The SFFaudio Podcast #760 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle

The SFFaudio Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #760 – The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle, read by Mike F. Smith (for LibriVox.org). This is a complete and unabridged reading of the book (3 hours, 17 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Bryan Alexander, Trish E. Matson, and Terence Blake

Talked about on today’s show:
1913, The Strand, republished, 199 pages, 3 hours and 15 minutes, what we might call a series, The Lost World, never even mention dinosaurs, does this book stand on its own, from a plot perspective, fall into the byplay, as characters, building on those characters, what character we needed, such a step down in terms of length, the mind blowing idea, discovered dinosaurs 3 years earlier, everybody dies, what challenger was doing, reverses all the damage he does, less potent thus less famous, the reception, invasion novels, village, how the rest of the world responds, golfers and babies, the end of the world, straight up, a giant stride being taken, the big setup, skull island, the plateau of Leng, Edgar Rice Burroughs, in Challenger’s wife’s boudoir, no action, the story as an idea, a request from publishers, more of that Challenger stuff, the adventures of these guys again, this story gets super-existential, I can’t report the news now, that old lady worrying about her stocks, in despair, we still have science!, all the roles that Conan Doyle is himself playing, aspects of his own personality, Sumerlee is the worst parts, Challenger is the guy who wants to be, Roxton is the manly man, the reversal, Aristotle’s unities, war imagery, corpses lying every which way on the ground, pseudocorpses, a gas attack, even more striking, propaganda operations, that’s where he got his, keeping up with the fairies, keeping up with everything topical, Danger!, England being attacked by an enemy using uboats, the spectre of death, War Of The Worlds, newspaper reports, telegrams, he wanted an [email protected] email address, clericals and anarchists, Paris has riots in the streets, racialism, the nigger at the beginning and the end, less complex societies, Sumatra, odious ideas of race, the pinnacle is all these people, after he bites his housemaid, a superman, making fun of challenger, short legs, the ride in on the traincar, doing a cockatoo, some rando, perfect for England in 1913, no colonies east of Sumatra, we peel around the world moving west, continues past England, eerily prescient, really poignant, layers of mediation, a snapshot of attitudes in this peak of colonialism, the Slovenians falling, the Teutons were slower to be affected, Doyle’s everybody here, could he have written this 20 years later, kinda stupid premise, ether is not a thing, ether has come back, Einstein, we don’t need this shit, you don’t need ether for the plot, a map of local interstellar space, a bubble of low density interstellar medium, pre-Einsteinian ether theory, cosmic particles, panspermia, what we’re looking at is not a gas, like the Force, allowing light to do its thing, it doesn’t make any sense, change the overall mixture, it can’t actually be a gas, the earth orbiting through this gas, diluting it, they wax papered the windows, A Pail Of Air by Fritz Leiber, a bucket of oxygen, a frozen gas vs. an etheral gas, echoes from this book, Brain Wave by Poul Anderson, supressed conductivity, a Vernor Vinge lift later as well, A Fire Upon The Deep, zones of thought, a sleeping field, the vocab word: catalepsy, I’m feeling cataleptic, can’t come into work today, The First Men In The Moon by H.G. Wells, a social novel, clearly sentimental, the imagery is powerful, the comedy aspect, makes it gentle, John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos, that scale is so different, every woman on earth is now pregnant, The Day Of The Triffids, knocking up a whole world, hyper-personal, played by Brian Blessed, if fictional people can be reincarnated into real people, A Thousand Plateaus by Félix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze, chapter tracks, a screaming thing, The Land Of The Mists, spiritually insane, 5% insane, luminiferous either, a spiritualist concept, observe as much as we can, if it exists, really?, takes it a priori, Lovecraft, water and salt, who he is and how, essential salts, materialism, too great a thing, three bucketfuls of water, ugly bags of mostly water, uses matter but is not of it, When The World Screamed, a Quatermass serial, a Doctor Who episode, Inferno, a Mirror, Mirror, evil UNIT, Brigadier has an eye-patch, like Spock, some other inventor, the Earth is a living organism, the crust of the Earth with the grapes, a wash to get of some virus or bacteria on the grapes, a line of 8 reapers, bloody golfers, machine metaphors, longing for simplification, early Christian apocalypse, Ragnarok, atomic bomb stories, after the bomb, Mad Max, 27 hours, makes a good play, its scope is much smaller, a total cop-out, just believe Challenger, all hold hands and become a better world, massive anarchist conspiracy, find people to blame it on, a prime target, lost a day, very controversial, personal reasons, hurts the stature, post-apocalyptic, not a plague, the policman standing up wakes up, traffic’s gone to shit, hard not to bring up Lovecraft, a science fiction story, field