Clifford D. Simak

The SFFaudio Podcast #903 – READALONG: For Us, The Living by Robert A. Heinlein

Jesse and J. Daniel Sawyer talk about For Us, The Living by Robert A. Heinlein

Talked about on today’s show:
1938/39, first fiction, before Lifeline, highschool, Robert E. Howard’s juvenalia, 14 years old, terrible and awesome, natural writers, those who don’t force it, self-confession, the natural writers, tipping their hand all the time, Robert E. Howard later on, stupider and funnier, who is this kid, he sounds like Dan Sawyer, fine a writer they like, read more of that, Heinlein’s most popular juvenile, Have Space Suit Will Travel, a capstone, an epitome of the whole series, Farmer In The Sky, an excellent novel, Time For The Stars, the central characters are so horrible, horrible people, 30 years ago, Between Planets, a little bit like Podkayne Of Mars, count it as, the same literary form, the same basic structure, Starship Troopers, a transitional book, suit the new market, to break the contract, walk it across the street, literary genre is more philosophical dialogue, later books, his preferred form is the philosophical dialogue, main weakness, surprised a couple of times, predict every scene, fresh details, 23 years ago, getting old, lear a few things between books, having known when Heinlein was alive and reading, Heinlein-like novels, Annette Kurtis Clause, a cat a girl and a spaceship, she liked Heinlein, The Unincorporated Man, the sequels, The Unincorporated Woman?, triple or double the length, the premise, a really interesting premise, 2008, technically possible that they read this, who isn’t?, alot of podcast, insights, supergenius, transgenderism is always hidden, why is he like this, why?, the same reason, Stranger In A Strange Land, Starship Troopers, as a book, so much shorter, a good length, at least twelve, maybe seventeen, more plot, less rawness, everyone’s main problem with Heinlein, Perry, The Last Days Of Socrates, the strawmen there, well dressed strawmen, more distance, self-satisfied, echo, do a show by myself, Heinlein is too fuckin smart, it makes him isolated, smart at the typewriter, the result of his arguments with other very smart people, Sturgeon, Goddard, Asimov, Jack Parsons, resentful and hectoring, a background, Secrets Of The Heinlein Epic, the occult background, a Thelemite, the rocket guy, figuring out how to make rocketry work, Scientology, gnosticism, a weird direction, through his second wife, the Philip K. Dick story, a foot in that world, a rationalist, not a materialist, all of these worlds, a grand synethsis, modernity had broken culture, Sixth Column, just right after WWII?, the one book he says he regrets, a short story that John Campbell, racism, yellow peril is awesome, The Unpleasant Profession Of Jonathan Hoag, The Number Of The Beast is a grimoire, one thing on top, a whole other thing going on underneath, how to write, in the guise of a really bad novel, The Pursuit Of The Pankera, an adventure story, a nostalgic revisit of The Puppet Masters, a throwback, really readable, a seperate book, rights clearances, that’s crazy, he was dying when he wrote it, license fees, LibriVox, Heinlein, Furure Fantasia, first science fiction somethings, technically his first fiction, this had never been seen before, the guy who tracked it down, lost, naval academy buddy, Leon Stover, sitting the Heinlein archives in four different peices, more from good writers, new Michael Crichton novel, wasn’t published during his lifetime, raw, scraps of notes, James Patterson, a collab with, Vesuvius, Eruption, based on something, the real guy, somebody vibing with Heinlein, the best hoax ever, everything is in there too, nudity, the transgenderism, more and more later, whatever kink thing, Socrates, The Symposium, as a digression, Margaret St. Clair, a few novels, her shor stories, Weird Tales, wrote up into the 60s at least, she was a witch, weird stuff, in the same region, his letters, regress yourself to an ancient roman, weird stuff explainable by the weird personalities, what this book is, News From Nowhere, by William Morris, a utopian novel, William Guest, the socialist league, very Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy, an epoch of rest, the economics, philosophy, no authority, no marriage or divorce, people find pleasure in nature, pleasure in their work, engenders between people, socialism will entail, art life and work, there is a plot, guy has a car crash wakes up, fur coat, nude underneath, a future society, diagonsed as being a guy, punches her old boyfriend, sent for therapy, san fransisco for a minute, a rehab center, tour a rocket factory, winds up in a threesome, much longer stranger, circumnavigating the moon trip, doing