The SFFaudio Podcast #827 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Green Queen by Margaret St. Clair

The SFFaudio Podcast #827 – The Green Queen by Margaret St. Clair, read by Mike Vendetti. This is a complete and unabridged audiobook (4 hours 3 minutes), followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Will Emmons, and Jonathan Weichsel

Talked about on today’s show:
into mask art, other, cage guy, Ace Book D176, a shorter version in 1955, Mistress Of Viridis, the opening of the novel, The Scarlet Letter, a crown or something, very good and very bad, interesting ideas, a little too pulpy, structural problems, she churned this one out, she’s brilliant, we listen to a lot of science fiction on this podcast, The Journey Of Joenes, another masterpiece, The Last Spaceship, pretty pulpy, the ideas in it, the bugs, psychology trumps material reality, relationship stuff, good with the ideas, all the telling, central to the plot, an illusion?, the political stuff, uppers and lowers, the uppers live underground beneath the lowers?, a veil over the book, Ulysses by James Joyce, dating a woman, some sort of revolution going on too, a really good goodreads, concrete assertions, listened, spellings, Shalom, too much going on in this book, the plot is told backwards, explanation, the beginning at the end, Jerry on Goodreads

Despite not taking place on Earth or anywhere near Earth, this 1955 story (the serialized version was in Universe Science Fiction, March, 1955, as “Mistress of Viridis”) is clearly tied to Earth. The computers that people use on planet Viridis are “ibims”.

The computers don’t appear to have advanced much as mankind spread to the stars.

Except for the soft whirr and click of the ibim as it sorted the dossier cards, there was no noise.

The ibim, though not a new model, was fast. It had been sorting for some twenty minutes, and it had got through nearly half of the 400,500 cards that represented the feminine population of Viridis. But the basket marked “Hold” was still quite empty.

They end up having to relax their requirements in order to find possible candidates. What they’re looking for is a goddess—or, specifically, someone who can fake being a goddess. They get tripped up by residency requirements, of all things.

One of the interesting things about this world is how much it relies on what it calls “masks”. There are two kinds of masks: Verbal Masks and Veridical Masks. These masks are created by the ruling class to control the Lowers and keep them from rebelling… too much.

Masks appear to be what we would call memes. Verbal Masks are memes that are injected into the population, short stories that take hold of the population’s imagination. Veridical Masks are masks that use more than one sense; while the main character does make an off-hand reference to odors at least once, within this book they’re always or almost always sound and sight.

That is, this world’s population is controlled by a primitive form of Twitter and an advanced form of YouTube.

The main character recently introduced a Verbal Mask about a Green Queen, an embodiment of Nature, who will come to save the Lowers and dispel the radiation that makes Viridis so dangerous. The ruling class is shielded from this radiation; they live above some sort of shield; Lowers live below that shield.

The Green Queen myth turned out to be even more powerful than they’d expected. So they’re attempting to both use it and defuse it, and that means finding someone to take on the role.

The theme running through the story is that the myth appears at some points to be real, something transcending the constructed myth; and at others to be purely a construction of the various factions on Viridis, including one that is completely unexpected. Even at the very end of the story, just after we’ve been reasonably convinced that there was no truth to the myth as presented by the Verbal Mask, it appears to be coming true in a way that could not have been predicted by the real truth we’ve just been presented with.

Hollerith machines, all the Jews who have the tattoos on their arms, looking for the new green queen, salam, Chinese, very good insightful review, peripheral stuff, distracting and interesting, modeled on a whole bunch of things, twitter and youtube, like the way twitter works, we can’t have conversations with some people because they took in the mask, Rittenhouse, stories were told about, the trial, some people were disabused, other people didn’t get those memes or truths injected into them, hashtags are that, what’s the truth about Kyle Rittenhouse, he shot people, other people who were trying to take his gun away, the official line was before facts came out, video, testimony, obsessed with these things, verbal and veridical masks, riot/uprising, what are you getting at, Jesse, racist, illegal things, black people, it was okay that he shot white people then?, clearly white, black lives matter, petty proprietor, helping petty proprietor, better or worse, judgement, the media was portraying, a supercut after the podcast, cui bono?, who’s the upper?, petty vs. petite, baggage, we know that Will is a communist, not a secret, a pejorative, an example, bro, shitlibs, what makes a shitlib vs. a normal lib, doesn’t care and only wants, almost like an NPC, Jesse language, roof Koreans, the Rodney King riots, white people and black people, Korean American convenience store owner, standing in the rooves, defending from burning and looting, every word that we use, Cirsova uses it, the people who used his volunteer services, friends and family come help, small property owners, they’re not Blackrock, they don’t own 2/3rds of Ukraine, every piece of language we use is full, Bonnor, our main character, alcoholic, book length, her short stories are much tighter, her first novel, novels are difficult, your first longer book, a short story plot stretched out into a novel, this should have been 2 hours at most, really good ideas in it, early Philip K. Dick novels, terrible novelist, women’s sexuality, men looking at woman, a male gaze book, the termite queen, you’ve never had a baby come out of your body, the pinnacle of womanhood, fill me up, robot shower, we don’t get enough world building, too much worldbuilding, maybe Bonnar shouldn’t be the main character, he doesn’t really have a lot of agency, a mask maker fooled by his own mask, Madison Ave. executive, you have a job, body servants are servants who have jobs, the lowers have no jobs, Leaf Amadeus, on the nose, underdeveloped, Caroline Uglinger, a seamstress who embroidered her own shroud, Horvindial, Mirakis, eons after her death, Kandia, grey suit, blue hat, the guys who operate the ibims, if Philip K. Dick had handled this, The Man Who Japed, a great book, dealing with some really interesting things, veridical vs. verbal masks, Viridis is the planet, she doesn’t make it clear enough early enough, playing with names all day, latin for green, renewal, springtime, verify, Truth, what’s the secret of the planet, all the radiation isn’t there, “Russian interference” “hacked our election”, “crossed state lines”, bringing firearms across state lines, talking points, when J.D. Vance was chosen as the VP, “weird”, some of them work great, when she’s writing about this stuff in the 50s, “remember the Maine”, rhymey or memey, that whole war was ginned up largely by Hurst, invade Spain, so many things going on in this 4 hour book, radiation is an invisible killer, calibrate it, wartime propaganda, Plato in The Republic, the story about the Golden Age, technology enhances, Make America Great Again is a verbal mask, slogans, rallying cries, language unites people, left out, Hispanic community, Korean community, left out, less extreme example of that, he’s one of me, part of my crew, Trump forehead tattoo, Taco Bell, am I supposed to look at the tattoos or not, African or Maori?, tattoos are hard to understand, had sex with a couch, yolo, go out into the ether, her world vs our world, not top down, official control over social media, demonetized, booted off the platform, suppress or boost, BLM, became top down, special dance with kente cloth, “land back”, specifically made it so it is not racist, the babies, Chinese, looking at people’s bodies, your race doesn’t make you an upper, a class or caste system, the lowers are totally parasites, little glimpses, an upper class woman walking beside a lower class man wearing a kilt/miniskirt, bony knees, his spine, resentful, trying not to take in the bad food, Hinduism, Judaism, Kosher food, radioactive, by eating too much of this radioactive food you’re shortening your life, religious philosophies, Christian Scientists, diet books, preferred diet, is she wrong, Mark Twain hated her, #TeamTwain, food that falls outside of the diet is bad, deeply flawed, pinning down the flaw, first novel problems is our theory?, Jonathan’s first novels are unpublished, John Updike’s first novel is a werewolf story, never publish this book, a university lockbox, so embarrassed, we will eventually get a hold of it, unless the university burns down, there’s value in here, almost a pulp novel, mass market paperback to read on the train, disposable literature, plotting or structuring, achievements in writing novels, filling in details is not the way it should be happening, hit a certain wordcount is the kiss of death unless you’re a magician, a parody of science fiction, long speeches, if you put them in Captain Kirk’s mouth, a little A.E. van Vogty, Black Destroyer, The Voyage Of The Space Beagle, Destination Universe, characters are inhuman, he brings ideas to things, the Weapons Shops stories, future village, snake cult temple, Conan the Barbarian movie, a weapons shop opens up in your town, it reads like the Russians have gone through a loophole and anyone can by an AK, they screen people, superinteresting, not public domain, not well written, disturbance of an idea, every story has ideas in it, cute, bizarre, the spirit of a star, Green Queen meme comes alive, a very Philip K. Dick move, not being able to know what’s reality and what’s not, we can’t sympathize with him, too alien, the cult of the apple pickers, almost Roman, one of the influences, the city of Rome, Christianity, cults around professions, guilds?, trade guilds, longer and fixed, or shorter, if you found this novel in a drawer, you could take the ideas that are in here and make a good novel out of the ideas that are in here, what went wrong, time to money ratio, originally published for a magazine, the original art, a rocketship, the green queen and a guy outside a rocket, she’s zapping him, the art for the original magazine publication, a woman covered in a green starfish, thematic, a woman above a man, out of a spacesuit, the radiation, is it saying that veridical masks masks us to truths about concrete reality around us?, the barrier between castes, what a huge topic to tackle, a character who randomly became psychic all of a sudden, I just sense things, throws everything off, can’t be tricked by the masks, undercut at the end, the history of the planet, she was just a bug!, you’re sitting in the chair and getting Trump tattooed on your forehead, in group, I hate you mom/dad, bought into the ideological belief, seven months ago, back in January, when Trump gets assassinated how weird it will be, going to be very meta, the first week after the assassination attempt, a little bit apologetic, he has to be stopped, he’s Hitler, completely memory wiped, that never happened, endless upper investigation, the bodycam footage, Jesse is just crazy, local news, moments right before and after, I told the Secret Service to guard this building, this is shit!, we’ve got to get the shooter guy, a good video, when Jonathan recounts it, silos of responsibility and dialogue, organizational silos, massive incompetence being promoted to the top everywhere, completely demented, never does her homework, the significance of the passage of time, people who don’t do their homework, failing up, not as senile as you keep on saying, the speech where everybody though he was senile, he’s “older”, legitimately the president, a bizarre theory, having Jonathan on this podcast, Jesse doesn’t see his own veridical masks, not a big mask guy, a constructed reality online, voting patterns, quell dissatisfaction, to make people more accepting of their fate, the uppers resent the lowers, there would be riots and uprisings, pity the lowers, eat polluted food all the time, how Americans view the poors, welfare queens, baskets of deplorable, food deserts, two teams vs. one team, takes on it are slightly different, in what sense are they different, it’d be better if they were both gone, one secret party running the country, institutionally, vote against genocide, which team should I vote for, Jill Stein, foreign policy, domestic policy, infrastructure, bringing jobs back, the thing that they want to do is impossible, can’t stop corporations, capital flight tax, they can’t do that because they are funded, put up tariffs, the most popular electric car in Europe is Chinese, Tesla, more popular than the Chevy Volt, even on Vancouver Island, 3-4 white Teslas, 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles, a subsidy, BC subsidized US electric and Japanese electric cars, Walmart’s the only business in town, Chinese are bad and Russians are bad, Nabisco moved to Mexico, food you shouldn’t eat, really mad, how can the politicians stop them, tax on the cookies, a free trade agreement, lower the minimum wage, or import people, foreign workers, that wouldn’t solve the problem of the disappearing jobs, you’re dictator, dictator of New Jersey, the national guard would be unable to defeat the United States, eliding the question, dictator of North America, shut down Nabisco, you don’t like Oreos, cookies should be made by a grandma, maximize profits and minimize costs, Richard D. Wolff, Mondragon cooperatives, start with a bank, if you become unemployed, a lump sum to start your own cooperative, on the dole for 3 years anyway, solve all sorts of problems, the GI bill, infrastructure and jobs, all the veterans, Evan’s solution: universal army, the silly way to do it, grandma doesn’t need to go to drill practice, universal conscription, makes sense for the United States, Kamala’s VP is not a communist, it’s nuts, that’s not reality, driving a MAGA car, looking for a fight, ginned into thinking this is a real thing, the spin for Kamala, so good, least popular VP, memory holed, all these memes, all these ads, white women for Kamala, white dudes for Kamala, The Big Lebowski (1998), Jeff Bridges, beat that fascist, he’s a fascist again, it is hard to know this is a good book, Chip Delaney [Samuel R. Delany], a Farmer guy, advanced readers, coming into literature, throw them off misimpression, same logic as ban this book, anything past 10 years ago you don’t need to read, I know better than you, break into the literature, their mentor, fell off of a coconut tree, fell out of a time machine, not the best introduction to science fiction, in that explicit situation, a great book, hard to know, Jesse does his homework, some books are better introductions to science fiction, Jonathan might be right about this, simple advice, just do what I say, just vote this way, just do that thing, a reality that effects me, the starving children in Gaza, verbal masky, she gives big speeches about it, the Ukraine war, six facts, a smaller country invaded by a larger country, let’s here him out, in the context of an essay, Jeannette Ng, Campbell is a fascist, more money in that, the whole Cat Rambo situation, unforced errors, she stumbled over her own non-dick, Dick or non-dick, as a female book, Ursula K. Le Guin would have some person from Earth come to this planet, can’t be too smart, has to be a good actress, she’s credulous, credulous too great a readiness to believe things, outside the bagel shop, everybody’s credulous because advertising works, hard to have conversations about a popular veridical mask, credulousness, the ibims that they’re using, a D&D character with high charisma and low intelligence, she doesn’t even know she’s not the green queen, a lady talking about ladies being dumb, in Ringworld, he picks this chick, [Teela Brown], a 7th son of a 7th son sort of thing, earth has the technology to physically control people’s thoughts, psychology and advertising, ads, hidden from the masses, put on the population to control the reality that they see, a big problem wit the book, we’re following the badguys, foment a revolution, a more interesting story if St. Clair had decided to follow the revolutionaries, a tiktoker, fucking Eddie Liger?, ACP, be better at tiktok, Scott Miller took a course on how to be a good youtuber, professional youtubers, you can see these patterns, interaction reminders, smartTubeBeta, big long things you can skip, the removal of the dislike [count], removal of the ability to view likes, see what somebody I hate is liking, they’re just hiding it from us, so they can control us better, a way to manipulate people, a personality test, psychology, Timothy Leary, mind mirror, giant personality test, change your personality, scenarios, a tortise overturned, what do you do?, someone gives you a cat skin wallet, graphs your responses, pick a fictional character, Spider-Man, Julius Caesar, most famous dictator ever, the goal is to change the way that you’re thinking, shots of heroin, what the likes are all about, heart, angry, care, pushing the button, creating a map of your psychology, Mark Zuckerberg gets to get it, very credulous, believe the things that they’re hearing, did you quit twitter, keep my friends on twitter, start a guerrilla war against twitter, brink back the dislikes, one of the reasons we care about dislike, good content or not, a really bad ratio, I don’t need to click on that, de-rank it, how to fix your lawnmower, stripped down and simple, Reddit came a little late, gamed and wrecked, after blogs, BBSs, web 2.0 stuff, blogs were destroyed, Scott was abandoning it, a commonplace notepad, IMDB, writing review, bought by Amazon, Goodreads, you have to own your own content, an older movie on IMDB, old reviews, long and in depth, why is this guy writing all these movie reviews, bloggers without a blog, we’re lowers, what Jonathan does for a living, underemployed by technical definitions, jobs at poor pay, play computer games, most people are lowers, most uppers are lowers too, from the Hamptons, lush upscale life, suicide, borrowing money to pay for it, smaller scale, covered in pustules, a fungus, psychosomatic dying, Return From The Stars, Treasure Island is next, by making it Double Star, a space voyage across the ocean, Muppet Treasure Island, everybody is a captain, pirates, smart guy, fun guy, where the YA novels came from, really bad novel, William Golding’s Lord Of The Flies, I hate this book, a really popular 19th century novel, the wikipedia entry, his cave man novel, the neanderthals are kind gentle people, similar themes, The Coral Island, 1857, R.M. Ballantyne, Robinsande, never out of print, civilizing effect of Christianity, named the same, forced to read, its evil propaganda, predict a lot of what happened out of the last decade on twitter, a bad joke, pile on that person, destroy their lives, he’s missing something, he’s got one note, an art novel, pretty description of things, more like The Blue Lagoon by Henry De Vere Stacpoole, despite, Thackery, a LibriVox version, influential, euro popular, 11 hours, a traveler at heart, shipping out to the South Seas, shipwrecked, wonders of the sea, an unexpected source (Jesus?), kinda being jokey, so full of Robinson Crusoe, the thesis he’s making, loves his strawmen, stacked deck, find deep meaning in this very small meaning book, I’d like to do more science fiction too, start a new podcast, books and art that makes people angry, good or evil, challenges you, what good literature does, what book makes you angry?, when Jonathan started doing this podcast, greater speeds, a good speed, getting bored, put the speed up higher, full of good ideas, not well structured or well developed so we can, The Last Spaceship. The Phoenix On The Sword, Will’s review, substantial enough, A Witch Shall Be Born, the cartoon of Conan The Adventure, a phoenix on his shield, the first one in Weird Tales, everything jumps out fully formed, here’s this whole world, king of Aquilonia, been all Stygian, he’s about being a man, man, a story on the podcast, new to Howard, a Solomon Kane story, two big anthologies, a complete narrative, ending as an old guy, read by Phil Chenevert, love you Phil Chenevert, nailed/crucified, novel length, The Hour Of The Dragon, he wanted to make more money, write a novel, after he killed himself, living on money that he didn’t have, a total neophyte, the comic book version, Roy Thomas, stripping out some of the text, John Buscema, Savage Sword Of Conan, astoundingly good, Vale Of Lost Women, not a popular story, because racist, he fights a god and doesn’t lose, a valley full of women that are flowers, fights a god from space, very raw, Jack Williamson, if public domain, the clearance, on audible, The Humanoids and With Folded Hands, Stefan Rudnicki, a good science fiction novel, Joe Biden is president of the world, but not really in charge, dottering old man who suddenly grows six inches, taking care of humans and keeping them safe, the robots come, hurray hurray, I want a cigarette, I must lobotomize you now, how am I going to defeat the robots, The Green Girl, stories about green women, Ray Cummings, collaborative work, The Masked World, Will’s blog thing, anything he really needs to tell, Legion Of Space, Legion Of Time, space opera-y, time opera, Blackstone Audio, before podcasts were invented, tonight’s episode 799, 9 years, run outta numbers but not books, science fiction stories, Algis Budrys, WHO? was enough, more Silverberg, any Heinlein, the one with twins, Podkayne Of Mars, Time For The Stars, set on Mars, really good, this actor, you gotta play the president, Alan Dean Foster, the Alien novelization, drug themes in science fiction, two shorts, a Silverberg and something else, The Happy Unfortunate and The Hunted Heroes, Larry Niven didn’t start until 1966, The Integral Trees, Sirius by Olaf Stapledon, one more, Odd John, Omega: The Last Days of the World by Camille Flammarion, all collaborative, Niven is never going to be public domain, so much Silverberg, and interview with him in the new Galaxy, skinsuit, what happened, die a natural death, walk him around the compound, Biden grew six inches, too many Jose Farmers, Damon Runyon, Mark Twain, Star Man’s Quest, The Mysterious Stranger, Samuel Delany, his criticism, everybody’s mad at, Joanna Russ, The Barbarian, her taking on Conan, I think I would hate this, The Female Man, only one book, How To Suppress Women’s Writing, you’re right I’m shit, Harlan Ellison, a juvenile delinquent in space, angry characters, his criticism, more Stanisław Lem, wait six months, Solaris, Memoirs Found In A Bathtub, Star Diaries, Further Reminiscences, The Futurological Congress, a few in this series, German TV series, the famous one, if standalone, a 1971 black humour science fiction novel, Ijon Tichy, the narrator, comedic stories, send this stuff to Will, shownotes, look at the schedule at the bottom, from six months ago, Woody Guthrie, It Takes Two To Conga, Memoirs Found In A Bathtub, a hermetically sealed underground community, it can’t be deleted now, show up for it, twin gifts, hapless planet Earth, caught up in a local revolution, flash frozen, a funny piece, thinkpiece, comedy, satire, Solaris isn’t a comedy, a straight up ponderous piece, a good memory for books, Arkady Strugatsky, Stalker (1979) is punishing to watch, similar to Harry Potter, recruited for this job, weird group of people, Philip K. Dick, he’s a good guy, sickmyduck.narod.ru, good fun, Monday Begins On A Saturday, an interesting story, two hitchhikers, Karelia, research into magic, Nathaniel Priestly, Adam Roberts, he’s fine, the complete Philip K. Dick, Martian Time-Slip, A Maze Of Death, Now Wait For Last Year, space Mussolini, what haven’t you done, Transmigration Of Timothy Archer, non-sf ones, 150 stories, long or short, contrast, medium length, Waterspider, carefully shaved his head, each man only one inch high, the worst part of the vision, in all probability it was true, Minority Report, very modern, with all the UK stuff, arresting you for what you said on Facebook, different, prevent people from doing crimes tomorrow, its status, it is available, not a great great story, a good think piece, Tom Cruise is running around the city, I didn’t do the crime, 3 autistic people in a bathtub, why they picked that one, unadaptable, an abortion truck, A Maze Of Death, he doesn’t plot novels, a little shack, just speed, psychosis from speed, full of drug ideas without drugs, marrying five women, as a person, ahead of his time, normal guy working a job in the 1980s, anything from the 60s, Retreat Syndrome, Return March, The King Of The Elves, goes psychotic, The Mold Of Yancy, The Trouble With Bubbles, The War With The Fnools, when the magazines die, What Will We Do With Ragland Park, Top Standby Job, Little Black Box, The Infinite, The Eye Of The Sybil, a black man who lives in our reality, it’s raining, on the edge of his business collapsing, convenience store gas station, our king is dying, the king dies, Philip K. Dick is amazing,

