The SFFaudio Podcast #800 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Devil’s Elixirs by E.T.A. Hoffmann

The SFFaudio Podcast #800 – The Devil’s Elixirs by E.T.A. Hoffmann, read by Connor Kaye. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (16 hours, 12 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Connor Kaye

Talked about on today’s show:
1815/16, two volumes?, translation, German, not from 1963, way older, the claim about the 1963 version, supposed to be unabridged for the first time, there’s a lot of editor’s notes, if this is an abridged version, what was cut out of earlier translations?, really effects the text, three pages are missing, conked on the head, happens offscreen, it makes the story better, long chapters, the side story about the Irishman, why leave that in, a massive plotpoint, intentionally not put in, makes the story way better, unreliable narration, what makes the story so interesting, gothic novels, Weiland, an American gothic, The Monk, long an convoluted and difficult, Frankenstein and Dracula, taught to watch movies, if teachers knew what was in the text they’re pretending to teach to students it wouldn’t be taught, Othello, the beast with two backs, Desdemona’s house, your house is being robbed, ruffians, lily white ewe is being tupped by an old black ram, race hasn’t been invented yet, the metaphor, elided, minimized, lies on the side by side, learn to read Shakespeare, Dracula is more recognizably put together, from the era of Frankenstein, doesn’t flow with action, 1935 pulp Robert E. Howard story, meandering, very convoluted, re-listen to parts, unreliable narrator, intentionally writing something incorrect, genuinely forgotten his own story, leaving out three pages, the Baron of ____, the big elephant in the room, presume the reason is because Edgar Allan Poe, a doppelganger character, William Wilson, a very short version, different ending, the definitive doppelganger story, all the different spices, counter evidence, a time travel story?, fairly well disproved, told explicitly to set down the text, excuse for publication, what has happened, wearing strange clothes, Heinlein’s By His Bootstraps, post-grad in physics, get outta here ugly, why time travel is impossible, him from the future, every character in the whole story is him, the same scene from the other guy’s point of view, Alex and Cora or Evan, a repeat chapter we skip, bad theory, an explanation given, what makes it a gothic novel, supernatural events explained by weird coincidences, there are no supernatural events in William Wilson, the devil is drink, better explained by mental illness or cognitive schism, somebody gets killed, exact same scar, a series of these sequences, manic phase, depressive phase, non-responsive, catatonic, frenzy and stabs somebody, describing it that way, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde, its the same dude, two different dudes, half brother, half sister, main character, did something really powerful, Edgar Allan Poe started writing stories, so many Poe stories are explicable by reading this, The System Of Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether, an episode of the first Star Trek, a Robert Bloch story, trust the science, a lunatic asylum, told of his behaviors, strange people acting oddly, how did I come here?, when could I get out?, haunted by a shadowy double, mental schism, not quite there, an archetype, he can feel there’s something going on there that resonates, an evil brother, periodically thwarts the good brother, what makes it gothic, lack of god in Poe’s stories, angels, his most famous, The Raven, she’s dead, there’s no heaven, the argument that he’s having with himself, as the place burns down, he never talks about god, race, they’re not the focus, completely different thing, science and ratiocination and art, The Man Of The Crowd, he’s a doppelganger for that guy, The Black Cat, a guy who drinks to much, he acts very badly, pious and good and kindly person, best read as railing against temperance, takes their complaint, making fun of the temperance movement, the devil element of this, capuchin monk, cistercians monastery, the coffee, monks, popes, when you read Hawthorne, the devil exists, going on about the Devil, a man with a bad idea, a guy in the woods, sin is a big thing in Hawthorne, class stuff, fellow nobleman, marry this princess, so far down the road, there isn’t a prince in the land, educated and learn your letters, the judge who he pays off, the control of the church is massive, a fugitive from a monastery, critical of the church, scheming dominicans, kidnapped, another devil’s elixir, from a Poe mindset, the dangers of alchohol, a lot of drinking going on, cordial, pours it down his sleeve, withers his arm, a sinster arm and a regular arm, proto-doppelganger stuff, a secret science fiction story, I found the time machine, I took a pill to forget, a book on archive.org, did Poe read or speak German?, Metzengerstein, makes sense as a gothic, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, the German ones, video essay about doppelgangers, available in America at the time, an E.T.A. Hoffmann called The Doppelganger, 200 year old German, would have been tough, let’s just look at the facts, sent to a boarding school, not given enough money, gambles, a bad reputation, all things that happen to him, how come you’re an asshole, lived in England and visited Scotland, people were reading stuff, Blackwoods Magazine was a thing, a literary kid, he would have read something like this, there might have been a review of it, critiquing, know in his period as an asshole reviewer, and an orator poet, making it about god, the demons down under the sea, the guy is insane, the angels with jealous of her and me, having sex with a corpse for 50 years, it’s not about that, contending with our daily reality, set in the 1700s, make it more authentic, any more squeeze out of Poe in here, Never Bet the Devil Your Head, the devil literally shows up, metaphorically or hyperbolically, the painter, I’m back, the devil showed up in disguise, alcohol, stuff that makes you act badly, this undercurrent, the dangers of alcohol, prevents people from getting alcohol legitimately for 10 years or so, one of the scenes, painted all these people he knows, that’s him from the future, he’s become a painter, The Oval Portrait, the chateau into which, one of those fantastic, Mrs. Radcliffe, that’s a callout to Ann Radcliffe recently abandoned, warm food on the table, installs him in a turret, armorial trophies, the frame for the story is huge, a painter who paints his girl to death, a big long clunky gothic novel in 8 minutes, dispenses with silly things, videos coming from Israel today, the devil is real, damning humanity, in a black hood, it was all a coincidence, evidence I should repent, explicable, a step towards science fiction, fantasy as a re-imagining of alternative forms of how to deal with reality, tales of ratiocination, C. Auguste Dupin, the devil did it, not it was an orangutan, Poe’s just done with it, gothics do that, the reason we’re reading this text, write it down, like confession, a series of bad things, turns out I was not the murderer, escaping, the unreliable narrator aspect, an alternative theory, may suck as well, if two drink they become connected, there had been a switcheroo, The Prestige (2006), the handwriting is compared, write in Polish, your grammar is terrible, ridiculous excuse, your spelling is incredibly atrocious, after he kills Hermogen and Euphemia, insane in the forest, maybe he is Medatus, slippage, one body with two inhabitants, a literal spirit from another him, Freaky Friday style, Big, a child wishes to become an adult, a psychical link, mysticism, not a potion made in a lab from a Professor Dumbkopf, The Angel Of The Odd, in conversation with a pile of empty bottles, alcohol is dangerous, alcohol is in every scene, small beer, wine, cordial, and the devil’s elixirs, in vino veritas, are you going to stab me in the back?, blackout drunk, covered in blood, a corpse over there, runs off into the forest, stealing somebody’s clothes and haircut, mein, very rare, chow mein, his behavior is such, his gait is that of a capuchin, Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle, zeusborn devildung, a metanovel, clothes their origin and influence, transcendentalist, the behavior of clothes upon persons, news socks change your behavior, clothes affect your behavior, long sleeve shirt, rainjacket, a labcoat, Peter Hotez, labcoat to interviews on Zoom, makes him feel like he’s a doctor, bowtie, always changing his clothes, changing who you are, the opportunity to make yourself anew, a suit made for him, somebody tries to sell his clothes, undercooked, dispenses with a lot of this stuff, 16 times the length, not even a novel, Ringworld, a novel from a period when novels looked like this, Jane Austen is the weirdo, Tom Jones, all the parts, Charles Dickens’ bread and butter, refine things out of this, Christopher Priest’s The Prestige, stuff you can do with the medium that is exquisitely cool, the audience has to be receptive, so of its time, a modern editor, run it through spellchecker and see if we can throw in some pronouns, ebook it right to Amazon Kindle, the aficionados of this, Bryan Alexander, The Mysteries Of Udolpho, what is the call to adventure, exploring other people, shoves her glove in his bosom, that’s relatable, makes a pact with the devil, I have all these feelings, that woman she looked at me, a compelling part for a lot of people, people don’t really change, trained differently, different media through which they engage, folksinging, he never mentions any of their names, they’re not important, talking up politics, and news and anecdotes, made a bunch of friends but couldn’t be bothered to name any of them, the physician’s infodump, the prince, the abbess, a mom and a goddess and beautiful, she brands him with her diamond encrusted, is this an attack on Catholicism?, it has to be right?, he indicts by showing, he’s edging around things like that, why does he get branded like that?, for later in the plot, explains a lot but then is undermined, is the time machine the drink?, many characters called Franceso, St. Francis, Fransiscus, she’s swearing by the saint?, why she became a nun, what happens to the girl, time is a flat circle, sir, distinguished, so many Francescos, the spectre who keeps reappearing in a purple cloak, ancient ancestor, god damned him to wander the earth, progeny, descendants, the Wandering Jew, Melmoth The Wanderer, he’s branded, identifiable by this distinctive scar, repeating the same mistakes over again, break the cycle, very time travel, slow time travel, time moves at a 1 to 1 rate, 1.3 x speed, with regard to religion, what is he saying?, explicitly called out, when you talk about relics, add up all the relics in the room, pieces of the true cross to build a bridge across the Rhine, the history of all the relics, this is the author telling on themselves, not true, important because it is true, this relic heals people, he tries to flee the city, he doesn’t like the fame, bullshit, we don’t trust him, way pre-temperance, this is pre-Mormons, getting rid of the idea of alcohol as part of the religion, lowers inhibitions, why Poe is an asshole when he’s drunk, get into a fight with his friend, berserker mode frenzy, Carl Jung’s shadow, a mystical apparition or a specter, disassociating from it, the ureliable narrator aspect, Hermogen’s murder, Aurelia, Euphemia, impersonating, Vittoran, somehow killed, killed in self defense, admits that he murdered, in his darker phases, is he confabulating or is he remembering?, he can’t admit it, he’s absolved for it ultimately, always getting out from under, they got him dead to rights here, deus ex machina thing, the conflict of emotions he has, golden, infatuated by her, compared with Saint Rosalia, can’t admit to lusting, angry instead of lusty, supposed to be an emotionally castrated monk, he has these feelings, idolizing, platonic love, or going the opposite way, sexual or sadistic, engaged to Aurelia in the guise of Leonard, that part was funny, that he gets away with it, such an outward liar, how this looks to other people, wilfully dishonest, fakes it until he makes it, part of the appeal of this style of book, ride with a character, without it being a sin that you’ve done, a prurient, skoptsy, men and women castrating and mastectomying themselves, weird quasi-nunneries, they don’t dominate social education the way they did, a priest or a nun or a brother, secularized that, still practicing this stuff, a teen boy who sees a beautiful girl and wants to be with her but can’t even talk about it, girls are doubly shamed, financial and parental permissions, can’t own property, Arthur Machen’s The Hill Of Dreams, angsty horny young man, spiritual horniness, intellectualized, repression, results in a lot of misogyny, madonna-whore, that’s the thing that Poe dispenses with, religions is replaced with aesthetics, the physical beauty and the emotions associated with it, tools he uses to get to ideas that are not that, unless again time travel, students solving stories with teleportation, we are teleporting to the next sentence, Medatus’ switch, from Chapter 7, she’s having a nap, seemed of unconcious of that freedom, the exquisite contours, I’ll allow it, all better inspirations, all doubts and fears, thou unhappy fated girl, the criticism, he can’t say it, the character can’t either, skirts the edges of it, Melville’s explicit, Bartleby, The Scrivener, Typee, feels like medieval Europe, princes and roadside taverns, where’s the tech?, still feathered pens and coffee being introduced, Boston Whist, drafts, faro, his own experience with the church, repressing sexuality, coming from The Monk, a monk running around making trouble, in the hierarchies and the institutions, being pulled back into the institutions, Big Rock Candy Mountain, Gold Mountain, buying working placer mines, 1928, a leftover of Cockaigne, Cloud Cuckoo Land, different LEGO themes, Prester John, monks doing chad style memes on their version of instagram (illuminated manuscripts), it rains cheese, everyone is running around nude, babies raised by cuckoos, dudes illuminating manuscripts, talented artists, literate, playing a games, making memes while bored at work, not reconciled to that yet, wants to have sex and be a man, sit at a desk all day, university is one of the options they are presented with, these are the jobs available, fun engagement with these ideas, knew that was coming, half-brothers, a non-supernatural resolution to that plot, all a placebo, the devil is real, they go mad because they have problems, the painter who showed up, the most overt supernatural element, a note by the editor monk who is compiling all this, the painter seems to be a real force