Reading, Short And Deep #117
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Bed Of Shadows by Fred R. Farrow, Jr.
Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.
The Bed Of Shadows was first published in Weird Tales, May 1929.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson
The SFFaudio Podcast #471 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Out Of The Earth by Arthur Machen
The SFFaudio Podcast #471 – Out Of The Earth by Arthur Machen; read by Mr Jim Moon. This is an unabridged reading of the short story (21 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Mr Jim Moon.
Talked about on today’s show:
the proper pronunciation of Machen, Arthur Llewellyn Jones, Up Under The Roof by Manly Wade Wellman, apprentice journalist, The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen, The Lost Club, Reading, Short And Deep, identicals, a Hellfire Club, a big scary black book, never heard from again, a very weird story, truly as the first weird fiction author, Edgar Allan Poe, cosmicism, Mr Weird, H.P. Lovecraft, “it is this”, M.R. James, bedrock authors, Machen lived this stuff, a real-life magical society, the Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn, W.B. Yates, a genuine mystic, landscape, in the modern world people see things on the surface and don’t apprehend the meaning, meta narrative, the interior story, so deeply framed, so nested, the hoopla surrounding The Bowmen, it’s not the story, the story is not the story, the story is the effect of the story, embarrassed by the story, a disappointment, surprisingly funny, a bit of whimsy, the early weeks of WWI, a ray of hope, taken as a genuine report from the front line, the Angel of the Mons, fighting the tide, how rumours take hold without any evidence, “snow on your boots”, reading it a straight up, a weird meta-fiction, pre-Borges, this sounds familiar, so popular, side projects, tales, stories, a meme, fascinating, how many Machens?, not a good story, T.P.’s Weekly, November 22nd, 1915, the retreat from Mons (August 1914), September 1914, six months later, weird podcasts, Tin Foil Hat Podcast, part of being an adult is being interested in the truth, conspiracy, half of capitalism, Clinton and Pizzagate, really fucked up things going on in government, punishment for plebs, a Clinton, New York child sex scandal, in the memory, it couldn’t be killed, all the letters Machen got, death threats, bottom up stories and top down stories, Russia! Russia! Russia!, collaborating or colluding, a conspiracy theorist, the person who testified who can’t be found, the Russian rumor, reports of Russian troops seen in Britain, a plague of spies, Cossacks at train stations heading south, a huge flap, a third myth, the Rape of Belgium, a rumour among German troops, resisting the invasion, buckets full of eyes, necklaces of German soldiers’ eyeballs, breasts cut off, every conceivable atrocity, a British censor on war time reports, the liars did very well, James Hayward’s Myths And Legends Of The First World War, German corpse factories, “the vile Hun”, fake news, the horrible little children, the Edwardian equivalent of the internet, into the papers in a round about fashion, how the nature of rumor and myth begins, transmitted in times of uncertainty and trouble, official news sources, Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, they’re all correct, CIA infiltration of news agency [and MI5 screening of BBC], a lack of news, filling the gap with whatever they can find, the whole Russia story, 13 Russian trolls, Facebook ads, “the big gotcha moment”, the Internet Research Agency, in the business of trolling (for money), fake accounts, we have these rubes, for commercial purposes, Trump somehow helped the Russians hack the DNC servers?, borders mean nothing to the ultra-rich, puppets, Bernie-bro,
“army recruiters reported problems in explaining the origins of [WWI] in legalistic terms” hence an evolution in tactics, or different tactics for different classes, or the intellectual vs. the visceral
posters from 1914 and 1918
Seventy years ago your great-grandfathers and their great-grandfathers signed a document that made certain guarantees about Belgium’s neutrality.
vs.
