The SFFaudio Podcast #691 – READALONG: Tunnel In The Sky by Robert A. Heinlein

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #691 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, Trish E. Matson talk about Tunnel In The Sky by Robert A. Heinlein.

Talked about on today’s show:
1955, Steele Savage, Rod standing in a doorway, a leg tattoo, a Farnham’s Freehold tattoo, refreshing, the gender dynamics, problems, is there anything anybody could complain about, the ending, an unsatisfying ending, Rod also was unsatisfied, the pre-ending, Captain Rod, what things can we cancel about this novel, the Amazons was pretty fun, lady soldiers, AND instead of but, gender sterotypes, get married and have babies, no!, the vote, the lost boys and girls, Heinlein couldn’t give her a single vote?, she didn’t even vote for himself, Rod didn’t vote for himself, a painting of equality, she showed herself as stronger at every turn, whole chapters from her diary’s POV, Rod’s sister, square dancing, monopolizing the conversation, the pioneer spirit, privileging x chromosomes over y chromosomes, strong and self assured, everybody wanted to get married, his last day as mayor, he’s a teenager, a junior in High School, oblivious to crushes, warding them off (especially Carolyn), the audiobook was terrific, Full Cast Audio, the actress playing Jack was a girl, borderline, “he” was smaller, a very girl thing, going off to have a cry together, a dude thing would be bro-ing eachother to death, this Zulu lady is very squaredancey, global culture, a Filipino from South America is from early 20th century Missouri, two different covers, the revised cover, Heinlein explicitly stated Rod was black, the god _____, going to some other planet, Time Enough For Love, really abbreviated ending, finished his schooling, Carolyn is busy doing Amazon stuff, some sort of pony, not explicitly black, a dispute as to who’s in charge, Jock McGowan, cholo means mixed race, a specific tribe of African black, the injuries he received (that are many), the realpolitik of trying to sell the novel, bringing us to the place he wants us to go, admiring Heinlein’s sneaking in, he’s got an agenda: anti-racist, a working theory, we’re just wrong, Andre Norton had to write as a man, maybe she had done her research, C.L. Moore had to her identity not her gender, in that era, why we call him H.P. Lovecraft, Zealia Bishop, selling to an audience that’s kids, what the kid is actually like, Podkayne Of Mars, Poddy is a girl, cancellation happens today for similar reasons, the lack of religion is very interesting, made up religion, a Koran a Book of Mormon, an army chaplain, spiritual services, ecumenical, agenda driven, reacting to the culture and the times he grew up in, Job: A Comedy Of Justice, secular, a secularized faith, small d democratized faith, let’s not be racist, a correct prediction of moving away from organized religion, Julie Davis was brought up by atheists and now runs a catholic podcast with Scott Danielson, waxing and waning, writing in the margins, building our world alongside it, the Talmud, comments and interpretation, a literate society, a lot going on in this little book, society is not society unless it is literate, you don’t have society without writing, papyrus, is it Jim is a Quaker?, Society of Friends, we wait until the spirit moves us, a really big problem with this book, i’m supposed to hate Grant (the first mayor), what is man’s greatest invention?, “government”, barfing up, what this book is about, boys get stranded through a stargate, it’s a portal Paul, the plot is a backdrop for essays on government, you have to cook your juveniles first, long pig is also mentioned, Heinlein themes, a responses to Lord Of The Flies, another stranding, Suzanne Collin’s The Hunger Games, in dialogue with this, government, teaming, philosophy of PUBG, there can be only one, what’s happening?, the game didn’t tell you what the rules were or how to play it, a blue wall, if you win you get a chicken dinner?, how we are in the world, people who think they know how to play the game, game friends, different strategies and brains, the most popular game in the world for a few months, a clone of PUBG, what makes this game really interesting, a lot of Civilization, the same game but different every time, different people’s strategies, playing a meta-game with their own brain chemistry, hot-drops, I wanna get kills, the points aren’t the game, a survival simulator, avoiding getting killed, the point of this game is the point of that terrible novel is Lord Of The Flies, an awful message, Heinlein is saying no in this book, Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, a war of all against all, submit to a king, jaw jawing all the time, war war, Winston Churchill, false dichotomy, Churchill wanted a war, rationing until the 1960s, war was inevitable, a war government, he was in WWI, he wanted war, its ironic, a war with the Boers, if you look around the room, a series of governments who made it happen, this book is arguing with that, a light introduction, mass hysteria style psychology, why Heinlein is arguing with Lord Of The Flies, civilization and square dancing, making a mono-culture, how to incorporate, sweet medicine, his ideological goals, TV Tropes, savagery and barbarism, The Coral Island, if everything is a rebuttal, this is a conversation, William Golding took it far, a toxic British boys school, invested in the pecking order, boy and girl scouts, generalizing from limited experience, a savage system with a veneer of civilization, wanting to engage with Heinlein’s novel, seeing this dialogue take shape, the framing is never focused on, their being sent away from a nuclear war, the fucking up of the planet, so important to understanding