Alfred Bester – Page 5

The SFFaudio Podcast #541- READALONG: Misadjustment by Philip K. Dick

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #525 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa Vu, and Evan Lampe talk about Misadjustment by Philip K. Dick

Talked about on today’s show:
Science Fiction Quarterly, February 1957, until the 80s, pretty damn good, very interesting, the Uncanny X-Men story, Philip K. Dick’s post-human stories, his three laws of the post-humans, mutants, The Golden Man, The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch, the comic book phenomenon, Paul did, Chris Claremont, The New Mutants, Xavier’s School For Gifted Children, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Patrick Stewart, James McAvoy, The Dark Pheonix Saga, It, Magneto, two philosophies, we are “homo superior”, we are going to replace you, misunderstanding, an exploration of the relationship humans will have to homo superior, Storm and Rogue and Wolverine, showy mutant powers, change the colour of the beach, the Stitcher Wolverine podcasts, you either join the hunt and become Eggerton, castrated or tamed telepaths, help hunt down, teeps, a major Alfred Bester vibe, a major industrialist with a secret trying to avoid being process served, bounty hunters, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, Vampire: The Masquerade, Mage: The Ascension, renegade mages, growing spaceships in his backyard, flying to the moon by flapping his arms, magic is their mutation, The Eyes Have It, mimetic novels (people arguing about who is cheating on who), all this stuff could be taken literally, a classic Philip K. Dick ending (and beginning), clearly a lunatic, love that sting, the radical consensus, a democratic and objective consensus, another shout out to this idea in The Dark Tower by Stephen King, breakers = mutants, did King read Dick?, what authors do, House Of M, no more mutants, Thanos with his snapping, what we’re all trying to do in our lives, Steve Job biography, “reality distortion field”, Jesse’s mom is either human or a mutant, this is about this, analogies for something, no matter how stupid Margaret Atwood is she wrote a good novel, The Public Hating by Steve Allen, 1954, the height of McCarthyism, putting every man against every man, this agency is the FBI, we know from Philip K. Dick’s own life, under investigation, this is also about religion too, utter chaos, Paul DIDN’T repudiate his religion on Twitter, bishop idiot, Julie Davis, a point that’s irrefutable, enjoying Korean and Thai food, veganism, vegetarianism, a set of strictures, a member of three religions simultaneously, incorporating deities, exclusivist, we’re cool with you, you have to pick a team, I really like Apollo today because I’m really into learning, I’m gonna get my wine out and hang out with Pan, a whole world behind the story, enough material for a novel, Eye In The Sky, the Bevatron, that house and that cat, the Bahá’í faith, subjective reality, prayers are answered, Richards, was he admitting to himself that he was a mutant?, invasion of privacy, this story cannot be told as a film, he took off at an incredible rate, the reaction is so strong, very nicely handled, Eggerton did not fly directly home, residential syndromes, robot taxis, Johnny cabs, Electric Dreams, you’ve got to hide it with the text, the vast, niplan?, newspeak, “syndromes” as conapts, notes about character names, Bob Arctor, the commerce institute, Richards = Dick, the mutants are “PKs”, psychokinetic, writers as changers of reality, making people believe in his delusion, quite manipulative, what if I could make them believe, para-keneticist, Doris’ mind, random checknet, was eggerton really PK? the answer is yes, nebulous succubi, he’s on, the gender politics, the immunes are women, fantasy worlds, the women are not biting tonight, so funny, this mutation is solely of the y chromosome, women bursting his bubble, matriarchy, Eggerton is not having it, what’s with the furniture being sexist, Beyond The Door, the gender text project website, The Pirates Of Ersatz, the story becomes insane, a story about gender, men only hope that the baby coming out of their wife’s body is theirs, paranoias that men have, Doris is almost like the main character, Rick Deckard, why did Eggerton miss his appointment, the comic book biography, trouble with the law, why he fled to Canada, on the run, explaining it to himself, something bad happened and he’s missed an appointment, The New Reality by Charles L. Harness, unmake everything, the same dilemma, the Exalted RPG, editorial introduction, the political radical, socialism, anarchism, Nazism, states