Reading, Short And Deep #393
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Primavera by H.P. Lovecraft
Here’s a link to a PDF of the poem.
Primavera was published in The Brooklynite, April 1925.
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The SFFaudio Podcast #747 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Space Viking by H. Beam Piper
The SFFaudio Podcast #747 – Space Viking by H. Beam Piper – read by Mark Nelson for LibriVox. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novel (6 hours 17 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Cora Buhlert, and Jim Kitchen
Talked about on today’s show:
serialized in Analog, November 1962 and February 1963, paperback in 1963, Ace Books, Little Fuzzy, the Scalzi treatment, gently disagree, Michael Whalen covers, homerun painting, a children’s book of Fuzzies, The Cosmic Computer, Lord Kalvan Of Otherwhen, cross dimensional novel, Roger Zelazny, rat hole, popular, used bookstores almost don’t exist, expensive used bookstores, why are those books harder to find?, how much was published, more printings of Space Viking, redoing it, a great inspiration for the Ewoks of Star Wars, Ewok-ish, translated into German, normal Ace printruns, fell into public domain, Jerry Pournelle, The Other Human Race, Uller Uprising, Junkyard Planet, Graveyard Of Dreams, Graveyard Planet is by Clifford D. Simak, a tier down, grabs your lapels, Dr. McCoy, still alive and on twitter with a pipe and gun emoji, it doesn’t work as an idea, obvious three things, two of them, three rules of H. Beam Piper, 1. throwback to historical incident or occasion, Sepoy Mutiny, fated to repeat our mistakes, hey that Hitler guy had some pretty good ideas, the big lie works for me, anti-cancer vaccine, 2. chainsmoking is still a thing, break out the cigarettes, hardboiled science fiction, drinking, gun oil and cleaning rod, firearms, everybody has cap guns in the future, after the crackup, the final war on Earth, only the southern hemispheres are around, race goes out the window, character’s looks don’t match the character’s names, Four Day Planet, Japanese name but looks like a viking, western colonization, whiteman-centric science fiction, go forward from there, the bleeding edge, he’s with Heinlein, a bigger name, Scalzi commented on his blog about it, his estate is in shambles, how amazing his writing is, his reputation has gone up since his death, all the people we don’t remember from the early 20th century, why everyone hates H.P. Lovecraft, standard beliefs, still read today, worse than Lovecraft, not that apparent in the fiction, Henry S. Whitehead, weirdos like us, 60 years since it came out, rotted in great fiction, Three Musketeers, Four Musketeers, character, romance, begins with a gutpunch, qualms with the society is a part of, the darkest motive of all: revenge, find and end him, a little worldbuilding, playing by the same rules, playing fair by those rules, an axe to grind, pschoanalyzing, a self-educated man, doing their hobbies on 500 journeys, history, he has his characters doing that, when not polishing his gun he’s smoking and reading history, a self-made man, somebody who champions the self-made man, a hardscrabble version of Heinlein, pocket money, by his bootstrapping himself, he was a working man, a nightwatchman, his interests, the way he focuses his characters on engaging in intellectual ideas, some massive blindspots but mostly right, a moral horror book, post-apocalyptic and protect my family, 17 books in this series, intellectual heft he’s working through, we’re utter monsters, I know what I’m doing is utterly monstrous, I’ll have a scene where I explain with a little girl and a dog, Beowulf raid, rape and other things, swordworld core values, Gallic law, innocent people, a quote, the Duke of Wellington, Siege of Cádiz, the 30 Years War, ya ya I know, rifles and pistols, they keep on fighting, what would you do in their place, terro-humans are all stupid like that, a massacre, a man made hell, a compulsion to share their guilt, it doesn’t stop him from writing the book, realistic, WWII, WWI, Ukraine war, The Bridge (1959), betrayed by the German Green party, all of the kids die, grew up to be famous actors (and a singer), whenever they swear, swearing by Satan, writing for magazines, “foul unprintability”, Katherine Tarrant, the system states cede, the collapse, the decline, interstellar ability, sick of what’s coming, raid the bones of the Federation, the atrophy that brought down the Federation, the Empire that comes after, Retrun Of The Jedi, Hoth is one of the planets, Dagon, Nergal, named after famous swords, Durandal, Excalibur, cookies, Gram, The Song of the Nibelungs, the Traveler RPG universe, Game Designer’s Workshop, good thing it is public domain, right?, the worst cover art ever, how did a game with such a crappy cover get any traction, Paranoia had great art, Battletech, Mechwarrior, a pox on you, 1976, Logan’s Run, the juggernaut that is Star Wars, Marc Miller, the great blurb on the cover, where D&D was just a box, the storyhook, Space Opera, Fantasy Games Unlimited, Battledroids, FASA, peoplw ere so excited about the blurb on the cover, a literary game, a board games, tabletops games, playing the game smiling, mmm interesting, explore the entire galaxy, ruled mostly by the French, WWIII, the superpower of the stars, Heinlein smoked, Heinlein could quit, Starship Troopers, horror and guns, a massively different book, different foundations, ideological, hobbyistic, a thing to look at, the names, an explanation, Morglay, Omfray, Nikkolay, Andray, this comes up a lot, pig-latin, in Shakespeare, dog become goday, God become Ogday, Google becomes Ooglegay, a game kids play, you have to learn, Ol’Nick, From, Morgue, Rand, a being from the same culture, Rathmore (wrath), playing fun games, giving the game away, a fun game, smart guy, self-made, he wants to be an architect and couldn’t afford to, a couple of different kinds of arches, what a cathedral you’ve built here sir, he only has marble, he can’t build with girders, a powerful intellect without enough time, he’s got to know he’s brilliant, we can all make it, all noble and good and smart, a very American view of history, very Heinleinian, adventurers who wanted adventure, Germans in the 1850s/60s, the 1848 revolution, gold in