing the book, Firebreak, Breakout, one leads on to the next, curved plastic black alien, the suitcase, Ronin (1998), a CIA guy, a McGuffin, the same suitcase, Pulp Fiction (1994), new flooring in his apartment, take his wife to Florida, this robot that does 2 or 3 jobs a year, it’s almost like Westlake’s commenting, when somebody betrays him, the code, his programming code, not some morality everybody’s subscribed to, Conan’s character, that’s different, different kind of guys, Reacher and the book series Reacher, always wandering around getting into adventures, Conan’s not a patriot, he never goes there, much more like a robot programmed to do heists, somebody else’s scam, make the scam work, at last something for me to do, it’s not just the money, it’s also the art, never got married to May, interests other than heists, cooking and dresses, in relistening to the book again, every Westlake novel starts really well, on a boat, Parker was below deck, his motel room, stuck on a boat with a bunch of idiots, waiting for us to get there, voices and hands of New York or Chicago hoods, puts on the cap, the blue jacket, his hands really huge, putting on the costume, fit in more, he knows he’s a robot, fill the pages, these points out of these character, trying to derail my story, diversions of characters, fucking up the perfectly well timed heists, can’t but help himself, it got a flat, just too funny, he can’t help but frustrate Parker, I’m not a hired killer, getting the efficiency done, song and dance, let’s see the job, carry a whole book, more about Crystal, her interest, we meet the guy that puts her on to Parker only over the phone, another of these outfit guys, needs to be told what their job is, that seen with the boy, puts him in his place, you’re my boy, after this job is all well and done, makes him feel good, shuts him up, let me do my job, and as they were coming out later, Parker techniques, when we’re in institutional mode, along greased lines, it’s an institution, a thing behemoth, the right magic word, the right passphrase, opens up for you, treats people like Rubics cubes to be solved, main characters who are not the main character of this particular book, Don Westlake does not write NPCs, he doesn’t believe in them, Heinlein’s brinksmanship, in the news right now, not a great technique for every situation, NPCs are real, ai has always been with us, it is now digital instead of biological, take in and regurgitate, take out the old chip and put in the new chip, people who are programmable by outside forces, a drinking problem, every character has his or her own script, a factotum, Baron, Schultz?, he’s my family, he’s my this, he’s my that, the Hilton in Mexico city, the doctor and the punchy driver from The Man With The Getaway Face, where all of this came from, Westlake was in the Airforce in Germany, “snow top”, military police, gathering up rowdy airmen, not a gun fetishist, he wrote for Manhunt, fact articles, Manhunt’s Gun Rack, Colt Police Special, couple of automatics, he’s not a criminal, doing his fucking homework, become the writer, science articles, Astounding Science Fiction And Fact, back to Adventure, Robert E. Howard, how the mongol empire worked, make it feel like it is legit, goes to Texas, a concert, it is very loud, a racetrack one, super observant, his hand work, glass splashing, orbiting of hands, his signature, let’s look at the hand work in this book, how are people spreading their hands, Shakespeare wanting to act in his own plays, most people don’t read at all, Stephen King’s popular, where’d he get his love for writing?, dysfunctional relationship, Samuel R Delany, very different writers, a six or 8 part miniseries, movies like The Towering Inferno, Superbus?, Supertrain, a parody, transitioned into Greenland (2020), 2012 (2009), flying the plane, [Yakety Sax], takes itself seriously, in the outline it is a comedy, lean into that, Airplane! (1980), The Naked Gun series, Frank Sinatra New York Cop, both Arkins, couple girlfriends, I didn’t mean to kill her, internal monologue, breaking the fourth wall is as close as plays can come to what novels can do, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, greasy Greek, asshole drifter, a ripped from the headlines style plot, spicy fast action, created the grounds for the 50s-60s-70s paperbacks, appreciate the best of a medium, some great Playstation games, point and click adventure, what greatness was there, it’s not disposable in the way of pulp magazines, Edgar Allan Poe story and an Edward Page Mitchell story, blew up, the reprint market, anonymous stories published once, science fiction stories that are H.G. Wells stories before H.G. Wells, faster than light travel, in the 1970s, this greatness existed, somebody passionately going back, putting it in book form, when Westlake goes out of print, share the files, you can’t less this go to waste, too valuable, too fun, 16th 17th 18th century, no champions for it, there’s been a Shakespeare champion for hundreds of years, you need champions, authors huge in their time, we still have the Sherlock Holmes stories, Sherlock Holmes’ smarter sister, Guy Ritchie, it’s not what Conan Doyle was doing, a great writer, can’t appreciate that, he’s not Arthur Conan Doyle, so many people are familiar with the remix Benedict Cumberbatch, fun, riff, taken from stories, A Study In Pink, cute, it’s fine, you can’t just swap in, Jeremy Brett ones, the best adaptations, the most adapted film ever, The Hound Of The Baskerville movies, a preview of the mystery to come, usually the other way around, never leaves the room, solves the whole crime from his residence, where Nero Wolfe comes