do this all the time, writing Tienanmen Square out of the history textbooks, the conclusion, a check on the extremes, not a forced political reading, going over the same issues, The Exegesis, why is he obsessed with Nazis?, what do they do when they find a mutant, Richards is executed by Eggerton, there’s no trial, they found out he was a Jew and they executed him, castrati, a musical term, George W. Bush, that whole authoritarian Nazi thing, the anniversary of D-Day, Heritage Minutes, Canadians were fighting in Russia 100 years ago, two sentences if you’re lucky, American military unit mutinies, a shameful event, we can just police ourselves, the insane people know their crazy so they can police themselves, Clans Of The Alphane Moon, the schizoprenics are the artists and creators, two incidents, a big stack of monitors and computers and laptops, the SkyTrain, he think he’s a police officer, a person who believes something, that is reality distortion, the main guy is off, everybody flirts with the idea of solipsism, what if you’re all figments of my imagination?, he’s the only real person, a schizzer, single lane alternating traffic, flag-people, “didn’t you see the sign”, “we’re here for your safety, sir”, “can you call the company?”, I must have done something wrong, she broke reality, solipsism is completely ridiculous, imagining him in this situation, Jerry Seinfeld, noticing things on a granular level, basic expectations, she’s making this impossible, why they have them in pairs, she’s on drugs, whatever was going on made sense to her, we gotta talk about the desk, no page break, cigaret (science fiction spelling?), waitingroom, discarded tapes, bulging ashtrays, the desk hadn’t been able to discourage, the desk is taking it personally, is the desk a she?, a catty desk, what’s with these tapes?, the newspapes, “look lady” the desk said aloud, the desk sighed, I suppose you think that figure of yours, sexist, you ought to be ashamed, an older matronly desk, a double entendre, a great character, turn yourself off, go home for the day Mavis, the ID block is holding a policy level conference in Pittsburgh, a huge ape-shouldered man, Tessa Dick’s YouTube channel, super hairy, we’ve seen this hairy beast before, shaggy and unkempt, food stained sleeves rolled up, eyes dark with industrial cunning, the girl’s purse scattered to the floor, Paycheck, “why didn’t you tell me you were an immune?”, italicized, the girl ignored the desk, Colony, “I trusted the rug completely”, a very sensitive desk, it’s really good!, Marissa likes it even more now that we’ve discussed it, A World Of Talent, mutants and post-humans, anti-precog, anti-PK, the first half of Ubik, there is an audiobook version, put it on the schedule, Slan by A.E. van Vogt, Doris’ husband’s last name is Sorrel, the plant theme, Pay For The Printer, the printers, the machines that can grow things, Autofac, a green thumb thing, points of brilliance in the writing, The Variable Man, on top of the great ideas there’s gorgeous writing, bed-girls in Solar Lottery?, jet setting all over the place, the best food, he doesn’t say what the psychology is, we see what he does, I went on a bender I wonder what that means, he finds out his wife is pregnant and goes on a bender, Game Players Of Titan, there’s this whole world outside of people’s heads, elites, really interesting, just look at the world background in here, it doesn’t feel like a fascist dystopia when you get called before HUAC, why is the title Misadjustment, readjustment?, not a real word, he went to the psychiatrist, got on the bus ride home he starts thinking…, maybe that’s what went wrong, if you apply it to the story, the elites who run this society, the commerce institute, a lobby group, a planned economy, a ten hour work day, an Evan story, what is getting adjusted in this story?, we can change this system, who watches the watchmen?, good god!, the dirty dirty secret of the FBI at the time, J. Edgar Hoover is running the country, he’s the deep state, how he ran things, its our instrument, that was a weird thing, what other people expect of us, a gimp in a box, not the normal, the strange aberration, they kill the aberrant, the instinct, “should I turn around?”, so rich and really short for its richness, other examples of institutionalized power, Robert Moses, The Power Broker: Robert Moses And The Fall Of New York by Robert Caro, these gods, we ourselves are the gods, crazy ideas, you don’t need the state, attending public meetings, school funding meetings, the pressure, somebody informed, what he does with it, he uses everything, obsesses about everything, chewing on it.