in the world, supernatural in the end, or time travel, the hobo’s ideas, “cigarette trees and hens that lay soft boiled eggs”, this book is an escape, a cutout, took a sip, disconnected, an entertainment for literate people who probably were educated by religious people, but how religious are they?, the sinister truth of institutions, it doesn’t mean it is what it says it is, policemen are her to help me, put out fires, meet a quota, a kid who had autism, my child is being radicalized by online things, can you help, the police strung the kid along until they turned of age to charge him, rationalize it, justify a budget, you have to have terrorists, the DEA, teaching children to read, people who know how to read, a lot of teachers be catholic nuns or christian brothers, some of them are there, the institution, you had to be an anglican, Stephen Fry, anglican priests who don’t believe in god, a secular country with a monarch who is the head of the church, if you demand people fit into a certain conformity, you will make people say they are those things and not believing those things, religious corruption, there’s so much devil talk in this book, not a Neil Gaiman style devil, Hawthorneian style devil, Solomon Kane, obsessed with this, giving into sin, manifesting sin as the devil, cut off the things that cause me to sin, women’s breast, men’s penises, premises are flawed, on the verge, almost want to read it as a satire, it is not a satire, reading Jonathan Swift, this is deadly serious about these ideas, an unreliable narrator, not keeping his story straight, legit lies to people, lying is sinful in Jesse’s view, not as religiously obsessed as we think it is, wink wink nod nod, we all know president Biden’s brain is mush but that’s not the official line, salacious, soap operas of the 18th or 19th century, a monk in love with the woman, rape in the story, the kind of book where if parents saw it in the hands of their children, devils, casting spells from demons, lawful evil?, the wink wink, much what people want, shudder pulps, people can’t quite admit to themselves, bondage on the covers, wrap it in a detective story, a mystery cult, who stole my girlfriend?, it was probably me, Leonard is a guy in the story, why is he called that?, he had a friend called Leonard, not explicitly engaged with art all the way through, medieval art, 19th century artists focusing on Greek mythology, yellow 80s, symbolists, Mary and obscure saints, Hieronymus Bosch, it should be salacious but it is too big and old for that, the rise of illustrations, they had the printing press, an engraving on the first page, maybe, so many striking scenes, the chapters play a role in switching things up, he is Leonard for quite a while, Da Vinci, the mentor of Francesco, Leonardo artist namedropped, we’re very far from this, talking about somebody from the 20th century, around the 1850s stuff really starter to condense itself, not edited, ironically it has an editor, two points that juxtapose, hilarious, I’m not going to get into details, avoid verbose descriptions, verbose as fact, there’s a lot to say, a letter Aurelia wrote to the abbess, dictates the first part of it that is relevant, so meandering, he has a sense of humour, sometimes hard to know, excised the frame, true of Poe too, a really funny book, a novel about a book review, boring sounded, on the same level to get it, operating at their speed, the older it is, lower humour, Jonathan Swift, I’m big I used to be little, the power fantasy of being giant, pissing on the king’s house, what he thinks of kings, the plots of the books in Gulliver’s Travels, first big, then little, then goes to Japan, floating discs, extracting sunlight from cucumbers, the English, the French, scientists, humans, taking care of horses, noble and better, the humour is more base, like a soap opera, the reveal, turns out it was not, all was explicable, incredibly convoluted, a timeline of events, the wikipedia entry, its own timeline, dispute some of this, have to accept it, if somebody else had done this for me, details the first part, summarize the whole text, people need to understand things and be reminded, original research, uncited stuff, helpful but very wrong, Jesse’s time travel theory, not the best theory, Northanger Abbey, a girl reading gothics, gothic romances vs. gothic novels, girl vs. dude centered, novels for teenage girls, oh my god!, R. Murray Gilchrist’s The Stone Dragon, not discovered, or forgotten, an heir to a fortune, forced to marry one of his cousins, has to pick, reading Ann Radcliffe, is Venice like is?, not for young women, see it from the point of view of a dude, #MailGaze, Red Sonja, hashtags should exist for jokes, great for jokes, to be a smarmy shithead, a little trigger thing, a parody of itself, #Hamas, #Terrorism, ultimately dismiss it, as a comedy thing it is delightful, there’s no comeback to, immediately referencing a whole cultural milieu, “intellectual property”, “the Robert E. Howard estate”, weird monks making memes, “this is fine”, “yes”, not even trying to enforce copyright on these, Star Trek vs. the Orville, a little idea that makes me laugh, the real culture, Red Letter Media, the nerdcrew, a real movie?, issue 80 of Spider-Man [Madame Web], so obscure, tchotchkes on his desk, promoting this shitty Sony movie, that’s the new culture, under the bigger culture of youtube being able to delete channels, an exquisite job, making fun of a specific youtube channel, just shills for Star Wars, so offended, delightful, so distinct, ai art is everywhere now, a ship sailing towards a star, makes no sense, no art for that, low rez book cover, two options, public domain art, has to be colour or nobody cares, renaissance art, it looks alright, often, that’s the problem, random number generator, crafting the thing you’re looking for, a picture of a pretty woman, of a house, a door in the roof, can’t we photoshop these things?, take it and crop it, art from the originals, upcoming audiobooks, interior art from Weird Tales, don’t dismss my [Hugh] Doak [Rankin], addicted to heroin but a good artist, too cartoony, time pressure, a tool they can now use, as a tool it is great, hurt things for some original artists, nobody has any money, operating as digital wageslaves, cameras came in, cameras became cheap, easier to do it yourself, the argument against AI art from a non-aesthetic position, if you go by tiers of who’s got it worst, streaming on Onlyfans vs. Twitch, kids seem to have a lot of money, very similar, parasocial relationship, the precentages, digital beggars for Jeff Bezos, not going to become a famous streamer, kids, being an astronaut but for everybody, people spending money on it and getting rich people rich, accounts are disappeared, disruptive organizations, Uber and Lyft, buses and taxis, going offshore, whoever owns that app, chat GPT that was open source and not for profit you would see laws against it, a torrent like service, you would see legislation being proposed, visual artists, writer’s strike in Hollywood, AI refinements on scripts, if you’re in the disrupting business, paying for AI art, $10 a month, if the money gets big enough, just seeing the tip of it, started last year [2023], so colourful, the pulps, mimicking tons of digital art, fluorescent, fractals, cutesy simple art styles, biggest shills, high end art is a scam, laundering money, pay for play, from an artist’s perspective, commercially, spicy pulp covers, 100 years in the future, algorithm, the self-directed artist, commercial artist, a bit more of a shill, the final level, a complete shill, actively devaluing the art, corporatized, cloud services, if we learn anything from this massive tome of a book, just wait 20 years, Poe had his brain into this book, vibin on whatever was happening in this book, that’s awesome, a great image of a cat putting it’s paws on a miller’s son, The Cat And The Miller’s Son, a Bros. Grimm story, The Cat’s Advice by Jesse, how google works, the more you describe it, options, choosing is part of art too, The Pixie Princess Of Foss, that is our jobs, we are copying machines, there’s a trick to it, fuck that shit we’re human beings we share that, the tools being in the hands of masters, the distributed costs of the inputs, the laws are not for us they’re for them, only copyrighted when you’re in control of the levers, some of these have been removed by DMCA, what websites were removed from the search, an instagram celebrity, playboy.com, talent agency, The Lancet, a medical journal, there are supposed to be consequences to false claims, it’s all automated shit, nobody is held accountable, the personal phone number of that guy, that’s the problem with AI art, different ways to steal from all the labours everyone is doing, using a fake photoshop, powered by torrents or some browser or bitcoin, more money to spend on programmers, just learn to paint, music AI, give me something like Pearl Jam with a little Blues in it, almost exactly plagiarism, everything is remix, everything is taken from something else, always more allusions you will not spot, The Beatles are just original, a very strange upbringing, talent, aesthetic sense, he practiced, he drank a lot, The Undying Thing by Barry Pain, 100 youtubers making Lovecraft, HBO TV shows with Lovecraft in the title but no Lovecraft in the story, Suitable Flesh (2023), The Thing On The Doorstep, Barbara Crampton, looked a little sinister, some aspects, a good adaptation, very funny, the writing could have been better, Judah Lewis, oh fantastic it works, fiction on film, make sure everybody understands, nobody else has read The Thing On The Doorstep, The Call Of Cthulhu is not a good introduction to Lovecraft, The Unnamable is better, The Nameless City, The Tomb, Dagon, The Music Of Erich Zann, the Irishman in the inn, conjuring annoyance, what is this music?, the source of the horror, to slowly reveal it, the thing who would make it scary, much more about gender, the thing that everyone talks about in the book, not fully human, ancestor was half-fish, a reference back to Innsmouth, Mr Jim Moon, misogyny, you missed a reference there, Re-Animator and From Beyond, Heather Graham, more evil than sexy, a limitation of the budget, some horror movies, schlock, Point Break remake, Dennis Paoli, The Evil Clergyman, not really a story, look a new Lovecraft story, that was just a dream, changed the ending, Bride Of Re-Animator (1990), president reanimator, an Italian version is horrible, we have the syringe full of green stuff, ghost and sex, Turkish Star Wars, saw the poster for Star Wars, we need a guy in a helmet, jeeps and boats, remaking Star Wars as a car movie, an old man in the desert, more Mad Max style, convoys, the metaphor breaks down immediately, what the hell is that, the farmboy who learns to drive like a moonshiner, shooting wamprats, a few monstrosities, everything except Star Wars with the name on it, talk about bat movies, not The Batman, talking points, that’s all real, during COVID, Lovecraft Country swag, that’s just a bribe, comic book movies, just complain about them, being in the movie industry, going to see Oppenheimer, the Barbie thing happens, never going back to the movie theater again, a late showing, during the day, there’s no standards, worse in North America?, it will come for you too, the slow corruption takes its time, the products are bad, Canberra, where most of the government is, pretty good incomes, in a bubble, disposable income to spend, a particular movie theater, high class cinema, artsy films, upmarket, the problem for poor people, the problem of a bad experience, the content in the actual theater, Argyle, The
Beekeeper
, Mean Girls, Wonka, Aquaman, Fighter, Poor Things, Night Swim, Zone Of Interest, ISS, Ru, The Chosen, Lisa Frankenstein, Ferrari, Troll Band Together, All Of Us Strangers, Hunger Games, no pee break, Killers Of The Flower Moon, the product you’re selling in the bookstore, old movies that are in black and white, one night a month, the big screen is better, the best movie experience, at a university film club, the Barbie movie isn’t designed for movie people, bums in seats, the filmmaker, a historical figure, opposite movies, The Lego Movie, a defense, pretty good, maybe 60%, only missing 40%, educated on the allusions, where did the name come from, if you don’t pay attention the first time, The Sandman, a really good story, science fiction elements, the most famous short story by Ray Bradbury, The Veldt, barely got any traction at all?, two theories, suppressed?, already been on youtube for years, use the original title, The World The Children Made, recommend things that fit certain criteria, bugbear, punished, more fool Connor, Matt Ruff got Connor, name recognition, if it has a good name, The Hour Of The Dragon, weird old shit, what percentage of people know who Barry Pain is, people in the year 2100 will thank you, some things that are appealing to the public, hope that they’ll stick around, getting trapped, shilling for garbage, pursue the things that make you excited, chasing things you’re not excited about, if you love Lovecraft, the passion is really important, people know his name, every fourth audiobooks, The Crimson Weaver, Tony Walker, Classic Ghost Stories, recommended it to him, The Stone Dragon, is it deep enough, autoscrolling, closed captioning, nice AI art, came out dark, little bit of romance, a bit or romance, goes into trances, humanskin gloves that turn people, an episode of Friday The 13th: The Series, cursed object of the week, a weird incest vibe, got cursed, the curiosity shop, the premise, gruesome and fun, they’re cousins, more Nancy Drew than it is lascivious longing looks, all the aristocracy marry their cousins, this one hour quick story, they listening to the whole 16 audiobook and four hours of talking about it, a little bit of insight into the audience, skip to the discussion, separate shows, people have control to make the file go ahead, when the analysis starts, April, vacation to Tasmania, bring back a tiger, a devil?, devils are still available, a TV show, how many minutes or seconds until Jesse’s out, thylacines, why Jesse doesn’t need to watch this shit, Aubrey Beardsley, 20 novels, none of them are available, nothing on archive.org?, a short story collection, niche stuff, he’s a dude, The Yellow Book Quarterly, did the art, sounds like Alan Moore, good channel, Lucian’s True History, take some pictures of some Australian islands, nobody can live there because there’s no jobs, to homestead?, government job, a TV camera man, looking for thylacines, the rural areas are hard to find work, with Starlink now, setting yourself up for problems, eke out, chickens, online consulting work, info about the climate and such, the other youtube, Connor bikes around, takes so much time to film stuff, cut so much into your day, some unediting videos.