from, to appreciate the art you need to read the goddamn book, Kahawa, more serious, more grim, the Idi Amin years in Uganda, an adventure, mercenaries in Africa, The Man Who Would Be King, don’t be expecting Dortmunder, he wrote a ton, because they are funny and fun, a new adventure every time, a softness for the Stark Parker book, Grofield’s adventures by himself, Parker’s a blank canvas, the van heist, some of them don’t work as well as the others, late books in the series, Breakout, Ask The Parrot, Cops And Robbers, very Dortmunder like, disposable characters, The Axe, The Hook, Humans, this intellect and this play and this experience of him through his books, a sparkling intellect, write stories that are appreciable, in the body of work, learn so much, anybody who wants to write, he makes it look so easy, working on public domain stuff, Veronica, that spark of what Westlake would become, a modest idea, this is the man who would be able to write really great novels, best novels of the 20th century, so many other ones, some of the things he can do in a book, Slayground, plotting it out, the basic idea, not a great movie either, Peter Coyote plays Parker, Brother And Sister, you can enjoy a Donald Westlake incest novel if enjoy the right word for it, everybody suiciding themselves, Killing Time, standalones, the nephew novels, Call Me A Cab, Somebody Owes Me Money, the bookie’s wife, nobody ever sees her, she never shows up in the book, only scene once, Forever And A Death, his James Bond novel, Hard Case Crime, an audiobook of it too, work on the road, pleasure reading, trying to be efficient, SFFaudio is about audiobooks, hard to get and expensive, the unabridged, 10 or 12 cassettes, pre-internet, blogs came in, 2003, Audible was just starting, podcasts who had not quite been invented, very efficient, washing dishes, folding laundry, almost exclusively audiobook, hard to know the numbers, ebooks are smaller than audiobooks, trying to get people to create audiobooks out of it, Amazon’s going to stop selling books because they’re not profitable, moving paper around, too small a market, after having killed the bookstores, 2 years ago, fixed conveyor belts, publishers don’t seem to be want to be in the book business, short fiction, Cirsova, going out of the magazine business, he’s a book lover, give what they do, covers that are garbage, traditional book publishers, media conglomerate, Lester Del Rey is no longer involved, Storyhack, Racketeer Press, Bryce Beattie, Ace Books, the supermajor conglomerate is kind of an abberation, the way publishing used to be, the distribution, getting it was hard, almost no bookstores, no newsstands, media mail, ridiculous, the post office is in the constitution, a physical object that needs to be delivered to you, trynna strangle it, trynna kill it, let’s pretend, an mp3 file, physical distribution is the hard thing, how China can ship for 3 cents, High Adventure, interesting mix of characters, he must have gone to South America, 3 Guianas, Belize on vacation, almost Jamaican, he writes what he knows, anytime you see something cool, I gotta use that in a book, so many stories about electricians, paint what you see, tiny country, Del Carzo?, maybe suddenly they’ll start producing them again, let’s produce some audiobooks, dry for 5 – 10 years, a great back catalogue, an old Books On Tape producer, bought everything ever produced, no new stuff that we never produced, they were a niche thing, talking books for the blind, bizarre, about the media itself, making a cassette, printing a page, there’s no excuses for that now, everything is cheap, even they make it cheap, many other publishers, still cheaper than the paperbook, commission basis, squeezing the shit out of the audiobook narrators, Scott Miller, 500 short stories, science fiction, sportscaster, loves creating audiobooks, he also loves it, looking at the long tail, that job, as their own publisher, squeezed, physical tape they were recording to, a 1 man operation, his own booth, prestige recording, a Hollywood actor to do it, a narrator, a specialist, George Guidall, Stefan Rudnicki, Skyboat Media, all of Delany’s stuff, a Delany fantatic, dropped off the face of the earth, knock on their door, somewhere in Nevada, Small Worlds, a guy on twitter published in Cirsova, 4 novels, a novella co-wrote with David Skinner, six books of short stories, selling as a package, novels vs. short stories, making virtually nothing from Audible, the beast Rabban, extract extract, decline, addicted to audible as the company, extremely convenient, the number of reviews for products in the last 5 years, nobody bothers reviewing anymore, everything on good reads is 3.6, put a number there, what limited ratings, a trend for audible, people just don’t write reviews anymore, it’s a podcast now instead of a blog, blogs were destroyed, it feels like The Hook, getting traffic too it, bemoaning what Amazon is, your sales can never go up they can only go down, his novel solution to it was fun, Ed McBain, not quite as prolific as Westlake, Cop Hater, police procedural, Downtown is really good, talking for two hours, for my sins, there are more public domain Westlake, need to be bulletproof, vague ideas and a little bit of advice, too sparky, where should we go from here?, one of the Scores, 4 of them, The Sour Lemon Score, it’s gone sour, Lemons Never Lie, The Rare Coin Score, the heist itself, The Blackbird, not just a body problem, almost late for work, run to school,it’s like a treat man, some people like donuts, an old Richard Stark novel, oh boy.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #539 – Travel By Wire by Arthur C. Clarke