IT WAS RAINING and getting dark. Sheets of water blew along the row of pumps at the edge of the filling station; the tree across the highway bent against the wind.

Shadrach Jones stood just inside the doorway of the little building, leaning against an oil drum. The door was open and gusts of rain blew in onto the wood floor. It was late; the sun had set, and the air was turning cold. Shadrach reached into his coat and brought out a cigar. He bit the end off it and lit it carefully, turning away from the door. In the gloom, the cigar burst into life, warm and glowing. Shadrach took a deep draw. He buttoned his coat around him and stepped out onto the pavement.

“Darn,” he said. “What a night!” Rain buffeted him, wind blew at him. He looked up and down the highway, squinting. There were no cars in sight. He shook his head, locked up the gasoline pumps.

He went back into the building and pulled the door shut behind him. He opened the cash register and counted the money he’d taken in during the day. It was not much.

Not much, but enough for one old man. Enough to buy him tobacco and firewood and magazines, so that he could be comfortable as he waited for the occasional cars to come by. Not very many cars came along the highway any more. The highway had begun to fall into disrepair…

skip down, limp and sodden, “I’m the king of the elves, and I’m wet.”, forlornly, silently, gets really dark, a psychotic delusion, Beyond Fantasy, a literal story, Edgar Rice Burroughs books, The Gods Of Mars, the second one, The Eternal Savage, Twilight Zoneish, in caveman times, Beyond Thirty, cross to Europe, hands down, re-read A Princess Of Mars, changes the tone, very atheist, a certain Christian audience, dies in a cave, The God Of Tarzan, people putting on a show, sounds a lot like the book we just did, humorous, John Carter, JC, like/hate, when COVID was just starting, Foster, You’re Dead, his parents cant afford the latest bomb shelter, guess you’re going to die then, John Hopkins (University), account deleted many times, a shit poaster, Mimetic Value, time isn’t linear for God, Jesus suffers a bit more, to incarcerate, Terminator and Interstellar, everything science fiction is Christian, paleo jesus arrives from the future, The Lovers by Philip Jose Farmer, John Connor, in the second Terminator movie, come with me if you want to live [forever in heaven], a lot on Audible.com, your hero and mine, Mark Twain, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Farmer wrestling, Sir Richard Francis Burton, read his short stories, truly public domain, time travel Jesus thing going on it, The Skull, Paul wasn’t having any of it, guy in the future is a criminal arrested by the cops, go back in time and kill this man, this church that’s been subverting the government, goes back in time, two weeks off, zap everybody, interferes with a teenage couple’s relationship, just like Behold The Man, Conger is a JC as well, stoning him, he’s Jesus, a combination of Terminator and Behold The Man, Joe Haldeman, done The Forever War, more Bester, haven’t done all the Simak, Mindbridge, superhorny, mud turned into the perfect woman, Forever Free, Forever Peace, Camouflage, a collection, a fixup, parts of it are public domain, you shouldn’t do a show on a fixup or collections, understanding none of them, Special Deliverance is very silly, 1982, allegory, ridiculous, selling Will, Project Pope, Simak is worth doing, Heritage Of Stars, All Flesh Is Grass, Time Is The Simplest Thing, A Choice Of Gods, it’s your call, bud, a Simak train, in the suburbs, post-apocalyptic, indians robots, alternate reality, poetry planet?, see what he’s looking at, Jesse’s secrets.

Virgil Finlay - The Green Queen

The Green Queen by Margaret St. Clair

The Green Queen by Margaret St. Clair

Introducing The Author: Margaret St. Clair

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #826 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Aeneid by Virgil (Books I to IV)

The SFFaudio Podcast #826 – The Aeneid by Virgil [Books I – IV] read by George Allen (for LibriVox) and translated by John Dryden. This is the first third of the epic poem, books I to IV (comprised of XII Books) running 3 hours 52 minutes, followed by a discussion of them. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Scott Danielson and Alex (Pulpcovers)