Remember when the Germans raped their way through Belgium
this was Pearl Harbor!, why this story is so relevant, the thing that is the story, a powerful point about war, Morgan the childlike man, Castle Coch, the Red Keep, read about Belgium, and think they could haven been more than five or six years old, they were to ear what slime is to the touch, blasphemies struck like blows, a swarm of noise-some creatures, children with old men’s faces, one paragraph, Morgan to dream of Avalon, to purge himself of the fuming corruption of the streets, is this a true story?, places that are deprived and poor, the underwolves, super-predators, the Central Park five, seven fold increase in prison population, harvesting slaves, whatever new drug it is, top down or bottom up, moral panics, juvenile delinquents, hoodies, chavs, thuggish people, picked up by politicians, class war, welfare is for crack and knives, mainstream news, rock and roll, Beatles records, video nasties, horror comics, Dungeons & Dragons, video game violence, Trayvon Martin, manipulate the facts, the funny children, is Machen starting another story?, this is how I make this stuff up, the myth of the JD (juvenile delinquent), teddy boys, rockers, mods, a Bank Holiday British tradition, Quadrophenia, arguments about-for-and-against education, bad seeds, evil children, The Midwich Cuckoos, teenage hoodlums, Graham Greene’s The Destructors, free rides, sticking it to the man, sense of power, community centers, midnight basketball, psychology, the irresistible impulse to knock over a house of cards, the impulse for destruction, they just came in from Siberia, a train ride from Scotland, the British, Americans, and Canadians invade Siberia to try to reverse the Russian Revolution, The Sandbaggers, the rumour becomes the reality, wanting to believe the legend, not caring about evidence, fossilized in this story, what Robert E. Howard calls the little people, elves and trolls and gremlins, from fantasy to fake news, fake fairies, a strange new power, The Novel Of The Black Seal, The Novel Of The White Powder, Panther paperback, terrible cruel dwarf elves, the horror of war, he took a long time to get there, what’s this mention of Belgium, the worst swearword known in the galaxy, a weird momentum, the story has to keep replicating, the introduction to The Bowmen And Other Stories, the answer of course is in the question, struggles in truth in news, false, the seedbed for new conspiracy theories, official unknown sources, trying to fill dead air, Mr Jim Moon’s Folklore On Friday articles, Krampus, absolute bullshit, Mr Jim Moon’s shows on Halloween, the received wisdom is always wrong, a new dark age, perceiving reality, where this story is set, who’s saying it, there are so many narrators, real places, Glastonbury Tor, Morgan le Fay, the myth of Avalon seems to be a bottom up story, Geoffrey Of Monmouth, Mallory, John Boorman’s Excalibur, a gel filter, the land of the fairy, Morgan le Fay is she has sex with her half brother, Mordred is killed by Arthur, Arthur is wounded and goes to the island of Avalon where he is healed by his sister and the mother of his child, how you get out of the horror of the Belgian horror, internecine war, the Kaiser and the Czar hugging each other.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Reading, Short And Deep #116 – Strephon And Chloe by Jonathan Swift
Reading, Short And Deep #116
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Strephon And Chloe by Jonathan Swift
Here’s a link to a PDF of the poem.
Strephon And Chloe was first published in 1731.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson
The SFFaudio Podcast #470 – READALONG: The Dying Earth by Jack Vance
The SFFaudio Podcast #470 – Jesse, Paul, and Marissa talk about The Dying Earth by Jack Vance
Talked about on today’s show:
1950, novel/collection, The Moon Moth, a story suite, self-contained, a great book of language, the excellent prismatic spray, travertine, lapis lazuli, Hollywood, a black dragonfly, I hate the world and everything in it, Dungeons & Dragons, the Demon Princes novels, the Planet Of Adventure novels, a second order of facts, the richness of the language, the amoral characters, would you have dinner with any of these characters?, role-playing, the final descent, weird and wondrous, defined by this book, future echoes, The Matrix is a dying earth story, accessing certain special moves, fighting machines, the magic system, a 9th level spell, Bigby’s Grasping Hand, Tenser’s floating disc, the same recipe, magic missile, jamming in five spells (instead of four), so fun, a little bit of FOMO, re-memorizing spells, making magic controllable, it’s OP (overpowered), super hero movies, Heroes, origins stories, Mazarian, the Excellent Prismatic Spray, the Omnipotent Sphere, unceasing, a list of the spells, tomes, there’s no actual incantation, spell words and tongue twisters, Latin spell names, a great idea, how Harry Potter’s spells work, the orcs are coming, colour and action, Paul plays mages a lot, a callow youth, being indoctrinated into Dungeons & Dragons, being like Jesus means no stabbing, just