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #539

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Travel By Wire by Arthur C. Clarke

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story |PDF|.

Travel By Wire was first published in Amateur Science Stories, December 1937

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The SFFaudio Podcast #893 – READALONG: Congo by Michael Crichton

Jesse and Alex (Pulpcovers) talk about Congo by Michael Crichton

Talked about on today’s show:
1980, watch the movie?, skimmed through it, segments, the etext, a giant works cited, the audiobook from 1980, people who mess with books, 4 versions of Congo, an abridged version, commercial cassettes, the book for the blind version, stuff at the beginning, we know you’re blind, a regular person, we’re gonna give you everything, the chapter names, the appendices, Mr Michael Crichton is a bit tricky, a faker, a hoaxer, Eaters Of The Dead, checking my footnotes, I made it up, hoax yourself, the Egypt one, Sheba, a lost world sort of book, the John Lange books, The Venom Business, a snake catcher, Scientific American articles, hanging out with his old friends, what’s bad about it, everybody in the book is venomous, they’re toxic, they’ll poison you, more of a bookstore and docks guy, toxic rich people, familial stuff, the people they knew, an extraordinary person, well researched, world traveller, thoughtful, good writer, the way this book was made, it was gonna be a movie, a movie maker, book writer, he created ER and wrote the pilot episode, 15 seasons, a book we should do, The Great Train Robbery, great movie, starred Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland, fun and funny movie, a modern version of King Solomon’s Mines, the great white hunter role, this book is a book, when it came time to make the movie, Jurassic Park blew everybody’s brains out, we have the right!, when it came out, I don’t hate it, it is not a good movie, a flick, forgettable, the fake gorillas, fairly well done, CGI today, couldn’t do hair yet, Bruce Campbell, a small role, Ernie Hudson brings a charm, the highlight of the movie, his accent almost makes it better, keeps it mostly, I’m your great white hunter, movie is fairly accurate to the book, the differences, Amy stay with the gorillas at the end of the movie, less than six foot tall woman, gender flipped, Michael Crichton’s the woman, engaged, have the diamond thrown away, so boring in the is movie, just there to be eaten, an assistant, Tim Curry, nothing like him is in the book, a weird accent, the same accent in Red Alert III, the premiere of alternate steampunk Russia, trying to be a comedy and also be Jurassic Park, play it for humour, married to Kathleen Kennedy, a power couple, if it is based on the book, he’s great, Looker (1981), MK Ultra, people lose time, Zoolander (2001), real stuff, his pattern, his big breakout novel as him was Andromeda Strain, his version of The War Of The Worlds, very clinically vs. a personal narrative, Frankenstein, The Terminal Man, Elon Musk’s brain chip, tin foil cap, the creation of a new being, aiming in that direction, this book is King Solomon’s Mines, references H. Rider Haggard, an after action report, psuedorealism, it’s a solid, Eaters Of The Dead, he leans into the tech, the most dated part of the story, enough metal in the earth, up the megabytes a bit, he tags it in 1979, slightly in the future and perfect cloning technology and rotary phones, a good read, pitch an idea, in 1991, please make this into a movie for us, 20th Century fox, asked James Cameron to do it, there are scenes in this book, badly paralleled in the film, basically the plot of Aliens (1986), a rescue mission, the smart gun scene, the greys are attacking, maybe deleted from the main Aliens movie, another way to get in, they’re smart, as smart as a monkey, Conan and Thak go on an adventure, the grey gorillas as a Conan reference, very smart and psychotic, excited about talking monkeys, popular science, history and archaeology and old books, world travel, high tech computers, at the end of the book, let’s bug out, the volcano, shaped charges, the hippo attack, not have Ross be at fault, her psych profile, the female lead has to be perfect, the final scene, the hot air balloon, she hands the male Amy tickler, so forgettable, could you throw this away for me?, the laser, blowing up a satellite wasn’t enough, we need this emotional catharsis, we need to have the guy have something to do, they made the corporation be the bad guy, life insurance policy, in and out alive, take no more risks, they’re not slave drivers, very charitable to the mineral exploration unit, a Hollywood thing, you can’t get nuance in film, lay it out for the reader, this character is heroic and this character is a coward, puts the diamond in the laser, setting greys on fire, brutal compared to what’s in the book, some sympathy, the clapping