Requiem before Requiem, Heinlein got his wish, Door Into Summer, Beyond The Horizon, something from Star Beast, the seeds for everything, mining this book, The Roads Must Roll, the premise for the tech, no strike, the rolling sidewalks are called the ways, Door Into Summer, the rolling roads are in The Door Into Summer, a little bit of Friday in there, so useful, so hepful, Costco, first 10 books for 20 bucks, 2 volumes of Heinlein juveniles in a slipcase, kids interested in reading, how good Harry Potter or Katniss Everdeen, more of the same everytime, different everytime, get kids into reading, when you’re a kid you have to have something in hand, nothing to hand neices and nephews, wish-fulfilment bullshit, he does Tom Swift, quanit and handy, making sandwiches, missing wills, nosy neighbours, not for boys, confident in your manhood, Starman Jones, the most non-memorable book of the whole series and its awesome, orphans, orphan mentality, a stepmom and a new stepdad, homeless bum, very 1930s very 2026y book, guilds, the system is rigged against us, cheating your way into success and meaning is helpful, keeping your soul, how Heinlein got into the naval academy, state senator, went and camped out, impressed or annoyed him to death, a lot of competition, the scions of wealthy houses, a poor kid from the ozarks, look at old magazines, from 1912 up to the 1930s, all the rich people magazines are putting your kid into summer school or military school, Robert W. Chambers, Hastur, The King In Yellow, The Repairer Of Reputations, America’s imperial future, feels like the 2020s, suicide booths, Aleistair Croley and William Morris, The Marching Morons by C.M. Kornbluth, very tounge in cheek, Idiocracy, the same idea, the movie version, an army experiment, a future that’s different, that formula with Looking Backward, The Sleeper Wakes, The Door Into Summer, Rip Van Winkle, not a science fiction story, how funny America is, my how things are changed, everybody’s Heinlein, sitting around the pool, the beautiful naked lady, the slightly fatter naked lady, Jubal Harshaw, his physique, a different experience reading Stranger now, a lot more about the personalities, who all these people are, roman a’clef, an afterword, a special edition, kickstarter backers, general release, Glory Road, adult juveniles, a distinct literary form vs. a target audience, to tell an adult story, drank from the well and I was full, water brother, grokked it well, quite an experience, a scene right in the middle of the book, Rodin’s sculpture of the caryatids, about that scene in the center, the sculpure gallery, the decoder ring for the whole thing, audiobook, moved out into the wilderness, recording studio, August, recording a lot, writing Secrets Of The Heinlein Epic, the juveniles and a few others, distinct in literary history, publicity, keep reading Heinlein’s later works, obviously garbage, derrangement syndrome, Our Opinions Are Correct, this is incoherent, you’re mad at someone who’s dead, mentally model people, there isn’t a little homunculus in your head, that scene from Men In Black, a whole starship full of forces and actors and dicipline, constantly being overriden, explaining their weird behavior, a very diciplined crew, undisciplined crews, driving off the road and getting divorces, what have you, the art of agency, sort your drives out and point them in the same direction, Marvin Minsky, I read every Heinlein, “other better writers”, want to say newer authors, John Scalzi, we don’t need book 2, book 4, Joe Haldeman’s Forever War, you can’t have Orson Scott Card, plays nice, using his blog to promote their books, forbidden, I read Heinlein, I sold all my Heinlein, for Lovecraft, turning over in his graves, fact masquerading as taste, a disservice to everybody invovled, an echo chamber sort of thing, he is his own best echo chamber, at his worst, I Will Fear No Evil, a super-cool book, in terms of literary value, how Heinlein worked as a person and author, Ginny had to pay the hospital bills, Lurton Blassinggame, shortened it, augmented it or retooled it, some really interesting ideas, similar to this book in a way, easy to miss, finding out, newspaper reports of how he died, a fun little scene, still newspapers and stuff, doing great for 1939, the internet from Friday, human invovled search engines, ai tokens, the woman at the beach, her name was Diana, this is all a dream of the guying on the beach, Glory Road, psychotic break, a unique quality of its own, all of them start with death, in most of his books after Stranger, a repeating pattern, a very interesting road, Heinlein was big into reading ancient mythology, an ancient afterlife myth, another aspect of this book, mention a lot, had this been published