Misadjustment by Philip K. Dick

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #522 – READALONG: Astounding by Alec Nevala-Lee

The SFFaudio Podcast #522 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa VU, Evan Lampe and Amy H. Sturgis talk about Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee

Talked about on today’s show:
Alex Nevala-Lee, a book and an audiobook, thinking about legacies, thinking about audiobooks before, the original cool guy, adorable, its nice to be read to, 100 pages of footnotes, Evan, your book doesn’t exist as an audiobook, nobody wants to read anymore, Evan’s gotten to the stage, reading history books, non-fiction is so good on audio, rekindling pleasure, everything is cited, really he said that?, “Fuck, Eando Binder!”, “lambasted dianetics”, its all cited, 13 hours, not padded, way too long, more about their sexual problems, wife-swappin’ again, a problem for a lot of books, so easy to read, just have a little listen, so engrossing, so well written, The Amazing, The Astounding, And The Unknown by Paul Malmont, the Navy yard, commentary on the stories, I Will Fear No Evil, John W. Campbell is important, Ben Bova, two confusing awards, Hugo Gernsback needs his own version of this, the one person who is completely missing from this book is H.G. Wells, Olaf Stapledon, Arthur C. Clarke, what about this?, Jesse’s complaints are not very legit, The Return Of William Proxmire by Larry Niven, modern science fiction, the intellectual historian, markets for genres, the 20s-30s-40s, the Cold War, turn towards nativism, a profound effect, the Science Fiction League, a self-aware community, WWII, a fledgling dialogue, this revolution, connecting SF with science, Microcosmic God, this is on Campbell, distinctly American?, issues sent as ballast to the UK, all the foreign editions of Astounding, the British fanzines, Hugo was nuts for electronics, we’re going to invent our own televisions, home amateurs, ham radio operators, the science fiction reader, Tom Swift, the edisonade, fertile soil, the radio boys, Electronic Experimenter, a pulp fiction collection, reading Amazing vs. reading Astounding, technical drawings and weird editorials, not only space opera, The Electrical Experimenter, Larry Niven, they’re weird dudes, a pathetic figure, a tragedy, a mire of pseudoscience, Asimov’s biography, Heinlein’s letters, no no, a horror suspense movie, uplifting, it worked on Heinlein, Asimov was his own little being, the tragedy is coming, blind spots and prejudices, good fiction and good science, the new wave, Harlan Ellison, Ursula K. Le Guin, a machine for generating analogies, he’s given them the tools to push back against him, still influential, descent into pseudoscience and self delusion, Asimov’s preface to Dangerous Visions, we’re the squares, the passing of the torch, the sexual revolution, a cultural revolution vibe, Asimov was a square, “I fuck a lot, man.”, almost sexless, The Gods Themselves, weird alien sex, Heinlein’s weirdness, a lot of revealing things, the role of the wives, a biography of Kay (Catherine) Tarrant, spelling the names, Campbell wasn’t needed, behind the scenes, Astounding is so important, still under copyright, Heinlein getting mad at Campbell, Philip K. Dick has one story in Astounding, what’s going on?, Impostor, Campbell wanted superhumans, The Golden Man, a superhuman idiot, writing in reaction to it, Galaxy Magazine, H.L. Gold’s aesthetic, Campbell didn’t take Alfred Bester!, a gatekeeper, Frederik Pohl, how important The Cold Equations is, you have to keep re-writing this until you get it right, what it does, this is what we are talking about, this is how far we can go, a Star Trek story, here is an episode of something that we can imagine happening, Nightfall by Isaac Asimov, what Campbell was aiming at, a study in what editors can do, seeding the same idea multiple times, turning Asimov down, how would that intelligence work?, a black POV character, a leap of imagination, racism and homophobia as compartmentalization, Dune World by Frank Herbert, Mack Reynolds, Black Man’s Burden, Commune: 2000, the problem is scarcity (there is none, except in jobs), universal basic income, it didn’t matter to you that the kid was Filipino, what the difference between a rationalists and empiricists, here’s how drunk driving should work, you’re not clear yet, a technical journal, that’s not how science works, how science works, grinding lenses, Verne -> submarines, Wells -> warplanes, Campbell -> atom bombs, science fiction leading the science, a legacy, Rocket Ship Galileo, Tom Swift in the Rocket Age, Nancy Drew is not the same, Nazis on the moon, action fun excitement, Elon Musk, pushing in all directions, badly inspired, Paul Krugman, Asimov’s Foundation series, a weird tension, the scientific approach to all things, psychology, a desire to make everything scientific, A.E. Van Vogt, enough to be dangerous, enthusiasm for the ideas didn’t follow through to the