the book, what are the themes, the teachers never focus on how they got there, who said what in chapter what, this book [Tunnel In The Sky] is for children, 1857, because there’s kids in it, you walk out of that book thinking: I guess we’re all fucked, a skeptical and careful read, we have leaders who say stuff like “jaw jaw is better than war war”, that setups, the endless soviets, committee meetings, mandate, mandatory, your stuff has been requisitioned, not the dilating of the gate, a war of all against all, not all on SERE training, Maissa’s favourite German filmmaker, Werner Herzog, Little Dieter Wants To Fly, the Vietnam War, Christian Bale, Rescue Dawn (2006), why does Rod get immediately attacked?, its a metaphor, why the relationship with Jack is so important, the knife scene, falling into a couple later?, an aromantic relationship, he thinks he’s a dude, he’s chaste, oblivious, until I’m not mayor anymore, given the circumstances, when we’re back in Jerusalem, transferring governorship, 16 years old, still treated as a child, gone under two years, a planet with no birth control, a morality in the background, save it for your marriage, the missionaries got married, missionary positioning, a Mormon point of view, their culture is more explicit than the rest of American culture, these are the restrictions we put on ourselves, we don’t have perfect access to our own minds, a really good book, the ending, tremendously unsatisfying, abandoned the work they had done in establishing the colony (except for Rod!), improving the land, to be kids again, blood and sweat and tears, a sharper conflict point, unreal, Doctor Matson, married to his sister, the situation the reader is in, knowing how people’s psychology works…, go around the room, have you ever…, something happens that your’e not party to, a whiplash jetlag effect, people talk themselves into all sorts of stuff, a better doctor, camping is not for Jesse, compromises, glamping = glamorous camping, this other extreme, sleeping in a tree with a flimsy net, its a homeless simulator, we can make all sorts of explanations to ourselves, a way to end the book, what do you want to do today?, a malted, then another malted and a hot shower, tobacco and coffee, can you imagine not having coffee again for the rest of your life?, Jesse’s godfather, the back-to-the land movement, I’m not going to do this anymore, he’s the only one, he’s the mayor who was left behind, a hospital nearby, a vehicle to take you to the hospital, your 4000 square foot greenhouse, 5 years til we get bread, coffee is grown in Asia and south America and Africa, a guy who made a toaster, [The Toaster Project: Or A Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch by Thomas Thwaites], Carl Sagan, to bake a pie you must first invent the universe, our blacksmith, few strawmen, a portal back to earth, why does Heinlein hate reporters and the media, tabloid journalists exist and are bad?, Heinlein ran for office, a lot of what goes on in the reportage of politics, party politics, ingroups and outgroups and cliques, Rod’s leadership skills, likeable, principles, thoughtful, sidelined by committees, a YA novel, who is right?, the giant migration, right for the wrong reason, how much he complains, the constitution was the important thing, he’s wrong, you might better have a society without a majorly written constitution, the pirate articles, Cave Of Forgotten Dreams (2010), the signing of the articles when you don’t have paper, join or get cast off, abiding by the articles, designed to prevent the ship being sunk, smoke on the upper deck, no drinking when on watch, very reasonable, and then oddly specific, no boys or women on the ship, the captain is elected for combat, downloading the pirate rules, the list of the pirate codes, they downloaded their brain, all the ships had captains and quartermasters, shares, always more pay for positions of responsibility, getting into beefs, how does this come about, anybody want to do this, an invitation, what’s the best way to get to that end goal,
Blakes 7, why did you change course, who leads on this ship?, you lead you don’t command, Grant vs. Rod, getting to the ultimate goal, humans cooperating, when Rod gets mad at Carolyn, against a plan that was established, not making a clean kill, avoiding getting killed, all different kinds of strategies, I wanna be lazy about this, not doing the thing that’s necessary to do, the randos on the internet, diarrhea, a trigger, not a guy who reads a lot of books, discoveries about the realities of the world, smokes marijuana all day long, smoking bowls, how do we all get along, a bit naive in a lot of places, a common culture around the world, disenfranchising young people, the geriatric elite, children don’t get a vote, listen to the kids or not, at what point does the sailor get a vote, an age, their voice should be heard (rather than dismissed), our sailing ship planet Earth, the leadership is very very bad, we don’t want any youngsters, the median age for congress is 61, Strom Thurman was 100, Nancy Pelosi is 80, Sinema does the curtsy, she even forgot her own kid, new eden, because the metaphor, a little bit related, median vs. average, at what point are you a kid, a threshold moment, reasons to go back, take off the adulthood hat, putting it wrongly, they’re all under him, the burden of the responsibility, In Achilles His Tent, sulking, the classical reference, The Marching Hordes, The Marching Morons by C.M. Kornbluth, The Yellow Peril, a long line of Chinese, Heinlein debunks this, the premise for the book, overpopulation, emigration didn’t solve population pressures, a safety valve, The Mote In God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, the Irish Famine, reasons for emigration, political