California, the apprentice who would never be the master, women who couldn’t find husbands, risky, he’s saying the crazy vicious people leave to go viking, slightly supported by a glance at reality, Scandinavia, barbarism and civilization, what would Robert E. Howard would have liked H. Beam Piper and arguing at the bar all night, very nice socialist emotionally cold, hygge, being cozy at home, exported their vicious people, anger makes him go off, dissatisfaction, describing the reality, starvation, new government policies, cleaning the lands, the enclosures, thieving bread, shipped off, exporting his best genes, not fully decided, viciousness and tenderness, from a ground pounder’s point of view, an infantryman, all the best officers start off as regular soliders, a grounding in what reality is, only people who’ve seen war, imagining a future, settled and collapse, barbarian is back baby, neo-barbarians are not the same as the space vikings, Heinlein started off as a socialist, went to seed later, where he’s at is not the mid Heinlein phases, a very sparky engine, rich or even overrich with ideas, Junkyard Planet, A Planet For Texans was a co-production, courtroom stuff, served on a jury?, people who think for themselves, do you have any set ideas?, let me make a list, strong opinions or closeminded, persuadable by argument, spark up, he wants to be a lawyer, he’s making arguments, ideas against monarchy, from the top down, he leans into it, sits down and smokes, what Conan does, similar guys, he was in a working class society, resident working class vs. transient working class, he had to have a trade, dreams are fleeting, solved their problems the same way in the end, amazing but unsupported is crushing, not all business with Howard or Piper, they both think that they’re geniuses, breathing room for characters, the little girl with her dog, arranging all the family dynasties, he likes the romance, having so much fun in this book, the murder of the new bride, the massacre at the wedding, Game Of Thrones’ Red Wedding, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Ian Fleming, different classes, an older trope, people will be doing Heinlein like deep studies on Piper’s books, war with Russia, we are lead by sad idiot clowns, incompetent on purpose, ex-Nazis, semi-competent, what would happen if H. Beam Piper had become a politician?, feeling based ideas, he would want to be a king, not a lot of room for diplomats, Keith Laumer, his standing has much receded over the years, every year that goes by, most writers decline towards the end of their life, later period Asimov, the smart ones stop writing, rising and developing and getting better, if Philip K. Dick was writing today…, you shoulda stopped around 80s man, a better short story writer than a novelist, he works pretty well at the novelette and novel length, ascended, people who want to record his stuff, ebooks with decent covers, people love making the art for his books, Wildside Press, the spinner rack, a whole month of pocket money, the ending, the hallucinations, shot to death, Elaine was with him, be good to her, then she was gone, such a romantic, the chivalry stuff, Howard likes girls and thinking about girls and describing them, Piper is a romantic, his writing style, his grammar is a little bit off sometimes, who says goodbye, Elaine?, its the author, suffering loss, a short brief awful bought with cancer, two ways you go, on off switch or lingering fade, goodbye dad, who is writing this book?, third person, her head against his cheek, one way of reading it, now it finally be said, I can let it all go, I got my revenge and there’s no heaven, it’s not by Trask, it’s by Piper, he’s so crazy, who else would do that?, sometimes it can hurt, a presence throughout the book, appears to him multiple times, in order for the plot to happen, fridging, he breaks the rule of the narration, reframing the whole book, that’s something on the page, lain in ruins, forays to loot the corpse, wealth of detail, how it has all fallen apart, if you wanna understand piper, set during the Federation, seams and threads, natural disintegration, key peices of the Piper library, a lot of himself into it, Jerry Pournelle: Piper was a craftsman, Uller Uprising, set in a common universe, let three authors loose, Twayne Triplet [The Petrified Planet], how these chartered companies work, an analog to the East India Company, sequential order, Space Viking‘s sense of romance, Piper in his prime, he’s put himself into the protagonist’s shoes, agree and disagree, Jesse’s thesis, Fletcher Pratt, Judith Merrill, humour stories, public domain but we didn’t know, it helps your career, hidden behind a paywall of an estate that renewed, Condé Nast, good and bad, still Junkyard, very different, a different girl, Adept’s Gambit, Night’s Black Agents, trans people and gay people in the mid-1930s, Gideon Marcus, Galactic Journey, comparable to Foundation [by Isaac Asimov], good at short stories and bad at novels, Asimov’s characters, big honking series novels, late period novels, horrendously bad, James Lovelock, Arthur C. Clarke, genetically engineered weapon, great ideas, three stages, the setup, the last third, the left turn to Albuquerque, courtroom drama, he’s right most of the time, reinforced from Terra, a hunt through pornographic romantic fiction, sketching on notes, meanwhile his mind is percolating along, interesting to read and not typical novels, the most straight up book he’s got, sell Jesse on Four Day Planet, the closest to juvenile fiction, let’s book it, sea-monsters and unions, one of Piper’s greatest jokes in it, a dad joke, fun, twitter is weird right now, Games Workshop, the worlds largest toy soldier company, Microsoft, stat at home dad, Illinois, tired of moving, all that wonderful stuff, a mover’s worst nightmare, Rivian, surrounded by where the car industry is leaning, why some materials are so important, Amazon delivery vehicle has a panic button, a very science fictional thing, something you’d find in a Heinlein novel, third parties to deliver packages, majority minority employing, the drivers love them, gigantic windshield, mid 50s, make friends with young people, a really good plan, pained but smiling, if you didn’t like her…, German post, electric vehicles, more and more, a facility in Vancouver, Calgary, The