swinging my arm, twisted logic, Gandalf has a big long sword, to balance out the classes, to balance, niche protection, cramming for your spell exams, Paul’s showing his geekiness, Dragon Magazine, you could swing that stupid sword around, why you gonna carry that giant sword?, a profound effect upon hundreds of thousands of people’s lives for decades and decades, pretty amazing, pure luck, strange creatures, demons, this is just like home, the plot lines do not closely follow, there’s no taverns, a conman thief, go find this museum, not standard D&D quests, Liane gets what he deserves, Chun the Unavoidable, torturing an innocent couple, so fun to read, such a prat, when Bryan bowed out, an in-joke within the campaign, the perversity of the Dungeon Master, suggested stats, other planes of existence, appearing from behind a tapestry, The Princess Bride, a passion for eyes, the dragonfly riders, a vial of oil, shrinking Paul, don’t trust anything, a Vancian point of view, judging the worst beauty contest of all time, Poul Anderson, the deep blue sky of Earth, a pocket dimension, T’sain, is he trying to make a girl?, vats, T’sais, Turjan, Pandelume, The Handmaid’s Tale, making women in bottles, alchemy, homunculi, chemical products, we’re nearly there with lab grown meats, everything is ugly is ugly even beautiful things are uglier, she finds the world a bitter place, dire malevolence, use of language, eructate, a poem about burps, a burping tree, women server me some wine and make the eighteen motions of allurement, interesting as a concept, the opposite of innocence, everyone is corrupt, there’s only loss, what re they going to do, living inside their tanks and know that’s where they’re at now, the middle of the Dying Earth ideas, Darkness by Lord Byron, E.R. Eddison,
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings—the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum’d,
And men were gather’d round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other’s face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain’d;
Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour
They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks
Extinguish’d with a crash—and all was black.
pretty gruesome, the year without a summer, Mary Shelley, Krakatoa, a dream and not a dream, it’s just everyday, this is not a young earth, not a new idea, Shakespeare’s fairies and Tolkien’s Middle Earth, from the fairy or elven point of view, a growing tide of darkness and ignorance, our deepest oldest fear, the end times, the end days, this is how we live now, the twilight days, the environmental stories in the news, we’re kind of fucking this up, “I just use as much plastic as possible”, an uplifting book, so dark but funny and uplifting, running the Museum of Man, that’s not how people actually are, the ideas of a book, these are the waves coming in, the beach, not the normal Jesse book, a very Clark Ashton Smith prose poem style, Zothique, a conduit, The City And The Stars by Arthur C. Clarke, even the robots are tired, Mr Jim Moon, The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson, 17th century language, pseudo-biblical language, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess Of Mars, something distinctly moving, the unromantic and unpoetic among readers, an insanely strange book, H.G. Wells, The Cave Of Time, resurrected at the end of time, Riverworld by Philip Jose Farmer, a lot of celebrities, Richard Burton, everybody who ever was, Mark Twain, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Hermann Göring, TV adaptations of the Riverworld series, at the end of history, so sad, still striving, The Book Of The New Sun, The Book Of The Long Sun, Gene Wolfe, he’s an apprentice torture but his true passion is rape, ornate strange language, brilliant, interesting, frustrating, and wonderful, a massive undertaking, the book of gold, Paul’s book of gold: The Amber Chronicles, The Hobbit, this is amazing!, the one book that made Marissa get super-excited about reading: Cujo by Stephen King, it’s almost never laser guns, I’ve done questionable things, Rutger Hauer, creators, but also great things, Blade Runner is a dying earth story, infectious imagery, neo-noir, film dystopia, there are no heroes (really), everything is falling apart, the creatures are no longer biological, Blade Runner: 2049, a down and depressing future dystopia, what we think of doing well now, the Marvel movies, short term thinking, how well the money’s doing, long lived lives, John W. Campbell’s Night, hard Science Fiction, Michael Moorcock, the Hawkmoon books, C.J. Cherryh, George R.R. Martin, The City At The End Of Time by Greg Bear, an amazingly powerful book, The House On The Borderland, an interesting sub-genre, the language of cant, I babble in an unknown tongue, even the prophets are corrupt and fake.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Reading, Short And Deep #115 – The Secret Of the Machines by Rudyard Kipling
Reading, Short And Deep #115
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Secret Of the Machines by Rudyard Kipling
Here’s a link to a PDF of the poem.