glasses, spot his housekeeper, a microscope, this microscope, this is wonderful, you can see for your self, and yet it moves sort of line, scientific method, emotionally interesting, existential, does my life have meaning, humour, Doyle’s such a good writer, everything flows so smoothly, our worthy Summerlee, mopping his heated brow, more easily condone, when my balance has been disturbed, one Sarah, so much classism, she is a woman of a sever and forbidding aspect, the royal we, alone at my breakfast, entertaining and instructive, imperturbability, upset a small vase, withdrawn the the study, I sank my teeth in the calf of her leg, ore herself free, some thoughts of an explanation, traveling very rapidly, is it illuminative?, pour this orange juice on his head, explaining the behavior, as you drink less alcohol, as you get older, restrain yourself, as your faculties go, laughter and impulsivity, rationalizing, this experiment is a good idea, so good, he’s become a monster, he bit her on the leg, use my rational mind, problems and issues, classism, rather horrified, loyal chauffeur, wryly sticks with the professor, such a domestic tyrant, they couldn’t appreciate it, we’re all going to die soon, while working on the engine, a common attitude, many rich people now, utter callousness, a natural progression, Sherpas are always missing when climbing Everest, Nepal, the last real town before Everest, a statue of Tenzing Norgay, without him Hillary wouldn’t have gotten anywhere, run 26 miles down hill, badass, Victorian, 18th century fiction, invisible servants, especially a British thing, French social novels of the 19th century, Russian novels, snapshot of the world in 1913, a maniac and a monster, we see this today, Kardashians, gigantic celebrity, talent on stage, staff was masked up, the science in here, the ether explanation, the ideas of what science is, pro-science stuff, what is this book about, what is a theme?, the hardest questions, you’re telling me I have to live, they don’t want to live in a world without…, you can’t published, you can find stuff out, the most stable idea, it isn’t the publication its the finding out, new things about reality, there’s still always going to be science, for science alone vs. life with him, some class stuff with the local guides, and racism, science is in many ways useless, too late to do anything about it, a Cassandra function, there’s delight, the future Earth will be repopulated, evolution is 100% true, a series of observations, predictions, errors, new observations, new predictions, very optimistic, horrific things happened and people were shocked for a while, Malone, feeble folk, like all the oft repeated truths, a lesson an actual experience was need to bring it home, still stunned by the suddenness of the blows, fires everywhere, one of the greatest tragedies, grim reading, her stocks! her stocks!, elide over millions are going to die, for the survivors, personally unaffected, wake up, a rictus grin, nobody died of dehydration, those people, COVID-19, awfully familiar, almost Lovecraftian, the abyss, how convenient, the engineers, this story is meaningless in a certain sense, what will not be forgotten, this revelation, ignorant self-complacency, what abysses may lie on the other side, all our emotions to-day, pushing the religion, explicit religious stuff, singing the hymn, that chastened effect, humility, a narcissistic element, we survived, a contradiction in the narrative stance, the only survivors, Huck Finn at his own funeral, headlines, DEAD LONDON!, The Star by H.G. Wells, almost exactly the same story, A Pail Of Air, a rogue planet, the new brotherhood, books and machines, a hint of this, cold last paragraph, Martian astronomers, Wells and Conan Doyle were really different people, you know why he didn’t get a sir, almost all his characters are monsters, imposing these things on people, often they get a comeuppance, The War Of The Worlds guy, their philosophies, The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter, a really ambitious book, a bunch of child murders, aloof, The First Men In The Moon, Cavor is wonderful, suicidal, a cool romp?, sentimental, moved by it, convinced the whole world had died, where that leaves us, humanity being humbled, the amoeba doesn’t save anybody in this, the human future, out of space, this invasion from Mars, the most fruitful source of decadence, the conception of the commonweal of mankind, very Wellsian, Eric S. Rabkin, that’ll never be the case, damn that gets me, such a magnificent book, a Challenger adventure, he’s a great character, why is he so enthusiastic, reading old stuff does more than one thing, a picture of the society I live in, Fraunhofer lines, we can’t imagine this today, our tame scientist at the office, they have a scientist on staff, at the New York Times, maybe today, he don’t write a lot of articles, 5 people wrote them, daily newspapers, a list of experts they call up, just there to consult, be a Wikipedia and keep up with all that stuff, the golfers and the cricketers, pre-WWI Britain, a “tame scientist”, this had to have been true, these were going concerns, going through old newspapers, the topics covered, university level writing, mistakes, Lovecraft had a syndicated astronomy column across the USA, the local newspaper, the Vancouver Sun, the Province, 5 days a week, not doing Mondays anymore, the fonts are big, the