in 1940 or 1939, a huge hit or immediately dismissed, Ayn Rand, the same thought, she gets way too much fuckin attention in the 20th century, The Fountainhead, a very robotic book, Anthem, they’re not humans, they’re robotoids, mythological abstractions, sadder, university, very excited about college and university, economics, micro and macro, the ideas more interestin than the calculations, of course he’s right, he does another thing he’s really good at, Farmer In the Sky, food, breakfast, strawberries, flapjacks, the long list of enjoyable food, the sensous pleasure, if this was 1939, a Murad!, not a lot of penetration, milk glands, the female form, a nudsit, another Margaret St. Clair connection, a sacramental aspect, occultism, the gnostic and hermetic went their seperate ways, anti-body, hateful of the natural world, Sam Altman, destroy humanity and replace it with the machine god, underlying Marxism, very body embracing, the physical body as the contact point between the temporal and eternal universe, of that tradition, anarcho primitivists, a good cup a coffee, pet a dog, be chased by a goose, his analyis, description of the game, a “master”, the alternate rules at the end, something homeschoolers should be doing, the history of the 20th century would be different, a bold claim, people are highly motivated by ideas, the whole 20th century is explainable, incredibly popular with dentists, the New Deal, look at the economics, projected into the future past us, he predicted UBI, Wisconsin a fair amount, this is not a novel in the normal sense, an educational tract disguised as a novel, the Vril book, The Coming Race by Edward Bulwyer Lytton, triumph of the human spirit, big lady positive, power rods, symbolic, the bullion called Bovril, it was huge, pre-WWI Germany, huge popularity, we are becoming, lay a lot of the histy of the world at the feet of Marx and Engels, the end of the draft, the Moon mission, the draft was ended by Milton Friedman, hilarious and crazy, a friend born in 1946, my favourite billionaire likes rockets, he’s interested in things I’m interested in, he’s interested in satellites, sending my girlfriend, D.D. Harriman, Space X, the books are incredibly powerful, people model their lives on characters in books and television, a citation for that, even the stupidest people, Paul Krugmann, wanted to be the foundation character, Hari Seldon, Peter Turchin, fail upward, they didn’t read the book, they read the ai summary of the book, Al Qaeda, a parallel evolution, a big science fan, 100191, numeralogy arguments, the romans not having arabic numerals, not having punctuation, internal signaling, the USS Cole, personal experience, a learn to read book, 1840 version of Chicken Little, a leaf falls on her tail, runs to tell her mother, out let us run, Duck Luck, Fox Lox, in to my den where we will be safe, the end of the world story, Paradise, 2012 (2009), Roland Emmerich, a really funny comedy, it’s a comedy!, it’s very funny, When Worlds Collide, a retelling of Noah’s ark and the rebirth of the world, all the ladies, we’ll be safe from the falling of the sky, ate em all up, end of story, a very valuable and resonant story, are you the fox?, seeing it with my ears, questioning my senses, what if you’re wrong, when gets things a little bit too pay, cringe, a refrain in the book, his assembly campaign, reading through it, stops and has the exponents of the great future, it serves our needs, it’s not the perfect system, when Lazarus Long gets involved, history doesn’t have an end state, a remarkable individual, George O. Smith novel, Hellflower, scanned it up, find the magazine art, Virgil Finlay, analogy for poppies or heroin, the drug running sort of stuff, “indespensible”, “other better writers have taken up Heinlein’s torch”, writers who are less important to read, for your self, it’s super fucking interesting and compelling, don’t worry about spoilers, how it explores the ideas, there’s never been a book where he half-asses, goes in with both feet, he’s just a man, he didn’t agree with himself, a Wikipedia entry for BRIC shares, cleaning up shelves, what is this?, some sort of investment thing, they were trying to do what Heinlein’s trying to do, the words “social credit”, not the same as the chinese system, the fun part, the authors: Heinlein, Orwell, Aldous Huxley, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Julian Huxley, The Tissue Culture King, a Wakanda story, a hidden african country, an african native doing some sort of obesicanece ritual, a tissue culture, he’s culturing tissue, they took the king, spreading him around, for mind control, a telepathy thing, a metal helmet, mind-controlled, 1911 area, republished in Amazing, simultaneously published, fuckn