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #445 – To Please The Master by Margaret St. Clair

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #445

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss To Please The Master by Margaret St. Clair

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

To Please The Master was first published in Space Travel, July 1958.

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The SFFaudio Podcast #799 – READALONG: Dark Carnivals: Modern Horror And The Origins Of American Empire by W. Scott Poole

Jesse, Evan Lampe, Will Emmons and Terence Blake talk about Modern Horror And The Origins Of American Empire by W. Scott Poole

Talked about on today’s show:
according to the empire, And The Origins Of American Empire , doesn’t sound right, empire should come first, not his thesis, third book by him, Wastelands, a big one, association of ideas, correlation is not causation, a good book, WWI and horror, the Lovecraft one, Evan’s concern, kind of appreciate it, should have read more books, into Heinlein now, it has to be done, Glory Road, what’s the thesis of this book?, escapism, American empire is reflect in American horror, a facile thesis, Mike Nowak, getting judged, its fun, silent conversations happening, South Carolina, written a book about South Carolina, horror ladies from Finland?, Vampira or Suspiria?, promote his book, three or four books came out, when Elon Musk bought twitter, conversations deleted, broken now, the way he emails Jesse, Dr. Poole do you think Trump’s election…, Dr. Poole rights back, really just history, Trump as less an aberration, a synecdoche, he/him, object right away, psychological explanations, political explanations, fits in, dark forces, historical/political motifs, quite anarchic, a giveaway, the first third of the book, that might be the thesis of this book, still working on the introduction, separate essays integrated into a structure, not a cohesive thesis book, more Zizeky, a propagandistic work, in a good sense, a better way, making people free, if he didn’t tell you whether the book was good or not, a lot of judgement, checkmark, needs to be longer, not filler, how he feels about a particular thing, Stranger In A Strange Land, a fascist?, misspeaking, forms a cult, Jesus kills people, he unpersons them, Valentine Michael Smith, The Horror At Red Hook, obviously racist, build that scaffolding, not a metaphor, remembering it wrong, a veteran who goes on another adventure, get it that wrong, Tobe Hooper, Jaws (1975), Amity Island, whitewashing American empire, Poltergeist (1982), Jaws is fun, thesis supported, Peter Benchley’s The Beast, sanding away, box office gold, Get Out (2017), Jordan Peele, not elevated horror, a business marketing thing, people don’t trust academia or reviewers, professional reviewers, massive gaps, Roger Ebert, The Medusa Touch (1978), one of the worst movies of the year, moviemakers usually want to get their movies to make money, Rod Serling vs. Jordan Peele, both hosted The Twilight Zone, ongoing dialogue with David Currie, loves America too much, my greatest neighbour, he doesn’t know he’s in airstrip 1, the DEW line, if W. Scott Poole had added some textual reference, a lot of shitting on Heinlein, vs. short stories that would fit this argument incredibly well, a media studies guy, lots of interesting movie recommendations, more balanced, looking at art, the film canon, paintings, movies and TV, very important, the majority of people don’t read books, a book about movies and TV shows, Gulf War I, little asides, how [Bashar al-Assad] is a bad man, you’re at a university, you want to be supportive, throw around an accusation, undermines everything else, could have been a lot longer of a book, a lot of people are alone, all his colleagues at the University of Charleston, not a scholarly work, riffing on, ultimately useful, morally undermine, mostly Americans, weaken it from within, turn people’s attention to facts on the ground, this book is dated already, 2022, Ukraine is not in here, Israel/Gaza are not in here, Houthis are not in here, Russian hacking in here, a media bubble, undermined him, his colleagues are going to read it, a liberal anti-imperialist book, I saw the signs, a materialist liberal, watching all these horror films, the media realm, the real horrors existing everywhere perpetrated by the American empire, as opposed to idealist liberal, a believable protagonist, protest and vote, horrible at the end, if we’re lucky, the American empire will fight another foe, Biden is not in this book, Trump is all over this book, doesn’t call Obama by his true name, he mentions Bill Clinton, unfortunate, makes the book less awesome, a favourite chapter, the best, the zombie chapter, very solid, George Romero, Night Of The Living Dead (1968), super low budget, Dawn Of The Dead, long, ponderous, Walking Dead episodes, a political speaker, Haitian voodoo movies, Red Letter Media style, watching Poole watch these movies, horror movies are good, The Devil’s Rejects (2005), more like twitter essays, attacking the libs, it was slick, the pivotal scenes, forgettable, Nope (2022), intended audience, white liberals, maybe a lot of black people thought it was terrific, a successful film, Native Son (2019), communists become the foil, white liberals, the equivalent of communists (white liberals), interested in race, the centrality of white supremacy, foundational, class, some nods in the direction, settler colonialism, it aint the white man it’s the rich man, the vast majority of people moving across the landscape, poor whites in the Confederate army, they deserve to die for that reason, false consciousness is a real thing, just gotten together, the planter class, how race worked in America, the idea of American freedom, American Slavery, American Freedom by Edmund Morgan, if you are obsessed with America, written for an american audience, the Strait of Hormuz, the powers in charge, who are they?, they have an agenda for you, it’s going to effect you, respond correctly when they come at you, addressing an American audience, that’s a thesis, other stuff in there too, January 6th, really?, not a big deal, 9/11?, the forever war, traumatized a lot of people, triggered a lot of people, one million percent, Starship Troopers, inserts itself, a science fiction guy, a seminal figure, tying it to the security state, Who Are the Heirs of Patrick Henry? Stand Up and Be Counted!, he was all in, the difference is, when people are wrong, quick to denounce, when there’s a denouncing party in the room, some scary stuff in there, ignoring a lot of what’s going on in that book, he took the book at made fun of it, liberal academics, some people are not going to see the criticism, bad because some people won’t see it as fascistic, Verhoven sucks us in, arent these shiny happy people showering together, Doogie Hauser dressed up in an SS uniform at the end, it’s dangerous, it is dangerous, literature should be dangerous, makes you think thoughts outside of the nannies trying to control our brains, Haldeman likes Heinlein, The Forever War, what he’s pointing to, doesn’t correspond to experience and memory, a tiny possible aspect, a sort of monologue, science fiction as a megatext of dialogue, in dialogue with Starship Troopers, thoughtfully funny, The Sound Of Music (1965), dismisses him, using things to make a , tips his hand, N.K. Jemisin’s now classic novel, an article by David Agranoff, why is this written down for us?, the sensation that the robot was a robot sometimes, robophobic, an exaggerated the broken up and assembled thesis, giving addresses the way a robot would give addresses, jarring, competent robotic, work for hire, experiencing it as we were, deep sense of outrage, sounded robotic, some weirdness in the pauses between paragraphs, weird page breaks?, the style, errors in the recording, relooped, left out little bits, at the end, his memory became a cubist painting, the same historical sequence, he repeats, he can’t do it in order, the kaleidoscope is good, where the writer reviews his own book, starting a new section, some factor about some person or some event, one paragraph, the historical sequence, what the relation is, what has just gone before, a quirk of style, a painting or a photo of something or someone, does it over and over again, a summary of the book from Random House, too much, why even in here, Charles Manson, connected to Heinlein, Stephen King and school shootings, the 2017 clown traumas, little historical anecdote, that IT movie, somebody reads a book, 2 years later taken as gospel, guy reads book, cousin tells main character, UFO stuff,more material, different direction, the aftermath of Roswell, what the 60s were like, an MKUltra experiment, Rage doesn’t indict Stephen King, talking to your lawyer all day, do it in doses, Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, Church Of All Worlds, didn’t kill any moviestars, just a horny guy, a bit of a hippy, gaia thesis, deep ecology, liked Lord Of The Rings too, weird mentions, The Omen franchise, got paid to handle snakes, a girl holding a snake, satanic panic films, Courtney Brown, Emory University professor, put his classes online, Science Fiction and Politics, interesting, read through a bunch of books, classics, novels, remote viewing, nutso bullshit, DARPA is spending the money on it, the Men Who Stare At Goats, astral projection, The Men Who Stare at Goats, Trump is disconnected from horror (except for he clowns), who’s the best the president?, the guy who builds houses, John Adams, that modern people would know, but freed the slaves, Americans can kill each other all they want, outside the borders, fewer people killed than Obama, central America wars, Predator (1987), Commando (1985), we’re a rescue team, you lied to us, Dillon, muscle-off, punished, a good connection and he makes it properly, he didn’t read, supposed to read this, making the phone calls, regular politicians, possibly that’s the reason, didn’t start any new wars, the Mother of All Bombs, assassinated an Iranian general, went back, distanced us from Iran, trying to make peace with North Korea, triggering people, we didn’t have the word, broken brains, ugly truth, at the heart of it the worst thing is true, we’re the bad guys, in the context of, shadowbanned, for his award, he’s the bad guy, point of view, people don’t want to accept, news for the Americans, some Americans, a book with nice examples, a good book, pretty good, good stuff in here, soft touch, trying to keep his job, kick himself off of twitter, this is allowed in history class, conservative historians, demented people, money in the demented industry, how did the 14th amendment lead to Jim Crow?, why this is racist, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”, the foundation of American civil rights, gave rights to black people, not capable, excellent answer, a common take on reconstruction, bleeding as a cure for colds, something that was left out, The Repairer Of Reputations by Robert W. Chambers, set in the future, a head injury, asylum, an unreliable narrator, observing the state of 1920 United States, imperial horsemen, the reality that he sees around him, people didn’t classify it in that way, poll numbers at the end, Americans who think the country is on the right track, the British Empire in 1945, the Empress of India is the head of an empire, not a lot about corporations in here, reflected in horror movies, I don’t think people should have guns, keep your job measures, Heinlein thought fighting the Vietnam War was a good idea, don’t get into any accidents, Friday is amazing, interesting themes, the optimism of Space Cadet, he has to focus on the popular and famous, got to attract attention, find them where they are, provide the evidence, back it up, the casual remark, saying something fascistic, peace and love and sex, grading this book, somewhat incoherent, why are you so focused on Charles Manson, Brad Pitt, Quentin Tarantino’s argument about Manson, laugh gleefully as you kill the Manson family, we shouldn’t have firearms, where’d you get that idea, c’mon man?, why attack Bashar al-Assad?, didn’t gas his own people, one third of Syria is occupied right now, one line about Libya being a mistake, denounces Saddam Hussein, got too big britches, Will’s colloquialism, tool of the CIA, being stupid, two items of information, annexing Kuwait, palpable in the hallways, the head of Iraq attacked Kuwait, why do we care about this, carved up empires recarved, why are we involved in this at all, the Red Sea, all goes back, feels a bit muddled, make that case, the invasion of Grenada, Heartbreak Ridge (1986), too young for the Korean War, going 1 for 1, almost gelling, The chainsaw, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), looms large, the evil is never defeated, the final girl runs away, the external evil, if we can ferret out his thesis, good book ultimately, Jesse doesn’t denounce Poole, misinterpreting him, the cultural significance, Heinlein’s responsible?, juxtaposition, Wernher von Braun, I Am For The stars (but sometimes hit London), the cynical underbelly, what they’re doing all the time, Fauci’s in the government, comparable, funding Wuhan has had a huge consequence, excess deaths from mysterious other reasons (a vaccine that doesn’t fit), a plan to kill everybody on the planet, not the greatest guy even if he was good at rockets, Fauci more impactful, the sideshow, other than with satellites, space telescopes, ICBMS, V2, too hard to see for most people, under COVID, how fearful he is, conspiracy theories, he does both in this book, doesn’t go into JFK, how its relevant, the CIA did kill JFK, a horror movie example, Stephen King is underrepresented, King has a lot to say about