on the head, the rock paddles, Michael Crichton is way better than Hollywood, even the jungle looks fake, second unit out to Africa, Costa Rica, the Zinge city was okay, if they had done it in the sixties it would be a really nice matte painting, ruin, a lost city in the modern day, plausible, the gemstones are gone, industrial diamonds are still there, a cool driver for the plot, explain, backstory why his idea about computers needing these things for WWIII, his focus on the importance of tech, satellite communication and analysis, repurpose it for translating, a lot more work, it all comes down to the real stuff with Koko the gorilla, in the text, 10-15% of the book is just that, up to speed on what they’re doing, the night goggle, what kind of growth, a lot of this in Brazil, lost ruins everywhere, all these mounds, this used to be a cultivated land, some sort of civilization, the idea of a lost world, the Hyborian Age, Archeron, Younger Dryas, Queen Of Sheba a real lady, cities in Africa long ago, a Robert E. Howard or H. Rider Haggard style story up to date, racial memories, a theory come back with MK Monarch, they’re designation, mind kontrol, people trying to make wind up assassins, we seem to have a lot of, genetic memory of where to go and what to do, generational trauma, the CIA and DARPA spent a lot of money, remote viewing, based on reality, a guy had violent seizures, put a chip in him, detect an oncoming seizure, Mengele style experiments, not from the killer’s POV, control his kills, this has racial memory, they had what Amy had done to them, I like tickles, become an attack dog, control these slaves, prevent people from stealing, this goes back to Thak, taken away from his parents, weren’t much of tools and clothes, under the control of a local billionaire, sympathy for the grey apes and the regular apes, Amy?, Munroe is fun, the competent one, so much action, the war starts, jump out of the airplane, river rafting, the Michael Crichton website, he went after, he was a mountain climber, a scuba diver, a real adventurer, a funny scene, when the hippopotamuses attack, the trainer/tickler, he looks over at the female form of our heroine, a moment later he sees the sweat on her back, that desire passes, Travels by Michael Crichton, selected part of his life, guru training stuff in the desert, drinking too much, hanging out with movie stars, went to Belize with his sister, almost died down there, wasn’t dead, an immediate desire to have sex, that was really fucked up, I resisted, basing your writing but on your noticing of your interests and then projecting, he overplays that, the excuse to get the lost city of Zinge, looking around the area, Dian Fossey, as it happens Sigourney Weaver, Laura Linney is a housekeeper, blast these aliens with the laser beam, put them on the endangered species list, Love Actually (2003), brittle smile, Delroy Lindo, the guy from Oz, Crichton loves the side characters, delve into the Kikuyus, time spent figuring out what Amy is thinking, we only get her words, a power glove, speak and spell, Amy Love Tickles, kind a goofy, this book being a science fiction book, a Canadian author, [Peter Watts’s Blindsight], this is there place, these invaders come in, walk around the place that’s our, a microscopic colonialism, this far and no farther, stone clappers and our culture of skull crushing, they’re meat eaters, they also killed gorillas, a weird half-civilization that stood apart, co-developed, once they got up to speed with language, they develop a culture, got a visit from Robin Williams, she’s still in the zoo, I want to be a mother, I wanna be a mom, they gave her a kitten, another one, treating these creatures equally, wish fulfillment, everybody gets happy, doing monkey things, we’re taking over your expedition, runs out of money conveniently, closer to the book somehow, more like Aliens and Terminator, fragile smile, Linda Hamilton, a soft girl a hard woman, Cameron does girls well, one of his wives, the lady who made No Escape (1994), Ray Liotta, just gang war, very b movie, the greatest b movie every, Deep Rising (1998), Wes Studi is amazing, The Last Of The Mohicans (1992), so evil, motivated, very specific revenge, nephew loves it, Dance With Wolves (1990), you don’t need 7 movies to be a champion, the epicness, the way it is done, the story proper is fine, why are people shitting on him, who wants to hang out with rich assholes, the weirdest Michael Crichton book, of an age, volunteering in the library, teen service hour, the new one was Airframe, the plane goes haywire, lands successfully, something went really wrong, the TSA investigation of what happened, basically Boeing, dueling conspiracies, a fascinating book, aircraft incident investigation, the pilot let his son come into the cabin, that’s the end of the book, it seems to not fit the pattern of the books prior, on the other hand, a mix of real life interests and