methodology, we can make this science too, Hubbard had no interest in science (or science fiction, really), Heinlein’s failing, Asimov was a sexual asshole, a tragic figure, Heinlein falls for Hubbard because he had a uniform, a lying used car salesman, cults, its not about your intelligence, lacking critical thinking, charisma doesn’t translate from the page, judging eyes, I no longer trust you, the worst insult Heinlein could ever give anybody, broken legs and gonorrhea, the asshole sections of Jesse’s email, Heinlein was really blinded by patriotism, the Vietnam War, we need a renaissance for the Heinlein juveniles, Farnham’s Freehold makes a lot more sense now, trying to make a point about Campbell being wrong, hopeful commentary, not including Hubbard, the serpent in the garden, transformative, “the competent man”, competitors and community members, we’re doing something that’s important, the conversations we’re having are important, they hung together for decades, personal loyalty, trolls, the story of the first Worldcon, women nurturing men who were nurturing other men, Donald A. Wollheim was a better troll than anyone living today, contributing something positive, Mimic, he bought a lot of Philip K. Dick, Asimov as a youth, your idea of heaven, the power of picking up one of these magazines, the one thing missing from this book is the history of the covers, the art, fill the space, a little bit of technology, pitch me three new magazine, Weird Tales, tiny little things, when H.P. Lovecraft turns down the editorship of Weird Tales, what would we have or what would we be missing?, a magazine with a legacy, Elon Musk is a Heinleinian character, old letters pages are fossils, D.D. Harriman, The Man Who Sold The Moon, a trap, not hard enough on the Soviets!, a whole lifetime of a really complicated human being, the whole point, the functionalist stuff sounds like Campbell, creativity doesn’t work that way, how writing works, The Trouble With Tribbles, everything is in reaction, H.G. Wells doesn’t seem to have a massive precursor, The Time Machine, Last And First Men, Olaf Stapledon, Starmaker, those men are heroes, page 370 and 371, Barry M. Malzberg, sympathize with his critics, the question of victimization, a problem solving medium, not everyone is a hero, the way science fiction is today, science fiction should explore everything, schlubs, we all live in a world that’s increasingly become science fictional, Wells’ heroes are assholes, the New Wave pushes back against the Campbellian revolution, J.G. Ballard, mistrust of the meta-narrative, setting up things that come later, wanting 15 other books to be written, a companion volume on the Futurians, creating editors, Judith Merrill, here’s another community, C.M. Kornbluth, glimpses, Arena by Fredric Brown, The Orville is new Star Trek: The Next Generation, the a plot and the b plot, season 8 Next Generation, Enemy Mine, Hell In The Pacific, Lee Marvin, no alien movie, Star Trek, Deep Space Nine, Enterprise, Space: 1999, The Most Dangerous Game, Predator, somebody sitting around, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, the b-plot, The Corbamite Maneuver, The Kobayashi Maru, Amy’s Looking Back At Genre History, Microcosmic God by Theodore Sturgeon, always asking questions, how do you know, a meta-story, it’s about what happens when you read Astounding, Sandkings by George R.R. Martin is a retelling of Microcosmic God, Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward, Hal Clement, science fiction luminaries, missing an ode to Hal Clement, the chapter titles, Who Goes There?, it doesn’t give you what you want, Don A. Stuart, Twilight, two types of storytellers, historical narratives, a remarkable achievement, history is a pruning job, a really important book, more books just like this, every time we say “Astounding” take a drink, endnotes, bibliography, a gift that’s going to keep on giving, what happens after this, some editor discovered or promoted Dashiell Hammett, Black Mask, railroading magazines, westerns, isn’t Analog still going today?, finally why this magazine called Analog?, it’s a metaphor, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, factless, Willy Ley, trying to make the reality behind science fiction more real, giving writers a grounding, Asimov: what a man!, writers who are complaining about low pay rates, E.E. Doc Smith, the Dean drive, a reactionless space drive, more biographies of these pulp era mags, The World Of Nitrogen, The Realm Of Measures, Asimov On Numbers, super-clear writing, Campbell’s book of collected editorials, Lecherous Limericks, bra-snapping and carrying on, Annoted Gulliver’s Travels, a writing and learning machine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, mysteries, the joy of reading and the joy of writing, his mind was always elevator, that kind of curiosity is so rare, he wanted to know the answers to everything, a powerful force in reality, The End Of Eternity, a fun book.