Sentry Box, sleep in a teepee, Coquitlam, outside Minneapolis, The Source, Tower Games, great game stores, 1300 game stores, the ones that survive, Staten Island, The Complete Strategist, comic book stores were hit hard by COVID, [Hourglass Comics] leaned into gaming, Diamond Distribution, 18-24 months, Comic World, Huntington, West Virginia, burns everything to ash, Pokemon trades, the black and white bust of the late 80s, a bookstore, they’ve got the space, literally 1 block away from light rail, Evan Lampe doesn’t understand toys, Cora’s got all the He-Mans, Funkopops, scarred by Diddl Mice, Beanie Babies killed an industry, Edmonton, Eternita playset, you deserve it, Rotterdam, they didn’t want to take the hint, you were always watching something, every single Ninja Turtle ever made, you have to keep doing, you can’t overcoming the inertia, Battle Cat, a slippery slope, now they need a Skeletor, Target and Walmart exclusives, I shall make you a queen amongst all the others, new Masters Of The Universe figures, want list, Lego minifigs, little H.P. Lovecraft stories scenes, Playmobil, some amazing stuff, Nativity Scene, general appeal, people are Christians, an A-Team Playmobil, there are no children who have ever seen The A-Team, this is a product that is marketed to adults, adult toys, not the kind you get at the sex shop, Star Trek, nobody sits down with their kid and says let’s watch some A-Team, German only jokes, George Peppard, Perry Rhodan, a series, audio dramas, not huge in North America, its not New Wave, Dan Dare, the morass of Doc Savage, small magazines, dime novels, lucky to have a newsstand, John Sinclair, the biggest science fiction series in the world, almost no impact in North America, an institution, issue 2254, a very robust industry in central Europe, a fan in Italy, Urania, similar in style, great art, pretending to be American, so wonderful, found some long lost friends, we’ve all lost some books you’ve read, Worlds Without Number, Jack Vance’s Tschai, remix everything, Jack Vance integral edition, nobody has the money to buy it, hear about Urania, all the Italian Giallo movies, Italian crime magazines, other European countries, romance and westerns, for the old men, back issues of various pulp magazines, Cora’s main comic store, elderly ladies coming in, romance novels, a lesbian elderly couple, lesbian bookstores are very common, that same collector trait that men more often have, lesbian couples, comics and games don’t pay the rent, the sextoy shopped, they’re in it for the books but the sex-toys sell, 90% of the profits, there’s a joke to be made hand over fist, Playmobil Perry Rhodan, he’s still in very good condition, one of the first ones, Jesse’s theory: Hummels are to the 1950s as Playmobil is to the 2020s, collectible doll,
Rocket Ship Galileo, some cookies, caught COVID in the hospital for the second time, wearing masks, negative tests, she never caught COVID at home, we’re being lied to.
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Reading, Short And Deep #392 – The Deep Hole To China by Robert Sheckley
Reading, Short And Deep #392
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Deep Hole To China by Robert Sheckley
Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.
The Deep Hole To China was published in Fantastic Universe, June 1955.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!
The SFFaudio Podcast #746 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Shadows In Zamboula by Robert E. Howard
The SFFaudio Podcast #746 – Shadows In Zamboula by Robert E. Howard – read by Mark Nelson for LibriVox. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (1 hour, 26 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Connor Kaye, Alex, and Cora Buhlert
Talked about on today’s show:
Weird Tales, November 1935, The Man-Eaters Of Zamboula, a better title?, conforms to the Weird Tales title aesthetic, the problem, a second meaning, shadows is nebulous, cannibals, all in one night, just before dusk, the evening, a little sleep, a naked lady, a little adventure, buys a horse, leaves town, the magic ring, a roomful of gold, it makes a person irresistible to the opposite sex, lesbians are acknowledged, a gay subtext in one scene, the strangulation, Baal-Ptor, any temple wench, devil dick, the Hannuman temple, a penis, a strangle-off, his boss calls him that, that’s pretty gay, a great scene, I started with babies, and he dies, pro-cannibal, who is put in what position and why, Mark Nelson, Aram Baksh, Ralph Bakshi?, a lot of mistakes in various people’s analysis, he’s not bearded in Savage Sword, the Ablaze, he’s a bum, they’re companions, Bedouin, a middle eastern , they’re on a team, stole a horse from the satrap, don’t stay there, hookah bar, gambling den, the sword maker’s bazaar, yelp reviews, unchronicled adventures, random desert tribes, the kind of thing he tends to do, Doctor Who, for plot purposes, what city it was supposed to be, Constantinople, the western edge of Turan, Mosul, Palmyra, the comic version, Conan recognized her from the start, assumptions, 2nd to last Conan stories, he knows what’s up, full of things that should trigger people and alleviate those things, supple warriors, hawk-faces, the lords of Zamboula, ancient glories, over reading much, glowering about ancient glories, flaunting their myriad colours, loving, towers and minarets, an infodump we need to be surprised lady, judging, smote is a negative, they’ll think he’s a wizard and eat Paul, delighted as all heck, but it might stink, open sewers, third world places, Kathmandu and Nepal, loud, the Ottoman Empire, multiculturalism, hybrids and mongrels, Cross Plains, Texas, modern day Lebanon, influenced the crusader stories, cities are described negatively, civilization is corrupt, what’s cool about this story, everybody’s got their angle, subsidize sales by selling the stuff of his guests, Robert Bloch, an H.H. Holmes story, Solomon Kane, A Rattle Of Bones, The Inn In The Spessart aka The Spessart Inn by Wilhelm Hauff, join our gang or we’ll kill you, film adaptation, how they got put into that position, meat as part of their religion, let out at night like cats, steal from their masters, as they should, our heroine, they’re too valuable, they’re our property, Zamboula is dependent on their slaves, let them eat