a literary version of that, Zero Cool [Grave Descend], a tropical island, what is going on here?, Michael Crichton is his books, deep dive, we see these airplane disasters, every couple of years, Gander, Newfoundland, coming back from Suez, supposedly doing peacekeeping, Lockerbie, Scotland, the ideas are better, Binary, a tv movie, an assassination of republican presidential candidate, some hacking going on, mind modelling, think like the killer, Manhunter (1986), Michael Mann, going on airplanes with liquids, make a bomb, he’s come up with an interesting idea, Easy Go, getting in behind character, The Andromeda Strain, a crying baby, we don’t care, old man with a stomach problem, very busy saving the world, the Artilleryman, round up some women and go underground, what kills the aliens, the common cold, a twist, fat actor, used to be thin, kid dies in airplane accident, still producing, monkey hybrid book?, State Of Fear, the one about climate change isn’t real, after he died, he completely wrote that, Pirate Latitudes, Micro, Dragon Teeth, posthumous publication completed by James Patterson, a Shadow novel, a modern take on The Shadow, The Phantom (1996), Billy Zane, I want to do a Spirit movie, the 2nd RoboCop movie, Frank Miller, perfect enough as it is, Rising Sun, a little horror of the Japanese, that period, RoboCop 3, a samurai robot, Black Rain (1989), Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia, they kill his partner, when James Bond goes to Japan, some Japanese version of Michael Douglas, yakuza, Crocodile Dundee, fish out of water, a Neuromancer for Apple, hard to adapt, the plot of Neuromancer, living in freezers in orbit, grubby, war in Russia, ai just wants to be free, putting a team together, heist itself out, the mindwashed special forces guy, the Turing police, clearly terrifying, rogue ai, we’re blowing everything up, our viewpoint character, Case, the guy who wrote Vampires, John Steakley, Armor, both main characters are named John Crow, I have a limited set of skills, over emphisise Molly Millions, strong female characters, her backstory, instagram whore, an onlyfans worker, giving herself claws, be an ninja, razor blades in my fingers, Case is in her body, gives Case a thrill, full of sparks, cohesive plot, the opening line etcetera, what they do with the sky, gonna be blue, grey, omit that scene, kind of the problem, what colour is the sky, even referencing television, the cold war stuff, an alternate history, Cold War II, which one would it be?, Pirate Latitudes, Dragon Teeth, Sphere, The Abyss, except for the aliens, Timeline, Paul Walker, rock and role jousting, Heath Ledger, blonde white boys, his version of The Time Machine, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, Connie Willis books, she always won the Hugo award, a professor, studying a certain period of time, The Domesday Book, way to long, WWII, the Blitz, bellringers in the blitz, very much a girl, girl book, King Of Attolia Megan Whalen Turner, good to make babies with?, middle age Greece if Christianity never happened, some Italian kingdoms, France exists in some flavour, weird mix of Byzantines and Persians, flintlock weapons, the old pantheons, fantasy world, late medieval Greece, the Invaders, some version of Rome, functionally, very little of magic, freaks characters out, the guy with his hand cut off, a really clever guy, constantly underestimating this guy, how did he manage to make himself king, cut his hand off, married to a Zenobia who cut his hand off, Elizabeth I, in charge, the cold queen, well written, all about the same length, is that a bad book, if you don’t enjoy it is a bad book, he crossed the border one time and the border police beat the shit out of him, convicted of assault, reprimanded or something, give people lip, keep him in detention, really good and spark and very hard to follow, Greg Bear books, Superstring?, amazing short stories, difficult to understand, Darwin’s Children, Foundation novels, Blood Music, a grey goo problem, plasma based, his writing is hard to follow, he explains what’s going on, a hard to follow Larry Niven, an interesting phenomena of science, The Wind From A Burning Woman, so different from each other, walking cities, kill the earth, it’s hard, hard ideas, hard science fiction, wild, not tame, not controlled, they know what they mean but they didn’t write that, making things clear, your awesome idea, intentional desire to struggle with the text, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Man Of The Crowd, playing chess with a guy who’s better than me, The Gold Bug, one of the few ones with black characters, an actual bug that’s gold, ciphers in there, a treasure hunt sort of thing, A Tale Of The Ragged Mountains, the M. Valdemar story, hypnotism, M blank, stories set in the future, they tend to be humorous, many Poes to still be investigated, School For Virgins, Timeline sometime, Black Cannan.