Talked about on today’s show:
books 1 to 4, a humanities course, misspoke, The Iliad, a hard downshift to reading the Aeneid vs. living on twitter, opposite end of the spectrum, young people don’t watch a lot of movies anymore, even TV shows are generally for old people, The Only Murders In The Building, boomers or slightly younger, bet money, this didn’t actually happen, invited Virgil over for dinner, it’s 9 hours, bro, people would and could do it, you’re in a different headspace, a different mode, the material is familiar, reading this on paper, easy reading on paper, following along in print, Robert Fagels, John Dryden, the footnotes, sometimes the footnotes contradict Jesse, who is Aeneas’ mom, the goddess Venus, she’s a huntress, dressing up like Diana, sometimes they’re not behaving in the way that is most stereotypical, reflecting, the opening, the retelling, mapping The Odyssey, book 3 especially, one to oney, Homer, Virgil was a real dude, 100% known, a merging of some things, existing myths about Aeneas, crafted an overarching story, popular myths, strikingly different, a work of art by a particular individual, all about prophecy, just Roman history, subsumed by the Roman Empire, a national epic done folk hero style, Robin Hood, national epic propaganda style, saying Shakespeare wrote to get approval of the queen, this doesn’t feel as mythological, reliance on gods for everyday events, Augustus, from town to town, died before he finished it, not in 20 years, a really cool noir ending, its finished, wanted to have it burned, not good enough, his heirs, his literary estate, copyright didn’t exist back then, George R.R. Martin, more drafts, how you write an epic poem, the pentameter wasn’t quite right, a meter problem, forced rhymes, pretending you can rhyme things, funnier, poems should be hilarious, helps tell the story, Beowulf, the translation, failed Latin, Latin 101, greater shames in life, written in Greek or Latin, this translation tries to feel epic poetry, modern post-critical translation, words that will shock you, twist the meaning, the feel, someone just telling a story, structured that way on the page, accept it without a rhyme, prose translation, a phone call, edited an annotated and compiled, Arms and the man I sing, haughty Juno, long labours both by sea and land he bore, Latian realm, built his destined town, long glories of majestic Rome, so brave, so just a man, first part of book 1, very different, an exile driven on by fate, destined to reach Lavinia soil, cruel Juno’s relentless rage, before he could found a city, the same idea, same material, not as pretty, not as poetic, easier to understand, sounds better when you read it, a very busy week, hard to pick up what’s happening, sometimes the backwards is grammar, to make it it, Maissa was going to be here, compared to The Odyssey, a very boy book, not a girl book, marriage, Juno being mad, childbirth and marriage, picks up his father, takes his son by his hand, leaves his wife behind, new wives, a nice lady there, wants to have him in bed, a serious succession of goddesses, widow, ok, destiny, I am very Roman virtue, honoring thy father, Imma kill myself, I curse you, the feel, we notice and know, comes back all by himself, loses some ships, war with the Latins, he’s still got his people, not an individual’s return home, Philip K. Dick, a man experiencing the world, Beyond Lies The Wub, a similarity but a difference, he’s trying to go home, home has been destroyed, found a new place, you need more than one guy, the Greeks are not an empire, a league, teams, allies, games together, each guy is his own king, no matter what town, Ajax the lesser, Ajax the greater, propagandistic, a national epic for an empire, a leader of men who doesn’t kill his men, sex quest across the Mediterranean, supernatural stuff, monster or goddess, variation on the magic, guest host relationship, you invited me into your home, you came into my home without knocking, each island is about the guest host relationship, a bible for how to deal with no empire, they invite you in and turn you into a pig, Dido’s peninsula, Libya, respect and food to the other lost ships, I’ll sleep with you, that’s cool, called by fate, reminded by the gods, we disagree, Juno’s the one manipulating things, do we call that fate if a god is doing it, when Zeus or Jupiter says something’s happening, that’s fate, classical pantheons, the king of the gods has real authority, a lot of talk about how the greeks are very masculinity, same thing is true of the Romans, more obviously intensive, the rape of the Sabines, whole buncha women, a sacking, taken the remnants of an army, one guy eventually showing up on his own island, teams up with his son and kills em, righteous executes justice, boy what a troubled sailor, Aeneas is not fun, moved by the fate, a mirror to Augustus, blows some waves, Poseidon is happy with Aeneas, everything is reversed, all subsumed to the outcome, written backwards, a deliberate myth about his own people, an inversion, every part of it is backwards, an inevitable monopoly piece, watching a chess game from the 1960s, no concept of spoiling things, you know where it is going on purpose, the whole fun of it, almost too perfect, Dido is not a goddess, nymphs, more deliberate, more false, she’s also the queen of Carthage, beaten in recent history, she’s on her pyre, now we’re going to forever be at war for what you did to me, why didn’t he just stat with her, almost like a prequel, to get to Episode 4, doesn’t feel as awesomely spontaneous, not internal, everything he ran into, a goal he was going for, he’s dutiful, less of a character, found the new city and get better lives, you’re all going to live and conquer Italy, not acting like a king, a piece on a chessboard being moved around, his destiny was to found Rome, that is what a king is supposed to act like according to this piece of propaganda, those guys are lost at sea, that guy got eaten by a cyclops, that’s not the job of a kind, that is why we have an empire, good at art and tutoring but they don’t have the discipline that a king is supposed to have, that culminating scene at the end, he’s basically won the war, he’s essentially founded Rome, he could end this and make friends and have it be over, brothers in this new land, my friend, echoes back to the Iliad, of course we have to genocide you, extremely new to having a king again, imperator, supreme executive authority, an agent of the senate, working for the senate, that lie went away over the centuries, this is an emergency, for the rest of his life, is Augustus the first time an emperor comes into existence?, the same trick Napoleon uses, does that trick work again?, the British are very willing to marry into the Bonaparte royal line, the emperor of japan still exists, but the empire is just Japan and Okinawa, before the Shogun, prime minister, but the king has no power, I’m the emperor’s chief warlord, nobody tries to mess with the throne, a separate kind of thing, the managers of empire, they have staff, the buck stops with them, pontifex maximus, the highest religious figure, sometimes you become a literal god as well, the head of the army, extreme power, this book feels different in part because its an inversion, it is not about art and a man wandering the earth and figuring out how to relate to things, a man needs to be with his wife and his son, the journey of a state, curses the two culture to war, 27 BC, 2100 year old book?, they knew about all that Carthage stuff, figuring out what they’re culture is like based on this one thing, a very narrow window, the propaganda of empire, an emperor’s job, carrying the father, to lead the son, faithful to his friends, push on towards destiny, my pride is up, personal rivalry, the inevitable grind of what the plan is, trying to live your life trying to figure out what the gods want, make a sacrifice to Juno, the milk white cow, and a foal, motifs we don’t get, symbols, fire, snake, page 61, the hollow spaces lie, denoting deeth [death], the priestess enters with her hair unbound, a curse, threefold Hecate, hoary, with brazen sickles reaped a noon of night, baleful juices, robbing the mother’s love, two meanings, the mother of the foal, unable to suckle its child, she wanted to have his babies, you could get married again, this ritual is to kill her, a mother’s job is to have children and make new Roman soldiers, everything’s white, twas dead of night, gentle floods, peace with downy wings was brooding on the ground, making eggs, very skillfully done, a cow, pours red juice on its head, cow, cattle?, it exists, if I was a Roman, some of those symbols, circling back, feels like a witch, she’s a priestess, this text is the foundational text in education up into the 1900s, memorizing, those symbols, I bet a lot of it came straight outta this text, the root of a lot of the symbolism and language, this massive poem, 9000 couplets, breaking it up, so much going on, Donald Westlake book set in New York, what a cab is, how the economy works, the prices, racism, how much a sandwich costs, what the alley smelled like, how this was distributed, copied by slaves or copyists, possibly Greeks, making copies to be gifted, presents, enjoy them, everybody likes reading, the major media that’s available, they have theaters and stuff, the actors were slaves, low class, business magnate, a general, something important, who the audience for it is, they’re going to think it is cool, the amount of change you need to get in to get into it, questioning what does that mean exactly, more difficult than the odyssey, a manufactured bible, more book of Mormon, maybe they have an empire, surrounded, in Utah, there’s a Mormon in the house!, the description of the Trojan War, their minds were addled, intervention by gods that made them actually accept this thing, Virgil, why Odysseus is a hero to me is because he’s tricky, his virtue is not the virtue of being a good father or a dutiful leader, not the virtue of an emperor, pride, proud, strong, some invulnerability, sense of honor, honor comes from pride, how he can trick his way out of things, you promised to go off with a thousand ships, pretends to be insane, plowing the beach, puts [Telemachus] on the beach, Achilles, dressed him up as a handmaiden [Achilles on Skyros], thread, a rocket, a sword, these conversations, differences between men and women, the reason he is beloved of Minerva/Athena is he’s tricky, wisdom is being clever/tricky not making good decisions for your community, Aeneas is beloved by Jupiter, the fealty is to the father, a major difference, tusky boars and stags, my animal, the titles for these books, The Passion Of Dido, a biblical meaning, Safe Haven After Storm, The Final Hours Of Troy, Landfalls Ports Of Call, Arms And The Man, The Fall Of Troy, Aeneas’ Wanderings, wow, double meaning, an interesting choice, have something happen to you, Passion Of The Christ vs. a woman who is passionate, to be an actor is to act, to be a patient is to have things done to you, her sister is the human who tries to give her good advice, bad advice, murdered by his brother, his land and his wealth, his gold, the wife is collateral damage, she had promised not to remarry, in such a tough spot, she loved her dead husband, visiting his tomb, not in the know with regard to the chessboard plan, the visits to Sicily, abbreviated and less cool than anything we get in the Odyssey, just following the map, together in one book, who he was writing for, what would a stop in Sicily have meant, pooping on this book, two of the greatest things ever written, pretty good for a dude, given all the limitations, so much foreshadowing, follows the same structure and formula, you can bump into characters, a map of the journeys, time feels very compressed, founded Rome before Odysseus got home, 10 years at war, 10 years at sea, hanging out with Calypso, the storytelling, the first book of The Odyssey, sees some washer princesses, is it Menelaus, I’m not a classics scholar, I’m a pulp art fan, the man of many devices, the sacred citadel of Troy, many the woes he suffered, the return of his comrades, he desired it sore, so sad all my guys died, hey guys you all have to stuff your ears full of wax, but tie me up I gotta hear this shit, so appealing to a teenagers, fools, goddess daughter of Zeus, longing for return, yearning that he should be her husband, everybody wants to marry our boy, turn him into a tame animal, maybe an owl, whatever you are is what you’re turned into, stay in bed don’t go out, stay here, we’ll stay in, a third lady, all these sea-ladies want to keep him, return home to Ithaca, even among his own folk, save Poseidon, sundered in twain, where Hyperion sets and rises, Argives, his men screwed up, they killed the bulls of the sungod, that’s why they were all killed, Mercury shows up and says don’t go in there, take this herb with you, favoured by the gods, one way to read it, being gifted with good ideas, having an app on your phone that can tell you where to go, these Facebook gods are working against us, always meeting cross dressing gods, Mentor, more formal about it, piety was prized among the Romans, forces of nature, make this guy a king, personification of storms, keep your head down and survive, more legalistic, rational?, the city of Rome, household gods, a Roman concept, a guardian angel, you inherited them from your father, little statues of them, a different vibe, the gods have a plan and are working through it, I got reject by Paris and I’m mad about it, you killed my cows, he was brought home because they liked him for some reason, Aeneas is being dragged along his path of fate, a very pious guy, Aeneas before this was written he was a very pious guy, supremely violent, appealed to the Romans, a more Roman virtue, martial prowess, bows to the will of the gods, does what he’s supposed to, feels less mythic than Odysseus, really good, flashed, Hyrcania, Hyrkania, the horselords in Conan, Russia/Ukraine, these walls he entered, forced by my fate, from head to foot, looking at people’s bodies, no longer these outrageous threats, she dissin him, hardened entrails, rough Hyrcanian tigers, looked or lent, all symptoms of a base ungrateful mind, behold in vain, triumphant treason, faithless is earth, faceless are the skies, suicidal you might say, #betrayed, I know that place, you knew that one, a number of cities, Argos, in one of these old books, sometimes it is mapped in Robert E. Howard, The Lost Valley Of Iskander, kinda sorta, 20 cities named after Alexander, weird fantasy novel, the other Alex, weird fantasy author, [Thomas Burnett Swann’s The Weirwoods], shinto like spirits, occassional cyclops, there isn’t magic in every wave, Cloacina the goddess of the drains, the sewers in Rome, chief of the drame, The Not-World, every forest is full of spirits, nymphs, dryads, naidas, land of the lotus eaters, weird creatures, the world is unexplored, at least 500 years earlier, the Mycenaean collapse, a very post-modern, Virgil is very post-modern for a pre-modern, camera, well that just happened, make me die, really horrible, a mural of the Trojan war here, a grotto where there’s a lady who’s immortal, that’s not a thing in this book, its a human woman in a real place, that we really salted the earth for, pretty extraordinary book, the next two installments, split it into thirds, the Iliad part is the war part, more Odyssey part, the journey to the underworld, how Virgil ended up in Dante, referencing previous book, Larry Niven putting himself in hell, Inferno, the sequel, H.P. Lovecraft is always thinking my life as a Roman!, Philip K. Dick leans on the early end, a story set in ancient Greece, [The Tree by H.P. Lovecraft], I know, I know, the whole story is a kinda like Robert Graves gives us about Livia, Augustus’ wife, I, Claudius, poisoning everybody, two artists are commissioned to make a statue of a god, inspiration from nature vs. inspiration from partying in the city, such a good friend to his friend, you don’t need to build me a tomb, put an olive branch at the head of my grave, a mighty tree, collapses in a windstorm, the friend isn’t a friend he was jealous, he poisoned him, art inspired by nature, Lovecraft’s argument, making that argument here, The Odyssey is better because its inspired by some sort of natural thing vs. a propagandistic thing, three great attempts to do epic poetry, Gilgamesh is a thing, a tradition of epic poetry, Dante did it for the Italians, he put Virgil in it, not so much as a history, everyone else writing in Latin, Milton tried to do it in English, none of them, for science fiction fans, Eclogues aka The Bucolics, The Georgics, shorter poems, some sort of theories, one of them is a really interesting thing about bees, bees in here, an Italian miniseries adaptation of The Aeneid, a nest of bees, bees are a big thing in Roman culture, the Romans being bees, they have queens, they thought they had kings, the king bee, industrious, plays and drinking parties and doing philosophies, also farmers, bees produce honey, citizen farmers, we will kick your ass, a recipe for making bees, get a carcass of a bull and cover it so no air can get in, bees within it, wasps?, that doesn’t sound right, a metaphor, what that metaphor is, you can see the working hand of Virgil in the manipulation of the events, Dido and the war, so much content in the millions of similes, Dido’s sister her hair is blonde, are the Carthaginians aryans?, is that a metaphor, the marriage bed, something red poured on its head, virgins everywhere, endless virgins, something the Romans are thinking a lot about, prized virginity, Vestal virgins, what’s the word sacred mean, set aside for the gods, something unblemished, in Exodus, an unblemished lamb, what’s the best animal to sacrifice, nudity, half-cladness, bottomless, kinda fun, not a prudish book, the morality is very different, extremely different, they have the things they believe in, a lot of echoes to it, The Man Who Was Thursday, Father Brown Mysteries – The Sign Of The Broken Sword, guess who the spymaster is, higher up the chain, The Everlasting Man, the pinnacle of pagan civilization, only the Christianization of Roman, the best culture, supposed to rule the world, our empire will have no boundaries, let’s go Rome!, these guys were a little weird tho, invade and murder all these people, before tweets, it sounds like a forerunner to the Riverworld novels, John Kendrick Bangs, Bangsian Fantasy, everyone who has ever died is in Hades, a mysterious houseboat, comedic version of what happens, put Virgil in Hell, he doesn’t belong in the worse circle of hell because he’s a virtuous pagan, retrograde takes, this doesn’t seem right to me, reading Gilgamesh, that guy really loved his friend, science fiction about a future culture where their virtues are really different, prized different things, murdered that guy and raped his wife, Jack Vance, The Moon Moth, a culture where you aren’t allowed to watch people eat, so disgusting, Time Out Of Joint, you do things backwards, gonna have to go to school soon, people regurgitate food into the refrigerator, everything’s reversed, Catholic worries about birth control and abortion, insert me into some woman, attach an umbilical cord, you eat through your ass, learned a ton, meeting again on the first of September, on for The Green Queen and then Treasure Island, Hugh B. Cave, unmute your children.