Astounding by Alec Nevala-Lee

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #163 – Travel Diary by Alfred Bester

Reading, Short And Deep #163

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Travel Diary by Alfred Bester

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

Travel Diary was first published in the 1958 collection Starburst.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

The SFFaudio Podcast #514 – READALONG: Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg

The SFFaudio Podcast #513 – Jesse and Paul Weimer talk about Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg

Talked about on today’s show:
a serial in Galaxy July and September 1972, 41 years old, out of context, people getting grumpy, autobiographical?, writing himself into his book, unnerving, “problematic”, you wont like anything, very well written, censoring oneself, all internal thoughts, a thoughtful interesting book, an interior book, racial slurs, the fakest parts are the plot points, going around in elevators, how other people perceive him at parties, the Lumumba incident, getting beaten up, ghosting student essays, websites that advertise these services, students required to submit, text comparison, tuning the voice, Columbia University, a cat and mouse game, young and strong, failing powers, a real person, the most clumsy, detecting lies, becoming telepaths, getting vibes, a metaphor for (if not science fiction), curious, casual or romantic or natural experiments, the drug scene, trapped in our own heads, comparing actions with words, complaining about the essay, super-resentful, this is not going to work out well, he’s broke all the time, so dependent on his powers, how to deal with somebody, the whole Kitty storyline, Ted Chiang’s Understand, invisible to the superpower, a cheat or not a cheat, “defend”, a science fiction novel in which the narrator is uninterested in the rules behind it, the author hasn’t revealed the rules to the narrator, he’s AM and she’s FM, undistinguished in everything, she doesn’t put up a defense, paranoid, unlock her telepathic mind, a crepazoid being creepy, annoying, bringing your psychiatry on your wife, Charlaine Harris’ Dead Until Dark, what makes that a fantasy book, a fascinating attraction, would she have read this?, an avid reader in the 1970s, one of Silverberg’s best, as a metaphor, superbpaper.com, need help with your assignment, “we can write any paper on any subject on any deadline”, $29 per page, testimonials, making people have skills, Jesse has a lot of homework to do, Jesse’s not doing this for money, Jesse has the telepathy within narrow range, I’m dignified, he’s barely in the economy, people thinking sentences in their head, “he thinks in French”, Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, a shared document, Nixon shows up in a motorcade, if this book is a metaphor, trying to be telepathic with a later audience, Isaac Asimov, Lawrence Block, they communicate their ideas super-clearly, Greg Bear’s ideas, to him it makes sense, writing as telepathy, a writer’s inability to write, the autobiographical elements, things get thin until the 1980s, there’s life inside, the life may return, a massive output from the 1950s through the 1960s, the next novel is Lord Valentine’s Castle (eight year’s later), The Stochastic Man, Shadrach And The Furnace, The Book Of Skulls, like 50 stories in 1956, the same if not more, the magazine industry, Harlan Ellison, Donald Westlake, sleeze novels, writing pornography, that wonderful sequence, hopping from mind to mind, the bee, the girl, the farmer, the full fulmination of his power, why its a tragic story, wunderkind, a pathetic shlub, cheat his way through life, stockbroker, Alan Glynn’s The Dark Fields, inside information, insider trading, Dr. Hitner, the radio drama adaptation, read comic books and enjoy myself, when he gets into a fight, telegraphed, a rag-doll to be tossed