problems caused by governments, Australia is populated with prisoners because there was a repressive government in the U.K., export “our problems”, slatterns, deplorablize people, internally, freedom of movement, the Oregon, Hollywood is an escape from New Jersey, Thomas Edison had corrupted the courts, Heinlein is not addressing that in this book, putting people in stasis, blacks were being put into freezers, if Evan were here, some other people who are overpopulating, limiting births, sterilization, cultural practices, boys and girls schools separate prevents births, icky overpopulation problems, pollution, is this the best way of doing everything, C02, airplanes put out a lot more carbon than your car, rolling coal, defiant response to scorn, gas restrictions (rationing), 30 liters maximum, how much you can afford, your Starbucks cup, this book doesn’t engage wholly with that, forced emigration, the Chinese were forced out of Australia, the Chinese made a sea in the middle of Australia, early 18940s Heinlein, Yellow Peril’s back baby!, Sixth Column, The Fifth Way, Through The Tunnel, Savage, nasty, brutish, and short, The Nova, what caused the gate problem, it didn’t register, clever writing, a coincidence until it isn’t, I Think He’s Dead, I Should Have Baked A Cake, Fish Or Cut Bait, A Joyful Omen, I So Move, The Beach Of Bones, how the migrations go, the caves nearby full of bird brained people houses, an indigenous intelligent culture, birds make houses, wattle material, bees make colonies, Jesse’s putting on his Evan hat, what people are they displacing, colonization without a native population, maybe it’s Africa, why he wasn’t sure, his clinging to logic (or what he claimed was logic), sophistry, not wanting to accept, you can’t be a mayor without a community, character building, looking for a way out, the final straw, brother in law/teacher, just for drama, It Won’t Work Rod, Unkillable, Civilization, The Endless Road, a very optimistic view of a dystopian future, a little optimistic, an altar for the devil, The Wicker Man done with children, “lunchtime!”, we can get fucked up in our heads, witches, you shouldn’t be allowed hospital care, Paul agrees with vaccine mandates, those on the edges, everybody has to go to the meeting in an inaccessible location, you should have got on the committee!, the Mary Robinette Kowal apology [for the Raytheon], you shouldn’t have fired the sensitivity readers, you couldn’t have fixed this with another committee, the more eyes you have, make everything public, an awareness question, they have a lot of money to generate positive buzz, Facebook is Meta now, bad publicity, why did he change his name, Paul Bernardo, a big company, the Nazis are a big party, the Hitler Youth was mandatory, mandate means mandatory, exceptions for Quakers, vaccine injuries, Pelosi and Fauci at the beginning, something changed, we were told different, we were not privy to those conversations, they do terrible stuff in your name and your consent, this book is very subtle, emigration, immigration, they’re party song, incorporating factions, Grant was a pretty good leader, I gotta fire that guy and replace him with Rod, more satisfying, almost half the group would have supported Rod, the vote of no confidence, community building, Grant was trying, a straw man to knock down, working with an imperfect leader to bring about better solutions, a good example, your leader doesn’t have to be right, standing on principle, what to do when you’ve got dissent, the sergeant at arms has a mace, the Queen’s rod for hitting people, a shooting in parliament [2014], the January 6th [2021] thing, pretty subtle, page 136, all the crackpots are votes for Waxy, save it Waxy, twigs for Grant, leaves for Carol, did you vote for yourself?, dog take it!, typical politician behavior, a do nothing person, sometimes that’s what your want from the government, King Log, Wheels Of If by L. Sprague de Camp, Boston, Soviet Russia, Joseph Stalin, solving being in the wrong body through politics, a meeting of the inner sanctum, Inner Sanctum mysteries, the secret, The Star Chamber (1983), Michael Douglas, Hal Holbrook, Yaphet Kotto, where the real justice is done, a reality in England 15th – 17th century, when Julian Assange is extradited, hidden evidence, an executive committee, bad government, disenfranchised, there to be an enigma, keep your enemies closer, litmus and purity tests, are you corrupt or are you not corrupt?, Crystal Light, all talk, just wanted power, scared of the smart youngsters, Pelosi from 20 or 30 years ago she sounds like AOC, the Squad don’t take money from corporation, they talk a good game, Justin [Trudeau] will give you a nice apology, we know his true character, you miss these things, the buzz (what the people are saying and what the government is saying), putting words into people’s ears works, organic chatter, a lot of people are saying, advertising is that, really interesting ideas, science fiction of the soft (political science), a standing desk, Anthony Boucher’s review from February 1956, far superior in writing and thinking, an adult serial, advanced survival, SURVIVE OR ELSE, he spoiled the book, a splendid Zulu girl, best woman to date, Andre Norton is Heinlein’s chief and almost sole competitor, Star Guard, a sheer adventure story, stobor, Rite Of Passage by Alexi Panshin, in dialogue, Rod, a wand or staff as a symbol of office, a gavel, giant rod of power, it’s not Rodney, under the current, waxy or crackpot, the eugenicist, scientific breeding, Dr. Strangelove (1964), David Sirota, 2012 (2009), a consensus, we needed to have one female on the ballot, Grant, we want more candidates and we want a girl, it was politik, divides the vote, I’m doing this for you people.