empire, Pet Semetary (1983), American expansionism, the story of the Philippines, our gene Poole, fight for us, part of our great union, insurgents against the Japanese empire, you’re your own, whataboutism, Hawaii is a state now, Puerto Rico, Oklahoma, Guantanamo is empire, July 1st 1776?, the American Empire started before America did?, the treaty of Paris, where are the horror films for that part, Ravenous (1999), ramps up in the 70s and 80s, the less solid it is, enjoyable and interesting, Poole sold me this thesis: Lampe write a book, Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe on empire, all from 2022, goodreads?, reviews online?, The Narrative Of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, Young Goodman Brown, Weiland, those stories are part of this, James Fenimore Cooper, a propagandistic work, nobody’s going to read that, sadly non one cares, responsible for the title: Ray Bradbury, he wrote the book, he owns it now, in reference, just in the air, Insane Clown Posse, Insane Clown President, facepaint and faygo, a michael Jackson tatoo, Matt Tiabbi’s important work, could have done without all of those, endorsement, get his colleagues, I got checknamed, feels like that, academia is very weird, people don’t have the kind of job security they want, his job and his privilege, being privileged, a popular professor at a fancy school, Gay lady got shitcanned, Claudine Gay, cheating on her homework, that was the excuse, they dug up her shit to shitcan her, the mostly kindly possible way, her performance, she did nothing wrong, he aint a cheater, he aint a liar, trying to be careful, a sense of paranoia amongst adjunct professors, pretty good writer, pejorative, bad speculation, Ray Bradbury, The Pedestrian, guy goes for a walk, police car arrests him, just a robot, wonderful, FBI following Ray Bradbury for ten years, Philip K. Dick informing on people, learns to drive from an FBI guy, cultural horrorshow, I would like decent government, Nixon has it in him, in the 2020s, a big Bradbury man, 55 and 60 years ago, stalked or studied by the FBI, the stark aspect of his work, influenced by [George] Finney’s The Circus of Dr. Lao, a dark circus, notable by its absence, demarcate each epoch, the Iraq War, video game simulation, weak, the Gulf War didn’t take place, Independence Day (1996), ah, yes, recognized the name, vaguely interesting, just the idea of the dark carnival, didn’t do much with it, the polarity between Jaws and Texas Chainsaw, several other polarities, a film review of Zone Of Interest (2023), presenting the horror without showing it, Shoah (1985), comestible, making a Nazi a nice guy, a way of reading it, a hate on, seems to hate Stephen Spielberg, they’re twee, a comestible catastrophe, an item of food, make it palatable, Welcome to earth!, PUNCH, Alien (1979), an alien in the horror mood, a class movie, mentioned, fragmentary, an assemblage of fragments, readable in slices, why are you putting that it there, #BrassBra, it passed the time, it was comestible, walk out of the movie theater of this book, Valentine Michael Smith is a fascist?, WTF, triggered but for what purpose, the Our Opinions Are Correct ladies, and Poe is a third rate writer?, just trying to trigger people?, received opinions, probably not the worst person on the planet, why is he mentioned at all?, Americans created a vacuum, his dad died, I’m gonna run my own country, you were supposed to do what you were told?, the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, regime change, Russia, the “brutal Assad regime”, making Kurdistan its own thing, not even tied to a horror film, The War Of The Worlds, vs. vs. vs., that thread back to the original War Of The Worlds, doesn’t read texts very much, did a lot of other stuff on the side, he’s space Jesus, I don’t think that’s very nice, the second season of Reacher, a consensual, disincorporates people, not a good season, good riddance to the villains he gets rid of, judge and jury and executioner, just provide the evidence, provide the data, a wicked joy, you think he’s a libertarian, libertarians are bad too, they’re bad, sideburns and Boris Johnson’s hair, sister is first lady of Argentina, fun to see what happens, America might become fun again, barring health issues, barring assassination from the conversation, when and if Trump is assassinated, what’s our reaction supposed to be, bemusement?, he’s not a threat, he called a lady bird brain, he was president before and nothing happened, he’s gonna be wiser, he’s seen the deep state for what it was, if he’s assassinated it was because he was mean to them, you threaten everybody getting paid, I’m making deals everywhere, it’s so meta, weird, are we supposed to be rocked to our core, they sent everybody home in fucking Canada, this is a foreign guy, he was JFK, if Regean or Obama had been assassinated, a child in Australia, are they gonna commemorate the assassination of Trump?, we’re so fucked it has become comedy, the dangerous clowns, not so worried about the clowns, an addenda, better update it, wanting to Scott Poole’s tweets right now, are there any 2020s horror movies, Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann (1982), fun, Suitable Flesh (2023), the hot lady, couple hot ladies, Heather Graham, and Barbara Crampton, the bodies of women turn you off?, bought a DVD, Will and Maissa, Marc Singer from The Beastmaster, 1976 TV play for television The Taming Of The Shrew, meeting Catherine, commedia dell’arte style, Scaramouche by Raphael Sabatini, such a hot body, goddamn his body’s hot, wonderfully performed, available and complete but very low rez, awesome so heat, was he in V?, didn’t have his shirt off in V, loincloth movie, the Andre Norton book, the last Navajo?, read it in German, why don’t we do this book?, how do we convince Evan, maybe, Othello, the beast with two backs, Iago and another dude, Othello’s father in law, Shakespeare is gold, the teachers and the school boards have no clue, the ass scene, Romeo wanting suck and fuck Juliet’s ass, pomegranate things, so hilarious, they don’t focus on that scene, kids love it, read it back in their own words, he’s based, the time zone effect, Chinese New Year, starts off well, dig Hoffmann, The Tales Of Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach, an adaptation?, wrote many tales, nobody reads books, try talking to people about Hoffmann, you have 20 English teachers, they’re the ones who read Shakespeare and don’t see how sexful it is, computer games and Xboxes exist, you don’t need to do much to be an academic anymore, punished by a lot of reading, you inhereted money, you’re going to your mom’s school, Evan as president of Harvard, delete his twitter acount, when this podcast comes out in 7 months, so many Hugo awards it’s going to be unbelievable, sympathy Hugos, tit for tat Hugos, when you just read Scalzi and don’t read anything ten years ago, David Agranoff is going to win a Hugo and you’re going to be sorry, he stopped calling Evan, set up a slack then Evan will show up, contact me on tawianese wechat, Kakaotalk, cute like everything from South Korea, purify yourself, self love, hot funny stuff, dig out my Bleiler, The Scarlet Planet by Don Mark Lemon, really funny and good, kind of a slog, Wonder Stories Quarterly, never reprinted, a spider woman story, The Mansion Of Forgetfulness, not well remembered, a proper science fiction story, Mike Ashley, free expression, spoof on male dominated society, editorial comment, realistic rather than satirical, boys will be boys, SF should seek to realistically portray the impact, the little corporal, pretended suicide, no emotional impact, planet plane, make them rich and live forever, secretly acting under orders of a fraternal reference, the Basques, master criminal, insubordinate comrades, radiocycles, feeling Ringworldy, totally down with it, keep getting into fist fights, chasing monster girls, is it funny?, same joke over and over again, back and forth for 60 pulp pages, a novel, red blooded masculine impulses, women and girls are objects to be conquered, a progressive opinion, our public opinion, but what will we say in our private slack?, it takes two to tango (and conquer), it takes two to Conga, marry once they return to Earth, acting according to their nature, the little corporal must have been a phrase, mostly repetitive, reflections on feminine youth and beauty, crystalizes their bodies, a giant tomb of crystalized girls, She, Gulliver Of Mars, a glacial region, Edwin Lester Arnold, Robert W. Chambers, petrifies items dipped in a bathtub, a sculpture that is fake, the artist model goes in the bathtub, you know this guy is a good writer: his focus is aesthetics, Lovecraft, that’s a story about art, when it isn’t, him doing the art in the writing, literally was an artist, writes about artists, same with Poe, writes a story to fit the drawing, The Philosophy Of Composition, The Philosophy Of Furniture, why are you talking about this, Poe?, is there anything there?, he’s all about aesthetics, an educational tangent, Mark Of The Beast, the entire entry, a lot of sympathy, pulps from the turn of the century, attacked as surreptitiously erotic, Hugo Gernsback flew into a panic, lots of blood drinking, destroys memory cells, ease the suffering to the bereaved, died at sea, the woman is Morella, the lovers will start afresh, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004), 1907, The Spider And The Fly, The Thrill Book, the way you think about women, a particular crooning noises, two hammocks, Julia is a spider woman, you have not tamed her, you’ve fallen into her web, sometimes Terence wins, you only have to hammocks twice, my spider friends, overrated, investigating Lego Minifigures, spider women stories, the snake woman, the gorgon, snake women, snake bodies but with breasts, ancient Greek Mythology, Arachne, sueey!, suddenly realized, warthogs, suidae, big lightbulb goes off, it’s about weaving, fun politics, more Don Mark Lemon, good ideas, The Sale Of Shakespeare’s Ghost, isfdb is great database, how could this not be on ISFDB?, corresponding French site, noosfere.org, Chuck Tingle?, a guy with a bag over his head, the unknown comic, free in ways we will never be, freer than Chuck Tingle, he would feel unfree, if anything was going to be censored from the Hugo, space butt invasion, unionized in the butt, unicorn tinglers, Campus Damascus, an aspiring proctologist comedian, likes having his prostate exam?, thinking about Trump being assassinated, who killed Trump?, so silly, why is this considered science fiction, kill somebody in central park and get away with it, invent quotations, funny as it is, even with Elvis, self-referential piece of writing, he deserves something, a Hugo, relativizes people’s self-importance, Sad Puppies, this is considered in the same, too long, that’s the word, some salty bits here and there, don’t put in so much rosewater, happy that he read it, in an actual bookstore, pretty short, Terence knows where to get it, multiple Bleiler books, he’s a hero, very happy to be pirating his stuff, Guide To Supernatural Fiction, Checklist Of Fantastic Literature, these are from the 1990s, if you look at the text, Science Fiction The Early Years, the most interesting part of our podcast, 1000 pages, very tightly spaced, review after review after review, he read everything, The Gorilla, you see where this is going, obsessed with blood, very mild mannered, acting like an ape, the reader may assume, 1905, gonad transfusions, conquering woman, becoming a goat, at the wrong time, Confessions Of An English Opium Eater, a real believer in illustrations, include them in your tweets, said something in French and disappeared, other sources, it shouldn’t have any repeats, LibriVox, Martin Geeson, 5 hours 21 minutes, visit not contact, slow but delectable, like opium, look at the comments, this guy is horrible, this is absolutely divine, the best narrator I’ve ever heard, positively fantastic, “performance”, spelling mistakes all over the place, another perfect pairing of narrator and narrative, weird youtubes, book reviews, Superboy comic review, Edward Rice Burroughs unboxing, he gets dressed up for it, fun to know, being bossed around and shit on, fuck right off, that CBC thing, Jesse had to go to copyright school, what are Happy Tree Friends?, a less popular Spongebob?, the right Spongebobby age, evil google, Bryan Alexander tweet from Qatar, Qatar sounds painful?, he’s doing his normal thing: consulting, consulting about consulting, universities going out of business, he’s not there to join the Houthis, getting paid to be there, Bryan is very careful, doesn’t say radical things, liking gothic horror like Weiland, for work, adjunct professor guys, the middle class’ fear of falling, there’s concerns, he doesn’t have a bank, free to make his jokes, he has to be anonymous to be free, getting off the airplane in Chengdu, especially Chinese ones, an unemployed layabout, fun work, might work for a living at some point, mental health episode, wealthy lawyer, spouse who works, cheap shipping, a comic book store yes, new Philips Brubaker book, Charlton girl comics, Teen Confessions, Where The Body Was, Eisner Awards, Ed Asner gives out the Eisner Awards, he’s like the Hugo Gernsback of comics, Jack Kirby, Will Eisner’s studio system, an early comics guy, Tara from Planet Comics, she’s public domain, mostly badly written, Tara Outlaw Of The Universe, text features, text pages in comics (are garbage), nobody is supposed to read it, just a rip off of Farmer In The Sky on one page, Farmers on Ganymede, fast writing, shooting hoops, write 5000 times, this is not a good story but it is good, the way Jesse solved a problem, The Cat’s Advice by Jesse, such a good story, a Bros. Grimm story The Cat