end times for newspapers, Bryan’s new book, Universities On Fire by Bryan Alexander, the bleakest thing Bryan’s ever written, possible extinction, Scientific American used to be amazing, magazines are dead, retired teacher magazines are better than national general topic magazines, encouraging people to get vaccinated, insisted they didn’t need vaccination, the wackiness of Q Anon, silver colloidal treatments, oceans of scientific stuff, the evolution of Wikipedia on SARS, we have a stupider media, access to scientific material, mis and dis information, reading wrong stuff, getting indoctrinated by it, we lived through COVID in real time, the vaccine(s), distributed quickly, excited about the science aspect, prediction supposition, action, correction, new prediction, combined with the emotion, ring the bell, all four of the men, a very religious image, smart, how do you communicate with a whole lot of people, Doyle also makes a point, the churches had never been so packed, the end of Soylent Green, not slept in weeks, it’s people, a very similar kind of image, a utopia, golfing at the world’s end, keep golfing, a dystopian vision, a continuity, the bucolic English countryside, Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement, Jane Austen, J.G. Ballard, pastoral, industrial, tamed nature, a lawn, feedstock for our machines, Kim Stanley Robinson’s The High Sierra: A Love Story, Switzerland, all about the hiking, under Mercury’s surface, Ministry Of The Future, catastrophes into eucatastrophes, he loves this environment, this landscape, lightly pissing on Yosemite, I hate Yosemite, The Comet by W.E.B. Du Bois, searching for other survivors, about to kiss, we have to procreate, only New Yorkers were killed, almost lynched, a cash reward, Pseudopod, another British writer, M.P. Shiel, the movie is pretty good, Harry Belafonte, The Purple Cloud, he just steals other people’s stuff, this is nothing like British Columbia, same story different location, different title, The Place Of Pain, a lens that allows you to see the Moon’s surface like no other telescope can, super-duper-liar, lifting and using ideas, The World, the Flesh And The Devil (1959), heavy-handed, Star Trek, bring back Jim Crow, the cyanogen scare of 1906, Cosmos, Carl Sagan, never explicated to any great degree, a lake in central Afica that had a burp and killed everybody around it, a Fortean style gas, a heavy gas, Lake Nyos in Cameroon, impeding in Salt Lake, invisible, the entire text, Z For Zachariah by Robert C. O’Brien, we don’t know what happened to cause Jenny’s death, her funeral over zoom, they had just adopted a kid, Redonda, this guy’s really kill, this guy’s horrible, fun, a liar, it might be worse than that, Colin Wilson, Michael Moorcock, The Yellow Invasion, child molestation, everything about him is monstrous, his grift goes on and on, a kind of stature, a couple of handfuls of books from that period, palate cleanser, a lot of fun, very moving, done more with it, end of the world/British invasion stories, good writing, just as valuable for the context, if you’re interested in genre history, Francis Ford Coppola, an ongoing joke, roots in a lie, his dad ennobled him, his way of inveigling his way into the good graces of publishers, not occupiable, ESP and reincarnation, would you like to be a lord, a way of having a conversation with Vincent Price, Hollywood creepy, giant cosplay, Arthur Machen, Umberto Eco, another creepy guy, pedophiles out in the world, Sailing Alone Around The World by Joshua Slocum, not acting on best behavior, Jesse’s politics: pirates stabbing liches, Anne McCaffrey, Jesse can beat her ghost, live afraid, The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey, Gutenberg.org, a great story, 30 pages, about 45 minutes to read aloud, Black Priestess Of Varda by Erik Fennel, he is that guy, lost an eye and lost an arm, a portal fantasy, the story is very illustrative, intermural television, can it be done?, 1930, only 100 years off, Science & Invention, Dick Tracy’s two way radio, Metropolis by Thea von Harbou and her husband, contemporaneous with the making of the film, Alan Dean Foster, an amazing BBC radio drama adaptation, novelizations of movies based on novels, Philip K. Dick and Blade Runner, audiobooks of the damned, pirate audiobook narrations of novelizations, The Terminator, get inside Sarah Connor’s head, based on the script, Alan Dean Foster’s novelization of Alien, fantastic, a stage adaptation of Aliens, a high school production, Sigourney Weaver in the audience, it stages really well, with film we don’t have to restage, refer people back to the original film, take care of that flood, rising tide, good book, Logan’s Run, Downward To Earth, Sixth Column, photography stuff, bud and stuff, hang out with Terence and see his beautiful southern France, abandoned lunatic asylum, changed it back, flash photography, photography takes practice, ghost hunters, flicker every so often, invite any spirit to play with it, arrange a card game with a couple of spirits, wild fun, the later end of Conan Doyle’s stuff, historical tours, hand hewn stone, 2nd biggest structure on Earth, built just before the Civil War, the rump state of Virginia, a Union unit seized all the money, ghost stories, the idea situation, a trash fire algorithm, the host with the most, do some Silverberg, life is really good, spoiled, choosing not to believe.