Aeneas tells Dido of The Trojan War by Guerin

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #824 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Killers Are My Meat by Stephen Marlowe

The SFFaudio Podcast #824 – Killers Are My Meat by Stephen Marlowe – read by Ben Tucker (for LibriVox). This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (5 hours 22 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Alex (Pulpcovers)

Talked about on today’s show:
Milton Lesser, Killers Are My Meat, joke, Murder Is My Dish, Trouble Is My Name, a new Gold Medal, LibriVox, digging into it, a science fiction author, mostly set in India, the first Chester Drum story, the third novel, a big future, 20 books?, a lot, he’d been to India, world traveler, Benares, smells and vibes, too much detail, I fooled em all!, immigrants, saris, religious practices, 1957, the narrator, some Conan stuff, pronunciations wrong, he gets drugged with a rufinol?, that can’t be right, acting in a similar way, drugs, a 1950s thing, smoking, alcohol, by the river, the girl reporter, throws it in the river, sex adjacent stuff, our hero, a traditional gold medal paperback PI, so strange, interesting, Ross Macdonald, Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, John D. MacDonald, Chesapeake City, Maryland, on a clipper to India, getting sweaty, the culture, the plot hinges on these culture things, not a crappy book at all, quite well developed, the low stakes, early cold war conference, a success, didn’t accomplish very much, the global south, low level state department guy, framed for rape, very believable, the thing that it is, a private detective story, G man pulps, don’t trust G men, read too much, real propaganda, FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, dress codes, the publishing industry, taking down the counterfeiters, T-Men, actual propaganda, this legacy, the people who defected, for cynical reasons, Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest, sympatico, science fiction, crime fiction, scratches a very similar itch, understanding reality, more like a scientist, James M. Cain, motivations, detached, knight in tarnished armour, pay the secretary, a series of formulae, a new alloy, engineering, claims out there in the world, appearances out in the world, the underlying truth behind the appearances, Sherlock Holmes, crime fiction and mystery fiction, a series character, Captain Future, villain of the week, Flash Gordon cartoon series from 1979, the character drawings, funny dialogue, a lot of filler, recycling scene, stretched it out, Hannah Barbara animation look, more rotoscoped, Heavy Metal (1981), the shapes of ladies as they turn, Flash Gordon (1980), Flesh Gordon (1974), Futurama, Star Trek, that is actually a Frederik Pohl story, Bender art, it lives on its references, the Harlem Globetrotters, without the foundation, the heads of various, Richard Nixon’s head, Al Gore, Lucy Lui, the latest batch, a little bit too meta, the Snu Snu episode, David H. Keller, Zoidberg, the saddest, nobody loves him, why not Zoidberg, an incel, mates once and then dies, Amy Wong, guh, skibidi toilet, nonsense words, Rambo!, a connection between crime fiction and mystery fiction and science fiction, series science fiction, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and F&SF, totally compatible, Milton Lesser is Stephen Marlowe, he wrote, operating in a different mode, all the things that happen in this story, hit on the head, drugged, hit by a car, drunk, hangovers, private detective story tropes, this girl loves him, all very tropey legit built in stuff, deeply connected to the facts that Lesser learned, this Malabar woman thing, the central mystery, find himself, get lost and never come back, little details, Somerset Maugham, Ben Tucker (our narrator), The Razor’s Edge, a movie version with Bill Murray, WWI veteran with ptsd, transcendent meaning, rejection of conventional life, reversals of fortune, the sharp edge of a razor, our friend from before the war, he goes to the east, he acts differently, why do people want to go to India, the smoke, the smells, the humidity, a weak fan, one room has AC, a bath of sweat, not a resort area, there’s answers there, polyandry, outlawed, a traditional weird Indian set of beliefs, the caste system, bloodlines, weird food, vegetarian, the big reveal, when he’s at the river, raking the body, he’s looking for the metal plate in his head, in the movie version, aha, lays his traps well, following along, you’re the best detective in Washington, straddled the line, cold war espionage fiction, Hugh North, squarely in the middle early twentieth century exoticism, not the way Robert E. Howard would write it, geopolitical concerns, what it is to be a man, a champion for women, other chracters’ motivations, the thing that is being explored, to get his $2000 and go home, his friend gets kidnapped, other male reporter, honourable intentions, quite cozy, that’s how you do it, The Thin Man, bachelor to married, Lawrence Block and Donald Westlake, driving a Toyota Avalon, somebody else’s driver’s license, time marches on, easy breezy read, hot places, a flavour, or an idea, Belize, very Caribbean accent, addicted to paperbacks, teenage years, teenage boy, walk around this library, amazingly cool book, one for the one for me, a really good hobby, I was promised this was a book, a different mode of being, what is the purpose of my existence here on Earth?, there’s actually value here, nothing on the cover, Japanese writing on a sign, guy in a trenchcoat, her hands awoke me, her breath was not cold, felt her body, that’s uncomfortable, overheated, no touching, generic cover, the artist rarely read these things, tan skin and red lips, blonde?, the defacto representative, in a sense we were tricked, you tricked me into reading this, suddenly, diplomatic immunity, first secretary, feels very Washington, all that doesn’t matter, we’re going to India, tiny details, why is this woman dressed the way she is, they’re wealthy here, suspicious, suspicious characters, the opposite of formulaic, plot, typical motivations, having sex with everybody in town, undercut, its a red herring, his wife doesn’t really care, eastern mysticism, because she’s eastern, not have his wife cuckhold him, he’s like the mahatma, operating on another plane, gin everywhere, constant taking of drugs, keep smoking it brings up the blood pressure, rauwolfia, hypertension, they’re both drugged, I lined my stomach with butter, ghee, eat a lot, a full stomach, puked it up, Paul didn’t believe Jesse, wood alcohol, the antidote to wood alcohol poisoning is regular alcohol, start processing, both have the same effect, the second Indiana Jones movie, antidote, drugs and counterdrugs, the most even and obvious, a “rubby”, so that people don’t drink it, taxes, moonshining is constitutional, in British Columbia, government liquor store, grocery stores carrying wine, a loophole, you can make your own, a cheaper version of what you want, a regular little bit of expensive alcohol, a rough way to live your life, a good hobo novel, tramps, bum, Reacher, goes from town to town, functionally homeless, rides the rail to save money, a fascinating set of cultural little things, as normies who live in homes, hobo signs, a more dubious thing, cows, this book smelled bad, all the burning bodies, limbs, quartering, tourism, pilgrims, drink the water, disgusting, river full of ashes, river full of corpses, how did you like the book, fairly complex story, very enjoyable, that private eye dialogue itch, nothing is just hot, hotter than the thighs of a matron, how was your trip, 20 airports, Basra, Calcutta, a lot of flights, three day flight, a tangent, how much men think about the Roman Empire, thinking of other women, thinking about the Concorde, supersonic jet liner, things we used to have, cars with fins on them, economics, whenever someone asked, the answer is always some combination of labour costs, or invisible regulations, we banned asbestos, fuel efficiency requirements, flush fit handles, Tesla is covered in cameras, at least two mirrors, how big do they have to be?, a quirk, convertibles, an iconic thing, a solution, no new cars have, 1976 or 1977 up to 1995, a Camaro, a t-top, or the targa on a Porche, in a rollover you’ll be okay, that idea ended, the Miata, there is no hardtop Miata, a huge success, why cars last a long time, two door cars, smart car, microcars, the rebooted Volkswagen beetle, the Cooper Mini, the lowest thing around, taxes are different on trucks, you have to make a truck, pop up headlights, lights a certain height from the ground, not have a sloping front, Lotus Esprit, damage people that you hit, even on McClarens, strange rules, the class of people, crazy expensive, $10,000 for a flight that’s 5 times shorter?, a two hour flight, some sort of economic reason, forbid them from flying, no supersonic over land, coastal city to coastal city, its not that we don’t know how to make it anymore, where are my airships?, let’s go camping, that’s a pretty valley, see the bears, go through the rockies, storms, really good at predicting the weather, a big sail you can’t unfurl, this is very important, the lightest gas, a new source of helium, the strategic helium reserve, industrial amounts of helium, other gasses, the Americans won’t let you have any, make it a vacuum, vacuum lighter than air vehicles, hydrogen leaks out of everything, a ball of nothingness that is sealed, your zepplin gets shot, lighter than air aircraft, air will leak in, air getting out vs. air getting in, a bubble of vacuum in a sea of air, sealable globe of nothing, we can’t have nice things, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, magazines in general, National Geographic from 2022, entirely online?, no point in having it in paper, a website you can’t adblock, articles that were more dubious, an opinion piece about your diet, man made meats, fake meats, hypertension, China, the Germans, the cargo airship, heavy lift airships, there’s money there, once airplanes got started, hobby weekend, golf, sailing, the Daddy Warbucks, The Shadow, a pre-helicopter helicopter [autogiro], Nazi helicopters for WWII, counter rotating blades, clipper airplane, get all sweaty, can’t get the alcohol you want, flew back to China, Singapore, Bali, in the course of 4 days, reasonably priced, a college student could save up and do it, Greenland, any place where there’s people, tours of Antarctica, going from this, a name to look out for, short stories, follow the patterns, copyright renewals, that being the case, every six months or so, people who didn’t renew their copyright are being read, often never republished, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, locked up somewhere, always been the case, Poe and Melville, we have something good here, you had to buy it in physical, a weird and bad distortion, Dr. Jekyll And Mr Hyde is not a kid’s book, Treasure Island is a kid’s book, I’m your step-dad, leatherbound, new versions, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, the good stuff really worth reading, looks great on a shelf, locked up in copyright, Adrian Praetzellis, young Jim Hawkins, Ben Gunn, arrgh! Jim Lad, R.L. Stevenson, Black Sails, so close to being good, water is expensive, next available slot, mid-august, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes [by Anita Loos], a million versions, N.C. Wyeth, a half dozen, Kidnapped, The Black Arrow, David Balfour, poorly and well represented, Poe, a whole lot of Poe, Willam Wilson, no black cat in the name, The Island Of The Fay, The Angel Of The Odd, being an alcoholic, niche interest, career cut short, Kidnapped, Fables, The Sinking Ship, the ship is going down, going out about half shaved, going down since she was launched, time is only relative, in Davy Jones’ Locker in 10 minutes, the situation of man, spoken like a good officer, broken into the spirit room, to the philosophic eye, too far gone, man’s handsome fashion, omit to take a pill, smoking in a powder magazine, a glorious detonation, you’re dying sir, I’ve just adopted a son, license to write a book with you’re new adopted son, sail into the South Pacific, weird natives, Markheim, he killed the curio dealer but met a presence in the shop, killed a guy on Christmas Eve?, the devil appears, you’ve done my work for me, you know who I am, its Christmas Eve you know, that’s wrong!, a little psychological portrait, the range of this guy, a humorist, poetry, a classic at least, on his grave, interesting, he threw it in the fire, rewrote it, very interesting fellow, the eyes of a child, an honest doomed man, his problem is not resentment, or class resentment like Lovecraft, sickly but has a vast love of life, as a kid, the prose, a million movie adaptations, gonna be great, The Cave Girl, a fluffy silly book, The Green Queen by Margaret St. Clair, because of the cover, isn’t that nice, mistress of miracles or puppet of super-science?, semi-contemporary, Robert Sheckley, all born in 1928, 2008, The Last Starship, gets progressively worse, awesome, hard SF with its rules, the mayor never gets a name, Leinster can be awesome, absolute control, get girls, set slaves, what happens, Virgil Finlay, 131 pages, a podcast of short stories, idea packed, women and men are different, they’re not exactly the same as each other, womens’ brains, shorter, weaker, have to suckle children, more domestic, gardening, she’s an old aunt, Heinlein style spaceman nephew, a feed me Seymour style monster, two spacemen go to a planet, everyone there is immortal, religious temple, its taboo, religious mystery, how they treat the death, we’ll give you gifts, share this tech with my people, get off of this planet please, full of books, find a couple of books and read them, the life story of a dead person, read their life stories, a good twist, a third gender, a weird lifestyle, genuine science fiction, couple goes flying in their spaceship the girl dies, a creature that’s a mimic, a Twilight Zone episode, underrated, a real shame, thank you very much.

GOLD MEDAL - Killers Are My Meat

GOLD MEDAL - Killers Are My Meat

The SFFaudio Podcast #823 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Loved Dead by C.M. Eddy and H.P. Lovecraft

The SFFaudio Podcast #823 – The Loved Dead by C.M. Eddy and H.P. Lovecraft – read by Mr Jim Moon. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (33 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Mr Jim Moon, and Jonathan Weichsel.