Congo by Michael Crichton

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #538 – Less Perfect by Frances Carfi Matranga

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #538

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Less Perfect by Frances Carfi Matranga

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story |PDF|.

Less Perfect was first published in Manhunt, August 1953

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #892 – READALONG: Ring Around The Sun by Clifford D. Simak

Jesse and Scott talk about Ring Around The Sun by Clifford D. Simak

Talked about on today’s show:
Galaxy 1952, 1953, one of his earliest novels, Cosmic Engineers, Empire, not really Simakian, very Campbelly, Campbell rejected it, City, guess the right answer, what does the D standfor, the D stands for Philip K. Dick, this book is superDick, kinda wild, a kitchen sink, so much happening, under the discipline of a competent writer, a great writer but competence is not the word for him, not natural, tons of wild ideas, under control, why does the little girl show up in the first scene?, cookin breakfast, infodump, why are you not married, this book is largely about childhood, child-like, we’ve been following an android the whole goddamn book, growin a beard, getting hungry, the big conflict is he’s fighting with himself, split into three, given his essence, what kinda book is this?, fairyland, as one might, familiar with fairyland, the topped stripes, a very strange book, David Pringle, a critic, The 100 Best Novels 1949-1984, an English Language Selection, 2 simaks, Way Station and City, 1949-1984, this is a good book, a Tall Tale, too complicated for its own good, prose style, a new plot twist in almost every chapter, a very ornate book, the McCarthyite era, economic speculation, technological panaceas, telepathic androids, robots who are also hungry, a very good Simak novel, after reading Shakespeare’s Planet, Way station, good book, sparkier, All Flesh Is Grass, Stephen King, parallel structure, not just because it has androids, a forever car, at the end of his career, a ton of Simak, keep going, recurring things, revist these things, houses, something was in the house, a bit of mental separation to avoid conflation, coming from everything you witnesses prior, every person has in common, they had some sort of childhood, even if you’re six and im sixty, graduation, your first job, your first love, start with the basics, always a possibility, Simak is not a boy, gotta get that top, almost Bradburyesque, the system that we live in, the economy, Star Trek economics, the forces, people protecting what they have, extraction, it doesn’t seem possible, not as good as The Visitors, almost all the parts, false notes, so many sparks, as maturity sets upon you, that theme I touched on earlier, very mysterious, setup pretty early, rumours of a forever car, it’s cheap, when things are happening in the economy, participate or not participate, cultural discipline like the Amish, they have to review it, they have to make the case, a benefit vs. a disruption, assailed by iphones and androids and robots and waymos, you can’t control what your government decides to subsidize or ban, all you can do is see what’s happening, the solution, the pretentionists, super-interesting, grilling him, what his particular cosplay is about, a sign of what’s going on, the conflict, there is technicality conflict, partly fighting with himself, why is this disruption happening, Simak would like some alternatives, razor, lightbulb, everything is free, how close they are, comin out of WWII, this cold war thing, spread outside of the cities, a big country, no target, constant extreme disappointment and hopeful, the mob is in the background, he doesn’t let that get him down, not a black pill book, locking us into ways of behavior, he’s searching for it, can’t we just all agree, a nice walk, changing of the seasons, an agrarian populist, doesn’t want cities making all the rules, we need farmers, making sure that way of life is protected, rustic rather than agrarian, people who love the countryside, people’s views on policies, one colour another colour, different motivations, the people have needs, one needs a truck and the other needs a subway pass, the uniparty (whatever flavour) doesn’t give you the cheap reliable bus or truck, supersmart, what if we take the idea of automation and use it as an application of disruption for the benefit of people, teetering on the edge of being evil, Crawford is a representative, a think tank, a billionaire class or higher, deep down they’re all the same guy, essentially just Simak, we’ve got to do something, the doing something is writing this book, for serialization in Galaxy, Simak was a newspaperguy, the Minneapolis Star, keeps you in a world, an academic, who the president is, tax policy, you have to understand it and get it out there everyday, being a political advisor, the politicans don’t do any research, so many things going on in this book, what’s the motivation behind this, even the Cold War might be wrapping up, set in the 80s (or 77), worries about the economy going bad, the word carbohydrates, we don’t just need foodbanks, soylent green, a FOOD episode, Gravy Planet aka The Space Merchants, on a parallel earth, manufacturing carbohydrates, wood goes in cellulose comes out, the scene on one of the covers, exploring the factory, bringing in raw materials, who is paying for all those robots, selling at a subsidy, inputs are free, drill down, what his economic solution, nobody gets paid anything, all profits, everybody gets everything, communism, altruism, Crawford is a sympathetic evil guy, I wanna let you live, make me understand it, you can’t threaten the way things are, the alternate people who seem leaderless, Robert A. Heinlein, By His Bootstraps, time doesn’t exist, this book has a lot going on, a coup happening, a breakoff civilization, agrarian populist, there’s no voting, there’s only opting in or dropping out, this is not an evil book, Beggars In Spain, Slan, mutants, quasi science fiction, his first sale is published in 1952, 1953, Clifford Dick Simak, Dick’s not influenced by this, this is a parallel extraction, Dick cites Null-A and Van Vogt, Realms Of Fantasy, renfaire shit, Society For Creative Anachronism, the 70s, mutant = X-men, rebellion, The Golden Man, the danger room, his subversion of mutants, what if they’re superattractive to women but don’t know how to read, women with three breasts, so mutated they look like slugs, so mutated we don’t recognize them as mutants, what John W. Campbell was asking for: more mutants, mutant stories, in essence, you’re supposed to think I’m a SLAN, we the people who can see the future, man walking on the Moon, telepathy, an autist when it comes to tops, he can think about childhood real good, I can read a different science fiction next week, the podcast mutant, observation/joke/question, people on twitter, how