travelers and street people, Nefertari, secure her position, what happened and her story, she makes it up on the spot, the Ablaze adaptation, literally naked, her hair is covering stuff, a standard trope, the R-rated, a loin cloth, we never see a nipple, important to understand, of course we want titillation, her clothes would giver her away, silken robe, a slave who’s mute, she’s just lied to that guy, you can trust him he’s not a man-eater, Aram Baksh gets his tongue cut off, don’t eat me!, the moral, the better put together this story is, a murder mystery, set piece scenes, a conan pastiche person, The Curse Of The Monolith just rips off that hole idea, magnetic table, the Virgin Conan The Barbarian computer game, a worldwide phone company, a DOS game, a bridal sword, live out the fantasy, Virgin Bride, a bug, what we see in the Conan movie, what’s in the comics, somebody did some research, you’d lose your sword, slip that ring off the finger, he doesn’t tell us until the end, very well put together, looking for something, Conan has already stolen it, worldbuilding and setting, oh yeah that’s right, back to Paul in a flash, an article, Charles R. Saunders, quibbles, all of Sword And Sorcery, as a black person, fascinated by Africa, boxing fans, a bad website, Howard vs. Lovecraft and Clark Asthon Smith, Black Gate, Bob Byrne, Steven H. Silver, why Man Eaters Of Zamboula is the best of all time, the most quintessential, is that defensible?, the most Conan of the Conan stories, best ever written, best story of all time, compelling points here and there, part of a contest they’re having, when you’re arguing for something like that, worse stories by Robert E. Howard, worried about getting this one, a terrific story, Vale Of Lost Women, with some issues, a higher high within it, this isn’t even close, Red Nails, Queen Of The Black Coast, what happens, become more refined, word choices, a mighty theme, the theme in here is strong, what you need to do in life is be the smartest man in the room and have strong hands, offering sex, this story undercuts our expectations and goes away with a bag of cash, getting tired of writing Conan, an amazing finish, really interesting thesis in the center, laser beams, magnets, electrical magnets, the magic in here, science, superscience, radium gems, the priest is all gadgets, toned down, science or magic, cannibal slaves, the colours are more muted than other Conan stories, the setting, he gambled it away, he knew what he was doing, brawn, smarts and skill, a complete Conan, a stupid brute, play dumb, subvert your expectations, fresh to civilization, a Conan who’s seen some things, wily Conan, miles under his belt, confident enough in himself, professional strangler, an intense scene, Conan the conartist, The Jewels Of Gwahlur, Pelishtim, the mercenaries that guard the city, Nefertari, Nefartinti, Stygian, worships Set, the monkey god, on the cover of Savage Sword, clothes on and blonde, the scary monkey god, his representative, his boss,lusting after our girl, Yog, the Darfari slave god, Crom, Erlik, competing ideologies, some to swear with, strong demands, promote human happiness, sacrifices, go to the casino and lose all your cash, every man the strengths of his hands, a god for atheists, cosmicism without reference to the cosmic, prayer doesn’t make any sense, what would Evan say?, what the slaves are thinking, it fuckin sucks to be a slave but we get to have a religion, foreign bastards who are enslaving us, I’m the guy who sells you bodies to eat, they want to revolt, leave the citizens away, their shields on their back, the most powerful woman in the city, Hanuman’s temple, the heart of the story, marble walls, there’s no gate, each building has its own wall, horns, an Agatha Christie sort of scene, barbarian senses, a high perception tense, the reason he has such good hand sensing is because he’s a meat-eater, not a human meat eater, to get revenge, a man-eater too, a secret door, a giant hand, little maze, our guy sitting on a divan, back and forth allusions, The Odyssey, the guest host relationship, a really big theme, a bad relationship with the guest or the host, when they get broken bad things happen, the host comes home, Circe’s island, turn my men not into pigs, a reinforcement of this value system, how to be in a person’s space, that’s what we have here, taken by many different owners, a rival, this door is barred from the inside, climb over the wall, that pit, the slaves can leave the city, they can’t leave, they’ll die, imagine this: and we do, sexual stuff, dragon fight, stuck in somebody else’s feud, more adventures, a central core, he’s really saying something here, who else can do that with this material?, role playing things, Stygian origins, Turan, nightstalking Darfari cannibals, covetously eyes, intrigue and adventure, compared to Shadizar the Wicked, a spider god at the center of it, John Milius stole from every story, he stole from the best, Set’s temple, springing up in all the cities nearby, a power struggle, I salute you, I got a job for you, go get my daughter, snake vs. elephant, sneak into the temple, the satrap is going to be happy, rage induced coma, captain of the guard, its a job, she dosed him, she’s bad, everybody here is bad, a woman naked in the city, slightly deceiving, I’m sorry I lied to you, Conan doesn’t react, Conan doesn’t ever lie, not being chivalrous, nobody has any honour, he saves her from the cannibals, they were stealing her, if they ate the mistress, supplant the satrap, ruled by his mistress, went wild and tore her clothes off, street bum prophesying doom, his hand on Conan’s arm, speaking to him as a brother, a mini-version of the whole piece, his instinct for story is better than almost anybody, writing for a particular market, the chapters and the headings and the nude scene, the scenes that he has to have, the girl threatened by a magician, a similar scene, this ancient mummy, People Of The Black Circle, pretending to be a statue, clothes swap, a whipping scene or something, if he doesn’t get the cover he doesn’t get the bonus, magic, not in The Hour Of The Dragon, all the cities have wizards, John Dee scrying on his mirror, they fucked up, resurrection is a bad plan, that’s how Christianity started, self-ressurection, Jewel Of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker, a