Alfred Bester – Page 2

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.

All-Story Weekly - The Moon Maid by Edgar Rice Burroughs

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The SFFaudio Podcast #740 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Pursuit by Lester Del Rey

The SFFaudio Podcast #740 – Pursuit by Lester Del Rey – read by Dale Grothman for LibriVox. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novel (1 hour 59 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Tony DeSimone.

Talked about on today’s show:
Space Science Fiction, May 1952, he was the editor, his editorial, a new baby, growth and development, a personality of its own, the most appropriate name, themes, we like good science fiction, final frontier, space opera has long since been overdone, to meet every challenge to spread throughout the universe, always a bad sign, extension in all directions, indefinite indivisibility, occasional fantasy, still countless fine stories, our only taboo, a matter of taste, a better definition of maturity, suspenseful stimulating entertainment, suggestions and objections, a cooperative concern, a letters section, reviews of the best of the new books, special mention, occasional articles, future editorials, the art for Pursuit, that’s the Moon, our hero, an unusual situation, a product of this magazine, for no reason, the wonderful and thoughtful editorial, reprint mag, cover his bases, as a showcase, an okay job, a little editorial at the end of the story, Pursuit ends where the story is just beginning, unrelated to anything we know, dining room in the mountains, another planet, national boundaries, endless possibilities, if you can, not responsible for mental breakdowns, licensing this story idea, not super-unique, The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, Larry Niven, stepping discs and teleportation booths, fascinating stories that explore that idea, Dan Simmons’ Hyperion, much better than here, Living Space by Isaac Asimov, parallel earths, your own personal planet, alternate universes, pocket universes, transferring from office to home through an alternate dimension, different versions of Earth, he’s an ideas guy but not excellent at executing, fast paced, a lot of pursuing and chase, deliberately obfuscatory, pressure on the reader, all red herring, Philip K. Dick, his sense of reality, mentally ill, Total Recall, novelette length, man on the run, the least good Philip K. Dick stories, short and painful, acceptable, authors who could do this better, a fun game: anonymize a story, someone like Paul, its one of these five authors, a gameshow, reveal the author’s name, Shaun Duke, streaming on Twitch, guess the author, the sky above the port was too easy, an author who wrote a lot, not a realistic game, a Lester Del Rey-ism, the relationships, wild talents, George R.R. Martin’s Wildcards, Parable Of The Talents, a role playing game, The Many Colored Land by Julian May, the rules, a superhero RPG, Marvel super hero RPG, Villains and Vigilantes, rolling up characters, random powers, mutant powers, lack of powers, Captain America doesn’t have any super-powers, maximized human, plus shield, plus moral goodness, lift Mjollnir, turns into a super-hero story, a mindfuck movie, Vanilla Sky (2001), Abre Los Ojos (1997), easily adapted, make it weirder, less straightforward ending, Ideas, did he know where it was going?, it kind of makes it worse, a plot and a plan, why the Moon sequence is in there, a John W. Campbell idea, psi-powers, seeded well enough, the unconscious part, the poltergeists, fair-ish, his style is such, good done ready next, when he meets the girl, ok, what is she doing?, explained by horniness, a little uncomfortable to read, dated these days, definitely horny guys around, The Sky Is Falling, idea-based, Badge Of Infamy, ancient parlance, horndogs, kind of uncomfortable, lurched into the bedroom, a gurgling cry, cold sober, none of her act, you damned alien!, you filthy monster disguised as a girl!, you can’t pass one tests, the dust on his feet proved that, crying now, I’m human Will, oh I’m human!, then prove it!, more apologies than one, she had proven herself and virginally so, complete surrender, cursed himself for a fool, ran off to the FBI, they’d been smart picking a virgin for the job, simple, simplistic, I like this idea, he likes the right ideas, his writing is serviceable, The Boys, what would Superman really be like?, he’d be a monster, accidents happen, we all become Lex Luthor, the hate for superheroes, he exhausted the idea, a reality that is ridiculous and impossible, to simplify and cheapen plumbing, you can reorganize your cells after you bite your wrist, you can jaunt, a better revenge story, The Count Of Monte Cristo with teleportation, Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen, the armed forces and the intelligence agencies, a three week Honeymoon to Hawaii, Mauna Kea is erupting, Paul is sensitive to sulfur, poi poi vulcanism, for other reasons, a planet walk, scale model of the solar system, a long walk, when measuring, Sweden, the lack of limits kills the idea in the end, its unconscious, The Golden Man, an X-Men style mutant, a mental midget incapable of even