The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #690 – READALONG: The Pre-Persons by Philip K. Dick

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #690 – Jesse, Evan, Will Emmons talk about The Pre-Persons by Philip K. Dick

Talked about on today’s show:
Fantasy & Science Fiction, October 1974, Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, The Electric Ant, Evan doesn’t seem to hate this story, a hateable story?, an abortion story, politically incorrect, Paul might not have been able to get passed it, Will will try to get passed it, cypress trees, the abortion truck, a “post partum”, through the looking glass, down Alice’s rabbit hole, U.S. Supreme Court blah blah blah, personal life stuff, the way men and women are presented, comment on abortion, a reductio ad absurdum, lines with children (alcohol, voting), ageism of adults oppressing children, a moment of privileged, Will’s presidential year, as youthful as Pete Bootyjudge, communism and Democrats are the same thing, a different book, Dreamsnake by Vonda M. Mcintyre, taking issue with Dick’s arguments against abortion, what a good thing abortion is, abortions are fashionable, a message to Marissa, Marissa was half way through and hated it, shot his wad, emasculating women want to kill everything, submit to Joanna Russ, a feminist bent, all the women are the same, chew up all the fish in the waters of Canada, keep the embryo in a jar to pass around at a wine and cheese event, next level misogynist(ish), a direct response to Roe V. Wade, we have Dick’s notes, Collected Stories, Volume 5, she usually offered to beat up people, special pleading, offending people, drugs, communism, such a Philip K. Dick move, you have to bother, he’s got some ideas, a powerful story, Jesse is in favour of infanticide, infanticide to age 37, gets on the bus with his kid, an reservedly good thing, somebody shoots an arrow into your arm, its necessary, injuries are a bad thing, a remedy, a repair is always a good thing, where the slippage happens, participating in the impregnation, he wants to take responsibility, where at least one of the problems lie, that thing is alive and wants to live, Philip K. Dick wants it to live, the kids are standing around, those aspects of the story, its all talk, a wanna firebomb the abortion clinic and truck, actions are much different than desires, crazy (and normal) people take things outside of the mind, computer games with digital guns, the reason to read this story is to explore Philip K. Dick, Ben Shapiro wrote a short story collection, Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, a rip-off of The Pre-Persons, poor Fleishhacker, one of them steps on a bad bug, that’s the thesis, its kind of about animals, this is how we round up cats (and dogs), declawing cats, murdering male chicks five minutes after they’re hatched, Philip K. Dick is making Evan’s argument, we need more people, a classist argument, Ed, is there a cat in there?, the horrible ice-cream man, reverse-gassed, an honest position, an ice-cream truck, the Good Humour music, you runaway and hide from the ice cream man’s gaze, skinny makes him a stray, glasses means somebody cares for him, Romanian orphanages, a peek behind the iron curtain, pretty vague, international abortions, white saviours to adopt them, adopting some strays, a burden, a convenience, if having children wasn’t a burden, utopian fiction, it’s really expensive to raise a kid, an analogy for gun rights, crossbows, our thinking about abortion is broken, if Paul were here, he may be so pro he may not be able to listen to why some are against, racism, classism, possible ways of engaging, state encouragement, India or China, state policy, a description of Walter’s mom, a soulless robot, maybe Walter was a robot, I’ve reduced your stress threshold, what we do as (parents) adults, how to cope with problems in their lives, unrelated to the topic of particular horror, a reality of human and animal biology, 1874, orphanages were common, what happened?, the foster care system, unwanted births, the parents died, the children are given up (anonymous), Oscar Wilde play, left in a gladstone bag, women being shamed to have had babies out of wedlock, women will possibly think it fashionable to get an abortion, people do all sorts of shit (largely because of what people around you are doing), veganism, university educations, norms (outside the law), prideful abortions, how much advertising we’ve gotten, the hot new show right now, wrong in context, contending with the hatemail, a second abortion, 100% of the women think having an abortion is fashionable, the safe country for babies, he believes what the state says, states say: these people aren’t people, a prison guard, almost nobody in prison in the U.S. had a trial, suddenly faced with these thoughts, your brain and the people around you, our truck driver is a psychopath, perfectly happy returning milk