much to spend on editorial revisions/covers, they’re in the bubble, you’re the weirdo, as a percentage of the population, people who read 10 books a year, they absolutely exist, 1 guy Tony C. Smith, discovered science fiction as an adult, got excited about reading like a kid, knew how to read, just didn’t do it, book addicts, get books cheaper, give books cheaper, can’t afford them, and thus SFFaudio was born, a family of readers, both sets of grandparents, reading something non-fiction, an immediate upbringing, ancestrally, school teacher, shop teacher, great uncle, voracious reader, great grandparents, their book collection if they had one, you inherit things you don’t even realize, they have different things, are you ashamed of your books, gi joes, transformers, music, a personal culture for each family, used to be anyway, figuring out what this book dealing with, it’s so big, society and the personal, the weirdest aspect, that’d be loving himself?, the most broken part of the book, too spinning in on itself, wow, an interesting thoughtful guy, recurring, hopefulness, knowledge in the stars, Time Is The Simplest Thing, disrupting the economy, read this week, chapter 33, so he was an android, an artificial man, the cunning of man’s mind, the mutants did!, even he himself would never know, artificial women too, and a host of other gadgets, wreck the race from which they sprang, China is disrupting our economy!, good jobs, the mystery of the story, how he composed the book, it mostly fits together, the mystery is less important than rumniating on the topics themselves, sparky full of ideas, flying witches on broomsticks, steal ideas, bring them home through Mexico, Walmart style disruption stores, wow, rejected by the girl’s family, fairyland of youth, memory, super-hilarious, the past is the most interesting place, a hilarious and interesting genre, the Merryland books, 1672ish, Erotupoia, Bettyland, a genre of fiction, a visitor reports back on a place he went to, a geographical version of a woman’s body, hills over there, rivers down here, having fun, making fun of the genre, with childhood, that Bradburyesque sense, certain scenes, endless summer, how come we can’t live in a good world, feel that, meanwhile, boardroom tables, privacy policy, extract more from you, televisions are so cheap, they’re using the tv to influence, Netflix button, put ads in your operating system, Enshittification by Cory Doctorow, the whole point is to extract from you, a car you can hand down to your grandkids, forever clothes, forever razor, Stressed Out by 21 pilots, momma sang us to sleep, build a rocketship, you need to make money, getting out from under, whoever’s doing this, Vickers says, and his parents need to be thawed out, so it turns out…, horrible capitalist system, all my contents are correlated, he was the guy behind all of this, go talk to the robot, the plan is to make things better for people, doing these things to the economy, the importance of knowing what your doing, mindfulness sounds really bad, pitchfork and torch, we’re gonna do this to accelerate the badness that’s happening, the evil people in our world, saying to themselves, if they think of you at all, we have a mandate to make profits for our shareholders, Cora’s tweet: every time I see this guy I want to punch him in the face, Albania’s ai minister, power good government with good solid nuclear power, the disruption happening seems familiar to us, the forever car, how people think about Teslas, tended to be publicly enthusiastic, the promise of them, the batteries won’t, in the frame, bends the frame, throwing the car away, the cars have televisions in them, all the smart cars, Windows 10 isn’t supported anymore, your Ford Focus isn’t supported anymore, Ford Mustang from 1964, a throwback pickup truck, can fix it yourself, anyone can fix it themselves, emissions are why, you can’t achieve good emissions without electronics, waiting at the light the engine is turned off, save theoretical emissions, the biggest expulsion, it’s all gamed, theater, try not to play any games you can’t win, the casino, not gonna win, not gonna go, Bryan Alexander travels a lot for work, an endless nightmare of airport problems, sleeping in the airport, much rather not, it’s incredible that we’re here, what air travel is going to look like in the future, bar lounge area, seats too small, crammed in, extracting you, the Chinese with their flying cars, not allowed to disrupt our world, the pretentionists, Samuel Peyp diarists, pretending to be cats and dogs and birds, my area of study is Aztecs, online video games, Balder’s Gate III, escapism, building games, Minecraft, the biggest genre, survival, farming, sandbox games, everything’s easy, 2 seconds to mine, crafting, rock and stick and 2 seconds later you got a handaxe, 10 minutes later log cabin, building your own log cabin, pretty satisfactory, digital log cabin, didn’t have to get sweaty, I live in my game, the people at the renfair, jousting, friendly and together, conventions, leavin the world, a bubble for 4 days, similar interests, I was somewhere else, Robert Silverberg is still alive, every science fiction convention, during COVID, theoretically left science fiction for a while, he feeds on the same interests, people that read a bunch of books, grinding horror, driving across the United States, the next 2 Dortmunder books, if you’re painting a warehouse, a lot of ceilings, intense labour, a kind of pretention, you’re out of your head, drudge work, great experience of another world, arms and eyes, appreciating some thoughts goin on, a really amazing thing, a kind of dissociation, something going on in this book, MK Ultra, The Manchurian Candidate sort of stuff, CIA, human robotoids, wipe people’s memories, implanted memories, very Philip K. Dick, for political control, assassinations, interrogations, send messages, the Jason Bourne series, MK Ultra fiction, extensive in the United States and farmed out to Canada, we have to invest, at least 20 years, the Chinese are doing it, maybe the Russians are doing it, POWd by the North Koreans or the Chinese, act strangely, obviously brainwashed them, we need to be able to brainwash, how can he be an android, fully functional, a scene where Data has a beard, can he control the growth, you can imagine a model of Data that has that ability, everything about him is a man except we’re told he is not a man, people are programmable, you learn these languages, something that humans have that dogs don’t have, responding to their environment, programmed to learn human things, Simak is reading the paper and reading between the line, Philip K. Dick was not a connected guy, he worked at a music shop, this is not public at the time, from the Nazis originally, news stories, the Korean War, they must be brainwashed because they’re rejecting the United States in favour of North Korea and China, on the wrong team, other possibilities than mind control, the