HARDCOVER - Tunnel In The Sky by Robert A. Heinlein

Tunnel In The Sky - Steele Savage

Tunnel In The Sky- Darrell K. Sweet

FULL CAST AUDIO - Tunnel In The Sky - Cover B

FULL CAST AUDIO - Tunnel In The Sky - Cover A

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #680 – READALONG: The Man Who Sold The Moon by Robert A. Heinlein

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #680 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, and Will Emmons talk about The Man Who Sold The Moon by Robert A. Heinlein

Talked about on today’s show:
published in a book, Heinlein almost always renewed his copyrights, no great interior art, boardrooms and offices, spacecrafts and diamonds, Pike’s Peak, Harriman pointing and winking, underground bunker wife, dissemble to his wife (again), the covers, Jesse is not a philatelist, numismatics, Paul’s not keeping up with philately, Brewster’s Millions (1985), Charade (1963), forever stamps, “here’s the extras from my collection, son”, Canada Post, Star Trek, Superman, Captain Canuck, Archibald Lampman, Lawrence Block, when not killing people, grandpas working on it, a moment of history that’s captured, the Apollo 11 launch, here at the blast-off, then you become a famous serial killer, acquires value, a first day cover is infinite cachet, mail fraud, legit fraud, shading the truth, 6+ button, Moka Cola, x-fuel, bribing judges left and right, philatelic stores are done through the mail, a license to print money, has government value, its almost you could pay your taxes in stamps, mostly selling intangibles, TV advertising rights, the actual physical object, it plays an important role, they also forget to put him in, meta-framing, there are no intentions its all Heinlein, Harriman is the stamps, an excuse for him to go to the Moon, he’s been defrauded, he knew what he was doing, Requiem by Robert A. Heinlein, The Man Who Sold The Moon is a prequel to Requiem, his heart is bad, a spit and gumball guy, barnstormers, he gets to the moon and dies on the Moon, maudlin and schmaltz, they bury him on the Moon, an oxygen bottle is his headstones, Robert Louis Stevenson’s grave in Samoa, glad did I live and gladly dive, the hunter home from the hill, TIA (pre-heart attack), Job: A Comedy Of Justice, long pig, Farah Mendlesohn, Home Is The Hunter by Henry Kuttner, Weird Al Yankovic, poingiant, The Green Hills Of Earth, sentimental vs. excessively sentimental, hear the voice of Robert A. Heinlein, what does his voice sound like?, Heinlein with Arthur C. Clarke commenting on Apollo 11, so excited, change the date of humanity, today is the year zero, a Moonbase, Mars, off to the solar system, it did not work out how he wanted, how Elon Musk would like Space X to be, a private space program (not subsidized by the government), why we’re doing this show, billionaires going to so called space, Musk doesn’t go up with his rockets, aptain Kirk in space, a fascinating footnote to history, “I don’t wish any harm to William Shatner”, clapping for celebrities, on the backs of poor people, the government’s involvement is nil, the regulation agency for the fuel and the stamps, the real reason we have space exploration (is military expenditure), commerce and bootstrapping and loans, Space X, their one and oly client (uther than Musk’s side-business) is the government, NASA being defunded, capitalism eating itself, me too companies, Blue Origin/Virgin, not even orbital, extended vomit comet stuff, checkboxing, things to do, a conga-line of people up to Mt. Everest, I went to space, save Maissa’s sensibilities, dickswining, putting Musk at the back of the guillotine line, we will coup whoever we want, he wants to do what he wants to do, Jeff Bezos and the Virgin Guy [Richard Branson], what’s different about the D.D. Harriman like figure of Elon Musk, his wild dreams, he put a car in space, the product that is Elon Musk, you get the product that is him, when you buy a Tesla you buy into a piece of musk, Chevrolet Volt, Teslas everywhere, these other kinds of cars are stupid, electric cars are cooler, D.D. Harriman is not an engineer, dirty tricks, fucks over his wife and partners, right up to mail fraud, the most prosecutable crime, you’re crossing the biggest baddest bitch in the room (the government), people standing around, 12 Angry Men-style, do it in black and white, don’t put out this manifesto in the world, Elon Musk reads this story, he is this story, I got my own emerald mine, PayPal, I’m gonna go to the fuckin’ Moon, that single-mindedness, who do I have to fuck to get this to happen, something deeply sick, a sociopath, who did they get to the American Moon program [Wernher von Braun], the Soviet space program, The Chief Designer by Andy Duncan, Sergei Korolev, Comrade we’re doing Moon program, the sociopath that is the American government, certified denazified, SS tattoos, when NASA had his own rocket program, come look, we’re going to name this one Enterprise, Desilu Studios in the 1960s, Galaxy Quest (1999), you thought Idiocracy (2006) wasnt a true story, Red Plenty, Ascent by Jed Mercurio, a secret history of the Soviet Moon Program, Stalingrad, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, he’s got a camera, he dies on the Moon, that struggle, technical problems that need to be solved, Pike’s Peak is not ideal, Panama or Florida, he lives there, you should launch from near the equator, its not all about the engineering, the technical problems will not happen unless I get the sizzle, leveraging the government, people get inspired to do stuff, 1950/1949, seventy years for that vision to start to come true, a failure of Heinlein’s imagination, an ideology, space might become a frontier in the Cold War, he goes into the newspaper with a hammer and sickle on, that’s the media, the ideology is government is not the solution, purposely bypass, the only purpose of the government is the stamps, government is in the way, let me loose, Musk will not get to space without a contract to service the ISS, the Chinese Russian International space station, oh please private business, not a good Chinese accent, not good to do either accent, fail better, release all of your failures, greatness out of badness, Chris Hadfield, Marc Garneau, The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield, he sings/writes/takes picture, never a Mountie, F-16 fighter pilot, Heinlein’s future history, wildly wrong, seventy years later, Canada was created out of a railroad scheme, if we build this railroad, it makes more sense to be late, it makes more sense to be overbudget, government expenditure is the best way to make money always, Contact (1997), Carl Sagan was a bit naive, his big problem in that book was the religious figure, communication from aliens would languish for hundreds of years, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, leaving government out in an ideological way, squid-like vampire sucking, bribes most judges, why it has hate, powerful and therefore important, this manifesto turned into a movie, The Turner Diaries [by William Luther Pierce], Pallas by L. Neil Smith, corporations colonizing an asteroid, the government is evil bad an corrupt, that’s “freedom”, For All Mankind, Skylab was a sideshow, the alternative to GPS [is “GLONASS”], Russia has a very small GDP and yet they somehow seem to