speech, incredibly impotent, suicidal, all instinctual, upgrade, anywhere in time and space, the end of storytelling, where Ted Chiang does good work, Understand, Vernor Vinge’s Bookworm, Run!, Flowers For Algernon, Lester Del Rey does it first, Helen O’Loy, The Faithful, H.G. Wells, David Brin the whole sundiver series, For I Am A Jealous People [is PUBLIC DOMAIN], self impressions, a good sign, SF stories about religion, as one reviewer recently pointed out, pulp magazines, who is standing out to Tony?, Thomas M. Disch, new wave, physically deformed guy uses time travel to get laid, sex with dinosaurs, All You Zombies, has sex with a lady named Eve, The End, a stage play adaptation by John Jakes, The Cold Equations, two people in a room and a voice on the radio, Strange Horizons, story ideas and cliches they would not accept, the main characters that are Adam and or Eve, anime, in the public consciousness has to have its analog, Behold The Man by Michael Moorcock, a great idea, nobody needs to write it again, sad, unique, novelette length?, a novel version, in the film industry, Saw (2004), short films are what you do when you can’t get funding for a feature, get funding for a feature by making a short, the whole premise is the end of Mad Max (1979), a tiny little rip off of one little scene, mining these old things, The Veldt is the holodeck, the same problems, what science fiction really is, if we have a technology what would that mean?, flat screen technology, the social consequences, what is the social consequence of , a certain band of science fiction, the good stuff for you, that’s the stuff that you want, what is the best really?, they really are objectively better, fixing typos, a missing page, what do we really mean, carrying a saddle through the whole story, no horses, no hats, space western, we can sweep too much, there are things that are better, its hard to judge, our sole aim, the best science fiction magazine, best to some group of readers, Strange Stories is not as good as Weird Tales, which is better Astounding or Amazing, Adams Family or The Munsters, an aesthetic, goofier, they’re all goths, Frankenstein monster, werewolf, grandpa is a vampire, Marilyn is normal, not adopted?, a fun idea, The Graveyard Book, a kid adopted by a jungle, Tarzan, extracted what little juice, very little juice, the way that he told the story, tighter plotting, a Hitchcock movie, a lot of running around, the payoff is kinda straight forward, what’s going on?, our complaint about the last Michael Crichton, Grave Descend, Drug Of Choice, Easy Go, fun all the way through, a nice ending, satisfying, minimal ideas, too big?, not enough restrictions, boundaries and constraints or restrictions, Julian May’s The Many Colored Land, explode things, too much, time travel, what can’t he do?, a better thinker, we need you to fix this story, Ted Chiang, the coolest things, where he saw himself earlier, Robert A. Heinlein, the car, the old fashioned running boards, the least substantial Lester Del Rey so far, the most interesting ideas, Badge Of Infamy, when Jesse shownotes it in six months, Mars, ex-wife, The Last Ship, network channels, TNT, the Navy funds the whole thing, based on a novel, A Town Called Alice, On The Beach, global pandemic, 2014-2019, masks, the remainders of the federal government, its like Soylent Green, getting rid off the useless people, gain of function, fear of nuclear war, a 20th century fear, the second in command is the Jayne from Firefly, right wing nut lens, Adam Baldwin, Chuck, gun crazy, typecast in his beliefs and his life, gone the way of Kevin Sorbo, mouths cover up by mugs, dub in dialogue later, semi-passable stuff, something you don’t seem much in plays, silent film, change people’s lips, de-aged Indiana Jones, 80 year old action hero, weak sauce, Raiders Of The Lost Ark is a terrific movie, had Indiana Jones nothing, he didn’t need to be in the movie, we wouldn’t have had the truck chase, Temple Of Doom, played comedicly, that was ok, Jaws (1975), The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, highly educational, especially obvious, getting scolded all the time, hang our with artists all day, very different, accompanying documentaries, the weird things happening in the early 20th century, our troubling amnesia, I’ve got amnesia amnesia, self inflicted amnesia, Momento (2000), the Mark Twain episode, Jesse would love this, different Christian denominations, Paul is a map guy please and thank you, a pilgrimage book, axis mundi, foundational, catholicon, special rooms for everybody, protestants be like, dish on the Disch, The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper, PUBG later, assault a crime lord, escort mission, rescue mission, based on Jack Vance’s Tschai novel, players muddying things.

Pursuit by Lester Del Rey art by ORBAN

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Reading, Short And Deep #379 – The Unseen Blushers by Alfred Bester

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #379

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Unseen Blushers by Alfred Bester

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

The Unseen Blushers was first published in Astonishing Stories, June 1942.