bottles, looking at the shotgun, only had to use it five times, anti-men at that moment, the nature of men, the nature of the state, emasculating women, a perspective character for Dick, a reliable character, he’s also the little boy and the wife, women are not easy to understand by men, special pleading, not an article, delivering exactly what he wants, it has this nuance in it, its not just about abortion, algebra being the test of whether has a soul or not, Jesse you’re in trouble, we’re gonna test you, your parents aren’t there saying “grades don’t matter”, how Jesse good a good mark on his castle, he knows this is a kind of a farce, the woman in this story is kind of a farce, insightful enough, resentful feelings, that’s not the end of the story, our situation on Earth, something that happens to us, am I gonna eat meat?, hard hard things, healthcare is really important, malnourished on the sidewalk, thus we make reforms, the $90 license for the kid, not only about shitting on women, the emotional response to a particular incident, the minority opinion, less abortion, arrows in the street is a bad thing, they have to do it safely, to take back the government, so interesting, the use of the soul, religious anti-abortion people, not an atheist society, a Reagan society, the question of the soul, Thomas Aquinas, after the quickening, birth control become a no-no, subverting the religious argument, a desire to live, abortion laws in Canada, there are no laws about abortion in Canada, a touchy subject, how to do it?, available on demand, harder in Nunavut than Vancouver, the regulatory agency doesn’t exist, abortionists, a legal right, 2 minutes before the baby’s head popped out, he goes on and on and on about Vancouver Island and English Bay, an incident in his life, a mid-life crisis, pretended to be addicted to heroin to get some counseling, a forthright liar, paranoid, the drug writer, a couple LSD experiences, taken from his own life, all the empathizing we do with the little kids, seeing the kids in the back of the truck, more than one kid in there, every kind of argument to justify his feelings of having his kid aborted, or hypothetically, something you would regret, a striving of both males and females to have children, this hot-button topic, the horror from every side, the Church of The Watchers, a coal powered Oldsmobile (or a Ford), weird laws and legislation, during the one child policy in China, fining the parents, forced to go to school, Kamala Harris wanted to have parents arrested for their children’s truancy, the juvenile birthrate, embarrassing, off to the doctor with you, social pressure, people do thing to their bodies for fashion, The Chromium Fence, underground bunkers as a fashion, Foster, You’re Dead, Nanny, raytheon making nannies, dishwashers, planned obsolescence, your refrigerator has a wifi connection, advertising creates fashions, vegans, bottom up fashions, veganism isn’t fashion, alcohol, veganism might be a fashion, a happening, anyone born after 2008 can’t by cigarettes in Australia?, they’re all going to vape anyway, British Columbia Liquor Store, British Columbia Cannabis Stores, minimize harms and maximize gains, a state by state model, restrictions designed to shape behaviors, collective model, the arrow clinic is free at the point of use, smoking is bad, Evan should smoke as much as they want, people need cigarettes to control their bodies, Bob Dole, the kind of horror that gets under your skin, a little boy hiding in the blackberry bushes because he can’t do algebra, kids in cages, Terry Carr was a dude, a guest editorial in Amazing, November 1975, women in science fiction, that Joanna Russ letter, some odd ideas about women, a very clever witty story, as long as we are acknowledging the horrible, but, the not too distant future, executed up to the age of 12, girls too, a protest against the liberalization of abortion laws, a castrating bitch, doesn’t that turn you on, where did the motherly virtues go?, our competitive society, women took exception (men too), since the early days, a feminist topic, that don’t mean men aren’t involved, he’s really upset, the ice cream man, having to hide from people, that fear is real, you don’t know how the world works, what your options are, “put to sleep”, one of the euphemisms we use, Lucy is 15 years old, a little dog, diapers for dogs, a lovely birthday present for Will, pee on the couch to show your dog who’s boss, a decision, the euphemism helps tell you the decision, he’s playing the same game that Philip K. Dick is playing but not as well, how feminist science fiction is or isn’t, Joanna Russ gets an apology, just as fun as returning milk cartons, you wanna take my son to the pound, a hippy slur, is it?, when you don’t use the official words, a bad relationship to begin with, the way Terry Carr is reading the horror, a shrewish horror, the same kind of spring, a post-partum, same kind of