The Secret Of the Machines was first published in A School History Of England, 1911.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson
The SFFaudio Podcast #469 – READALONG: The War Of The Worlds by H.G. Wells
The SFFaudio Podcast #469 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Scott Danielson, and Luke Burrage talk about The War Of The Worlds by H.G. Wells
Talked about on today’s show:
1897, why it made a little splash when it landed, alien invasion, society falling apart, The Walking Dead, invasion novels, The Battle Of Dorking, properties and adaptations and allusions and alliterations, Orson Welles, War Of The Worlds: The Series, isfdb.org,
An English astronomer, in company with an artilleryman, a country curate, and others, struggle to survive the invasion of earth by Martians in 1894. Thirty five million miles into space, a species of Martians sets eyes on planet earth. With their own planet doomed for destruction, the Martians prepare to invade. Their weapons are ready and their aim is ruthless. The war of the worlds is about to begin.
a look backwards, Orson Welles’ The War Of The Worlds radio drama, future events, unfolding in real-time, instantaneous travel from Mars, the 2005 movie adaptation, buried, ridiculous, cannon shots rather than rockets, Robert H. Goddard, fix the physics, a pretty damn amazing book, philosopher-writer, a certain speculative writer, a final structure not unlike Martian, the Pall-Mall Budget, Nov. 16, 1893, Punch, natural selection, a cardinal necessity, “teacher and agent of the brain”, The Man Of The Year Million by H.G. Wells, can you satirize a satire and then go on to make it serious?, Ape Man Space Man, 9 days later, nutritive fluid, early in his career, the most published author alive, the artilleryman, the revolution, a realization, the future, The Time Machine, Weena, the Eloi, the Morlocks, little details, a wife!, a romance rescue version, John Wyndham, what the world will be, sprouting many tripods, derivations and inspirations, his most influential story, how science fictiony it was, a novel with science in it, Larry Niven invasion of the Earth book, the ramifications, filling in the technology and physiology, The First Men In The Moon, how the machines work, The Crystal Egg, The New Review, May 1897, a Palantir, an Ansible
An antique dealer finds out that one of his items(the crystal egg) allows views from a high post into alien life scenes. Upon close inspection, small lifeforms and structures can be seen inside the egg. With the help from the protagonist it can be determined from clues that the egg is in fact a viewer, and that he is viewing scenes from Mars.
a teaser for the novel, League Of Extraordinary Gentleman, it feels still current, getting flying machines from the Martians, diggers, kits, autofacs, black dust, up close, fighting suits, Starship Troopers with aliens in exo-suits, Armor, The Forever War, an inversion, graceful machines, lumbering hulks, the brother sequence, stuck in a house being a mouse, Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version Of The War Of The World concept album, the 1953 movie, why we should care about these character, between me and my brother I know everything, it feels like what it’s like to have your country invaded, becoming a refugee for the space of the book, it’s not our military might, Independence Day (1996), taking the first person point of view, if Tom Cruise doesn’t see it we don’t see it, the Pearson’s serial illustrations, squids or octopi, he was writing about writing about it, the main character is H.G. Wells, his brother is H.G. Wells’, Horsley Common, Woking, characters from his own life, the curate, a savage attack on organized religion, dangerous, the curate is coming apart, God is not an insurance agent, Monty Python, the narrator calls on God and thanks God, science vs. formalized religion, how we think, strip-away, the illustrations, what the movie does, Henrique Alvim Corrêa’s illustrations, Tintin as a horror show, the arm reaching into the house, we will become rats, the art, interpretation, a new BBC TV adaptation, Roman legions, it’s about EMPIRE, why it is set in the USA in the 20th and 21st century, the criticism of EMPIRE, being brought low, Return Of The Jedi, striking at the head of the greatest Empire of the time, an island is defensible, the navy must be defeated, by 2005 the world market for films is much bigger, if they can do it we did it, undermines the whole satire, it looks terrible, force fields and weird energy weapons, the super-science!, the briefing sequence in the 1953 movie, green gasses, a new element that combines with argon, science-based, the heat beams, artillery, a first strike mentality, subtly mentioned, they’re going for Venus, so many subtitles, desiccated bipedal bodies from Mars, if only, not just insane, in a hole, starved, blind, deaf, guy with a sword, hot shit, a class story, fit for