And The Miller’s Son, written in 7 minutes, stupid and good, the mill’s mouser, Will’s all in, structured, everything is perfect, the cat is touching him, should be hitting Will in the feels, they pressed Hans into their service, the cat was right, he was put on a path, he does what his father tells him to do, the state?, some other state?, killed his dad and raped his sister, child soldier, how do you like that?, get up in those clouds and become untethered, all the apostrophes, the cat doesn’t have a name, not owned by the mill, take whatever you’re given, no thinking, on your bag is a pin with a bicycle, little schoolboy holding ramen, he won the rabbit from a wizard, takes the chopsticks, in the undergrowth, a calico cat, it only works for here, the way that story is solved, anime or manga level, next issue, never an end, that will be resolved next issue, for the idea being expressed, you gotta do something or someone will choose for you, to thy own self be true, adults will give you advice, wrong and right, go get passionate about something, three hours is probably the ideal, break them out of that, read something that’s at least 20 minutes long, she’s not engaging, the material is terrible, supervisor nearby, outsourced stuff, stack of Lovecraft poems, she lit up like a sparkler, 100% down with meter and metaphor, brain level is right but vocabulary isn’t, the rhyme and the meter, polished, almost nobody in English ever think about, saying the same word over and over again, about how long the word is, to fit a meter, dreamed vs. dreamt, saves a character, microblogging, poets are very focused on this, o’er, where text and speech are designed to go together, narrating as a job, it doesn’t flow, definitionally prosaic, prose need not be prosaic, there were points when, dialogue that almost feels like Shakespeare, this is Inception (2010) level of interesting, engaging with Poe in a science fictional mode in the first decade of the 20th century, brings his own shit to it, all a coincidence, hooded or something, zaps himself, brings a layer of Poe upon it, buncha other Poe, this is why Jesse loves being a tutor, finding the spark is amazing, lighting up with these reviews, stories from the 20s, 30s, 40s, the Campbell era of Astounding, the pre-Campbell, important but not that cool, personality quirks, difficult upbringing, the psychology of Campbell, a domineering trickster, pretend to be each other, Who Goes There?, interesting but very stilted, people getting paid for cash, banned space opera, to serve different audiences, a blurb about the author, so many fuckin lies, responding, women didn’t use their own names, why is that a persistent thing?, nice narratives persist, I don’t think I should pay any attention, not motivated to do so, strangely, uninteresting at this point, The Golden Globes, conceive of them, European journalists rewarding Hollywood, French guys who liked a movie, pretty hilarious, when Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize then went on to become the drone king, be dismissive of all this stuff, need to talk to Paul, banished from China, smoking cigars, if it makes you happy, cinnamon bun, sugar is bad for you, which guy should I be, it’s your fuckin life, look into it, doesn’t react well to text, well quoted in The Guardian, a dramatic thing is about to take place, the drama was very one note, develop further, Hugo Book Club predicted, that’s pathetic, rewarding Paul for being snubbed by China, rewarded for the meta-situation, Jon Stewart said mean things about George Bush, Cirsova was using his mind over it, Daily Show and Colbert Report, he’s a shitlib of some kind, a science fiction freak, a Tolkien freak, Elon Musk is more science fiction than anybody else that’s famous, D.D. Harriman, Requiem, the evil that is libertarianism has infected his brain, somebody is going to heckle Musk well and give that person an award, tried to make a media career, you got tweeted at by Donald Trump, Jesse’s uncle’s neighbour is a youtuber, very offended right now, as a communist you’re responsible for this, building civil society ties between the West and China, fuck around and find out, we don’t have the full picture, entirely plausible, a big deal, when the shoe is on the other foot and Israel’s doing a genocide in Gaza, these are not fake, these are all real, some guy says, look at this satellite photos, are these graves?, because words have consequence, you didn’t get your cigar, at least you got cinnamon buns, the cigar of the Hugo award, lose a family member, incomprehensible, the gum you like, twinkies are out of business, a recognition, an affirmation, it’s dangerous, more follower and more likes, more engagement, very good friends, I can’t smell you but I don’t need, Jesse might smell like curry, an excuse, good work on deleting people you’re following, Pulpcovers is a standard for one direction, technothriller heaven, this guy likes books, I like books, we can be friends, Cirsova’s account, marketing something, a shitposter is the opposite of being careful, Bryan Alexander’s youtube account, that is telling you something, YouTube is not where its at, a very good ratio, obligatory thank you tweet and lifelogging, foreign universities moving in, money in educating the ruling classes, non-client states, part of the alliance or whatever, part of the Empire, host Al Jazaaera, Kurdistan a good idea?, astride five different countries, using the Kurds as an excuse to control the area and fuck around, Deutsche Welle, propaganda cutout, a little doc, interviewed three ladies carrying AKs around the deserts of Syria, who blew up the Nordstream pipeline, Biden saying Nordstream will be ended, did one on Philip K. Dick, Roog, that’s the art Jesse did for it, a fence and a garbage can and aliens, gravitation beam, that German propaganda company stole Jesse’s art, snitching, Heinlein estate you should be paying attention to this, bizarre consciousness, very common, reject the idea The Green Odyssey is in the public domain, in their fuckin interest, get rich from their copyrights one day, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., hiring good artists, Joe Jusko, so locked down, can’t do shipping, Diamond, out of the loop since COVID, three distributors, three times the work for your local comic book store, the Previews phonebook, lines with numbers and a name, a hoped promised date, lies or false, incentive covers is where its at, guessing what Jesse wants, same dudes, comics books are fucked, Comics MATTER w/Ya Boi Zack, Windows Tiny 11, weird computer software people are transgender, Tiny 10, completely stripped down, tubi with no ads, youtube with no ads, the good stuff, Iraq War guy with bad lungs, kickstarter, 104k followers, twitter drama, reads comics, very interesting, explains why comics are unreadable, Hugo style drama, mainstream American comics, quality of those has been going up, it all works as long as you’re in the ecosystem, pretty pricey, new canonical ERB novels, to develop ip to pitch to movie companies, The Cave Girl, a cat in a forest riding a bicycle, can’t write it very well, doesn’t stop them, it’s a math thing, writing about math, the singularity in math, the characters disappear, symbolic logic, unreadable, you have to have a base level of connection with the material, Jesse’s best joke, break the ice, very ESL or very young, I don’t like female sheep, why, dam, ewe, dam, ewe, in retrospect it is humorous, cocks and hens, what’s a female peacock, peahens, peawfowl, foul is bad, why are ducks such bad actors?, because they perform fowl plays, brilliant!, dad jokes, father to many students, baby raising industry, cuckolded by the planet, forced to raise them, a simp?, a silly or foolish person, simp verb, urban dictionary, someone who does way to much for a person they lake, here is the entire public domain of Terror Tales, shudder pulps, a Ray Cummings, Mike Vendetti, really going fast, the art is amazing, forthcoming, Beauty And The Butcher, Bride Of The Serpents, Cat-Woman, all of these have nudity, Kiss Of The Flame Blossom, Mistress Of Satan’s Hounds, Pleasure Cruise To Hell, When The Banshee Calls, Test-Tube Frankenstein, Mistress Of The Dark Pool, Where Dwell The Living, the interior art is accurate, Test tilde Tube, a monster engulfing a woman, this man was not my old friend Chester Vermis, late 30s, Lovecraft’s shadow, horror science fiction movies, fetish stuff, fetishy, Veil Of Tanit, [Jesse is shadowbanned], the latest set, can’t argue with the length, finally got some traction, racist and very interesting, supposed to shudder when you read them, a lot of salacious, “weird menace”, generally feature heroes pitted against villains, cults, I didn’t want to do it, very base (not based), all that she wants, babies mysterious disappear, that’s what the hook says, Dime Mystery Magazine, Grand-Guignol theater, a simp for art of all kinds, Shudder streaming service, seems to have a lot of cash, Midnight Pulp, more for Meg than for Will, a horror head?, she’s a keeper, horror movies are scary, not to infect your dreams with horror, parents had a rental property, had to go clean it up, had mold in it, not threatening, Tetris dreams, playing Tetris too much, a CPAP machine, quite a production, sleep test, moderate sleep apnea, wrecks your dream, low blood oxygen, is it worth it?, die from cinnamon buns, Jenny Colvin may have died from Jesse’s joke, 2019: why do bibliophiles prefer loud deaths in libraries?, funerals, hearse, another duck joke, too many tweets, duck attack, Remarkable Story Of Chicken Little, so fuckin smart, mysterious, my new joke, where does Red Lobster get their breadsticks?, what did FDR say?, popular with nobody, what has tulips and kisses?, I don’t know much about wolves?, what does a suddenly deshelled bivalve say?, technically excellent, what kind of food do Chinese cannibal dogs eat?, pretty good, so petrified, why do robots never need haircuts?, theoretical physicist, some people are neutral about uranium, a science fiction jokes, why don’t cows wear shoes?, ex-spy didn’t like it, former spook didn’t, what is the name of the magazine for people who like simple or elegant aircraft?, which kind of nut do impoverished cobblers most prefer?, I was impressed by the British Navy’s recruiting methods, why are math students the best protestors?, if digital watches made any sense, I asked the captain to stop eating popcorn, he was so smitten with her, a domestic violence joke, running out of jokes, certain people at this table, what do you call a severe wound on a highly ranked army teen, how do horses greet you when they have food in their mouths, nice inside baseball, took so training, trying to make kids not hate school, what does the masticating train say?, why do barbers not allow their customers to trade their hair?, looking forward to it, happy to hear, Walmart catfood, meat or kibble, Walmart brand, congregating in the catfood aisle, 7 -9 cats, old ladies, I’m a tad annoyed, a shaggy dog or cat story, Jesse’s other podcast, pretty good, it’s short and deep, he thinks things are deep, funny and deep, a long joke that’s is in the end not funny, a longwinded anecdote, terminated by an anti-climax, useful term, something wrong with it or something wrong with you, flummoxed, setting you up, mad at Jesse, Roger Zelanzny’s A Night In Lonesome October, Ulalume by Edgar Allan Poe, a jokey funny book, health problem, wanted to like the book, it’s a trick, you’re being trolled, this is a long story and nothing really happened, a monster rally, meet Abbot and Costello, to feature the monsters, Norm MacDonald’s jokes, it’s a troll, a real genre that’s been around forever, being trolled over a novel, a novel length troll, you don’t read a troll book, “Aliens Invade My Butt”, maybe those Chuck Tingle books aren’t novels, why would I do that?, gets attention, Trish and Paul were not happy, Jesse got trolled too, like judo, how did that happen?, weird genres, tae kwon do, they’re all doing Brazilian ju-jitsu, another reason they don’t like Trump, fighting is base, MMA things, just bring a gun or a taser, no swords, karate’s a thing, hitting points, the victory conditions, scored on hits, putting people into a submission, wrestling, tap three times or pass out, it works because people can fight and make it happen, judge you on your form, the 85 year old kung fu master, tai chi, very base things, shudder pulps are interesting because they are very base, zombie preppers, magazine rack, becoming a mercenary, firearms magazine, prepping is a popular activity, ways of spending cash on your money, a lack of faith in the government, do you want to be caught without food or electricity, you don’t want to be subject to the new M-rays, keep your boosters up, seeing it as racist, tap dancing towards, zombies are dangerous whether they are black or white, because of the police, the next one [Dawn Of The Dead], solidarity as a human species, institutionalized racism, fear of the cities, “inner city”, Jesse’s buddy Jimmy Dore, [Stef Zamorano], Chicago is the worst place in the world, always picking on Louisville, still pushing on the race button, a thing in conservative spheres, they think laws are important, understand this instinct, incompetent and sold out buttons here and there pressing buttons, not exactly what Scott Poole’s seeing, Trump did the same thing, using the terms that they refer to, what Terence meant, when Trump gets assassinated, how are they going to stop him?, increasingly unable, their goal is to put Trump in jail, the fire sale that is the United States right now, that student debt thing he just promised, infrastructure bill, so many new construction projects, so far behind, railroad disaster in Ohio, economic disaster everywhere, see you in cyberspace.