most powerful street is Madison Avenue, both are scary, K Street, think tanks, the justifications, the oligarchs to do what they want, Crawford is not as bad a guy as we thought, come on friend, he said softly, Simak doesn’t want war, a lot of horror, he doesn’t know the way, hopin to make the place better, less of a Catholic book than his other ones, not a Catholic guy, some of the thoughts, more of a spirtual level to it, how Arthur C. Clarke’s The Star, a jesuit, a relationship to the stars, pathos and suffering and understanding, more scattered, touch on it a few times, page 178, end of chapter 39, how he came to be, his purpose and his end, a tool of immortality, the orderly progression, the next step, law unto the entire universe, the strength of human face, divinity, terrible need of faith, question and doubt, no need of faith, faith replaced with knowing, questing, a lot of great stuff in this book, so sparky, continually impressed by him, so philosophical, idea books, not stuff happening books, thoughtful and exploratory, an OCR, the fire wheel dog formula, the formula of the mutants, an earlier forward step, fire, cook things, pull things, dogs?, bows, plumb line, technologies, ssomethin super interesting, an extinct [breed] of dog, canis vertigus, the turning dog, manor house, run on the wheel to turn the spit, a small dog with curled legs, literally three technologies all together, replaced by motors, technology leads to technologies, a border collie, different labs, different from goldens, programmed differently, retrieve birds from swamps, love your children, take you on walks and be happy to see you, herding, keeping their sheep in their proper place, moving them from place to place, talking about technology in that way it is science fiction, you can’t have science fiction without connection to technology, it isn’t engineering fiction, mine the asteroids, that isn’t about how to make the rocket go, atomic pile!, what will it do to the people?, if there is a main thrust in this book, products that will no longer have to be manufactured or repaired, intentionally destroying society, a tv with spyware built into it, well you’ve got food that free, who is being evil?, the oligarchs, want progress to stop to maintain the status quo, conserve their profits, pretend I was somewhere else, more interesting or better or not like this, zombie apocalypse games, Project Zomboid, ambulance driver or cop or teacher or athlete, survive for as long as you want, an endless game, no victory conditions, Sid Meier’s Civilization, if they’re trying to hurt you, doing it and don’t care, changing it to help me win this game, taking stuff from you and putting it in my pocket, Crawford is from the old guard, America 1950, the other world mutants, help the population, he makes a film, talk to the pretentionists, evacuate the earth to these other worlds, on to the stars if necessary, a temporary solution to this particular crisis, we in our present, people out of work, carbohydrates are the solution, going off to be pioneers, let’s do enclosures, fill it full of sheep, goodbye people, crimes that can get you exported as your punishment, free land in an empty continent, more profits for Hudson’s Bay Company shareholders, love or indifference or hate, probably not going to be neutral, “mutants”, not telling what’s going on, we spread this out, $500 per room, trade that in, they’re not trynna make a profit, the help is accelerationist, for a not religious guy, lying is evil, deception is not necessarily evil, you shouldn’t lie to people, the oligarchs are hurting society somehow, the mob, trynna hunt people down and kill them, offscreen in the book, “populist”, kind of a slur in the United States, people getting what they want, close to fascism, we bind you up together, a whole bunch of farmers, get our voices heard together, the popular voice vs. the bound stick for violence, on team Simak, a bit of violence, story is about conflict, Hamlet the play, the first detective story, when does the ghost appear, the soldiers see Hamlet go talk to the ghost, the ghost of his father, the rest of the play is him trying to testing his hypothesis, does my mom know?, to know or not to know, should I just go along?, a philosophical investigation, everybody dies, Ophelia dies, he kills Polonius, the ultimate answer is maybe you, do I want to turn over this rock of knowledge, feel something, catharsis, detective fiction comes out of Poe, when it hits with Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie, a little bit of science fiction and a lot of mystery, this essential question in us, not being satisfied, a conspiracy book vs. a mystery book, turns out it is a third of me, what a book!, so good, glad to have read it, YouTube video, different things there, what Simak next?, May 2nd, The Handle by Richard Stark, gonna love it, Way Station, All Flesh Is Grass, 1965, how many did he write in the 70s?, lots in the 70s, A Choice Of Gods, Enchanted Pilgrimage, The Fellowship Of The Talisman, The Werewolf Principle, The Fisherman, a rusty rocket, a scene in the book, so rich, he’s the man, overcountry travel, he’s the flyover country science fictionist, New York guys, Bradbury in Los Angles, Missouri, Colorado, California, Orson Scott Card in Utah, when you get to the west, Wyoming, east of, Ohio, Kansas, is Kansas the west, right in the middle, Shaun D. Standfast, passed away, notebook lm, 9 interviews, living in Minnesota, geographic and philosophic backwater, east coast, New York, distinct effects, professional isolation, the science fiction swim, tied closely to his desk, a lot of publication with John W. Campbell, rely on letters, a Clifford Simak letters set, Isaac Asimov and Jack Williamson, Minneapolis, Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson, tell me more, the distilled info, people that like audio, an audiobook, make it feel like a real conversation, shaving and smoking, pops out an mp3, my android ran out of cigarettes and is grateful to have some more, how much Dick have you read, not as coherent at novel length, some of the images, his best novel, very disputed, Galactic Pot-Healer, very funny, it ends like a flat tire, great scenes, not exactly a Simak novel, what makes it so great, if he’s Tolkien it is his Lord Of The Rings, rougher and sillier, the basis as a place to escape, wasting time on the internet, gets a call from god, raise a sunken cathedral, other pilgrims, yarrow stalks, The Man In The High Castle, how great Dick can be, what did we settle on, All Flesh Is Grass.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #537 – Pursuit by Ron Smith

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #537

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Pursuit by Ron Smith

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story |PDF|.

Pursuit was first published in Science Fiction Stories, November 1957

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!