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Reading, Short And Deep #369 – The Pet Nebula by Alfred Bester

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #369

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Pet Nebula by Alfred Bester

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

The Pet Nebula was first published in Astonishing Stories, February 1941.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #716 – READALONG: The Shining by Stephen King

Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa VU, and Evan Lampe talk about The Shining by Stephen King.

Talked about on today’s show:
1977, horror novel, fourth most popular fantasy novel, third novel, the novel that made him a household name, Carrie (1976), the same year, the book was 1975, his breakout, Stanley Kubrick, Jack Nicholson, Salem’s Lot, Stephen King, “shut-up you shitlib, stick to producing movies!”, his primary job was film producer, which has more production credits, hilarious, Michael Crichton effect, director and producer and writer, looming large from beyond the grave, Westworld, cartoons, Stephen King TV shows, new Stephen King shows streaming somewhere, Lisey’s Story, The Stand, George R.R. Martin, video game writer, comfortable with TV, how easy it is to produce TV shows money wise, he likes writing a lot, worldbuilding, things that will get him canceled, the magical negro, The Legend Of Bagger Vance, Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, an American cultural phenomenon, if he wrote this today, that 70s jive talk, at the end, Doc is on the dock, he’s getting brown, very brown, the surrogate father figure, the kiss, the big shining talk, who is Stephen King in this book, he’s clearly Jack, kills himself off, why this book is super popular, how he put it all together, lifting ideas from literary sources, a big long very readable book, kinda early, Revival, relationships with ants and wasps, kids are literally closer to the ground than adults so they think about insects more, playing with their trucks, Marissa hiking by herself, major toddlerhood, we’re so proud we’re erect, his kids are always really terrific, so easy to read his books, identifying with the kids, we’re meant to identify with Doc, he’s our surrogate, Jack is more interesting to follow, a better adventure, failing at everything, they seduce him, the ghosts, money laundering, how they get him, repair his family, redeemed, the negative things in ourselves, super-flawed fucked up dude, we can relate to that, the scenes of domestic abuse, not so happy marriage, Jack Torrence has that too, the sin of the father, really uncomfortable for Paul, an imperfect family and childhood, why this book is and how it works, Danny’s power was the problem, a nexus, a big battery, it happened the year before, the previous caretaker and family, unnamed shining characters, every character shines, The Dead Zone has an unacknowledged shining character, you shine, your mom shines too (all mothers do, a little), throughout his writing, some sort of psychic spectrum, a Stephen King super-power roll playing game, The Dark Tower, breakers, telepathy, what good writing is: telepathy, a person far away in time and space, write really good, what just happened?, how is this happening, what is happening, a superpower Stephen King literally has, holy shit!, the way he does this, without a single bump, a human being like me, we think we can understand other people, doing it in fiction, his meta, the nagging wife, my mom is worse, she’s terrific, his grandmother’s house, somehow we’ve vacuumed out the psychic stuff, a weird cook who wants to abduct their son, he wants to rescue the kid, call it The Overlook Hotel, mental illness and alcoholism, where it is at his weirdest, find a stash, conjured out of the ether, capable of creating real physical damage to Danny, Doctor Sleep, his solution to everything, why this book is so Stephen Kingy, the plot, references, Guy De Maupassant’s The Inn, Switzerland, there’s dogs, have somebody there over the winter (as a caretaker), cabin fever, the same basic plot, how Stephen King fill those pages, all the family history, and the history of the Overlook, I’m so far ahead, flowed so easily, he makes long writing feel like easy writing, backwards and forwards in time, the car accident with the bike, jumping out of the main narrative, building the whole world, fleshed out, his pacing, perfect pacing, so engrossing, the set piece scenes, such a big piece of the story is just two pages, very impressive, table setting, a crucial scene, Jack versus the hedge animals, the way it sneaks up on you, slowly going insane, King or Torrence or the hotel, intrusive thoughts, a jingle, a phrase, intrusive negative thoughts, somebody from outside is putting words into his head, horribleness tempered, a big apology to his wife, “I know I shouldn’t have hit Joe that way. I’ve got to stop drinking”, Campbell Scott, a David Mamet actor with dry affect, no ill effect on the writing, straight reading vs. performance, other influences, The Mask Of The Read Death: A Fantasy by Edgar Allan Poe, masques vs. mask, what the hell is it about, the