trigger, couples wind each other up, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, mood organ, waking up combative, brain chemistry combination, we regulate our brains, the Penfield mood organ, caffeine and marijuana and cigarettes and krotum, reading it uncharitably, Philip K. Dick loved women as well as hating them, we don’t have to come to a consensus, Scott’s view of abortion, Paul’s view, all good with the nuns now, not just the clever things, an intriguing story about ageism, the whole point, societies punch down on children, children are bullied, children are molested, go to school, imprisonment, programming, not far under the surface, a story designed to argue against abortion, abortion should not happen, government enforcing abortions, page 133 of the original, not enough children, its a drag taking care of him, in his most misogynistic mode, gestapo, armed with BARs (Browning Automatic Rifles), what the guy is doing, a ventilated air conditioned truck, not a wagon, its not a prison, a reform area, allowing AOC to cry under Trump and say nothing under Biden, a clever though ridiculous , they show up for Anne Frank, an I’m Spartacus moment, getting the Zyklon-b, politicians love this stuff, divide their base and rally the troops, figuring out what to get upset about, you’re a normal looking kid, the retarded and the deformed ones, we’ll give you a haircut, a shortage of children, Malthusian nonsense, Japanned, a class thing again, a past Malthusian crisis, WWI, whatever rationale was long gone, Vancouver Island being the frontier, trapped in the system, the wife wont let them go, not strong willed enough, very Jordan Peterson-esque, female energy, Ian Best, the ocean going ferries, not ever, too adult men acting like little boys, they wanna get revenge, escaping powerlessness, his driving got funny, crying in a truck, there was nothing left to say, is egalitarian marriage even possible?, somehow marriage controls men, anti-adultery laws in Taiwan, put the veil on, female dominated, maternal, men were the warriors, like Sparta, the planning, men in a submissive role, petitioning the mothers parents, a domination, paternalism, the patriarchy is the problem, everybody wants to be in charge, Margaret Thatcher, keep us in power, a way to get power, political power, “leadership classes” are so fucked up, the reins of power, good luck with that relationship, spheres of domination, Code of Hammurabi, who can get a license, a marriage license, we have to know how to solve these problems, a marriage is a formal contract, obligations you choose to put onto yourself, misogynism is only part of his story, a product of his frustration, when you’re reading Lovecraft, Facts Concerning The Late Arthur Jermyn And His Family, the movie Se7en (1995), to make the audience feel suspense, coming out of a real place, Kevin Spacey, bitter divorces, a life mistake, wasted time, coming out as gay after 20 years of marriage, Philip K. Dick loved too much, what spurs the very interesting thoughts, he ultimately concludes there’s nothing left to say, an hour long, maybe we just have to muddle through, dystopia, coming out of a false reality can be a positive thing, the broader argument, the misogyny is integral to the story, The Crawlers, mutants that were fetus like, bonus points for running them over, brain wipes, ageism, Doctor Futurity, age politics, gerontocracy, societies are oppressive to young people, Philip K. Dick’s mom and dad, raising kids is expensive, she’s taunting him, wouldn’t that make you hot and bothered, deliberately cruel, when your marriage is breaking up, acting out, the fathers, a very very good story, a lot of kid perspective, almost unheard of in science fiction, the power of adults and laws, how to feel and what to do, children are the lowest on the totem pole, things you couldn’t do to adults, trying not to inflict this on kids, trying to teach younger kids, if you want to learn you want to learn, you can’t officially tell the kids, treat school like a salad bar, where Jesse’s anti-mom stuff, being a kid what would I have done, we are in a real bind, to learn this lesson, allies in the system, maybe they work for Raytheon, trying to reduce the number of strikes on children, we have to pay our bills, Jesse is very lucky, Evan is less lucky, kids are learning machines, do parents understand that?, no, tutoring centers, test prep, why Harvard is doing what its doing, racism, a lot of power at the top, Ikea stuff, three weeks at the new place, 7th graders, if the boss walks by, a serious serious serious problem, alternative schools, the way all schools should be, about human flourishing and not make office workers in cubicles, playing computer games or twitter all day while they hate their jobs, Minecraft, Lego, sitting there and drink.

The Pre-Persons by Philip K. Dick

1974 Philip K. Dick Letter To Joanna Russ

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