Talked about on today’s show:
only credited to Eddy in Weird Tales, a letter, controversial, banned, Washington, D.C., Everil Worrell, a reading club called The Outsiders, censorship issue, one state, a different version, the Spicy magazines, if it had a star on the cover, naked ladies inside, a horror show, a really fun story, this is a comedy piece, a very dark parody of Edgar Allan Poe, monomania, a Poe like character, a very Lovecraft-like character, Eddy had some hand in it, not a lovecraftian premise, hiding or repressing the truth about reality, stylometery PDF, the curlicues, shook the story, the adjectives fell out, making the serifs more beautiful, a friend of Lovecraft, by Lovecraft?, drips with his style and vocabulary, moreso than the Eddy stories, structure and storyline, rewrote from start to finish in his own house style, the narrator’s school days, teased, sickly, autobiographical notes, The Unnameable, flushing the Poe out of his typewriter, looser feelings, The Picture In The House, blackly comic, massively over the top, Poe’s lyrical shrieking, ghoulishly, qually interested in male and female corpses, he’s necrosexual, dead is his gender, the transrainbow flag, leaves a lot to the imagination, it doesn’t tell you he is having sex with them, he’s hugging them, a vampiric addiction, alive and not listless when around dead people, the silly and fun part, unbased in anything, locked in a coffin for six months, grandfather’s funeral, he comes alive, no goth origin scene, so silly, writing the story on the back of a grave [stone], till he himself becomes one of them, I have sent six bullets through the head of my best friend, targeted within, they’re hunting me for my murders, The Haunter Of The Dark, writing to the point of death, pungent phrases, the brand of hell, I can write no more…, fantastic, recording this last year, a gift for a narrator, the literary equivalent of heavy metal, pick a random sentence, a lot of ss, crafting it, narrated by someone else, a sillier story in a different way, Pickman’s Model, the language is dialed down, turned up to 11 right from the start, operatic rather than realistic, pointing to the language, some of them are okay, pistol in his pocket, good weird tales, we get the word, tentacles, my thirst for the noxious, delicious, treading on dangerous ground, demoniac desire gripped me, Lovecraft pastiche, asexual, where this story diverts from Lovecraft, his stories are never about sexual desire, The Thing On The Doorstep, having sex with an ancient Lich, Suitable Flesh (2023), Dennis Paoli, Bobby Derie, a sense of humour, dry, dark ghoulish black humour, in The Shunned House, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Lurking Fear, rape, blooming forest, mushrooms with penis shapes, on board with this, sexual fetish, ancestry, drawn to an ancestor, 17th century gentleman, feeling displaced, The Outsider is not about sex, seen holding a corpse, take a vacation, you’ve been working too hard, fallen asleep on the slab, the guy who runs the place has encountered this before, a new twist on a Poe thing, The Premature Burial, molested then buried, further my acquisition of these corpses, he murders you then he caresses you, Re-Animator, sentence by sentence, wasn’t Eddy a neighbourhood kid, six years younger than Lovecraft, same neighbourhood, younger people, that grandpa thing, why The Outsider appeals, I’m not like other kids!, prose poetry maximized, I can give this a gloss and polished, even if entirely Eddy, Clifford Martin Eddy, born in Providence, Swann Point Cemetery, weird legal thing with his heirs, out of the public domain and into copyright, 1918, 1923, Muriel Eddy, women’s suffrage, my son is going to be a writer, The Ghost Eater, a 1924 werewolf story, sandwiches and a revolver, cosplay before Dungeons & Dragons, mary sue style adventures, as mature, Deaf, Dumb And Blind, also a revision, Ashes, With Weapons Of Stone, Theodore Sturgeon, one million percent memorable, in a different league to the other Eddy stories, so gross, pretty good for a story over 100 years old, another necrophiliac story, Pity Me! by Bertha Russell, a dead Spanish lady, from the same period, molesting the corpse, she comes alive, overcome by the lust for the body, boss comes in, you’ve had a shock haven’t you, Pity me, reader, pity me, finished the job, I know I screamed, something fleshy, the boss, convalescing from a nervous breakdown, fear laden screams, awful awful, refused to believe me, strenuous work, not on the table of contents, age 15, so delightful and interesting, the imagination and enthusiasm, the gay lady who went to church, the worms crawled out, the worms crawled in, The Eyrie, necrophiliac stories, the entire subject, vampire stories, necrophiliac adjacent, long running dead wife obsession, out and proud, takes a lot of heat, a movie, a female mortician, Kissed (1996), fairly tastefully done, Molly Parker, a corpse has a major role, kind of an art movie, Lynne Stopkewich, Annabel Lee, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, incest adjacent, a maiden there lived, by the side of my bride, penetration, old man having sex with a dead child girl, pretty fucked up, an extraordinary story, builds back to the opening, no ghost element, quite the opposite, looking forward to being with them, more weird menace, using science, I want to have sex with the dead, it’s love, lust too, he loves them, so funny, I really like girls but they’re embarrassing, guys girls whatever, bizarre and silly, this is hilarious, pick some thing to be obsessed with, my bride’s teeth, serial killer confession, Maniac (1980), Maniac (2012), The Evil Dead (1981), Bad Taste (1987), cartoonish, gross or distasteful, so funny, look at me in this festering graveyard, no women, eat people, here to harvest humans, intergalactic taste sensation, Peter Jackson, The Lord Of The Rings wrecked him, The Stuff (1985), Larry Cohen, poorly put together and rushed here and there, satire of consumer culture, the menace from within, God Told Me To (1976), aliens pretending to be god, It’s Alive (1974), monster baby, Maniac Cop series, Bill Lustig, film festival in New Orleans, enormously fat, his legs, an eating vacation, a culinary place, dishes are huge, cajun cuisine, he would order three, a big spoon, three courses in one meal, an amazing eater, Bruce Campbell was cast to be the mirror of Robert Z’dar, his jaw grows too many teeth, played bad guys, the first one is good, people who survive the first one die, a new hero, he dies, playing with its rule, is he a zombie?, he’s dead, they didn’t think about it, it doesn’t make any sense, but the threat is real, the action is good, very legit, pulp fiction, the video store, get movies, carry a guide book, old movies on for cheap rental or purchase, you get a cover, about 90 minutes, a short story, not a novel, the same actors, the same images, a sex thriller, a continuation of the pulp genre in the video series, a Saw parody called Slaw, the devolved end of pulp, Strange Tales, mockbusters, Asylum’s whole business model, they made a hobbit movie?, Sharknado type monster movies, their movies are no fun, a tribute series to our guy Corman, his productions, puts value for money on screen, crappy concept of the week, satellites are in!, Death Race 2000 (1975), Rollerball (1975), Jaws (1975) spawns Piranha (1978), Transmorphers vs. Transformers, tricking audiences, VHS era, Smokey And This That And The Other, Emmanuelle series of movies, good movie vs. interesting movie, Frankenstein and his gimp suit, a comedic per-version of The Running Man (1987), sports are fascist, degeneration and television is controlling people, get points by killing pedestrians, the least good stuff in it, the kayfabe of the race, loving it, too loose, part of the fun of a b movie, intellectually the heft that it has is all in the details, an intellectual film, [Whitman, Price, and Haddad], Battle Royale, could the Loved dead be filmed?, use narration, an exploitation film, nudity, weird sex, bizarre stuff going on, a human love interest, a comedy no matter what, Stuart Gordon, Dagon (2001), Spain, feels broken, we have to film it there, Bleeders (1997) aka Hemoglobin, Rutger Hauer, changes, Nova Scotia, a Lovecraft story in California, jarring, valley girls vs. Cthulhu, ancestral home, what’s this drunk talking about, he’s got a Spanish accent, distracts, a limitation, the villain, The Temple, written by Dan O’Bannon, responsible for a good chunk of 80s and 90s science fiction, Alien (1979), Dead & Buried (1981), lent his name, as much weight as a writer’s name could carry, Lifeforce (1985), Total Recall (1990), Screamers, Terminator world, had a hand in, consistent, Blue Thunder (1983), it works, Peter Weller, infiltrators, claws, robotic drones, killing all humans, Jon’s World and Second Variety, one word titles, Twister (1996), a Michael Crichton project, a junker, a Burt Reynolds tv movie, Coma (1978), Robin Cook, Westworld (1973) was a novel he didn’t write, the all star cast, STEPHEN KING, star power, social media, from a communist point of view, redistribute, land reform, charisma or appeal, the same stars, the Ken doll, Ryan Gosling, Zendaya, Kyle Gallner, Red Letter Media Kyle Gallner specials, Dinner In America (2020), set in the 80s, where America is at, we know where we are, probably autistic, a quasi retarded girl romance, a ski mask, a lovely cute little romance with a lot of style, I remember loving movies, Netflix, get Marvel action star to make an action movie, a movie with heart, The Menu (2022), The Whale (2022), renting a movie online, too restrictive, sail the high seas, bro, 70s Spanish horror, mainly older stuff, the streaming services are quite bad, Tubi, Prime, Plex, links where you can find it, 1940, 1960, 4 movies from the 1980s, television shows, there used to be a countable number of television shows, there’s now an infinite number of television shows, how did that happen?, go down rabbit holes, the boutique DVD labels, Arrow, Vinegar Syndrome, rare and bizarre, pan and scan, so much better when properly restored, it has to be 88 minutes, silent movies, a hard sell, no silent film streaming service, a 70s action film, The French Connection (1971), let’s watch that, not what we’re being presented with, 80s blockbusters, Gremlins (1984), Karate Kid, long takes, a kid friendly version of weird menace, an end of the world movie, The Parallax View (1974), very modern sensibility, maybe the government isn’t working in our best interests, an election in the UK, Labour has the biggest majority since 1830, getting rid of the antisemitism of Jeremy Corbyn, always do the wrong thing, more of that is coming, a really terrific story to revisit, if it didn’t have Eddy’s name attached, all the Lovecraft stories in 3 paperback omnibuses, it did not disappoint, not a sentence wasted, beautifully structured, a great story to record, creep and gross people out 100 years later, literally beautiful, what Clark Ashton Smith calls Prose Pastels, it is a he, explicitly a he, does it have to be, mortician jobs, not a conventional job for women, he gets rid of his parent pretty quick, not an unreliable narrator, he’s hiding nothing, how much glee he’s having, silly fluff, the very tight structure, not a misstep, precious and very rare and very funny, well written, well structured, over the top-80s, RoboCop (1987)’s ads, hyper reality of 1980s cynicism, They Live (1988), you like Poe stories, you like Weird Tales, here’s one, you’ll love this one… to death, the subject matter, Kissed (1996) was done tastefully, Kurt Vonnegut’s The Sirens Of Titan as a play by Stuart Gordon, Robot Jox (1989), doesn’t quite gel together, worth a watch, flawed, The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (1998), based on a Ray Bradbury play, magic realism, fluorescent white, spilling tacos, delightful and beautiful, Fortress (1992), Christopher Lambert, what makes Highlander (1986) good, a sequel, Stuck (2007), why trash bitch, I’m in trouble I hit a guy, The Pit And The Pendulum (1992), Castle Freak (1995), The Unnameable (1988), and the sequel, The Unnamable II (1992), play well back to back, a sequel that doesn’t suck, space prison, a lot of fun, Escape From New York in space prison, Lockout (2012), Luc Besson, collar around his head blows up, The Running Man (1987), a funny and fun but not good Rutger Hauer movie, Wedlock (1991) aka Deadlock, he’s The Hitcher (1986) he can’t be a nebbish, Mimi Rogers, forced meet cute, why would they set it up that way, a bad sequel, set in future California, two likeable actors with an interesting script, run for 90 minutes, a checklist, Jack Nicholson and Boris Karloff, The Terror (1966), Little Shop Of Horrors (1960), very moody, just that simple, all men on an island, No Escape (1993), Ray Liotta, sent to tropical island Hawaiian prison, rival gangs, does explosions, Benghazi, fights back against the discipline, Lord Of The Flies but an action film, my theory that humans are doomed to do the worst things possible, black and white ones, the Puerto Rican trilogy, Hell In The Pacific (1968), snaps, set in Cuba, a satire, the monster is fake, The Last Woman On Earth (1960), Richard Matheson, Creature From The Haunted Sea (1961), Battle Of Blood Island (1960), Poe adaptations, The Masque Of The Red Death (1964), Cormania, somebody famous dies, 500 movies, A Bucket Of Blood (1959), a dim witted busboy, satire of art, great artist, same sort of vibe, a ridiculous premise and run with it, The Wasp Woman (1959), bees make royal jelly, wasp royal jelly, turns you into a wereladywasp, a really good job, fun funereal words, here at this farm, dogs, chickens, cows, throwin hay all day, rooster in the background, since Christmas or New Years, a four hour trip, all rural, not students in need of tutoring, farmlife, see you on the internet, Sunday afternoon, get two edits done, WHO? by Algis Budrys, Rogue Moon, science fiction version of The Man In The Iron Mask.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #816 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Cat-Woman by Ray Cummings and In The Orbit of Saturn by R.F. Starzl

The SFFaudio Podcast #816 – Cat-Woman by Ray Cummings (read by Mike Vendetti, 55 minutes) AND In The Orbit of Saturn by R.F. Starzl (read by Edmund Bloxam, 52 minutes). These are complete and unabridged readings of the stories (1 hour 48 minutes) followed by a discussion of them. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Will Emmons, and Jonathan Weichsel