keep their rocket and GPS programs going, tax breaks for the 1%, we’re selling seats on this thing, selling seats on Russian launches, sell-outs, now NASA focuses on probes, what’s cape Canaveral, Maissa saw a Falcon Heavy launch, like a fireball going up into the sky, it was like a sword of the archangel Gabriel, Chris Hadfield’s Wikipedia entry, government propaganda, Canada has plastic money, you can wash your money in the sink, when the government is in control, tests, skills, loyal, I’m gonna hand pick my son, comparatively, I’m going and my brother, did the cowboy hat go up with him, I found these in the stratosphere, 10th birthday party, we’re going to make two corporations, put all the debts onto that company and keep all the assets in this company, to bilk the investors, defraud collectors, defrauds the boy scouts, always be honest, when it really counts fuck anybody, not bragging as much as stating facts, its a real sad thing, the naked horror, going to Mars, ginning up a war with the Martians, another song reference, not much of a Rocket Man, the Moon can control the Earth, Musk’s dream of Mars, Musk has made a big dent in the world, the guillotine party, give him some ice cream, somewhat mitigated badness, an earnest desire for extension, the Moses reference was telling and touching, dialing in the prophecy, Moses is denied the promised land, the Post Office was God, a very strange interpretation, it kinda fits, Butler, Missouri, religious fanaticism, a more sympathetic character, Musk is all me me me but he still hasn’t gone to space, a one way mission to Mars, The Marching Morons by C.M. Kornbluth, a lot of dummies, depressive and pessimistic, not good in two ways, a lot of people think it is real, Beggars In Spain by Nancy Kress is a troubling book, like Ayn Rand but more current, super-evil, people who are just better than you, a “Fans are Slans” style story, special people, this mass of black or white people who need to die, Hitler’s manifesto book, the argument that it makes is what makes it evil, what’s cool about the X-Men, Magneto and The League Of Evil Mutants, its a fantasy, if you have brain you need to sleep, they’re more elite than you, they studied harder than you, Justin Trudeau’s 1.2 million dollar trust fund, face-painting costume, gets to be prime minister when his dad dies, novels vs. novellas, Our Opinions Are Correct: “Heinlein is turgid”, this novel, you should just read Scalzi, women would be present, Harriman’s wife, couldn’t give Harriman a baby, lives in Colorado, just the Heinlein story, Heinlein’s infertility, Friday, To Sail Beyond The Sunset, ret-con, I’m not really sexist, standard Heinlein, very incestuous, rehabilitates Harriman’s story, she’s not important to this story, how important the Post Office, don’t go against the government interest, you can use the Soviets as a whipping tool to et the media, a military industrial complex vs. a space industrial complex, Ospreys and F-22s, “defense”, you can sell people on fear, the commies in Russia today, China wants to take Taiwan, the Alpha Centurians are stealing our precious bodily fluids, space fear, the Coca Cola corporation, Dr. Strangelove (1964), another novel, Firestar by Michael Flynn, female entrepreneur capitalist, Elon Musk but not as evil, Flynn’s views on education, a shooting star, the comet would be good at this point, a dinosaur apocalypse is needed, digitize it and get it up to the moon, NFTs, bitcoin is currency, pre-orders equal love, the character’s supposed to be sympathetic, space space space, fighting in the Balkans, quasi-libertarian is (mostly) evil, in the 90s Paul’s politics were not as enlightened as now, public schools vs. private schools, save a few, no offense, some offense, slap in the face no offense, we need to face facts, this has been a blueprint for people, echoes with what’s going on, what other books are lurking effecting people’s reality, some phenomenon happening on the earth, Asimovs and Heinleins, Bezos vs. Musk, I gotta focus on my plan, set up a Foundation somewhere, Paul Krugman thinks he’s Hari Seldon, I’m a psycho (historian), too good for Jesse, Sir there’s somebody waiting to see you, a historical setting, Overlord (2018), tell me a lie story, who has women in their space program?, the Soviets, part of their ideology is women ARE equal, team human, Mary Robinette Kowal’s Lady Astronaut series, the Mercury 13, what if we weren’t super sexist?, a country that has to turn less sexist, Luke Burrage’s SCIENCE FICTION BOOK REVIEW PODCAST review of The Calculating Stars, the Nazis didn’t want women fighting, making strudel and soldiers, not caring about certain facts about ballistics, how many stages the rockets needs to be, recycling the capsule from a previous rocket, designing the capsule for the lifting device, Musk’s plan, a fuel tank with a little spaceship on the end, get this, this story was written before the actual Moon program, whether the fuel will ignite from gamma rays, how can we not care about those details, Heinlein cared so much he kinda made it happen, John F. Kennedy was trying to direct the military industrial complex into an Olympics style competition, for all mankind, now there’s a Space Force, the instincts to restrain insanity have gone away, more and more in the Harriman situation, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, the Law Of The Seas, the Americans never ratify, a Dutchman named Hugo Grotius, why don’t we just be tolerant?, no torturing people, that’s all gone now, public schools are terrible, Jesse a nihilist, human civilization, asteroid/meteor/comet, When Worlds Collide, Rogue Planet, not focusing on the ballistics?, Jesse prefers to read books that are out of print?, public domain, [is Jesse an obscurantist?], gotta winnow, Will’s initial Heinlein journey, a deathmarch?, stop doing that, he’s got the goods, The Star Beast, would D.D. Harriman sell N.F.T.s, what wouldn’t he do to get to the Moon?, he wouldn’t break his word to a person, personal loan, personal honor, down the slippery slope lying road, skirting that line, NFTs are a scam, Tulipmania, Odo and Quark, Jesse doesn’t Grok what its about, you should sell some SFFaudio listener NFT, Philip K. Dick drawings NFTs?, the motivation is the mistake, an artificial scarcity, not for hateful means, the Kingdom of Redonda, M.P. Shiel was crowned King of Rednoda as a boy, this rapist plagiarist, its a scam that has legs, pretty sure these are NFTs, Vincent Price as a lord of Redonda, basically NFTs could be anything, software license keys, why do we want that?, infinitely replicable, why do we want to make it scarce, Substack will integrate NFTs, a technology that we don’t have a use for, your password for your account, the jpegs are largely useless proof of concepts, etherium wallet, software should be free, digital clothing for their avatars, PUBG, a book takes paper, sewing, glue, and trucks, stupid and wrong and evil, Elon Musk needs lithium for his car batteries not because he likes couping people, the purity of the goal, Bezos’s pure goal is *ME*, the people climbing Everest, me shaking Obama’s hand, flying back to Kathmandu, helicopter rides for everybody, why Shatner going to space is a marker as a society, government control of how we spend and communicate, the jpg thing is ridiculous.