Dark Carnivals by W. Scott Poole

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #444 – The Special Exhibit by Robert Sheckley

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #444

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Special Exhibit by Robert Sheckley

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

The Special Exhibit was first published in Esquire, October 1953.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #798 – READALONG: Return From The Stars by Stanisław Lem

Jesse, Will Emmons, Cora Buhlert, Terence Blake, and Jonathan Weichsel talk about Return From The Stars by Stanisław Lem

Talked about on today’s show:
a betterized Terence, what happened to Jonathan, refusing to speak with us because communist dictators, Bibi worship, need more Lem, great, really great, great science fiction, solid novel, there are moments that are excellent, great ideas, amazing scenes, the ending confused, Beyond Atlantis (1973), a 1970s movie from the Philippines, Lovecraft combined with Atlantean, a sexploitation movie, John Wayne’s son, family friendly, the opposite, an adult movie, hits all the beats, competent and funny, Jesse promises, The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948) with Atlanteans, they lost all their pearls, that’s not funny, at the end of Gumball Rally (1976), “gumball”, illegal road race across the country, the bird at the end, the betrazated bird, no wild things exist, unlikely to kill humans, notice it isn’t afraid of the human, taught to be afraid, humans are no longer scary, confusing beginning, first gets on/off the airplane, cutouts, flashing across the ceiling of this tube, end of the book, sitting in the snow, eating snow, going home, acting like a child, pretty good at telling us about what it means, people don’t change, a pretty good theme, describing this book to a dude, guy comes back from space, stronger than anybody else on earth, no other men on the planet, they’ve all been castrated, like John Carter, jump super high, the chairs reach up to comfort you, masculine power has been turned into something useless, John Carter goes to Mars and there’s no problems there, he’s going to go on that expedition, sets up the sequel, turns this book into The Forever War, a utopian/dystopian book, Conan shows up in a kingdom, what’s your problem, ruins Robert E. Howard’s argument, undercurrents of discontent, robots?, drug to undo, an underground supply, we do that too, people consuming alcohol or cocaine, in vino veritas, there’s no escape from a dystopia, a non-dystopia, fell in love with a woman who belonged to that society, the adventure is good side, the final transformation, a star child or a messiah, nobody gives a damn about them, he becomes ordinary, echoes the end, I did not want the stars, crazy/derranged, a man must be completely ordinary, otherwise impossible/pointless to live, testosterone fueled adventurism, espousing conformity, he doesn’t seek betrazation, conditioned by capitalism, seeing creative destruction as good, its own sense and logic, he can never be at home, he doesn’t want to go and do it again, he falls in love with a woman who is ordinary, extraordinary didn’t interest him, chose ordinariness, exhibit D, a page from Teen Confessions, a redhead and her teen boyfriend are falling in love while visiting Washington, D.C., outside looking at the moon and the Capital building, you’d better agree, would there be a penalty?, then I’d kiss you and keep kissing you until you agree, romance comics, girl comics end with periods, in that case I refuse, I’ll keep saying no, thinking while being kissed, end of scene, she’s figured it, so interesting, the scene that’s like this in the book, trouble communicating, jesus christ people have difficulty communicating their wants, animal sex, are you okay with me kidnapping you?, the heart of the problem, when she don’t know what’s she’s thinking at all, she’s betrazized incapable, she can’t ask to be kidnapped and raped, unthinkable, the reason you carry a woman over a threshhold, taken her from her father’s house, a hairpulling thing, caveman style of interaction, maybe she wanted this and that’s why she’s afraid, women do like men and their male characteristics, not just a roleplay, I’m forcing my will upon you, that’s what we’re told by the narrator, he doesn’t know that at the time, that’s how stupid I was, we’re not telepathic beings, words are usually a good way of rationalizing thoughts, you’ve stated it perfectly, dialogues, not knowing what it meant, incomplete sentences, left puzzled, one of the topics of this book, Planet Of The Apes, The Unincorporated Man, its not about understanding it’s about action, it’s about metamorphosis, another possibility, by loving this woman, he turns into a child at the end, how much can love transform you?, he does not fit in, hence his attraction and our attraction to go back to space, ordinary is not the same as conformist, the anti-I Am Legend, he’s just a normal guy with superman muscles, 1961, East European science fiction, space books, the thing to remember, the official doctrine, we will have socialism soon, wonderful utopia, socialist utopia, there will be people who won’t fit in, German science fiction writer, socialism is like Christmas, just sleep a few more nights and there will be socialism, socialism was the endgame, we know this is going to be the future, how do we get there?, what will we lose when we get there?, the women in the book, there were three, progression between the women, no matter where Jonathan went, many such cases, it’s because Jonathan’s a handsome American, do you want me?, $200, pre-fall of the wall, interhotels, similar things in the Soviet Union, women who would do whatever you wanted for western money, she’s kinda like a whore, the screen star, the actress, the realist, she treated him like a whore, he was novel, maybe I can conquer him too?, eventually, figure her out a bit, take her from her husband and go talk to him, Terence came to France (the apes had power), spoke French very badly, a talking dog, quite amusing, fell in love with a French woman, became French, hear from Will, thinking in terms of dialectics, what is a dialectic?, two poles, old style man adventure, the betraized Eloi, John Carter meets The Time Machine, the death drive vs. the pleasure principle, discharging energies to get to a steady state, death drive, alcohol or crazy choices, changing paradigms, always a possibility of setting up a third way, dialectical, this society is impossible, there are contradictions in this society that are staggering, do this poorly, the propaganda version, a school textbook, have you read school textbook, school is designed to indoctrinate, the offical ideology, the robot smelting plant, does it set something up, underrealized, a reel of a realization of that, I’m in here improperly, I’m not broken, really crying out for help, what’s so cool about that, all the humans have become robots, putting them into recycling centers instead of death camps, the robots do the selection, really terrific book, Mockingbird by Walter Tevis, suggested based on a John Lange novel, from there to here, the weird German copy, The Terminal Man, using pleasure to counter the death drive, deep writers, reinforces the murderous impulses, inhibition is A Clockwork Orange, also a travel book, air b and bs, a utopian novel, a dystopian novel, Logan’s Run, the Berlin Wall, traveling was aspirational, Lem did travel, privileged, The Dispossessed, poverty planet, everyone suffers under communism, to capitalist planet, that’s the point of fandom, Donald A. Wollheim, how about reading this book as not a utopian government, fully automated luxury, safe under grandma’s skirts, communist countries were more open, Hillary Clinton couldn’t imagine being a woman astronaut, it was just different, Sally Ride, Valentina Tereshkova, she was a seamstress, this is girl planet, what makes a man a man, the ability to have violence in any conversation, handshakes are a big deal, girls and handshakes are copying men’s behavior, I can’t be pushed over, something wrong with their brain, apologize, farmers hands are all sinew, he doesn’t know all strong, a possibility of violence between us, many skills and not drunk, that potential for violence is always there, the holding up the hand is the unarmed, not a universal human greeting, the open hand, the how, you have to learn it, this is what its for, holding out your hand, as opposed to against that person, refusing a handshake, doesn’t know what to do with his hands, feels weird in his skin, what they look like or what they’re wearing, SFWA dm, the people over here are odd and strange in different ways, luxuries we don’t have, obviously German, weird acronyms, words we have to intuit, legal loophole, sold east German stuff to us, about being a man, many ways of being a man, most masculine hobby is smoking cigars, beer tents, unhealthy, one of the ways of being a man is act as a protector to the smaller female, women cops protecting male victims of crime, moderated, he’s a pilot, traumatized, backstory, why he’s PTSD, an Earth that can’t understand him, boxing matches aside, stolen girl, tell me about this scar, he’s such a wounded animal she can’t resist them, scars on men, a whole German society, a lot of Nazis, right wing, this is a planet that has been feminized, man against lion, the lion is not a threat, holograms, not a robot lion, where does the meat come from?, lion and a lioness, the hologram experience on the rope bridge, dives in and rescues her, everybody has been coddled, everyone has soft hands, physically strong, considered suicide, even the dudes are girls, everyone seems to him like his idea of a girl, a little hyperbolic, bring boxing gloves, I need someone to threaten me, would be as lost, nobody has to work because everything is free, if you want to have a car, the supervisory job, an archaeologist studying an ancient relic of human civilization, a very discombobulating world, becomes a child again, putting snow in your mouth, Jesse would still be a podcaster in this world, Ukraine or Belorussia, Poland was recreated as a state, after WWII, Truman was strongly involved, Stalin decided, after the Russian revolution, the Baltic states, put into houses where German people had lived, traumatic, always upset, uproot us again, Silesia, moved to northern German, literally stopped living, no chance to keep his farm house, a weird guy, felt sorry for him, 1921, survived the holocaust with false papers, always in the subject of the other countries around it, a post national world, does everybody speak the same whatever it is?, esperanto?, the opening is awesome, Lem has a plan, continously discombobulates, how the tech works, why the behavior is so stange, a lot like Logan’s Run without the depth, calling them Eloi, constantly young and beautiful, no predator underneath, even the robots, take this another direction, lead a robot revolt, if you listen carefully to what the robots are saying, reasonable, religious fanatics, a whole bunch of demented people, the other option is a horror, this whole society can’t be fixed, a lot of time in hospital, help me!, get me out of here!, just yelling, looks good on the surface, a totalitarian government, that is totalitarianism, propaganda, hypnagogic tapes, we don’t know who issues those, a smokescreen, they can’t, not wanting to as an excuse, an inhibition, they have all the tech for it, lost their sense of adventure, going to space would be dangerous, can’t place themselves in danger, if Niven took this book, Berlin, kids drowned in full view, their own comrades would shoot them, immigrant kids, people standing around, society is based around several lies, just as bad as the alcoholic, a religious fanatic who is peaceable might be annoying, dysfunctional, less likely to drunk drive you, dysfunctional neurotic, just as neurotic, in a different direct, less