Talked about on today’s show:
[Cat-Woman by Ray Cummings – from Terror Tales, May 1938 and In The Orbit Of Saturn by R.F. Starzl from Astounding, October 1931] that narrator, LibriVox, like to not listen, performing, distracting, a noble effort, everbodys got an accent, Trois-Rivières, a cultural, 30 years watching news reports, CBC generally gets its pronunciation right, the main character is an American, the half-breed Indian, Beaumont, a New York lawyer, take it too far, way too far, two miles from Manhattan, US states, the geography is so bad, giant book showing different continents, they don’t even know where they are on the map, maybe geography is a useless thing, from one tube enclosure to another tube enclosure, maybe it doesn’t matter, you need to understand geography in order to understand anything, a geology a little bit, from the Libertarian convention, use its military to defend itself, from what?, giant moat on either side, defending Hawaii, you don’t need a sixth fleet in the Indian Ocean, Nevada, Oregon, accents?, more than accent, Iraq, Iran, hearing about it on the news, the correct pronunciation, say it in Spanish, all these tourists, east coast politicians, it doesn’t need to be set in the orbit of Saturn, not as good as the other Starzl, E.E. Doc Smith, more compact, starts deep into the action, we’re in the middle of a battle, holding cells, dialogue happens, we’re done, fairly good for being fairly bad, published in the October 1931 issue of Astounding, the Clayton era of Astounding, having trouble following the action, put on a really big smile for your videos, the muscles of your face, practicing to be the joker, he’s really selling this, in seven months we’ll know if it was all worth it, Sword & Scandal, with that great art, very solid, character names, Quarl Finner?, Coerl?, Black Destroyer, Braniac Five from the Legion Of Superheroes, Lenore, character from Poe, Moby Gore, Lt. Burroughs, Captain Strom, he’s not shy, Mark Twain, a newspaperman, family newspaper in some midwestern town, its good, real things that happens, engaging with real stuff a little bit, her brother dies, dies from pneumonia, daughter of a capitalist, a capitalism in space story, the eugenics pirate, a good noble man, a man without a planet, engaging with the materials of the times, the Burroughs thing, make it about Romance, he doesn’t solve it, the IFP, the interplanetary flying police?, pirates infiltrated by east Indian company agent, sexy redhead pirate queen, a depth to it, for how short it is, a lot of time hating, too simple, a super good example of pulp that doesn’t suck completely, not enough beams, a cloaking device, I’ll parole you, new laser beam, ray of some kind, a little ethical back and forth, working for the fuckin cops, tremendous amounts of concentrated energy, the energy becomes sentient, weird juice, for the amount of plot and backstory, something in a series, ISFDB, seven of these stories, The Earthman’s Burden, very depthy, another Starzl story, Madness Of The Dust, he’s on mars, he has martian slaves, martian dust makes him go crazy, Against All Flags (1952), Errol Flynn, Anthony Quinn, off the coast of Madagascar, a political dissident, party now because there is no afterlife, mythological pirates, historical pirates, crook, of the golden age of piracy, still pirates today, the Horn of Africa, not British naval slaves, their backstory is different, a really good movie, the Mad Max novelization, Stone (1974), Satan worshipers, very beautiful, very artistic, by looking at pirates, land pirates, living life free from societal law, Hell’s Angels by Hunter S. Thompson, patch him in and patch him out, harassing ransom people, Pirates Of Venus pirates are not really pirates, Gully Foyle, Alfred Bester, a positive spin, write the pants off, very early in the history of magazines, by the early 30s Weird Tales is getting good, Science Fiction isn’t as mature, willing to pay relatively good rates, the writing of both of this, Ray Cumming fuckin sucks, The Girl In The Golden Atom, this is a fun story, Cat-Woman, flies by the seat of his pants, bad stuff in here, as a relatively short weird menace, shudder story, so similar much better idea, serums that transform you, a lot hornier, more idea filled, Sam Moskowitz on Ray Cummings, went downhill, never evolved to keep up with the times, formulaic, 1938, Ambrose Bierce, this genre didn’t exist, a story about glands, the science of glands, 1910s and 20s, the gland doctor in France, put this in a novel, mad scientist in France, a cutting from testicle from a young monkey, Bobby Derie’s blog, wealthiest men in Paris, complete nonsense, great scientist, have they retracted the story yet, the little touches, there was a magazine, that magazine had the formula, I never found that magazine, maybe she is a cat-woman, very meta, lurid covers, ladies being tortured, fed into machines, when they get nude, delivers on all fronts, exotic northern Quebec setting, palpitating breasts, her heart is beating so hard it makes her breasts beat, palpitations, am I fighting a drug or am I really sleepy?, can see out, writhe around on the animal skin rugs, jumps out the window, bad planning, four characters in this story, made no sense, masturbating in the corner while she dances around on the rugs, terrible plotting, terrible, horrible, a grindhouse 42nd street horror movie, very entertaining and over the top, entertained, trouble visualizing, so very visual, a floorplan of the cabin in the woods, needed to be in the same room as her, wakes up, girl dancing around, a big mirror thing, now that she’s my wife, she looks in the mirror, saw him as a cat, then a literal cat shows up, why does it have a baby in its mouth?, unburied baby?, the cat after all, badly put together, was fixing this story worth Ray Cummings’ time, pulp fiction factoids, Frederik Pohl, bulldoze Pohl, wearing a cravat, almost unusable stories, your standard pulp author didn’t write a second draft, after editorial notes or revisions, how Weird Tales worked, make some changes, I like money, I will not accept payment, my words are perfect, something in common, Lovecraft needed money, scrip harder, he wouldn’t work, he couldn’t work, rich as a child, grandfather was wealthy, wife taking care of him, sending cheques, artists need to be supported, inheritance money, residual stuff, lived with his aunts, rent and food was cheap, three suits, not buying a lot of stuff, editorial revision business, Edison’s laboratory assistant, Edison’s philosophy, Thomas Edison, mix these chemicals together, shrink ourselves down, looking through a microscope at a piece of gold, become very small, just a matter of looking in your cupboards until you find the right chemical, great men before corporate, Elon Musk, emerald mine, get a bunch of guys working for you, a patent troll, Musk isn’t as a bad, E.E. Doc Smith, invented powdered sugar, manufactured it industrially, revised it, space opera, doesn’t need to be set near Titan, a tour of the solar system, protect the whole solar system, as an ideas man, Fitz James O’Brien’s The Diamond Lens, covered in mirages, fun, stupid, fun, from the text, forays to the faraway undisciplined Pluto, colonial thing, tropical Venus, Aryl, stupendous and neverending mirages, Jesse’s Paul hat, his anti-Paul hat, mining anything near Saturn, too fuckn cold, nuclear power all the time, radiation, make it into heat, energon cubes make no fuckn sense, purple, pinky purple, I eat energon cubes, to sell cars that transform into robots, disguises, you think I’m just a boring, my uncle was in the Navy, a mcguffin to chase after, if Jack London had written this story it would be way better, lab assistant, Wells was the lab assistant to Huxley, learning shit, science teacher, The Star by H.G. Wells, Goliah, a device that zap people out of existence, blackmail the capitalists into obeying him, you don’t need it to be set around Titan, wanting to change reality using his tech, more science fictional, when E.E. Doc Smith solves problems, we can’t restart the warp engines cold, the mechanism of the plot, somehow do the thing that is impossible, during the battle they invent technology, Borg shit is fake science fiction, nothing real and tangible, to engage in a new relationship with reality, bad science fiction vs. fake science fiction, pretty different, what makes something a western?, Outland (1981), sean connery in space, High Noon (1952) in space, a western in space, is this story science fiction?, just cuz the guy wants to do eugenics, the invisibility shield, small details, invented from not used, prevents them from having an incident, we have nuclear weapons in our cargo hold, had them, didn’t use them, the combination, trying to change the world, bad at his job, a plan to do so, a new race of humans, rich, capitalist, large mine holdings on Titan, visiting dilettante, hostages for money?, science fiction but not good science fiction, the gland formula, moving the goal posts, weird fiction possibly by science fiction, werewoman, also possibly, the narrator turns into a cat, it could be it was a science fiction, I lost the documents, undercutting it on purpose, read the end, secret formula in a published magazine, Frozen Canyon, Jeanne and I, glorious vibrant young body that nature gave her, she is normal, a scheming criminal half mad with lust, had never seen the French magazine she mentioned, there was no such magazine, the product of a deranged mind, she disrobes, gazing at her beauty in her bedroom mirror, the grinding maw, for you see sometimes a strange lethargy, cat naps, gleaming green and yellow, my mind is tottering, the watchful eyes upon, like a cat watches a mouse, the ambiguity, doesn’t impact the rest of the book, is there any supernatural activity in this story, half-breed French Canadian in the north, Franklin’s motivation, wait until she gets her money, gotta see her naked, you can’t wait five minutes to see her dance nakedly, nice and ambiguous ending, are we reading a diary entry?, if you go back early enough in the story, undercuts his whole story, if we drank milk we’d all be like cows, the doppleganger one, real science fiction, Mike Vendetti narrated, what supernatural thing happened? what scientific thing happened?, dosing with something apparently, spanish fly, masturbation talk, to perform for her guardian, doesn’t deliver, buy your thesis, precluded from science fiction, breed a new race?, white man’s law, given the period, philosophers have said, atavistic, ray weapon, primitive urge, the great simians who he resembled, a south seas story can be science fiction, Island Of Dr. Moreau, A Thousand Deaths, dogs and disintegration, The Monster Men, amnesia, therefore worthy of the daughter of the scientist, memory returned to Quarl, orderly procession of the stars, the artificial gravity, very early, pre-Heinlein, very interesting, as the ship rotated, a thick swathing of bandages, peaked face, rotten, a portable apparatus, progenitor, this will work, an agreeable warmth, a great lassitude followed, filled the blouse, tunic, blue trousers, gold braid down the side, clothing talk, one of the chosen, the chosen race, an out and out damned pirate, what else?, inscrutably melancholy, the idealism of a poet, many means, disguise one’s purpose, for instance, felt himself redden, Strom was a zealot, prompt penetration, the point is he wants him to join the team, breeding a new race, takes generations, Hitler’s plans, it won’t work, the fiction part, because it was real, trying to do something science fictional, before Hitler, not running his race programs, everybody loved it, homegirl, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, sterilize, its a good story for what it is, how short it is for the amount of material that is in it, romance stuff, an outline rushing through the material, get to the ideas, who in this group is fun to hang out with?, the author more than the characters, genuine science fiction opening, faltered in her course, stockholders, visitors, aware of a cessation, bad sentence beauty, parts of Cat-Woman, badly worded, fictitious gravity, main salon, the entire midship section, to flounder in helpless confusion, they’re being attacked, skipped past, not a good story, interesting and kinda fun here and there, trouble following it, poorly written, omniscient, first person, a character narrator, more economy there, how to tell stories, 1st person, 3rd person, close and far, really important, detective novels told 1st person, Sherlock Holmes, 1st person from the 2nd main character’s point of view, Watson’s POV, very easy to follow, if he did see it he didn’t observe it, 3rd person, tightened up, Ray Cummings masturbating while writing this story, sexy stories, the girl here is terrible, how she is behaving makes no sense, aliens who come to Earth to kidnap all the women, not writing in the first half of the 20th century, explorers, our universe is an atom in a larger structure, make themselves really big, you’re blind, why are your blind, my eyes don’t work, why don’t you just replace your eyes, execute him, more ethical than we are, had Heinlein written that, a 10page philosophical discussion, elemental and frenetic, and then this happened, why it has a bad reputation, Lester Del Rey writing really short stories, three book series, good stuff as well, more detail, more sweat put into it, Jonathan as a the new Paul, shownoting a show with Paul, invite him back, email Evan, Cora couldn’t show up because her mom died, reschedule for sometime in the future, other plans, I honor my commitments, arguing himself into something, Paul makes the show worse, talking over people, not all being in the same room, a delay, distracted, bad for the listener, Paul can contribute well but often doesn’t, “comps” is what they call them, bad thinking, being worried about spoilers, bad modes of thought, why are other people interested in spoilers, fundamentally misunderstanding, ladies in glass cylinders coming to earth, 7 minute story, aliens kidnap all the women, research projects, spiderwomen, an excuse to read it, beef with this story as a cat-woman story, made her a pig, wildcat, mountain lions, didn’t do any research, remote or something, not thinking it through, care about ideas more than writing, nice writing, experiencing the story sequentially, the end is the most important part, two exciting novels, Donald E. Westlake crime novel, new Ace Double, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos, no Alex?, LibriVox, set in Florida, good noir opening, Murder Mistress by Robert Colby, “Scott Daniels is a washed up showbiz announcer who hit the bottle a few too many times and blew his big chance.”, three and half hours, a lady drowning in quicksand as a sex fetish, mud, this is a new time, naked on a bed, I could read that, crime and mystery stories, more interested in the phenomena of these horny novels, naked woman on the bed pointing a gun, pink unmentionables, green negotiables, Killing Time by Donald E. Westlake, Ben Tucker, Smith will squawk, the small town aspect, Westlake is really good at his job, eating a ham sandwich, I’m looking for a guy named Smith, heavy browed, hand painted and too wide, front name, this is your lucky night, nice prose, painted ties, vintage 1961 feeling, Westlake is awesome, 4.5 hours, zoned out again, check in, a push notification, something stupid, addicted to the petty bourgeois, small freeholder, yeoman?, the dopamine, 46, pick up from you, it is good to get out of the house, enough to pay minimum wage, it is good to have hobbies, put a scanner somewhere in the middle of that, give it to the world, even just covers, archive.org’s custom scanner, ones from China, funky, wanting to preserve the book, designed for bound books, you can’t crack the spine on a sewn book, reams, come loose, quasi pornographic, Lost City Of The Damned by Alec Rivera [Charles Nuetzel], horny science fiction novel, sex, excitement, and the unknown, terrible in all the right ways, John Kendrick Bangs, Bangsian fantasy, like Beetlejuice (1988), The Good Place, A Houseboat On The Styx, inspired Riverworld, collaborative, a sequel, four books in the series, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s Inferno, ghost stories, it just goes on, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, so cool, he doesn’t know where it is going, offered him $100,000, Thorne Smith, person turning into a goldfish, The Stray Lamb, Topper series, a navy, nautical fiction, supernatural, when a book that’s falling apart, there’s lots of things I could do, an unassailable defense, E.W. Hornung’s Raffles, the gay response to Sherlock Holmes, not being gay enough, Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law, Bunny, a burglar, unbelievably gay, the lady in the mud puddle, in mud puddles?, why is this a thing, high heels, Barrett Whitener, mild mannered, Cary Grant, ok?, 1937 film, the novel is public domain, a few TV series, 78 episodes, Eric Idle, Transformers: The Movie (1986), Roddy McDowell, Bettlejuice sequel that nobody asked for, curious, what was left to be said?, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), an imperfect novelization, something really cool, a lot of infodump, an excuse to explain, depopulated Australia, shot without permission, one week at a time, in terms of story, reading it through a novel, more action and is simpler, incredible astounding wonderful, dog dies in both, Mel Gibson, [he has a monkey in the third one], 4th one is not good, 5th one, worst kind of idea, go watch the backstory happen, a very unnecessary film, 7 minute standing ovation at Cannes, just because a movie gets a trophy, Eisner awards, a popularity contest, a lady doing the petition, more like the nebulas, people campaign, understood the process, how to get into comics, Maus, not entertaining for kids, better than other homework assignments, leaves his burner on, wants to save on matches, a very long term view of this show, Jesse has an ideology (campaigning for certain things, campaigning against certain things), very hesitant to ever give Amazon any money, most people go along, get along, bootstrap, the PDF page, to try to get more shit on Librivox, hasn’t worked out that well, LibriVox won’t use Jesse as a source, they use Project Gutenberg, Haithi Trust, why it takes so long, very precise, Canadian and Australian ones, FadedPage, Scott Miller [of the Lost Sci-Fi Podcast] is great, his agenda, to record unrecorded stuff, make a little bit of money, he likes this stuff, doing a ton of work, 200 episodes out, three times a week, he wants to mix it up, things that people request, ads in his podcast, the ones on youtube, on the other hand, an imperfect system, Mike [Vendetti] recording for Audible.com, he has other names too, The Last Spaceship by Murray Leinster, the mushroom world, The Mad Planet, Clifford D. Simak, more packaging?, mutual on twitter, stuff for fun, used to be Jesse’s job, a tape gun, very precise, do things fast, Halloween costume, against store bought costume, diplodocus?, cardboard costume, you can model things up out of cardboard, homemade costume, a standing desk, so unergonomic, way too low, no warehouse, fairly small objects, so lucky about media mail, guy from Britain, copies of Analog, Children Of Dune, $40 shipping, silly, Connor can’t get anything in and out of Australia for a reasonable price, New Zealand, horrific, a person in the world today, internet, worst shithole countries, tweeting from Gaza, delivery of things, if there was ever a case, start with mail, an essential service, what makes a country, parcels and letters and things across the place, what made the Mongols an empire, without getting Mongolized, the postal agency, the main job of the government, insurance and mail, universal coverage, being Westlakian, make that explicit, before eveveryone dies, he goes down so smooth, he’s a good guy, The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block, the purported author, wanted to join the CIA, gets recruited, assassinating the president, love the premise, suggest both, five political figures, one man with a gun is enough for the job, a man who’s sole life function, Miles Dorn, he’s so good, the one set in Ireland with a folksinger, hung out with Maissa, Passport To Peril, Reading, Short And Deep short Lawrence Block stories, wonderful narrator, very powerful, good with the openings, professional newscaster, sidethings, horrible ads, normcore, Apple podcasts, regionally targeted, government health insurance, Uber teen accounts, big city thing?, am against, not invented something new, 88th birthday, surrounded by the elderly, dangerous, they can cut you in their gangs, make friends with young people, work at it, make em come on your podcast, meeting young people through science fiction, one pulp fiction friend younger, a year younger, everybody else, fifty is pretty young, aint that young, conversations with people, the whole point is the side benefits, a lot of time looking at books you want to read, help kids pass tests and get better marks in school, let’s do something that will help in the future, don’t lose money at it, shovelling money out the door is unsustainable, maintaining, spend time around cool paperbacks, real conversations about books, most people don’t read, they gain in value, an insight into that period, 1931, 1938, investigate more shudders, weird menaces, weird fiction, Weird Tales is still being published, dude, trolling Jesse, this ideology, only share things that can be shared, worrying about the terminator gene, monsanto’s plan to destroy farming, doesn’t affect your worldview, support illegal things to stop the terminator gene, watch a minute of it to see the BC legislature, Edison Motors, response to Tesla, as a guy, electrifying logging trucks, powerful youtube channel, we better pay attention to this, invited called the Green Party, a third party, pretty small in B.C.’s legislature, a bill to change funding for vehicle subsidization, election’s coming up, very different from American politics, not wholly incompetent clowns, so much clownage is happening, spread everywhere, clown world now, more enclownified, Kentucky legislative proceedings, seeing the room, special costume, threw off that yoke, judges don’t dress up funny, tradition is all we have left, a gavel, Alien Nation, tv series, main white guy, main human guy, alien girlfriend, the way they do the show, there’s aliens, pull out some fact about Mr. Spock’s physiology, builds up lore, lore is the most serious problem any Star Trek has, moved all her stuff in, I see you put up the clowns, paintings of clowns, we do not have clowns in our culture, cirsova, mental maps, no massive overlaps, new fiction, imagine if you were going to open a restaurant, not allowed to use food from after a certain year, recipes are not copyrighted or trademarked, secret recipe, formulations vs. recipes, why do recipe books exist?, she wants to try new food, the creative art, I should write a book, like their poetry, a reference book, not supposed to read it cover to cover, ooh we could make that, get up the courage to do one of the things in there, look at my art, the cookbook is kind of a dead art because of the internet, youtube channels, food algorithm, instagram, twitter, I’m now going to talk about god for the next couple of minutes, preface your conversation about god, why Jimmy Dore quit pot, a Jungian analyst, funny and interesting, spoilers skip ahead, fuck off, they think they’re supposed to, people are very copying, Seventh Victim, you really need to sell it, when they go to read Sheckley, unwreckable, a visual display, lots of money being spent, go to work and feel happy or sad, the narrator explains, hailing, cars going by, a weedwhacker, on a porch, in a room, a novel about cars recorded in a car, doesn’t edit it, how ratchet that is, so charming, can’t even call it pirated, never going to come into, he wanted to read this book to you, he’s a human being, the ideal form of being, people telling a story, another person enjoying that story, and talking about that story, a really good pitch, Louis Rossmann, laptop repairman philosopher guy, right to repair, not everything should be a subscription service, the right way to go, not getting a lot of traction, no money behind it, individuals trying to be ethical, something like a movement, Rossmann has a billionaire backer, leverage political change, leveraging their youtube channel to get a government subsidy, can’t find a place to build their factor, they’re a municipality, Merritt, B.C., other countries are courting them, moving farther north, less investment taken, idle land, investment property, vocal complaints, we want government to be somewhat responsive, Apple will fuck it up on purpose, past the pain point, Starbucks getting shit on for Israel, Nancy Pelosi’s friends kids were killed, Starbucks gave $3 million, special beans, be on the phone with Nancy Pelosi to get shit happening, two gift cards, Tim Horton’s ones, Starbucks, big corporate now, its fine, donuts, Starbucks’ food is very expensive, $3.60, cheap for their products, an expensive part of the world, in terms of land, hard to find housing, a city but suburbs, unhoused, hobos, houseless, tentless, half a duplex, half-housed, housing many animals, some raccoons, big swollen teats, some babies, what racoon milk tastes like, the science of racoon milk, latch on and give a little suck, made redundant, life in rural Kentucky, mixed up with weird apologies for Joe Biden, Trump Derangement Syndrome, sniffing kids, blatant lying, confabulating memories, gross children grabbing, Astounding, doesn’t know he’s on camera, nobody calls him on it, his daughter’s diary, she left it somewhere, like the son left the laptops, woman sentenced to prison for stealing and selling Ashley Biden’s diary, going to therapy and telling the therapist her dad was having showers with her, pretty damning if true, Hunter calling his dad a pedophile, to hurt it his dad, pawing children, hand on a girl’s breast, evil that he gets away with that, a lot going around, what percentage?, double digits?, a survey, look around, just in your own life, it’s not zero, Biden paws girls breast, video distorts, granddaughter, here’s the apology for it, Natalie Biden, Beau Biden’s daughter, a Biden who’s not allowed to be a Biden, John Snow, what Game Of Thrones is about, politics, titillation, perverted sex stuff, Scott liked it, George R.R. Martin, huge entourage of women, Freya Stark, women’s brains, not a handsome man, got money, an attraction to the storytelling, for women, something to him, the first book is in the show, why people are into it, so much of it, the media stuff is not reading, people like talking about things around the watercooler, Americans are very prudish, HBO would have a little bit of nudity, traditionally verboten, high drama, reversals, responding to Tolkien’s vision of Middle Earth is escapist, Martin’s vision of Westeros, trying to be realist, got dragons, war of the roses, infighting between royal families, bottom up characters, when you see a princess get raped, that’s dramatic, girl mind mentality, they’re different, common core, women are weaker than men, shorter than men, things growing inside your body for 9 months, women care about health more, watch Alien Nation with Meg, watch the pilot, cheer for schooling, the Ruby Bridges story, desegregation story, govt. agents, sit in a classroom by herself all day, very TV dramatic, how fucked up American morality is, prudishness, the names are so funny, the original 1988 movie, a family drama done as a buddy cop show, got punchy, funny names, Sam Fransisco, low level humour in the background, another baby, needs to find a binnaum, Albert Einstein, you’re gonna let Albert fuck your wife?, be in the room while the partner is being cuckolded, Heinlein style violation of norms, this is all biological, made up to tell stories like that, to break down prejudices, so lefty feelgood, genuine SF, little details, weirdly sexy show, sex stuff on Fox TV in 1990s, cancelled, brought it back, reshoot the final scene, set in 1995, highly rated show, second to last episode: child sex slavery with politicians, nothing stays in print anymore, Netflix shows removed from Netflix, lost the license or embarrassed, not vertically, horizontal, vs. spherical, own the mines for the raw materials for your cars, marketing and movie theaters, merging with competitors, productions that it greenlights, Quentin Tarantino will own Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019) in 20 years, a Star Trek movie, see you next week.