about, have sex with girls is his major ambition, Paul’s own life, why Jesse has to make such pains to distinguish himself, volatile, a lot of parallels here, supermen aren’t going to be what you think they are, in dialogue with Slan by A.E. van Vogt, “slans are schlubs”, every allusion and reference, poets, painters, playwrights, philosophers, scientists, replete with thinking about books, a very philosophical novel, Odd John by Olaf Stapledon, The Hampdenshire Wonder by J.D. Beresford, semi-autobiographical, Arthur C. Clarke, he lives in our universe, a little bit too recursive, the 2001 BBC radio drama adaptation, rather condensed, he works at a bookshop, translated into an adaptation, if people complain…, Harlan Ellison and Silverberg, how much filler material they could add, the Aeschylus essay, the Franz Kafka essay in full, The Castle and The Trial, padding, fun reading, recycle some material, so fun to do that, a sad and depressing book?, tonally depressing, comparing your own life to Selig’s, The Book Of Skulls, holding back information, a very good writer, a promise to the reader, when is he composing this narrative?, nicely constructed, a blank in his history, distancing himself from himself, cheating, things are a little tight this month, because he’s given something early on in his life, manipulating the moment, if you only have 40 minutes to tell the story, the car section of the bookstore, definitely gay, the musclemen section of the bookstore, a repressed homosexual, the dean, how far you’ve fallen, this guy’s pathetic, reading about rocketships and robots, that actually hits home, he’s doing bad work for money, prostitution, his nephew, meeting Kitty on the street, so many girlfriends, I didn’t get your number but you weren’t there anyway, many many other uncles, here’s a picture of a bomb blowing somebody up, Judith probably told him to say that, the necessity of the face and the smile is the new truth, he could see beneath that truth, they’re told to smile, seeing below the surface is a grim reality, self-motivated, if you can take that away, they’re delighted to meet you, “I feel your pain.”, disdain for politicians, a very nice character piece on why it might not be so great to be telepathic, almost like growing up and not being a liar, The Return Of William Proxmire by Larry Niven, Robert A. Heinlein, “Selig’s Complaint”, Silverberg could exist without Heinlein, parallel tracks (not tracts), Judith Beheading Holofernes, parallels with Judith of the bible, a nice jewish girl’s name, Zelig (1983), first observed at a part by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the secret history of reality, Selig’s death would mean almost nothing, an incredibly underwhelming superpower, the new wave, Alfred Bester, diddly shit, the jive-speak voice, keeps failing, Jesse wrote a lot of reviews, if its just a book, if its just a book then the temptation is to shit on it, baggage of your own, the demand for reviews, writing is a superpower you can waste by using a metaphor too much, sick of the treadmill, SFSignal doesn’t blog anymore (except on Twitter), gone to be a farmer, a different and happier place, the books doesn’t stop, new or underappreciated, still a good book, slightly less stuck in its time, the black dialogue is slightly different now, a historical piece, the power of the book is still with it, having lived through things and done things, “had I read it way back when”, a book for middle aged science fiction readers, they’ll feel it, hey kids you’re going to love Dying Inside!, when you’re young you read books differently, the depth of Selig’s plight, outright sexism, a pathetic character, once you’re inside somebody’s head you pretty much have to forgive them for everything, the crisis crisis, Airplane! (1980), I speak jive, subtitles, the sentences make sense, Diff’rent Strokes, cultures with different languages and vocabularies, well worth it.