weird Guy, T.H. Huxley, H.G. Wells, strange fuckin interesting guy, way into nudity for my personal hanging around, put on a robe once in a while, bro, very big into hospitality, his relationship with Philip K. Dick, a defense of Heinelin, the funniest man ever, broken and hilarious, hitting on everybody, the two most different kind of guys, courtly and knightly, awkward and lusty and sweaty, the mad monk of science fiction, the most influential authors of the 20th century, top down vs. bottom up, literary technique, evolved, technically better writers, also into social credit, one foot in today and one foot out of time, hard to find in any writer, fully of the moment, the fashionable frame, an example, W.R. Bennett, W.A.C. Bennett, the socialist party, currently in power, they were running as “social credit” (socreds), in power in Alberta, they can’t do anything because they’re provinical, they can’t issue money, they eventually become a conservative party, what his dad did, 1871, a very different history, Kamchatka, last colonized, wild, a whole bunch of social construction, from a free enterprise party, those two parties are competing for the attention of British Columbian voters, that’s what Saudi Arabia has done, Saudi Arabia, Norway, taken the extra steps, how fuckedd things up with ai, human flourishing, if this book had been published in 1939, sunk and lost forever, really popular, politicians generally don’t know anything, socializing and getting promoted because of his midwit status, a foothold, defensible, an a b test, in this version of reality, coming late as it does, almost nobody reads at all, same time zone, we used to be neighbours, Vancouver Island, norther part of North America, the Philip K. Dick bay area, nude beach, Heinlein’s old house, cops enforcing nobody on the beach after sunset, they might hurt themselves, the stairs aren’t lit, bring a flashlight, we are run by idiots who didn’t read no fuckin books, British Columbia, west coast time, they decided to do away with daylight savings time, until California acted, they’re so fuckin dysfunctional, the newest, other than Alaska and Tasmania, not as fully corrupt the farther you go back, the more currupt it is, the corruption scandals in the birth of Canada, California was born corrupt, the corruption counterbalanced, we just want to be honest, craziness, 2nd premeier of British Columbia was Amour De Cosmos, tail end of the 19th century, doukhobourss, nudist pacificsts, the tsar’s military, beaten by the cops for being nudist pacificst, pederasts, aristoi, the elites, Socrates and Plato, shorty flatty, a wrestler, UFC guys, but gay sort of but not really, he’s got a wife, that traitor has a sexy body, send the girls out, women were inherited polluting, not out about it, bronze age pervert, a twitter person, a philosopher, a proper philosophy book, bulgarian, Claremont Institute, selective breeding, born in 1980, a weird combination of vitalism and ancient greek homo-eroticism and liberalism, stimulating, books look nice on the shelf, City Of Endless Night by Milo Hastings, gazebo, a book on chicken breeding, one of the William Hope Hodgson set, Bernarr McFadden, a magazine publisher and body builder, super against vaccines, naming his children with the letter b, faking his numbers, an invasion of the United States by the Japanese right after WWI, an under ground proto-nazi civilization, chemical fertilizer food, refused to surrender, just happens to speak German, a lot like this book but as a dystopia, a royalty breeding level, really weird, synthetic creation of fertilizer, synthetic petroleoum, drugs, different levels of the society, where the workers arent, hedonism and breeding all day, Stanley Kubrick, Brave New World, we’re there, the Fabians, Coventry, the reserve system, two more books, more walking around, If This Goes On, a naval aviator, ballistics guy, taking things apart and putting things together, not replaceable, fun and funny, another different thing, Down From Ten, Hadrian’s Flight, a podcast version, narrating things by other people, Suave Rob series, satire comedy series, surfs supernovas, short story collections, southern gothic horror, Time Of The Twins, Kyrnn, Time For The Stars, the girl one, Podkayne Of Mars, visit Heinlein, admire but don’t enjoy, horrible people, horribly broken people, an unpleasant read, night owl, west coast, easier to get up earlier, private tutor, professor obeisance to a lot of things, political parties, I like reading more than one author, a human religion, one of those ones, doctrinaire stuff, all models break down, enough power, pry the Heinlein estate out of their hands, literary agency, not being very aggressive, how many such cases, try and find a book