pretty damn good story, the Ablaze adaptation, naked the whole story, the art, black god, wonderfully portrayed, undialogued pages, Æon Flux, she looked off the whole book, to actually depict it, naked as the day she was born, a person naked in an unwalled city, at the end, she drops her lover off, is it because every piece of clothing would give away who she is?, giving Margaret Brundage a chance, the cover with the cobras, not unusual for her, how she normally dresses, that very pale skin, on a pirate ship topless, pale is beauty, the guy grew up in Texas, not a wise idea, shock the other guys by flashing them, she’s acting as a goddess, the colour distinction, the palest of pale skins with black hair, Cora is trying to make it make sense, a magic toe ring, breast bobbing, at night, hide from the Pelishtim, when we see the guy’s eyes, contrast with Conan, gets a feel, resisting eating her, playing off each other, lascivious men, the priest wants her to be his, a friend who says look bud, a man who drinks to much is crazy, tearing her clothes off, minutes ago, dragged away from his own bed, not the first time it happens to him, Black Colossus too, a nice theme, as is the reader, puts off his vengeance, a side story, get your priorities straight, save the boyfriend, kill this priest, her motivation is no one can no, I need an outsider, Vera Cruz (1954), Burt Lancaster at his hottest, don’t do that movie with Burt Lancaster, Gary Cooper, he’ll blow you off the screen, old cracked faced men in westerns, way more charismatic, the main attraction, the plot is kinda similar, mercenaries from the American Civil War, working for Emperor of Mexico, an Austrian guy, see each other at this dance, a beef with a high mucky-muck, the glove, you’re not even important, give each other the chin nod, the Kirk and Bones gif, Denise Darcel, Sara Montiel, cowboys not European royalty, why westerns are really cool, stole a horse, shooting each other in the streets, the Winnetou stories, River Of No Return (1954), Duel In The Sun (1946), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), meta-westerns, a baby across the desert, when is Connor gonna do Howard’s western stories?, how many westerns there were, Steve Costigans, Breckenridge Elkins, his bread and butter, better and more promptly, Action Stories, Fight Stories, a bigger market, niche, how many western TV shows, a legacy, leftovers, westerns now, spaghetti westerns, silent westerns, Western Von Gestern, what Alex Baldwin tried to do, the way TV was supposed to look, westerns or war movies, all the men were old, pulp westerns, Zane Grey novels, short stories from the pulps, something you have to come to appreciate, a set of tropes, its a genre, values that are different, follow the law, follow orders, soccer match on Christmas, what happened to the guys who did it?, war movies serve a purpose, westerns are bottom up, American mythology, do they study SF at university now?, do they study westerns?, Astounding is the training for our engineers, leave town, go to the west, a national mythology, looking backwards, Clint Eastwood, looking at the future, a generation after the west was closed out, the kids or the grandkids of the generation being portrayed, they don’t study romances at university, specialized academics, finding a science fiction class was pretty hard, the Women’s Studies, looking down because it is bottom up, and some women, Range Romances, one of the longest running pulps, Railroad Stories, railroad fiction, you want a union? fuck you, good pay, high tech, like being a truck driver, dangerous, long hours, no time off, bad healthcare, Germany vs. Australia, considered a good job, a secure job, capitalism hasn’t taken over Germany completely, Space Viking by H. Beam Piper, four weeks in a row, people have weird desires, women, man, The Venom Business by Michael Crichton, Rocket Ship Galileo by Robert A. Heinlein, Unseen-Unfeared by Francis Stevens, The Hopkins Manuscript, Alec Nevala-Lee, The Crawlers by Philip K. Dick, The Golden Slave by Poul Anderson, off to farmville, Skull Face, a Steve Harrison story Names In The Black Book, Coming Attraction by Fritz Leiber, never been done before, don’t waste Connor, on Conan duty or Robert E. Howard duty, The Thing On The Roof, a cool description, hear the nipples on the roof, Robert E. Howard doing H.P. Lovecraft, “Hooves In The Night”, Unaussprechlichen Kulten, German speakers, a Justin Joffrey poem, August Derleth, wonky, Canadian public domain, M.S. Corley art, comic book adaptation, a Marvel Chillers version, weird tales sort of material, you get hooked, Howard via Conan, gonna make you a Nazi, Lancer paperbacks, really good, pastiche, boxers who go sailing, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, based on publication date and renewal, nothing to do with death, Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison, Condé Nast, work for hire, hero pulps, written under house names, Howard horror, Pigeons From Hell, Old Garfield’s Heart, Steve Costigan, Francis X. Gordon, a useful resource, Mark Finn, the far future, The Devil’s Elixir by E.T.A. Hoffmann, an early robot story, The Sandman, ignore the interesting good for the dull, unsuitable for teenagers, 12 hours 24 minutes, four months, E.T.A. Hoffmann and Edgar Allan Poe, doppelgangers, this story is that story minus all the long parts, The Oval Portrait, a lot of overlap, Poe inspired The Student Of Prague (1913), retreat on the shore of Lake Geneva, Bohemian ghost stories, German romanticism and gothic literature, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Influence Of E.T.A Hoffmann On Edgar Allan Poe, Connor is sick, regular sick, Hard Case Crime, epub or mobi or PDF, Google Books, look at screens all day long, screens less, had you not known a pirate…, 3kb, a remainder bookstore, ebook device technology, eink colour is not rich, snow?, vasculitis, autobahn, bahn means train.
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Reading, Short And Deep #391 – Brknk’s Bounty by Jerry Sohl
Reading, Short And Deep #391
Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Brknk’s Bounty by Jerry Sohl
Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.
This story was published in Galaxy, January 1955.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!