coloured rooms, at the beginning of the pandemic, cloistered in an abbey, out comes the red death, why there’s a whole bunch of rooms that are different colours, the movie filmed at the actual place King is basing it on, the ballroom has bat doors, The Colorado Lounge, the deal he made, its about class, the elite cant keep out the trauma of the working class, you can’t wall it away, that Phil Ochs song Ringing Of Revolution, when climate change happens, bunkers in New Zealand, The Sphinx, dominated by the reveal, the unmasking, in Robert W. Chambers, I wear no mask, The Yellow Sign, hints of Lovecraft, Jack as an opener, ultra-terrestrial horror, it’s Danny’s fault, Paul sees himself as Danny, a consequence of him being there, he can’t control it, “please abduct me, Dick”, he’s lying to him, 217, you’ll see really bad things there, thinking at him, Dick buys the vowel, he’s the one who knows the most, fainting spells in Germany, the clock almost striking midnight, forward in time, ghosts, not a contamination story, the hotel is destroyed at the end, teachers think is very important, some online webstudy course, arranged in a row from east to west, Blue (Birth), Purple (Growth), Green (Spring and youth), Orange (Summer and autumn), White (Old age), Violet (Impending death), Scarlet/Black (Death), a sergeant in the army, the summertime caretaker, fallen from his higher class, make sure you look out for The Rats In The Walls, a once high estate that needs to be maintained lest it fall, this is what I am reduced to, constant swearing, Wendy, when her husband swears to much, “prick”, hitting the student, I didn’t play with the timer, yeah I did, unreliable narrator, distrust the entire book, Stephen King being highly manipulative of us (and himself), I drink because you’re a bitch, Stephen King is doing self-analysis, so real, quitting smoking, an excuse to have a cigarette, what the fuck am I doing?, addiction brain, what the effect of physical isolation is, cut-off from other human beings for months on end, who’s to blame?, Jesse wants to imagine how this book would work without woowoo, a pure horror novel, a fantasy novel, Stephen King imitators, Nick Cutter’s The Troop, pure body horror, two things going on, his peanut butter in his zebra sauce, magic spell: Stephen King’s a good writer, college kids on a camping weekend, marriage breakdown and addiction, Philip K. Dick’s Puttering About In A Small Land, Out In The Garden, the wife’s been cheating on him with the Sun, I need to sell fantasy and I want to work out my stress about my wife cheating on me, The Dark Tower, literally met a werewolf, Hunger Games style, successfully spun up, the fear of your anger at your kids, such a cool scary thing to write about, such a change in your life, blaming the kid, obligation, responsibility, anxiety, Wendy’s mom, imagine if instead of Jack dying he lives, the relationship that Wendy has with her mom, psychologically abusive, you can’t lover her you have to love her, REDRUM is MURDER backwards, blood thirstiness, the wash of blood, symbolic, an alcoholic, she has a bad marriage, once she had the kid…, she chose a broken person to have a kid with, forever joined by the kid, how could she go back to him?, if I don’t stop drinking I’m going to have to kill myself, self-analysis, Jack is about him and the path he was on, the other drunk, Al: “stay dry”, class, drawn from life, bonding over drink, John Barleycorn by Jack London, drinking is a social custom, binding and destructive, on the same team, a judge, the board of directors, bonding through alcohol, the favours are running out, Evan’s theory, he’s trying to be fired, self-sabotage, ironically this time…, imagine there is no shining, a whole other thread, the imaginary friend who is real, an old trope, Harvey (1950), Ted (2012), Drop Dead Fred (1991), Mr. Lupescu by Anthony Boucher, Thus I Refute Beelzy by John Collier, the insanity children are allowed to have, a book about mental illness, Lovecraftian, classic mental illness, you didn’t tell me this hotel was used by criminals, Richard Nixon stayed in the hotel, an unreasonable phonecall, he’s quasi-blackmailing, not modern Stephen King shitlibbery, we bury the truth, we destroy the truth, we make it not real, Dick lies to his boss, as honest as he can be without getting fired, suicide, murder, sex-trafficking, we never find out how she paid, being a cursed place, Evan thinks that characters are shiners and breakers, a guy gives Dick a sweater and a can of gasoline, another shiner, they’re all shiners, haunted, “it’s the same criticism that Stephen King always has: there’s a fundamental flaw in American society, it’s class, and we can’t talk about it”, Red Room, it could have gone a whole bunch of different ways, no dangling threads, Hill House, the Marsten house in Salem’s Lot, it’s not the hotel that is making him make that call, trying to free himself and save his family, it’s hard to read it, drunken phonecall, late night phone call, go sleep it off, acting out with a really good reason for it, The Silver Key by H.P. Lovecraft, Tony is the future Danny, consciously bringing that in, winding up a clock vs. opening