SHASTA - The Man Who Sold The Moon by Robert A. Heinlein

SIGNET - The Man Who Sold The Moon by Robert A. Heinlein

SIGNET The Man Who Sold The Moon by Robert A. Heinlein

PAN BOOKS - The Man Who Sold The Moon by Robert A. Heinlein

UK - The Man Who Sold The Moon by Robert A. Heinlein

BAEN - The Man Who Sold The Moon by Robert A. Heinlein

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

Commentary: A “Top 100 Sci-Fi Audiobooks” List

SFFaudio Commentary

Sci-Fi ListsLast year somebody* pointed out that a list of “The Top 100 Sci-Fi Books” (as organized by the Sci-Fi Lists website) was almost entirely available in audiobook form!

At the time of his or her compiling 95 of the 100 books were available as audiobooks.

Today, it appears, that list is approaching 99% complete!

I’ve read a good number of the books and audiobooks listed, and while some of them are indeed excellent, I’d have to argue that some are merely ok, and that others are utterly atrocious.

That said, I do think it is interesting that almost all of them are available as audiobooks!

Here’s the list as it stood last year, plus my added notations on the status of the missing five:

01- Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card – 1985
02- Dune – Frank Herbert – 1965
03- Foundation – Isaac Asimov – 1951
04- Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy – Douglas Adams – 1979
05- 1984 – George Orwell – 1949
06- Stranger In A Strange Land – Robert A Heinlein – 1961
07- Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury – 1954
08- 2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C Clarke – 1968
09- Starship Troopers – Robert A Heinlein – 1959
10- I, Robot – Isaac Asimov – 1950
11- Neuromancer – William Gibson – 1984
12- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick – 1968
13- Ringworld – Larry Niven – 1970
14- Rendezvous With Rama – Arthur C. Clarke – 1973
15- Hyperion – Dan Simmons – 1989
16- Brave New World – Aldous Huxley – 1932
17- The Time Machine – H.G. Wells – 1895
18- Childhood’s End – Arthur C. Clarke – 1954
19- The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein – 1966
20- The War Of The Worlds – H.G. Wells – 1898
21- The Forever War – Joe Haldeman – 1974
22- The Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury – 1950
23- Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut – 1969
24- Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson – 1992
25- The Mote In God’s Eye – Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle – 1975
26- The Left Hand Of Darkness – Ursula K. Le Guin – 1969
27- Speaker For The Dead – Orson Scott Card – 1986
28- Jurassic Park – Michael Crichton – 1990
29- The Man in the High Castle – Philip K. Dick – 1962
30- The Caves Of Steel – Isaac Asimov – 1954
31- The Stars My Destination – Alfred Bester – 1956
32- Gateway – Frederik Pohl – 1977
33- Lord Of Light – Roger Zelazny – 1967
34- Solaris – Stanisław Lem – 1961
35- 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea – Jules Verne – 1870
36- A Wrinkle In Time – Madeleine L’Engle – 1962
37- Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut – 1963
38- Contact – Carl Sagan – 1985
39- The Andromeda Strain – Michael Crichton – 1969
40- The Gods Themselves – Isaac Asimov – 1972
41- A Fire Upon The Deep – Vernor Vinge – 1991
42- Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson – 1999
43- The Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham – 1951
44- UBIK – Philip K. Dick – 1969
45- Time Enough For Love – Robert A. Heinlein – 1973
46- A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess – 1962
47- Red Mars – Kim Stanley Robinson – 1992
48- Flowers For Algernon – Daniel Keyes
49- A Canticle For Leibowitz – Walter M. Miller – 1959
50- The End of Eternity – Isaac Asimov – 1955
51- Battlefield Earth – L. Ron Hubbard – 1982
52- Frankenstein – Mary Shelley – 1818
53- Journey To The Center Of The Earth – Jules Verne – 1864
54- The Dispossessed – Ursula K. Le Guin – 1974
55- The Diamond Age – Neal Stephenson – 1995
56- The Player Of Games – Iain M. Banks – 1988
57- The Reality Dysfunction – Peter F. Hamilton – 1996
58- Startide Rising – David Brin – 1983
59- The Sirens Of Titan – Kurt Vonnegut – 1959
60- Eon – Greg Bear – 1985
61- Ender’s Shadow – Orson Scott Card – 1999
62- To Your Scattered Bodies Go – Philip Jose Farmer – 1971
63- A Scanner Darkly – Philip K. Dick – 1977
64- Lucifer’s Hammer – Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle – 1977
65- The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood – 1985
66- The City And The Stars – Arthur C Clark – 1956
67- The Stainless Steel Rat – Harry Harrison – 1961
68- The Demolished Man – Alfred Bester – 1953