The SFFaudio Podcast #745 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Moon Maid by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The SFFaudio Podcast #745 – The Moon Maid by Edgar Rice Burroughs – read by Thomas A. Copeland for LibriVox. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novel (6 hour 17 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, and Alex
Talked about on today’s show:
Argosy, May 5, 1923, 1926 hardback, two sequels, Paul feels seen, The Moon Men was drafted first, this prequel instead, a setup for a part 2, a communist takeover of the world, Moon Men taking over the world, communist moon men, the Martians aren’t communists, a tie in, hard to get the original magazines, the ad for The Moon Maid, from late April, remarkable imaginative powers, his latest and most fascinating, desolate barren, forbidding, stellar waste, a vivid gripping story, Thursday May 3, 1923, writing to an audience who already knows about John Carter, the John Carter movie, name drop, already in his universe, a different mindset, a different appreciation, not the best place to start with ERB, expecting something they’d already read, standard Burroughs planetary romance, a twist, this isn’t what I signed up for, this cool premise, finally at peace, no such thing as time, 200 years from now, and all my other lives, maybe I’ll tell you later, when we’re both cats, the prologue, not the best Edgar Rice Burroughs books, Tarzan Of The Apes, At The Earth’s Core, Carson of Venus [Pirates Of Venus], Barney Custer, The Mad King, the poorest one in terms of excitement and action, still okay, don’t be sorry, a bit of a disappointment, the dynamic of a hero character who’s always forgiving his enemy who’s always betraying him, this Burroughs character is very dim, we all know she loves him, strange looks, covers, six limbed centaurs, they’re quadrupeds, Gutenberg Australia, four limbs, Frazetta, J. Allen St. John did it, a girl with wings, they have no tails, Frazetta never read any of the books he did covers for, tails, my god sir, something about it that looked human, long limbed bears with human faces, Edgar Rice Burroughs Fan Twitter, vagas, very wide, very different with centaurs, they are much more like bears or dogs, they are definitely not centaurs, half man half horse, more alien, how do they put their clothes on?, if centaurs wear clothes…, little kids riding, the diminutive, goat like, riding on the backs of their moms, so many interesting threads and ideas, science fiction, but he doesn’t care about science, made of radium, science marches on, radium cream, radium enema, glows on the inside, the whole interior thing, recycling, an old tweet, Burroguhs is teaching us not to think, a religious state, H.G. Wells, the two poles of modern fantasy defined, what’s out there, man?, dry and desiccated, just beneath the surface!, The First Men In The Moon by H.G. Wells is a terrific book, rays, a mad professor and a journalist, very Flash Gordon, inimitable Wells style, light and silly, Cavorite, a rock or a metal when unshielded turns up gravity, anti-gravity, suck your way to the moon, push or pull your way to that object, hollow Moon, insects, tremendous strength, a reverse invasion of the Earth, the British Empire, taking their guns out onto the moon, finally at peace, murder as many as he could, Pax Anglo Saxonia, I need more weapons, they point their weapon at an animal, going hunting big game, I’m a master fencer because of course I am, hunt things, conquer and subdue, The Invisible Man is interesting and powerful and well done (but not very fun), a horror movie, Kevin Bacon in The Hollow Man, not a friendly story, pathetic in the end, I have ghost powers, I’m cold and my feet hurt, The Ring Of Gyges from Plato, a pseduoscientific explanation, [The Island Of] Doctor Moreau is morose, The Time Machine is super-interesting, Wells is hard, he always writes assholes, about as light and fluffy as it gets, enslaved by the insect men, gold chains, head explodes in a puff of powder, I can do that too, it’s a romance, he finds an ant lady on the Moon and falls in love, a moth lady, the wings are fake, they don’t have a model of feathers, bats or butterflies or winged toads, the most beautiful toad princess on the satellite, Friend Island by Francis Stevens, same setup, exact same period, All-Story Weekly, able-sailoresses of the poorer type, the lady aviator’s union, a survivor of the age of turbines, a true seawoman, women’s superiority to man, enginewomen and stokers, blue knickers and boleros, women are in charge, that’s why there’s world peace!, an island that was aleive and hated men, a peace ship, the exact same premise, the promise of the League Of Nations, jaw jaw instead of war war, only women can do it, it will only take 50 years of continuous war, he foresaw a lot more war, is he right?, we think of WWII (only 4 years), or China, the Spanish Civil War, Hearts Of Iron, a Paradox game, launched into another conflict, does the Cold War count?, 1967 we’re done, technically that’s what it is, a textbook written 300 years from now, the 100 years war, every summer, sniping at each other, the campaign, a whole different thing, its all one thing, what will the 20th century to a historian in 2192?, starting to fix the terms, time doesn’t have any meaning, the war against Napoleon is a world war, World War Zero, why is WWI called WWI?, the Great War, another Franco Prussian War, entangling alliances, WWIII now, the world wasn’t in the kind of communication that it was, there’s no radio, theater of operations, S.M. Stirling’s Island In The Sea Of Time novels, leftover old technology, we’ve invented a world war, sufficient fighting in the Napoleonic Wars, trans-Atlantic, nothing in the Pacific, Japan and Russia, WWI in the Pacific, tired of continuous war, this other aspect, this one guy is able somehow to see his other lives, he always reincarnates as his own grandson, the planetary species barrier, hinted at, exact verbiage, he’s going to know her, a lunatic, that girl lived them with me, Time capital T, another adventure?, how he is remembering all of this, after we eat you and take your flesh away, their child can remember all his lives backwards and forwards, a funny way to get into this adventure, A Princess Of Mars, he just walks out of a magic cave and says take me, he astrally projects himself there, handwaved, naked, plot happens, he meets some six limbed creatures, taught by a female, a Mars maid, exact same plot, making friends with the six-limbed monsters, a terrific book, Tarzan is fine, tempted to read the Barsoom books, way more romantic, much more exciting, its the future, another future, I lived again in the future, in a shipped called Barsoom, tie-in