a door, a father figure, abusive father, reiterating that with his kid, aping the words of his father, spectacles into the mashed potatoes with blood on them, a coping mechanism, Jack gets what he wants, on the roof, distracted by the wasps, they bug him, the bug bomb, another case of I didn’t adjust the timer (but actually did), he wanted to have his son stung, we’re going to sue, focus on the kid, shifting the blame, it’s not me it’s your stutter!, the play is the book within the book, The King In Yellow, all work and no play, a good reading of what’s happening in here, understanding himself, a play about him and his abuse of a kid, his play sucks, he knows the play sucks, this is all you need to make this excellent book, what does Stephen King do instead of exposing American corruption and American kleptocracy and American sin? he makes it personal, he doesn’t expose the history of the Overlook Hotel, instead he exposes a family, we can all muddle through somehow, everything will be okay, exposes it to the readers, making it fuzzy, better at history, revealing the history, let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out, the attempt to repress, when teenage Marissa first read it: this is a critique of American capitalism, he goes the opposite direction, literally hiding the message in favour of a psychic family, the boiler is his temper, Fondly Fahrenheit by Alfred Bester, which of us I am anymore, that duality within Jack Torrence, keep the temperature from blowing, everything he does could be automated, going down there twice a day, even days and odd days, it’s not a real job, a warm body, very symbolic, he gets stuck down there, the Jesse voices are back, don’t look at these very important papers!, grinding Excedrins all day, they taste bitter, very well put together book, too well put together?, a famous hit, The Stand, his short stories, kaboom, 1408, the room is evil on its own, John Cusack, doesn’t need any priming, a lot of love to be had in the little stories, The Night Flier, a vampire who has an airplane, very personal, they’re all personal, Revival is almost philosophical and mature, dealing/dealt, digging real deep in this one, Danny’s gonna be six, way to bright for a six year old, because he shines, oh, he’s a delayed reader, so urgent to read, his adaptors usually pick the wrong ages, Joe Hill’s [Locke & Key] Welcome To Lovecraft, replaced him with August Derleth [or Richard Matheson?], the essence of shitlibbery, a racist, a liar, a thief, all can see the magic, lifting that from his father, bring a key near somebody’s head, a really cool premise, kids can have magic, starmetal/evil shoggoths, a fundamentally interesting thing, they won’t follow through, you know what the problem is but then choose to go the other way, a good book, maybe why he is a genre, not treated like a gutter guy, not treated like a literary genius, Upton Sinclair style guys, they frown on Stephen King, jealousy, so successful, people like Stephen King, no cachet with King as with other writers, some people are prejudiced, literary snobs, not the American classic, a weird Stephen King thing, blood elevator, guy with an axe, the sitting in the car and talking to the old black man, knows what’s up with Danny, Dr. Sleep, Danny’s 35, Dick Halorhan had died, the Overlook ghosts had followed him, he’s an alcoholic, a job at a hospice, Kevorkian style, a good service, being preyed on by psychic vampires, get back his mojo and save the day, people trying to live off of boomers, resistant to sequels, able to stay alive for centuries, a multiverse, that’s not publisher demand, writer you want to read, Greg Bear, not well constructed, he falls into the trap, I need to write Halo novels, a trilogy, following the market, Stephen King has the market, The Dark Tower along with Dune got Marissa into science fiction, the one with the train, 3 ends on a cliffhanger, it’s all done, 1,350,000 words, after the accident, why would he write them all in one year, George R.R. Martin, I can’t do that to my legacy, 224 pages vs. 845 pages, 4,316 pages for The Dark Tower, have Eric retire or die, take a couple of weeks off to read the book about Allen Dulles, I can’t read an 800 page book, we have split up a book, Dune, The Lord Of The Rings, The Odyssey, Evan’s podcast’s premise, once you start something you’re stuck with it, I have to only wear short socks, 300 years ahead, take a holiday, sleep and go to the gym, everyone who is capable should do what they’re good at, the Zizek book, it has happened, you shouldn’t do that, a vacation implies your ideal life is not being lived, a different temporary life, there are wrong things to do, The Sea Wolf by Jack London, the Star Trek Sex Book, recover, Jesse likes computer games, Project Zomboid, zombie survival isometric, get ready for the zombie apocalypse, sounds great, very dangerous, Fallout 4 til 5am, be moderate in your behavior, taking a vacation from the things that are good, Jesse is not sure series are a good idea at all, a satisfying book in and of itself, Don Mark Lemon, recharge your batteries, Jesse’s just being real, Jesse’s mom, people die and you should plan for it.