69- The Shadow of the Torturer – Gene Wolfe – 1980
70- Sphere – Michael Crichton – 1987
71- The Door Into Summer – Robert .A Heinlein – 1957
72- The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch – Philip K. Dick – 1964
73- Revelation Space – Alastair Reynolds – 2000
74- Citizen Of The Galaxy – Robert A. Heinlein – 1957
75- Doomsday Book – Connie Willis – 1992
76- Ilium – Dan Simmons – 2003
77- The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells – 1897
78- Have Space-Suit Will Travel – Robert A. Heinlein – 1958
79- The Puppet Masters – Robert A. Heinlein – 1951
80- Out Of The Silent Planet – C.S. Lewis – 1938
81- A Princess of Mars – Edgar Rice Burroughs – 1912
82- The Lathe of Heaven – Ursula K. Le Guin – 1971
83- Use Of Weapons – Iain M. Banks – 1990
84- The Chrysalids – John Wyndham – 1955
85- Way Station – Clifford Simak – 1963
86- Flatland – Edwin A. Abbott – 1884
87- Altered Carbon – Richard Morgan – 2002
88- Old Man’s War – John Scalzi – 2005
89- COMING SOON (October 15, 2012)Roadside Picnic – Arkady and Boris Strugatsky – 1972
90- The Road – Cormac McCarthy – 2006
91- The Postman – David Brin – 1985
92- NEWLY AVAILABLEStand On Zanzibar – John Brunner – 1969
93- VALIS – Philip K. Dick – 1981
94- NEWLY AVAILABLE The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age – Stanisław Lem – 1974
95- NOT AVAILABLE AS AN AUDIOBOOK – Cities In Flight – James Blish – 1955
96- The Lost World – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – 1912
97- The Many-Colored Land – Julian May – 1981
98- Gray Lensman – E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith – 1940
99- The Uplift War – David Brin – 1987
100- NEWLY AVAILABLEThe Forge Of God – Greg Bear – 1987

In case you were wondering, the list was compiled using the following criteria:

“A statistical survey of sci-fi literary awards, noted critics and popular polls. To qualify a book has to be generally regarded as science fiction by credible sources and/or recognised as having historical significance to the development of the genre. For books that are part of a series (with some notable exceptions) only the first book in the series is listed.”

The “Next 100”, as listed over on Sci-Fi Lists, has a lot of excellent novels and collections in it too, check that out HERE.

[*Thanks to “neil1966hardy” from ThePirateBay]

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #125 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Horla by Guy de Maupassant

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #125 – The Horla by Guy de Maupassant, read by Gregg Margarite (of LibriVox), followed by a discussion of the story – participants include Jesse, Tamahome and Jenny Colvin (of the Reading Envy blog).

Talked about on today’s show:
“c’est magnifique!”, is this Jesse’s favourite story from the 19th century?, H.G. Wells, is The Horla Science Fiction, aliens, ghosts, Guy de Maupassant is crafting our feeling on how the story should be interpreted, Mont Saint-Michel, Ladyhawke, Second Life, Normandy, Paris, France, ghosts, goats with human faces, biblical stories of possessed pigs, metaphor of the wind, the wind as a telekinetic force, invisibility, personal experience vs. faith, succubi, vampires, Jim Moon’s Hypnobobs podcast (reading of The Horla and Dairy Of A Madman), was Guy de Maupassant interested in science?, his prolific output, Sigmund Freud, is this a psychological drama?, the character in the movie vs. the short story, sleep paralysis and depression, is the unnamed protagonist of The Horla bioplar?, syphilis, H.P. Lovecraft, Benjamin Franklin, the character has a Science Fiction attitude (a disposition towards science), a story of possession (like in The Exorcist), glowing eyes, Rouen, “excuse my French”, external confirmation, diagnose yourself, São Paulo, Brazil, The Horla means “the beyond”, what lives beyond the Earth?, Jenny wasn’t thinking aliens at all, creatures from other dimensions, the Predator’s cloaking device, is the horla really Santa Claus?, hypnotism and hypnotists, post-hypnotic suggestion, confabulation, its a quasi-phenomenon, why can’t everyone be hypnotized?, Hamlet, did he burn down his house or did the horla do it?, noir, movies demand the defeat of evil, “Son Of The Horla and Spawn Of The Horla“, science and skepticism, who broke all the drinking glasses?, the Futurama version of a Twilight Zone episode,

“The vulture has eaten the dove, and the wolf has eaten the lamb; the lion has devoured the sharp-horned buffalo, and man has killed the lion with arrow, sword and gun; but the Horla is going to make of man what we have made of the horse and the ox: his chattel, his servant and his food, by the mere exercise of his will. Woe to us.”