branding, a shared universe, just change my name, 12 years long service, the wounded badge, he’s an admiral, set in 1967, how does this even make any sense, a received document, a reporter in the future, writing them back in time, the outer narrator is Edgar Rice Burroughs’ grandson, very nested and internal and silly, and the best part, reincarnated on the Moon and the Earth, marrying a Moon man, there is no originated, we’re all existing at the same, can’t transgender, all these evidences, Paul’s headcanon, the evidence in the book, a sample size of two (aka 100 percent), Babylon 5, a space opera universe, J. Michael Straczynski, Valen goes back in time and does something with Minbari souls, read a lot of stuff, I can do this better, John Sheridan, Gandalf the White, the King Arthur, the pit of Zahadum, he’s reborn as Gandalf the White, very Tolkien, wars of good against evil, Alfred Bester, an alien race named after Neil Gaiman (the Gaim), Harlan Ellison, Penn and Teller, there’s some bad stuff in Babylon 5, actively nosediving, back to the Moon, pants means crap, 100 miles an hour trip, he does not understand what it means to travel through space, 15 years of food, even with a Hohmann Transfer Orbit, a very narrow view of how many people are on a planet, Event Horizon (1997), everyone else is dead, his poor wife, a 17 year old boy and two lieutenants, not talking to human resources about personality problems, bringing Moon People to earth, the captain knew, 40 percent of the crew hate each other, I’m gonna kill us all, bad Burroughs, throwing stuff out, he wants to get somewhere else, standard Burroughs ideas, the sequel, that’s the problem with it, trying to set the stage, it shows, Burroughs is always exciting, mutiny on the Moon, get the story moving, meeting new peoples, it goes smooth, his best book?, all the people at the CIA who hate communists, anti-communist book, finding communism on the moon, I am not a slave, I am a prisoner, I have never seen your like before, a little criticism of his critics, I am from Laith, why all this Enmity, who are the Kalkars anyway, the word meaning the thinkers, a long time ago we were all non-communists, the Vagas we bred for flesh, electricly driven trains, ships of the land, The Land Ironclads, visualized, each ruled by it jem’hadar, Deep Space Nine, the children of the poor, there it was our troubles first started, no learning is better than a little, a small coterie, a secret society called the thinkers, those who thought that they thought, more talking than thinking, those goddamn commies, the poor people come from a lower class, so weak, with all of his underlining, we’re gonna do land reform, educate ourselves, end WWI, then the cows rose up and ate them, they’re carnivorous cows, Jesse likes cannibalism, he became fine with it, when he kisses her he’s like mmm tastes like my friend, Robert A. Heinlein, popular in the period, Typee by Herman Melville, Stranger In A Strange Land, the Jesus story, The Number Of The Beast, in the Martians in general, you don’t get Heinlein without Burroughs, cannibalism on Barsoom, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, tiresome, Farnham’s Freehold, assume there’s cannibalism, disquieting, enlightened, idyllic, H.P. Lovecraft’s The Mound, a utopia with a lot of slavery, a Spanish conquistador discovers an underground civilization, fuckin liars, an iterative improvement, raises the game so much, Paul’s not gonna neg people, CIA trolls, a weak way to go, Richard A. Lupoff, the best non-series, P. Schuyler Miller, from Analog 1970, near Mad King level, Tarzan novels, The Monster Men, Beyond Thirty, The Land That Time Forgot, At The Earth’s Core, maybe The Cave Girl is no good, defrosted neanderthal, we’re gonna frost him later, The Mucker, a deliberate throwback, nutty nuggets, alive into WWII, his legacy is gonna be not so Tarzany, an uncountable number of Tarzan books, that company, producing official books, a little symbol on the cover indicated “this is canon”, if Burroughs wrote it is it really canon?, didn’t care about that, he wasn’t a Star Wars fan, the Wookipedia, we’re the farm corporation we make food, certified food, this label you can trust, there’s no new canon, unless you dig up an old book, like we get with For Us The Living, Dune, the old dead Dune guy, Frank, high end fanfiction, the John Gregory Betancourt, a small world after all, there’s not that many people reading these old books, a John Carter tv show?, they can’t own the IP in the same way, Disney is a legal machine, they just buy IP, a Brandon Sanderson series, we had Xena, John Woo’s The Iliad, Troy (2004) with Brad Pitt, Alexander (2004) was pretty weak, Kingdom Of Heaven (2005), we’re fighting at dawn, balloons and blunderbusses, random blacksmith, the least interesting character, Ridley Scott’s The Moon Maid, Tony Scott died, all 72 Avatar movies, James Cameron, not wasting his time, Burroughs wasted his time with his Tarzan, he succeeded, make art, lot of reasons people to hate H.P. Lovecraft but crass commercialism isn’t one of them, Robert E. Howard, despite being actively commercial… he manages to be amazing, given his circumstances, you have my blessing, a trap of getting too excited about the cash, James Cameron is eating well, a billion dollars a pop, its his baby, he said I’m done, he should be, just a setup for the next one, more churn, not everything is equal, opeople can be wrong, Napoleon for Apple TV, Joaquin Phoenix playing Napoleon, three 35mm cameras side by side, a cast of millions, silent films get no respect, House Of Gucci (2021), All The Money In The World (2017), Alien: Covenant (2017), The Martian (2015), Exodus: Gods And Kings, The Councillor, Prometheus, the auto-doc, Robin Hood with Russel Crowe, A Good Year, Matchstick Men, Hannibal (2001), Gladiator (2000), G.I. Jane (1997), White Squall (1996), out of Blockbuster, 1492: Conquest Of Paradise (1992), Black Rain (1989), a some guy goes to Japan finds it an alien planet movie, Wesley Snipes and Sean Connery in Rising Sun (1993), Michael Crichton, Someone To Watch Over Me (1987), Tom Berenger and Mimi Rogers, Legend (1985), Blade Runner (1982), Alien, The Duelists (1977), I like those actors, across the border with very long swords, communism wins!, some Moon Maid cartoon, weird anime shit, escaflowne?, asagai?, portal fantasy is big in anime, whole subgenres of anime, professionally into weird shit, manga, Starblazers, Robotech, read it backwards, generational?, we’re too old, we’d have to learn a lot to get it, give me your best anime movies, Akira (1988) has style but the story is shit, give me your best classic, Royal Space Force: Wings Of Honneamise (1987), Wings of Mayonnaise is more like it, what’s your favourite American