Cat-Woman by Ray Cummings - from Terror Tales, May 1938

In The Orbit Of Saturn by R.F. Starzl from Astounding, October 1931

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #812 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Soul Of Man Under Socialism by Oscar Wilde

The SFFaudio Podcast #812 – The Soul Of Man Under Socialism by Oscar Wilde – read for LibriVox by Martin Geeson. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the essay (2 hours) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Evan Lampe, Will Emmons, and Terence Blake.

Talked about on today’s show:
the individual, therefore maimed, Martin Geeson, productions up on audible.com, some public property I can privatize, hundreds of contributions to LibriVox, almost all of it is poetry, about art, how to flourish with your soul, why Jesse likes Oscar Wilde so much, amused, a student for an hour, grammar, a deck of cards, images of various objects, leaves and bowls and roses, write a story in seven minutes using six sentences, a really good story, a king, a comb, and a snake, a lot of merit, “IT WOULDN’T WORK BECAUSE…”, a blind king who needed a wife, some tasty food, a mystery, there’s beauty there, Circe, Medusa, the missing card, works in many ways, no intended audience, central to the essay, problems as an ideology, that’s what he’s like, Oscar Wilde is also a fairy tale writers, an essay by Lovecraft’s wife, Commercialism: The Curse Of Art by Sonia Greene, she has the write idea, a case for socialism, the duty of society to liberate the audience, the audience for art, what the audience for a theater’s responsibility is, if the works of Shakespeare were presented as if new, Macbeth, counterarguments, long and rambling and strange, appreciated it, lasting impact, a good intervention, historically useful, by Wilde’s own metric, whether a work of art is useful or not, stories are incredibly central to human beings, society has a huge duty to the artist, he bends the stick too far, messaging the Che Guevara wikipedia page, Bill Maher, annoys in the right way, man can subsist under moral incentives alone, the new man, typical revolutionary, work 36 hours a day, student protests, what they’re protesting about, grieving, girl claims to be stabbed in the eye, shirt that says “Jew” on it, Che Guevara wasn’t, keffiyeh, huffington post, full of slurs, start drilling down, good or not, to tell a story that supports his point of view, we’re not socialists in America, a tenant that was talking to his landlord, the messaging has gotten through, we don’t live under socialism, everything is upside down, an interesting guy to read, in the context of a rich country, imperialist value chains that make British wealth possible, make a transition to socialism, socialist state builders in the 20th century, an immediate end to poverty, if we end poverty, through new machines, the William Morris book, News From Nowhere, a much more compelling story, whether essays can be artforms, designed to convince, an attempt, a try, not be prosecuted for your art, British vs. the French, a control of language on the cellular level, News From Nowhere is not plausible at all, how we got there, a pretty nice way, women do fabric art, men make wallpaper, an essay, his only political work, story is how people adopt, asked to teach essays, only the most insufferable people, the slandering of Che Guevara, A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, undermines bad argument, functions like a story, within it are stories, best fricasseed or make a nice ragout, a series of plateaus, organized with a theme, crime and punishment, motivated by pleasure vs. pain, clusters of ideas, very Žižek in that sense, new paradigm, you can’t argue, counter-intuitive leaps, Terence spoke beautifully, agree entirely, very aspirational, quite beautiful, influenced nerdy graduate student Evan, do history, do podcasts, write it my own way, very juvenile about that attitude, the media, not just accepting the media’s interpretation about what art is, solipsistic, films and series, dumbing down, making everything consensual, why does popular art have to be bad, a democracy of individuals, ignorant schoolmaster argument, he’s in a knot, if this was the only thing we knew about Oscar Wilde, compare it to what happened to him, success and punishment, being publicly gay, physical punishment, a powerful lord, sent into prison, H.G. Wells, doesn’t get a sir, tried the wrong lady, royalty, it’s expected, previous conspiracy, a pretext for sending to prison, non-straight sex, Bill Clinton, he didn’t get punished for his art, lightfootedness, the Popes, the power of kings, a king with artistic sentiment, Voltaire, the curse of the public and their interest through journalism, successful, pandering to an audience, A Picture Of Dorian G[r]ay, a gap between, the abolition of property, the means of production, independent wealthy, a theme that’s in here, kind of, wealth and private property, Lord Byron, they’re not separate, he jumps around, you have to share your toothbrush, doesn’t really define it, the long section on how wealth is a burden to the wealthy, [Andrew] Carnegie’s gospel of wealth, that’s the legal system, entirely about private property, a warehouse is an amazing awesome technology, keep the rain out, books, pencil crayons/coloured pencils, keep your paper dry, personal property but not private, an apartment complex, no idea of transition from here to there, we got there somehow, this great possibility of free expression and individualism, he’s read [Peter] Kropotkin, crafts, automation, nobody should sweep, throw a fishnet into the water all day, quotas of fish, a serious problem with this essay, Will has intellectually warped himself through Marxism, the media does this says this, for what reason, what class do they represent?, the public’s ideas bad?, during the French Revolution, tear down the Bastille, all answered, this is not acceptable, a previous story which controls them, if that story is bad, suspicious of human nature, people progress, people change, how fucked up it was, starving peasants fighting for feudalism, The Third Revolution by Murray Bookchin, bottom up democracy, monarchy, liberals, Jacobins, sections of Paris, met in monasteries and churches, 1792/3, suppressed during The Terror, bottom up faith, Maoist epistemology, communists don’t make history, the masses make history, Wilde finds the masses to be repugnant, their condition, the rebel is good in some way, the thief, those who don’t believe the ideology, resentment is something that makes you ugly, living in squalor and full of hate, accept the squalor, more sympathy for the thief, you should be rebelling, it is right to rebel, it is right to rebel against reactionaries, Chinese factory worker be careful, the western interpretation, who one the Cultural Revolution in the end, too soon to tell, the Lost Decade, vaccination rates, two distinct periods, different factions, boring history, the developmental stuff, chaos, more chaotic than, Wilde’s views about what one’s duty to society is, volunteering to do more work, the barefoot doctors, is that so bad?, extremely useful, artists should be allowed to flourish, what the purpose of artists is, that’s why he’s wrong, all art has a class basis, to paraphrase Mao, the innermost kingdom of the bourgeoisie, who is the audience, the artist is the audience, onanistic, oppression, why this is not a great piece, art or light under socialism, giving you the feel, exactly contemporary, Christology, fun, religious group of people, what makes us so religious, is Wilde speaking to an audience that is Christian, he loves Christianity’s beauty, Catholicism for the aesthetics, Lutheran, the liturgy, aesthetically, a cultural christian, a slap in the face with a fish, Jesus, currently accepted ideology, before the socialist experiments, non-authoritarian, before Freudian type, pain and pleasure, very Nietzschean, robot slaves,

“For it is through joy that the Individualism of the future will develop itself. Christ made no attempt to reconstruct society, and consequently the Individualism that he preached to man could be realised only through pain or in solitude. The ideals that we owe to Christ are the ideals of the man who abandons society entirely, or of the man who resists society absolutely. But man is naturally social. Even the Thebaid became peopled at last. And though the cenobite realises his personality, it is often an impoverished personality that he so realises. Upon the other hand, the terrible truth that pain is a mode through which man may realise himself exercises a wonderful fascination over the world. Shallow speakers and shallow thinkers in pulpits and on platforms often talk about the world’s worship of pleasure, and whine against it. But it is rarely in the world’s history that its ideal has been one of joy and beauty. The worship of pain has far more often dominated the world. Mediaevalism, with its saints and martyrs, its love of self-torture, its wild passion for wounding itself, its gashing with knives, and its whipping with rods – Mediaevalism is real Christianity, and the mediaeval Christ is the real Christ.”