Tamahome should read some H.P. Lovecraft, here’s H.P. Lovecraft’s description of The Horla:

“Relating the advent in France of an invisible being who lives on water and milk, sways the minds of others, and seems to be the vanguard of a horde of extra-terrestrial organisms arrived on earth to subjugate and overwhelm mankind, this tense narrative is perhaps without peer in its particular department.”

Lovecraft is using deep time to scare us instead of the supernatural, The Statement Of Randolph Carter, sorry I cant talk right now I’m being digested, Cthulhu’s guest appearance on South Park, the elements, space butterfly,

“We are so weak, so powerless, so ignorant, so small — we who live on this particle of mud which revolves in liquid air.”

a cosmic view, the Carl Sagan view, evil is everywhere, an allegory for science, Frankenstein, “men ought not meddle in affairs normally deemed to women”, the Frankensteinian monster, a warning against science vs. science is our only way of understanding the universe, we have one place to look and that is to science, the propaganda he’s pushing, “there are things we can’t explain”, gentlemen did science back then, Library Of The World’s Best Mystery And Detective Stories on Wikisource, the case of my body being haunted, Edgar Allan Poe, Diary Of A Madman, turn us into batteries, “this is a looking glass”, the main character holding a photograph of himself, foreshadowing, out of body experience, Tama fails the quiz of the lesson earlier, when we don’t know – don’t conclude, we ought not conclude anything from this scene, we are not supposed to know we know the answer, Harvey Keitel’s appearance on Inside the Actor’s Studio, becoming comfortable with the unknown, The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jesse proceeds to recount the entire plot of The Necklace, like a really sad O. Henry story, Somerset Maugham, Henry James, A String Of Beads, “Mais oui.”

The Horla by Guy de Maupassant

The Horla by Guy de Maupassant - illustration by Julian-Damazy

The Horla by Guy de Maupassant - illustration by Julian-Damazy

Guy De Maupassant's Le Horla 1908 Edition

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #083 – TALK TO: Jeremy Keith

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #083 – Jesse talks with Jeremy Keith of HuffDuffer.com about his website. HuffDuffer can turn any MP3 file on the web into a podcast! HuffDuffer lets you make your own curated podcasts and share them with the world.

Talked about on today’s show:
HuffDuffer.com, turning loose mp3 files on the web into podcasts, “the benefit of the website happens when you’re not at the website”, maybe planning ahead just isn’t popular?, the HuffDuffer extension for Firefox, Mozilla Firefox vs. Google Chrome, Bookmarklet, “HuffDuffer is the perfectly developed website”, website design, “all software evolves until it becomes an email client” (or Facebook), interacting with iTunes, “it just works”, you can HuffDuff any audio extension (no video thanks very much), audio vs. video, the stigma of audio (and radio), adactio.com (Jeremy Keith’s website), SalterCane.com, BBC, CBC, tagging your podcasts, the Science Fiction tag on HuffDuffer, Sage an RSS catcher for Firefox, the HuffDuffer people page, the HuffDuffer tag cloud page, the use of machine tags, flickr.com, the Philip K. Dick tag, each tag makes its own feed, the Orson Scott Card Selects podcast feed, get satisfaction from HuffDuffer, HuffDuffing computer voiced MP3 files (please don’t), exploring HuffDuffer as a social network, ClearLeft.com and Jeremy Keith’s profile there, the philosophy of website design, how to design a website for every browser, designing SFFaudio’s design, inertia of website design and designers, “website development is the most hostile environments”, three things have changed the internet for me: 1. podcasting 2. HuffDuffer 3. RSS readers, consuming the content the way you want, the Readability bookmarklet, Safari 5, sustainable business models, Dark Roasted Blend, why isn’t HuffDuffer HUGE?, you aren’t competing on the web, niche websites are empowering, what happens if Jeremy Keith gets hit by a bus?, the demise of websites, is Wikipedia too big to fail?, the further demise of websites, “feature creep“, you don’t buy a domain name (you rent it), the Seeing Ear Theatre story, Archive.org, the Science Fiction mindset, The Wayback Machine, the death of Geocities was a tragedy for the future archaeologists of the web, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr., Anathem by Neal Stephenson, The Long Now Foundation, we need servers on the moon, bury archive.org under the Sea Of Tranquility, Carl Sagan, the Voyager record (it’s the longest of the LPs), reconstructing the phonograph 10,000 years down the road, does Science Fiction make you smarter? Jeremy Keith’s answer: “Only Science Fiction fans can be smart.”

Posted by Jesse Willis