this new environment, an alternate ending, great illustrations, the artilleryman’s underground London world, the gulf between reality and dreams, walks, breaks, cards, the imagination, your job is to pick the right boots, taking over a fighting suit, the concentration camps, a huge alternate vision, Julianne, The Sleeper Awakes, a utopia, a dystopia, images of a future from a madman, empathize and appreciate and disdain, psychology, not a one note character, when calamity strikes, living underground, a whole hidden society, Ewoks aren’t the best example, a circle of resistance, not realistic, the biggest exodus of human kind, no resistance, Wells had a lot of women, they used to skedaddle off to work, for fear they’d get dismissed, fear of the backstreets, one little miserable skedaddle, exiling weaklings, the eugenics, survivalists/white supremacists, weak or silly, ought to die, “to live and taint the race”, “clean minded women”, “no rolling eyes”, on the team, racism?, class based, the most prolific author of his era, on his second wife, a draper’s assistant, the way writers look at things, how is it that people are so insecure, in their mousy little way, the tunnel is in the wrong spot, Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague, class-oriented, the Chauffeur tribe, almost no people get names, Ms. Elphinstone and Mrs. Elphinstone, Tim Robbins is a combination of the curate and the artilleryman, PG-13 vapourized, the illustrations for Jeff Wayne’s musical version, the Earth covered in red weed, the fertilizer is human blood, the book is brutal, unworthy and uncharitable characters, the final image, the narrator (looking like H.G. Wells) haunted by corpses and the fighting machines, a war book, baskets of human bodies, the tentacle lights moving up and down, wholesale slaughter, the black outline, directly referencing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the first book Paul read for SFFaudio, Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, so racist and sexist, my thoughts had taken voice, the importance of sound, uula ulla, a mystery, a distress beacon, a death cry, an alarm, an average of 2.5 participants, Wells is a master craftsman, mean characters doing questionable things, writing what you see, retelling the story with sound, horrific, really scary, silence as a scary thing, the coulours and the dust, the crawling creeping nature of it all, what’s going on with the dog, The Spotted Dog, a dog-cart, a yelping dog, a lost retrieving dog, a howling dog, a good dog, man’s best friend doesn’t know what’s going on, a hoe-down, very American, a nurse’s uniform, weird reality, a Mexican character, disconnection, a horse, crows, a veneer over our reality, how things really are, peppered with dogs, paint by numbers writing, the unexplained, copying another novel, there for an unconscious purpose, stealing from a jewelry shop, a richness to deserted London, wives, his cousin, Heinlein’s redheads, too creepy, visually designed to create the disaster movie industry, showing this whole genre inspired by it, the ur text, the basis for other exploration, the taproot that everything references back to, Doctor Who, Planet Of Evil, Forbidden Planet and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, we men with our bicycles, guns and sticks and so forth, mere brains, appliances, the dominant feature: the wheel (is absent), we’ve made the world conform to the wheel, putting on suits, everything is suit for them, an umbrella is part of you, the fighting machines are holding their equipment, the machine is a suit of clothing, driving a car, I swerved, we become one with the car, all about brain, the philosophy of The Fast And The Furious, Pacific Rim, Daleks, all in favour of giant monster battles, tension and drama, learning to juggle, why there are no wheels on Mars, in the Amazon jungle, the Incas, salt flats, His Dark Materials, Jesse invented an alien bird, thinking through all, the necessary requirements, which is more efficient soaring or propellers, rotation, bicycles, nothing evolved from an air creature, a sea based system, propellers handier in the sea, squid, a bacteria with a propeller, greasing the alien bird’s wheel, 10 years in, The Time Machine, why did Jesse put it off so long?, head canon vs. head cannon, Cybermen, why is Doctor Who so good?, they’re stealing from the best!, aliens invading London, the danger and value of…, subversive, intelligent, the Tardis is taken away to engage with the world, never any sexual tension between the character and the companions, a “silly kid’s show”, Christopher Eccleston, Peter Capaldi, stealing from Lovecraft, the most brilliant science fiction show ever, Pyramids Of Mars, alien robots, Egyptian deities, Genesis Of The Daleks, not like Teletubbies, putting The Time Machine on the schedule?, re-reading, one and done, live with the consequences, Annihilation,
Posted by Jesse Willis