manly, there’s no PTSD on this planet, the primary contradiction, incapable of wanting it vs. incapable of doing it, the idea cannot come into their heads, the apologetics aren’t necessary anymore, space rapes, Theodore Sturgeon, penetrating other spheres, ideological belief in equality, no, you’re a homemaker, we don’t put women into danger, men are disposable, the tragedy of a woman being destroyed in space, given this premise, he would try, turn it off, fix it, even rapeyer, pretty rape, The Cosmic Rape by Theodore Sturgeon, castration, violent thought come from the balls?, the totalitarianism, Philip K. Dick’s Progeny, maybe Will is just totalitarianism, the one child policy, a blanket solution, oppressed nationalities, a button you switch on or off, totalitarian style thinking, you’re not wise enough to have children, turn off all these indians ability to have children, when in doubt sterilize, do it on the downlow, not something you advertize, controlling every aspect of reality, nobody has any boo boos, where Larry Niven could take this story, we could do a robot uprising, religious leaders, you could do a lot with this world, has the guy broken in the end, that expedition is gonna solve anything, super-anti-gravity drive, go away forever, unless they’re doing it Heinlein’s Universe style, posit something new, he’s going to inform, evidence against it, he chooses to become ordinary, his children will be betrazated, a profit and loss thing, 50-50, hence he gives in, the central thing that distinguishing, falling in love with one of the dogs, showing your hands in a weird way, incapable of doing the horror, what’s the central contradiction?, the solution to violence, it’s not true, those in power can order a robot to kill someone, money is not eliminated from the economy, money exists for more valuable and rarer things, she’s gotten illegally, the drug, where’s the prisons on this planet, what crime takes place, what makes it illegal, the robots are not the police, the robots will kill you if you’ve gone to far, the robots are the people, the robot might decide, this is a system, she’s studying at university to become an archaeologist, the robot supervisor (husband), wants to secretly confront him, legit there wasn’t a second engineer there, a false flag, an excuse to visit this horror show, compare this very good book to Mockingbird, there are only systems, a secret government hidden in a bunker in Cheyenne Mountain, not because it is illegal, robots don’t get upset, who’s really running things, isn’t this exciting, phones being tapped, the paranoid person from the past, insane, he’s a failure, he’s Conan, he’s Tarzan of the Apes, come back to a world of pussies, don’t, slap the tarzan out of my mouth, will?, like a really good star trek episode, the Betazeds, a trick question, you should be saying it, what kind of fantasy?, an idealist fantasy, a materialist piece of science fiction, not a contradiction between classes, understated, what are the classes, the robots and the eloi, the young and the old, the aging problem, a weird way to go, third childhood, the men try to look as young as they can, women would look for wealth, heroics, scars, we don’t need a biological solution to war, nations are an output of classes, trying to say things she’s unable to describe, no context, she seems to confirm it, wants to be taken but unable to say it, what female genes say: take me take me now, the y chromosomes don’t understand, character posing with two dolls almost kissing, Masters of the Universe collection, this is part of the girl version, the love of the relationship stuff, the Princess of Power movie, the original She-Ra, a continuous storyline, Days Of Our Lives, superhero team movies, don’t care about princess, princesses and magic swords, Sheepfarmer’s Daughter by Elizabeth Moon, The Deed Of Deed Of Paksenarrion, kinda like Red Sonja, Baen, terrible distribution, a fantasy solution to the science fiction presented today, not a series makes it even better, Lem can be very funny, The Futurological Congress, all brain material, super-science fiction stuff, under pressure, The Silent Star (1960), serialized on VKvideo, 5 part 1989 production, very popular for adaptations, a great book, second Lem, One Human Minute, grumpy about doing this one, it was available, The Cyberiad, last week, Jesse tried to pin it on everyone, we are all guilty, no one forced you to sign up for this, all your hands are bloody, the Wikipedia didn’t make it sound great, plot wrong, coming together right now, a little less than Paul, Australia or Poland, twitter is the best way to keep in touch, The Devil’s Elixirs by E.T.A. Hoffmann, in 58 parts, caveat under the audiobook, just during the high moments, an outcue and an incue, barring change, Bremen Soviet Republic, family secret, they didn’t talk about that, Connor is hard to get, 17 hours, Terence has nothing but time, Will studies science fiction right now, lifting weights, kettlebelling your brain, making critical claims, didn’t get the pseudonym of the dictator who went to Mars, always Pulpcovers, Scott Miller, dictator goes to Venus, his title was number 1, you have to infer it, the dictator is Weichsel, read the description of the tweet, Happy Ending by Fredric Brown and Mack Reynolds, whatever it was?, did Stalin like dogs?, Khrushchev? we are not destalinizing the dog space program, miniseries, a late night thing, the lady who plays the hologram, no excuses, Dark Carnivals: Modern Horror and the Origins of American Empire by W. Scott Poole, The Gun by Philip K. Dick, Murray Leinster had nothing to do with it, Mad Planet by Murray Leinster, The Liar is Jonathan’s idea, that was a robot, Demons Of Cthuhlu by Robert Silverberg, Time Is The Simplest Thing by Clifford D. Simak, up to speed on Fredric Brown, that’s a robot dude, that’s a fuckn robot, audiobook with terrible feedback distortion, the DRM?, you don’t have enough audiobook experience, an argument from authority vs. an argument from strength, a british fuckin robot, not a human, just listen, three tenths of a second you can tell, look at the hands, a lady drawing a sword, two handled sword, hilts on both ends, wait for the humans to do the human work, it’s wrong, my life is worth more, not going to pay for it anywhere, it’s not labour it’s love, you could eat toothpaste, fake sugar, aspartame, way too sweet, gotten sweeter, adulterating your toothpaste, toothpaste shouldn’t be delicious, baking soda and salt, East German toothpaste, read by a single narrator, this is where dictator Jesse comes in, can you have all the tools, a robot show, a good place to draw the line, a Margaret Atwood book, dramatic readings on LibriVox, almost incomprehensible Italian guy, Scott Miller looks up fuckin word, he’s a perfetionist, he’s a great voice, so good at producing his show, AI art, he spends a lot of time crafting some of them, Paul’s argument against AI art, not more than the usual mad at Jesse, busy being mad at Chengdu, if Paul was here, chat GPT style things, his argument, gives him a bad answer, you have to work with it, the way you play with your dolls, Lego Minifigures, going into a database of copyrighted materials, AI art is bad because it sucks not because its morally incapable of being good, if we were in power, AI generated picture, extra fingers, a stray head, Jonathan at some point robot narrators may become great, Gregg Margarite has good taste, if we can’t find a good Gregg Margarite, loved what he narrated, if you listen to Scott Miller on his livestreams, he brings the same interest and level of care to the production of his audiobooks, hired an artist, more difficult, Deviant Art, artists who are doing something approximate, rates and other stuff, if you objectively look at Jesse’s tweets: looks at art all day, oh lovely, appreciate/criticize, pretty good taste so far, nudity, sand princess, not nude enough, covering over her nipples is unfortunate, fuck off, artstation, that’s a good cover, hashtag leg cling, posted, tweeted, frickin pirates, hashtag leaked, reign over the museums, what’s allowed to be purchased to the state, handshake isn’t strong enough, the green creatures are around a woman doing things to her, doesn’t have the good taste that Jonathan has, exquisite taste, more minifigs than He-Man, allows them power, chat gpt gives you power, to really appreciate a good essay you have to be able to write one, when acting as an artist, planet’s worst actor, you appreciate good acting, good art, good writing, getting excited about it, little kids are excited about ai art, collage, on a book cover, ai art book covers are better than most industry book cover art prior to ai art, tin ear, the font matters, he’s Ukrainian and Jesse is pro-Russia, not a Nazi?, get out of your bubble, bud, embargo, we’re not going to stop Putin or Lukashenko, we’re not going to stop the Houthis by dropping bombs on them either, Cora doesn’t have sympathy for the Houthis, Appleonster, too cheesecakey, people need an eye for shit, you need to know what to look for, Uncle Horst, bought a bad car, overwhelmed by its beauty, beautiful mistake, ASAP, pirate website, step off, is it illegal?, you wouldn’t download, show me the law, taking a law course, terms of service, DRM interfaces with the law, a license, you can’t steal something that you can’t own, tab city, continuous defollowing, unfollowed 500 people/publications/organizations, mute people, muting Jesse, peak COVID, nothing but COVID, still coviding, we’re all going to die anytime soon now, maximum COVID panic, used to be the argument, verbal sparring, argumentation, loved university, meet a lot of young people, getting into fights, people who were right wing, confusing for people, that star trek planet, you’re not of the body, Operation: Annihilate, spore that go into people and betrazate them, racist, conservative, this or that, a fear of infection/contamination, precious bodily fluids, no brown grandkids, their dancing is pretty cool, put up a wall, dirty/icky/scary, show me the difference between that kind of people and people who are fearful of covid, left winger or right winger vs. liberal and conservative, calling people communists who are not communists, slurs, pro-vaxxer exists, pro-booster, this covid one isn’t very good, do your own research kinda guy, reading, Jesse is a fan, Hugo Book Club and Cora tweets, this is politics of being fans, not a fancast, calling people out, not playing the games, procasts, fanatic yes, fan no, a doomer account, sad, the only kid who masks at the tutoring place, white lady, corporate profits, can’t even process that, we are creating their future habits in realtime, COVID hysteria, long covid since 2020, the profit thing, open the businesses again, keeping the economy open, ruined people’s businesses, livelihoods, happily wears a mask indoors, bribed with hotwheel, people who are deluded, deluded people, seeing reality in the wrong way, the argument for licensing parents, every Jesse button, back to that well, Our Opinions [Are Correct], try not to follow accounts, mainstream comics, feels bad to unfollow people, I don’t value their voice, angry/annoyed/pissedoff, try to keep a good ratio, crown corporations and indian tribes, Jesse always was an indian, he just forgot about it, adopted, first nations, when you go to their indian reserve and you talk to the indians, some indians say first nations, Jesse’s sister, The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Jesse is Old Shatterhand, Cora is obliged to marry Jesse, Chief Dan George, what privileges does this get, nothing, hired actors to do acting, hiring indians for playing indians to play indians, CBC turned, a little tiny industry was cool, so Paul could get triggered, cool people, land acknowledgement at Davos, Turks and Vietnamese in Germany, Montagnards, pretending to serve food, authentic Chinese people, Italian ice cream parlours run by ice cream, ice cream