movie?, two kids fall in love playing Street Fighter, high score girl, the board games anime subgenre, the voice of Sailor Moon, Princess Mononoke (1997), celebrating peace day, what are we gonna do with ourselves?, net twenty years, correspondence with Mars, down with Mars medicine, we loves the Mars manga even if we have to read it upside down, everyone is naked, can you have a cultural experience via wireless telegraphy with another planet?, wait 500 years before Shogun comes out, they wear weird clothes and have no furniture but are otherwise just like us, whippersnappers get off my lawn, I got a deadline here, rushing through his old tropes, it doesn’t hang as a whole, “yeah, so I’m basically a Highlander, and I wind up on Mars, let’s go”, what’s with the problems with astral projection? that’s part of being a Highlander, a good excuse, a framing device, the most fun parts, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Oval Portrait is mostly framing device, this newspaper report is in the future, Maissa was all in, always a bit weak with ecosystem, a playground, all the rocks glow, the water, he half-asses worlds into existence, peril from the falls, the strength of the Earth men, not stunningly stronger, jump out of a crater, bottomless pit, circumstantial evidence, The Menace From Earth is about a moon maid, a striking image, a lot more flapping or soaring in dreams, bird ancestors, flying toad ancestors, Paul has tetropod ancestors, ped pod, actual centaurs, following the book, committed at least to that, centaurs are cool, that’s why we want to see the ancient mythology visualized, Rocket Robin Hood and The Mighty Hercules, Prince Caspian has cool battle scenes, epic battle scenes, tonally dissonant, the centaurs looked good, a Christian television network, The Golden Compass, anti-theist, and this is why there’s no god, very Ayn Rand, a Tolkien fest, a director who hated fantasy and a screenwriter who never read the book, a British Christmas special, a solid miniseries, this 1/6th gravity book, prejudiced against manly barbarians, might be a girl thing, Space Viking by H. Beam Piper, Jim Kitchen, Chronicles Of Amber, the ghost of Roger Zelanzy, The Venom Business, Rocket Ship Galileo, moon-Nazis, with the help of an old man, New Mexico or Arizona, 1948, Iron Sky (2012), The Adventures Of Brad Pitt’s Ex-Wife, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), diesel-punk, totenkopf, take care, Unseen-Unfeared by Francis Stevens, The Heads Of Cerberus, my turn will come, The Hopkins Manuscript by R.C. Sherriff, trying to make this book a thing, the Moon collides with the Earth, a historical document, poultry breeding, eaten by an owl, not a suspect, slept through the murder, the British Lunar Society, the truth can no longer be denied, villagers dig trenches and play cricket before the end of days, The Last Policemen by Ben H. Winters, a tv series out of the UK, a movie, a recent science fiction movie, Moonfall (2022), Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (2022), genuine humans, box office is down 50%, turn the machine off, we couldna foreseen that, the verdict was I’m tired, a setup for the next one, looking good never looked so good, in 3D, make good movies, make the theatrical experience cheap, if there were movies that were good, put some old movies in the theater for a change, the suburbs, a very old theater with really bad seats, a pain in the ass, El Mariachi (1992) and Bad Lieutenant (1992), Treasure Island, Shakespeare’s Planet, something Paul will hate, a Jordan Peterson movie, Camille Paglia, I agreed with your about everything, she’s nodding her head the whole time, Evan’s really mad, they need to read more Marx, I need to read any Marx, his economics is worse than Burroughs’ science, this is what capitalism is doing to people, the way money works, The Communist Manifesto, where to start with Karl Marx, you’re racist you should read more Marx!, you’re no help at all, ask Will, Will shoulda been on this one, he’s not on twitter much, a serious cat wrangling problem, overtaken by felines, most people want to play computer games and escape reality, life sucks I have to work, cats that need to be neutered, the latest one, $600,000 year rent to his dad’s house, that’s the 10% for the big guy, nothing will come of it, its only corrupt when Trump does it, we’re living in the corrupt times, it will go on for centuries, corruption was called business, just have to get used to it or go herd cats, Jesse’s mom has a bull now, one cow two heifer’s and a bull, a cow in heat every three weeks (or months), a long brooding cycle, to make more delicious cows, is there a cow in the field outside?, I bought a cow, there’s not stopping these women, magic beans, an adventure that never happened to Alex, steals from the giant, the golden goose, they were the disinherited, getting his goose back, you have to accept being a peasant, no, I’m going to reach for the sky, folktale vs. fairytale, what Hans Christian Anderson does, Cinderella vs. Puss In Boots, Charles Perrault, how many pages deep?, this part was fun, knocked it out in a day, it had good bits, some of them are not great, some of the knockoffs by other authors, The First Men In The Moon, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Fu-Manchu, Alan Moore steals everything, he’s better than a lot, a weird Alan Moore take, before he quit comics finally, Garth Ennis’ Crossed, zombie sperm or saliva, anti-Christian sort of thing, like any zombie plague, eating people and walking funny, takes away all your goodness, any pain you inflict makes you orgasm, that’s really bad, the premise is strong, a shitload of money, 100 years in the future, human society has been injured by this terrible plague, stronger than most zombie films, oh that’s terrible, when the mother wants to have sex with her own son, all the mean things, that’s Garth Ennis being a monster, mutated, killed off in their excstasies, the main character is a scholar, reading her journal, he’s invented a new language, word substitution all over the place, A Clockwork Orange, milkbars and rape scenes, a high level comic, a science fiction survey, very Alan Moorey, V For Vendetta, the novelization is better than the movie or the comic, some audacious stuff, Providence by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows, you can be a flawed person like Jordan Peterson and still have something valuable to say, sorry about that mini-lecture there, Crossed Plus 100, don’t go on the internet and type in Crossed and Garth Ennis, sorry, horror comic, if you can survive that there’s nothing else that can hurt you, stronger shuddering in a corner, enjoy your Roof Bear calendar.
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