on the road to get healed somewhere, conversations with wives of Bath, a reflection of what artists are doing, a symposium of art making, by one’s self, music, one guy with a saxophone on a mountain top, pretty strong, his heart is in the right place, he himself wants his efforts to count towards social reconstruction, the overman is Caesar with the soul of Christ, one of his passions, art, science, politics, manual labour, craft and crafty, fishing, a self-help manual done right, come together in groups, very individualistic, kinda Ayn Randian, against business, against private property, against class difference, everyone a poet, as capable as him, been lucky, everyone can become creativity, more artists, better art, Roger Ebert, frustrated reviewers, easier to be a critic, snobby, Zack Snyder probably says that, why does he bloody show his movies, show to [Denis] Villeneuve and no-one else, a guy recording in his bedroom, stack of DVDs, free passes, free stuff, free audiobooks (that used to be expensive), becoming twisted and wrong, journalism feeding into bad behavior, cultivating an audience in a theater, utube is very big, hate bait, how to breed chickens properly, in that openness, feeling free to not have a popular channel, more ability to share, sharing is something he’s not fully thought through enough, so focused on oppression, the soul of man is art, whatever a soul is, why socialism is important, free us from the oppression of the property relationship, actual physical repression, the relationship is the oppressive thing, the freedom to comment, the freedom to review, if you don’t have your own printing press and your own distribution you don’t have freedom, mimeograph machine, the internet today, hard to find, the system is gamed against it, how bad google is, there but unseeable, virtually free to do that distribution, drowned out, ai art, an imperfect essay, handwaves a lot of this, the first line, we’re individualists in socialism, not making a program to get there, we’ll be freer individuals under socialism, we need other people to get us there, libertarian socialism, charity is the problem, amusing the poor, the accelerationist argument, the homelessness problem, people trying to solve, you shouldn’t do charity, the majority of people spoil their lives, he comes for the charity people pretty hard, this essay has such a humour to it, slave owners being kind to their slaves, let this outrage happen so the revolution will occur, in his back pocket, a program here, not detailed, it’s not for the masses, bourgeoisie cease charity, charity as a virtue, he’s for sympathy, for human feeling, otherwise socialism is going to be set back, it is immoral, the institution of private property, a personal program, under socialism this problem will no longer exist, places to organize, do what you can, Jesse might actually be right, Jesse is always wrong, a half sentence, the people who do the most harm, the charity degrades and demoralized, “Charity creates a multitude of sins.”, a hard argument, on French TV, presidential elections 30 years ago, equal time on TV, the marginal groups are marginalized even further, a Trotskyist, we are plundered, stealing everything from us, a star dancer at the Crazy Horse, stage name, as close to nudity as you can get, discovered by the head of the Crazy Horse, made her the star that she is today, the Marxist, I’m against charity, running for president to bring about the revolution, something sordid about this poor person elevated to stardom, patriarchal manipulation, charity vs. sympathy, property is theft, stealing $2 in the morning, Spider-Man should bite everyone to give everyone radioactive powers, with great property comes great responsibility, the logic of superheros, superheores are trying to stop the revoltionaries, Doc Oc, always some guy who wants to change things, Superman never zaps the president with his eye, judges shall not be impugned, questions in congress, happened for TikTok right now, you cant be super without lots of subs, sub-supers, The X-Men, homo superior, sympathy for Magneto, The League Of Evil Mutants, the oppressed group, the oppressed group, the oppressed individual, no one will have to seek approval, what’ll make somebody an elite under socialism, harvest more wheat?, an asian Soviet with a pipe [Semyon Nomokonov] who notched the number of nazis he killed on his pipe, 9 children and 49 grandchildren, not allowed to have open factions struggles, a war hero, a different sort of examples, Robert Sully Sullivan, played by Tom Hanks, whuffie, the congressional medal of honor gives credit to living people, Ulysses S. Grant, all the previous guys were all WWII veterans, you can’t give that status, Bush I, you’ve fucked up, can you have an elite, people’s who’s paintings you like, sweeps really good, tending to defer, a different kind of culture, this guy’s teepees are the best teepees, this collective, multiple elites, the stupid utube model, unbeleivable popularity, lowest common denomenator, flaming gold Ferrari, attract most attention for revenue, focusing on repairing fans (the things that you make you cool), Jordan U, why does he have 17th phones in his house, paintings on the wall of the warehouse, people who show off their rare book collections, Will’s greatest sin, scanners live in vain, scanner printer combo, the printer industry is superevil, Brother, Martin Geeson doing what Oscar Wilde is saying, unfortunate that Jonathan Weichsel doesn’t like Martin Geeson’s voice, the way to be popular, distracted by the whole socialism thing, a lot of people don’t get it guys, usually advertized without, its right in the first sentence, judging a book by its cover, talking about oppression, censorship on a basic level, people who can’t use words that they want to use, humanreadable, at symbols and upside down 3s, how much more could he say before he is thrown in prison, if the mood was wrong in the country, they chopped off the head of their monarch, restored the monarchy, Oliver Cromwell, if it weren’t for the Irish, Lord Protector, all cavaliers, now, a true leveller, entry points for people to grok things, start with what materials you have, making things easy for people is difficult, Martin Geeson is choosing interesting books, great voice, soul of an artist, valances with Sirius by Olaf Stapledon, the conditions of the people in England, under some social programs?, bankrupting the empire!, sold everything to win that war, the dog with no hands, the soul of dogs under socialism?, similar philosophy, an individualist quality, thinking together, working together, a particular novelist, Meredith, who that guy, Charles Kingsley, an immoral novelist, George Meredith, forgotten, didn’t have any science fiction books, just read Scalzi, The Three Body Problem [by Liu Cixin], The Dark Forest, Damien G. Walter, boycotting the book, the shows, why you have to do homework for this podcast, this podcast has homework, his sinophobia is facile and dangerous, too positive a view of the Cultural Revolution?, bad for science, the traitor to humanity girl, she meets up years later with the three women who lead the criticism and physical action of killing her father, privileged, before they joined the Red Army, able to better themselves a little during the Cultural Revolution, more complex than his propaganda, so empty, goes on and on, 2 hour things by him, you have to go to your death knowing that, did and didn’t, John Vervaeke, we need a new mythos, trying to determine what is in canon, you can’t do that unless you’ve read a lot, more of a media guy, an article, a list of all the women authors of science fiction not usually talked about, working through the canon, Mildred Klingerman, Margaret St. Clair, Judith Merrill, a great tastemaker, seems all right, writes really interesting stuff, leaning on make sure you get your diversity quotient in there, Madagascar science fiction, the same perspective, you can live in Bali, more about American literature, women writers and black writers, percentage, James Baldwin, first queer writer, Herman Melville, obviously super gay, if the stick is wonky, a qualitative judgement, compensating, black writers and asian writers and women writers, because he’s funny, being obtuse on purpose, Evan’s colleagues, eurocentric, teaching cohort, early modern history, too lazy to learn this stuff, we can tell the history of the world through European eyes, teaching world history, not just white European men, not about seeking out a quotient, not being ignorant about the world, people look for excuses not to read, because its propaganda, we all have to winnow, a bunches novel series ever written, Discworld, stuff without depth, not everything is showworthy, Tales Of The Gold Monkey, Indiana Jones pre-wwwii nazis, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century in the South Pacific, an ex-flying tiger, set in 1939, it’s impossible, no active duty until 1942, a hot lady in a hot tub talking to a nazi dressed up as a priest who wants to have sex with a native named Tiki, skin colour, sounds cool, what they called lived experience, their mom and dad were nice to each other, hung up on the wrong things, they’re all books, nobody talks about those, people need excuses not to read, Fearless Benjamin Lay, can we get more diverse than a Quaker abolition vegetarian dwarf who made his own clothes and lived in a cave, bend the stick to far against the liberals, what’s the baby, official commitments to anti-racism, why do you have a police state, the Deep State replaced Richard M. Nixon, the origin of policing after reconstruction, slave catching patrols, police hitting teachers, the philosophy professor being dragged off, sad but hilarious, I can’t breathe, she’s doing a callback, making an analogy to another situation, political correctness way of protesting, arrested and died, knee on the neck, oh you’re all right, fluids to make him calm down sir, heart massage, CPR, if somebody looks dead, we notice he looked unconscious, Evan is missing out all these amazing, give you you shittiest take, twitter is not good for Evan, talking about Reconstruction, the freedman wanted to be slaves again, quite good at governing themselves, Wilde in conversation with Mao, the greatest socialist intellectual of all time, something Damien G. Walter needs to read, Ursual K. Le Guin has a dangerous philsophy, The Dispossessed, not a lot of amazing art happening on that moon, a position of scarcity, post-scarcity, maybe Cuba has great art, musicians, health care, scarcity, internal production is not as efficient, a very small country, is Le Guin doing the same thing to criticize our man Oscar Wilde?, could be in dialogue, libertarian socialist, more liberal than anything else, attitudes towards copyright, for overthrowing the government, people don’t pay attention to what she says, near the end of her life, given an award, speaking about capitalism, a poem quoted in full on BoingBoing, Cory Doctorow had to take it down, The Master by Ursula K. Le Guin, the passing of knowledge and the mastery of tech, how to learn the slipstick, copyright in China, the argument that is always thrown against China is they steal patents/copyrights/trademarks, a serious problem, there’s a long story about the Tetris game, an ideological opposition to censorship, copyright is a form of that, Mr. Shitlib King, breaking copyright, not in favour of censorship ever, socialist/communist society, what’s the difference?, a communist society vs. a socialist state, a good place to be, philosophy of mugs, a really nice mug, spouse, a cute mug, bad shape for a mug, mugs should be functional, spoons, mug with hole in the bottom, a mug, an indigenous mug, made in an anti-imperialist country, handwashing, a mug is a device for delivering liquids to your mug, a cute mug, hence the drips, take a photo of it then get rid of it, emotional sentimental value, not broken yet, Mao would call that liberalism, use it often and carelessly, you should not be upset when it breaks, point in the direction, deception is allowed, the right shape, efficient, homeless guy who masturbated in the public square, Diogenes, u need a lamp, some onions, Louis CK, stoics, in a mugshell, one mug, thank you for everything, thanks for all the mugs, What Mad Universe by Fredric Brown, a novel, Lawrence Block had a book come out, a writer that Block appreciated, a way of getting into that relationship, a halfway important science fiction writer, a writer’s writer, Mack Reynolds, not his great novels, the fuckin system, after 1963 fuck everybody, copyright for 7 years, so it can be useful to multiple people, works in translation, a holdover from the imperial period, he’s cute, he’s funny he’s smart, a science fiction novel about science fiction, another case for the Baroque Cycle, interesting, long, as a long as a story needs to be, sometimes things need to be longer, this essay didn’t need to be 2 hours, why do we have long books, the cost of a credit, subverted, not why Stephen King writes long books, what censorship, he would never be censored, self-censorship, he’s not following the market, he’s 7 and a half feet tall, he’s not Spud Webb, most people who write long books, unnecessary sex scene, fetch quests, Evan went wild, a popular podcast, Geek’s Guide To The Galaxy, side quests, find the G.E.C.K., representing the game, defending it, The Stand, awkwardly updated the setting, the tone, this is here to sell more paper, he’s living life under socialism, he’s rich, people who are wanting to be Stephen King, writing novels, 7 sentences in 7 minutes, they’re wrong, you have to fill a certain number of pages, you have to have a cover, self-identify as a writer, not a real person, a class of people who aspire, doing a disservice by trying to make shorter or longer, when TV shows are about an hour are not confined by a hard number, when not helpful to the story it shouldn’t be followed, longer is better, big fat fantasy novel, wanted to live in that would, what Paul would say, room to breathe, he goes by instinct, develop a philosophy, make an argument, give me an example Will/Paul, favourite really long book Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh, doorstop books, a person’s whole life, a big Russian novel, wheels within wheels, Dune by Frank Herbert, a lot of plot, long for the period, every sequel by other hands, an important density in there, it isn’t room to breathe, it’s long because it has a lot in it, the Baroque Cycle, characters, packed with ideas, denser, despite being that long, the origins of capitalism, money, the scientific revolution, abolitionism, Anathem, Player Of Games, people who love Culture, don’t need Dune Messiah, bring Duncan Idaho back, that’s stuff happening, the guy has no name, the servant has no name, the lady who it is about has no name, ideas can’t exist in characterization, apple show A Man In Full by Tom Wolfe, an idea in it, military SF is more about gun polishing, ideas are central, fully explored in a short amount of space, the writing quality is less important than the idea explanation, the density, how many books I could read in the time I am reading this book, like Evan with women, build up the body count, women are the opposite of ideas, the people who like Dune too much, being immersed in the world, gets your juices excited, he isn’t heavy on ideas, The Colorado Kid, Mike suggested we do The Flitcraft Parable, a scene in The Maltese Falcon, chapter 7, like a fist when you open your hand, when processing it to consider it, Eric S. Rabkin, a really solid book, 196 pages, didn’t need to by 700 pages, Sam Spade is having sex with Archer’s wife, he’s one of the suspects, mysteries are an interesting parallel to science fiction, exploring our reality, in his rambling short book about the Flitcraft Parable, the length is appropriate to the idea, From A Buick 8, complain about his endings, life just sort of goes on, sets up characters as dominoes, eucatastrophes, shinings, the house forgot about its own boiler, not servicing fans?, intimate relationship with his fans, hurried to finish the Dark Tower, an old woman writing him, shitlibbery caused by a desire to please his audience?, Joyce Carol Oates, not normal for people to be liberals in our society, fucking suffer, can’t have a house, can’t have a wife, people are suffering, his fans are not all boomers, an Xer, Marissa likes him, it doesn’t define him, a 70s vibe, he feels the need to be relevant, comes off awkwardly, the Bachman book that was in a drawer, counter-culture vibes, hippie commune vs. the nazis, so not relevant, this old black lady, just show up, talk to the fascists, eucatastrophe happens, they’re mean and short, they have an idea and the character dies, The Running Man, Roadwork, Rage, The Long Walk, weary, just life, this oppressive thing the state is doing to them, questioning the purpose of life and why we’re here, droppin’ dead, a metaphor for life, an oppresive state, about school, the military and conscription, Carrie is nice and short, The Dead Zone, Firestarter on the backburner, in the zeitgeist, boomerness, what does Joyce Carol Oates represent in the zeitgeist, irrelevant Princeton professor, middle age guy, Killdozer, Marvin Heemeyer, Stephen King when still drinking, Thinner, gypsy curse seems silly, experimental in the 90s, the idea idea idea thing, one series, very meta, not like Hunger Games, a fast reader vs. a slow reader, you have to be in the right headspace, The Alleyman by Philip Jose Farmer, COVID doesn’t help, two boosters once, don’t accept injections unless literally dying, flu vaccine, now is the time to do Jesse’s epistemology, he’s a skeptic, have a police incident happen to you, it’s about that for everything, Sextus Empiricus, sense impressions, what’s a heap, suspend judgement, a lot of baby words, retweet a lot of far right things, show me one, nothing, heterodox, Jackson Hinkle, 1776 revolution, liberating Canada, absurdity, already captured, no need to invade, shampoo, how many of the words on the ingredients list can you pronounce, syllables, sodium lauryl sulphate, if your shampoo has more than syllables your children will have autism, putting all this shit in u, why do people do this?, a little discourteous, we know how long people have been smoking, spike it, most people who smoke don’t get lung cancer, that’s the weird part, a Philip K. Dick story, body parts you need to replace, if you can’t pronounce it why are you getting it in your body, there’s a lot of things I can’t pronounce, cancer too, NaCl (sodium chloride), end up in a whole bunch of cults you don’t know you’re in, dem vs. republican a cult, tribal thing, partisanship, demented tribal leader vs. demented cult leader, more cult like, Biden is in control, obviously he is not in control, reading the parts he’s not supposed to read, just defer to better him than Trump, against team bad, you should be against things that are bad, some sort of use for some shampoo, how an average consumer can know, a silly test, properly fund an independent agency that can check, it’s been corrupted, we’re left with the label, the Food and Drug administration is corrupt, Plato, you have feet, you don’t have the document in front of you, the documents exist, evidence all around you, assume corruption is the default, moms abuse, that doesn’t get us anywhere, there’s a mom over there, she’s doing, the shampoo supply is not safe, the stuff injected into your body, you have to buy food, flu shots, they don’t work, they’re full of chemicals, mercury, a chemical, salt is fine, know what the words mean, reading labels, margarine is not human food, lubricate objects, define mayonnaise, chlorine, basic chemistry, who put this shit together, something for sale, preservatives, calcium propionate, water that comes out of the faucet, no industry, there’s nothing, coast mountains, metal pipes (not lead), perfectly good to drink, bottled water full of plastic, advertised to, there water is terrible, the water in Taiwan, boiled water and bottled water, water dispenser, Coca Cola, drink the tap water, water are the ingredients, do what their parents do, who you probably assume are corrupt, maybe his graduate research, follow all his footnotes, bit the bullet, you could question everything, reasonable suspicion aroused, start questioning, bad puppy, cook that puppy, shot that puppy in an ethical manner, we all have to give up our inquiry, big flashing warning signs, recreate all these experiments home, this tub margarine has been sitting in my fridge since 1981, it doesn’t rot, food rots, alcohol is a poison, designed to kill things, sugar doesn’t rot, this is an industrial lubricant sold to us as a replacement for butter, seed oils and vegetable oils, a food product, you can eat industrial lubricant, your mom gave you butter and it seemed good to you, butter is really good for you, you need fat to live, asparagus fats, is this important, she makes a good point here, anything that is not super old, animals, see if they’ll eat it, when set of grandparents, switched to butter, poison that’s for sale, not human food, the coal butter, that’s what shit is, carnauba wax, employed in food grade polish, making food out of it, see you on twitter.

It Wouldn't Work Because by Jesse

Posted by Jesse Willis