culture, gelato, good ratio, still working on it, 2 to 1 almost, following 1700 people, bad for your brain, going looking for tweets more sketchy, three bad tweets in a row you’re a candidate, can’t call you out on the podcast, it’s rough out there, listen and learn things, interesting insight, what Puppies are, calling Jesse is not a fan, dealer’s room was the best part, something that will never happen, if they wanted to make the Hugos better they should not do media (tv shows and the movies), suggested for ages, coverage is only for dramatic presentation winners, send a representative, two ladies from Sony Ireland, animated Spider-Man movie, pointing towards an argument, undermines the whole prospect, do you need a Hugo?, Hugo Winner Cora Buhlert, a piece of land with two motorcycles, two cars and two Hugos on it, hanging on to the dream, indians rode around on horses, very few of us ride around on horses, if the Hugos are useful…, a reading list, as you evolved, David Brin’s [Startide Rising], when Harry Potter started getting nominated, late to the game, it all happened earlier than you know, bad book, badly written, stolen from Lester Del Rey, used to be interesting books, that was really good, associating Hugos with that, a learned response, The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber, the second weakest, based on the premise, They’d Rather Be Right by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley, Connie Willis syndrome, it’s her turn!, an Oscar thing, except of Ursula K. Le Guin, All My Cats Did This And That, such a baby, as the new adoptive parents to this new child (Will), The Demolished Man, yea or nay?, The Long Tomorrow, Double Star, The Big Time, A Case Of Conscience, alien Jesuits, Little Fuzzy with Jesuits, was an asshole, bounced off Blish, Starship Troopers (useful to have read), a boy book, not mandatory, you don’t get any vote, Heinlein was not a fascist, a military fetishist, overstated, A Canticle For Leibowitz, Stranger In A Strange Land, if you were a Heinlein character, the round ball that can make cute voices, teaching Will to fish, Clifford D. Simak, Waystation, not as good a book, Roger Zelazny’s This Immortal and Dune, giving people homework?, that’s not allowed anymore, didn’t get along with Dune, very dense, 24 different narrators, George Guidall, he’d be ideal, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Manny is the non female robot, the guy with one arm, the head of the revolutionary cells, Heinlein is ridiculous, prison planet, awesome title, love the politics, endless speechifying is a problem, group [line] marriages, swinger club within walking distance, Lord Of Light, a lukewarm review, very 60s hippy dippy, short story, kill an old person to get an apartment, Stand On Zanzibar by John Brunner, so thick, The Left Hand Of Darkness, a big weighty tome, makes you grow up, bureaucratic country, listening to an old person, this novel is everything, Ringworld, the weight of that spinning object in place, let’s go to the ringworld, age-gap discourse, she’s so lucky she gets to have sex with him, just her luck, a very dirty young man, that’s fine, he was asian you’re not allowed to criticize him, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, a tough year, The Gods Themselves, three gendered aliens?, Robert Silverberg, Rendezvous With Rama, big dumb object, Time Enough For Love, Protector is so good, alien can’t do his job properly, chasing after the rumour, not enough people to protect chases down a rumour about an expedition to the far end of the galaxy, shows up in earther’s solar system, humans are not from earth, the soil on earth didn’t have the right stuff, a pupal stage (or zygote stage), tree of life root, power exoskeleton super-thinking machine, offspring, amazing idea, completely wrong, go with the premise, awesome hard SF, cool explanations for things, superinteresting, The Dispossessed, The Mote In God’s Eye, highly recommend both, Cora not the biggest Niven fan (because she’s a girl), Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, The Stochastic Man, Alfred Bester, The Computer Connection, Inferno, Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm, Silent Spring, pollution, a Green party convention, Mindbridge, a clone novel, Man Plus, Shadrach In The Furnace, late Pohl vs. early Pohl, Gateway, crazy guy who needs therapy goes to therapy with AI doctor, disappointed, Lucifer’s Hammer, Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre, The Moon And The Sun, The Fountains Of Paradise, his short stories, his early novel, Eric S. Rabkin, good stuff in here, why is it a novel?, novels is where the money is, collaborations, terrible, The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge, Tiamat orbits a black hole, Hegemony, if it is okay, Ringworld Engineers, Beyond The Blue Event Horizon, C.J. Cherryh’s Downbelow Station, Claw Of The Conciliator by Gene Wolfe, Julian May’s The Many Colored Land, Project Pope by Simak, bias against Simak, Foundation’s Edge a book that should not exist, a book that need not be written, very hit and miss, Sword Of The Lictor, Friday by Heinlein, double strength muscular body, the worm turned, wtf?, Brin doesn’t work, nobodies doing nobodies, Anne McCaffrey, 15th Pern book, Robots Of Dawn, Millenium by John Varley, Tea With A Black Dragon by R.A. MacAvoy, an art book, he’s Clark Ashton Smith, art sounds, also cool heist plot, Job: A Comedy Of Justice, Integral Trees, year of Will’s birth, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, The Postman, Cuckoo’s Egg, Will is kinda corny, Footfall, teen in the 80s, Blood Music, the short story is even better, Greg Bear, Speaker For The Dead, Marooned In Realtime by Vernor Vinge, Uplift War, back to the shitty old business, coulda been summed up by Lester Del Rey in 15 minutes, When Gravity Fails, Mormons in space, dogs and apes, dolphins is Brin, The Faithful, as an idea man, he’s ripping off H.G. Wells, hold my beer dead guys, reading screens to the audience, he thinks he’s a the supergenius, doing bad work, why awards are dangerous, put bad thoughts into their heads, triggers Jesse more than doomers, Cyteen, bounced off, first third, masterpiece, most ambitious, I’m like a person who like is going to die, a cloning book, over the course of 22 hours, a very dystopian book, lots of unhappiness, lots of everything, 1990, Dan Simmon’s Hyperion, turned really weird, the sequel might have been better than the first one, steal their titles from poems, stealing the structure, it didn’t have anything to say, it has no message, it didn’t have an idea it was exploring, the characters were interesting, when you’re watching a new tv show, ooh this is promising, try not to get tricked, X-Files used to not do that, weird cases of the week are very rewatchable, the lore shit, Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Vor Game, a series of wins, she’s a good writer, Falling Free, space unions, set in the same universe, the modern era, where things show, A Fire Upon The Deep and The Doomesday Book, what I’m hearing is you hate Willises, cut her down to size, needlessly long, oh Mr. Dunworthy, all her characters are british, she has good ideas, needs an editor carving out big section, [Bellwether] the same topic over and over again, girls go back in time and the Blitz, can’t connect to her, some hot officer, very romantic for a girl, an observation, 1993, a big change in publishing in the 1980s, a big fuckin honker, why this happened in publishing, price of paper, hit a certain price point, spinner racks, longer and thicker, the airport bookstore model, Tom Clancy, James Michener, John Jakes, Kim Stanley Robinson, don’t pay attention, scientistis talking to each other, Beggars In Space by Nancy Kress, an evil book, an evil writer, evil readers, Virtual Light, Mirror Dance, Neal Stephenson, Robert J. Sawyer, doesn’t do characters well, The Diamond Age, nanobot lung, more series, Elizabeth Moon, Starplex, a Star Trek novelization, an episode of Star Trek Continues, addictive series, they won’t punch you in the guts, there’s one missing, a better book?, Forever Peace, more mature, Frameshift, Michael Swanwick, To Say Nothing Of The Dog, the subtitle of Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K. Jerome, kinda Jeevesy, through Heinlein, Connie Willis, Have Space Suit, Will Travel, read this book, Kim by Rudyard Kipling, a movie, filmed in Germany, on LibriVox, revisiting it, post modern age, Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, Darwin’s Radio, unreadable, height of Harry Potter hype, Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson, Calculating God, he used to write science fiction, a lot of people are not science fiction people, fakes, she loves science fiction, Robert J. Sawyer is a science fiction writer, just the ideas, that’s it, nothing else, Neil Gaiman, American Gods, Perdido Street Station, ends with an invite to the next book, done with Sawyer, Paladin Of Souls, Charles Stross, Susanna Clarke, stopping to pay attention, two Irons, met three of these people, China Miéville, Michael Chabon, diminshing returns, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, mainstream stuff leaning in the science fiction direction, The Graveyard Book, Paolo Bacigalupi, you guys hate liberals, The City And The City, Ann Leckie, never have to deal with Hugos ever again, Three Body Problem, N.K. Jeminson again, Mary Robinette Kowal, Murderbots, Arkady Martine, T. Kingfisher, reverse order, retro Hugos, Farenheit 451, a different unimportant novel Z For Zachariah, The Caves Of Steel, heavy quite short, More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon, do your own research, really great actors, just forced, hammerlock, you’re in a vulnerable place in your life, make you more manly, correct and cornily done ending, an interesting think, a learning experience, Hal Clement in 1954, a pretty good list, Childhood’s End, Juett told Will about it, the first version is public domain, 1951, whatever stupid don’t care, just fascist white men winning, Farmer In The Sky beat The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, Heinlein for the win, C.S. Lewis’ most famous novel, Maissa not Will, sad story, you still have an opportunity to read this excellent book The Dying Earth by Jack Vance, a fixup, super episodic, The Mule, The World Of Null-A, always a complete mess, a weaker year, 1945, Leigh Brackett’s Shadow Over Mars, Sirius: A Fantasy Of Love And Discord, Brackett over Stapledon, Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife, Hermann Hesse, Weapon Shops, 1943, Beyond This Horizon, The Uninvited by Dorothy MacArdle, Donovan’s Brain, move on from the Lensman, second stage lensmen, lost their legs now they’re slugging around, 1941, Slan by A.E. Van Vogt, a lot of people have not turned against fans are slans, planets run by women are better than planets run by men, this yes (evil), stay on your meds, final year, 1939, T.H. White’s The Sword In The Stone, Legion Of Time, Out Of The Silent Planet is a blather is space book, best off when it doesn’t happen, I was reading this great book Dad had given me…, make note, Narnia reference, Enid Blyton, court judgement for fraud case, how many of the guys are innocent?, actual numbers, what percentage are guilty?, sneak over to your purse, zero percent innocent?, Rawandan refugee, 4% innocent, most English speakers are guilty, illegal fireworks, drug cases, obviously guilty, prices.

Return From The Stars by Stanislaw Lem

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #443 – I’ll Love You To Death by Lawrence Block

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #443

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss I’ll Love You To Death by Lawrence Block

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

I’ll Love You To Death was first published in Monster Parade, September 1958.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!