of his on the shelf, Clifford D. Simak’s estate, way better than Clarke, a power in short stories, The Star, about a jesuit priest coming back from a solar system, the short stories were hard to find, The Science Fiction Hall Of Fame, The Nine Billion Names Of God, a classic of science fiction, Olaf Stapledon novels, translated into short stories, orbits and orbital mechanics, The Haunted Spacesuit, the ship’s cat is having kittens inside the spacesuit, he has power, Fredric Brown, What Mad Universe, it’s very good, it’s very funny, very meta, John W. Campbell style editor, a bunch of ribbons, an alternate dimensions, a comedy, in the body of another person, a comedy of customs, a science fiction universe, science fiction is out and westerns are in, recycle other people’s stories, rocket people, beautiful ladies with brass bra bikinis, a cover of Startling Stories, supermeta, an excellent writer, inspired Lawrence Block, the last Burglar book, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown, The Screaming Mimi, the writer’s writer, pal around with, admire his writing, see you on twitter, chicken pictures, birds and dogs, no pigs yet, dogs, gooses, turkeys, assholes, eating her pigs, couple geese, tons of chickens, cattle are way less work than chickens, beef, delicious, acreage, goats, straight to cattle, water is difficult, having water delivered, gazebo, the cloth walls come down, a tent cabin in Yosemite, negative 40, 70 or about 20, 32 is zero, grok it, 98 or 32, get those numbers wrong, the freezing point water, the wrong altitude, sea level, boiling point of seawater, now we have to be French about it, Ostreich, little bits of history, okay whatever, Austria’s greatest cultural achievement that Hitler was German and Beethoven was Austrian, the guy always comes from the periphery, Stalin’s from george, Lincoln’s from Illinois, encapsulates the hate, the real life Hari Seldon, grand unified theory, elite overproduction, he needed to be in this conversation in this book, counter elite, corrupt clique of the imperial corps, find a parade and march in front of it, the excellent discussion.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #902 – READALONG: Hellflower by George O. Smith

Jesse and Scott talk about Hellflower by George O. Smith

Talked about on today’s show:
George O. Smith, George H. Smith, style wise, Venus Equilateral series, 1942 – 1947, Startling Stories, 1952/1953, a little like something from the 70s, old fashioned, the other drugs that are in it, a misimpression from right early on, Farradyne came to the point, who do you want killed?, dumped the Semiramide into the bog, the Titanic, a book about drugs, on the lookout for drugs, rotgut, Venus, a mushroom farmer, the good stuff, White Star Trail?, the description, a godsend, the flavour of fine scotch whiskey, the pure quill, the stylized language, high test liquor, goes to a bar and orders it, synthehol, fake beer, rye whiskey, other drugs, some toxin, the name of his boat, his ship, a person, a historical person, what do you think of this book?, mixed feelings, alien race, Simak, infiltrate, a book about drugs, con-notate, drug touches, the central idea of the book, cynical, history, the SAND, a cut-out, gets his license back, a Lancaster-81, 1981? 2081?, 3 movies with the exact same plot, The Stranglers Of Bombay, Thugees, East India Company vs. the Thugees, a Hong Kong one, Christopher Lee, the British occupation of Hong Kong, Live And Let Die, Caribbean Island nation, opium pushing, tongs and thugees are the bad guys, pushing opium, spread the blame, the hellflower pushers, after a certain point, aliens and interstellar travel, workmanlike, beautiful flowers and science fiction, influenced by this?, All Flesh Is Grass, whenEric S. Rabkin says let’s do a show on food, bad theory, Virgil Finlay is so great at drawing flowers, excellent at it, let the man work at what he’s good at, a problem with the book, a problem with our perception, were men affected by hellflowers, not explicitly enough pushed, it’s not really stated, one way that this works, how this works, a good thing that he didn’t tell us, marijuana, cocaine, coffee, licorice, propaganda, so tasty, so delicious, you don’t give babies coffee generally (although in Costa Rica), nicotine, alcohol, cannabis, what is the effect of it if you’ve never had it, apologizing for the book, like it more than I should, space adventure stuff, ships in space, like Heinlein, zippin around, avoid the defenses of earth and the attacks from the aliens, cartoon miniseries, a lot of action, cool locations, at one point they land at the bottom of Lake Michigan, the submarine comes, a Han Solo without Chewbacca but with more Heinlein physics, a lot like Rocketship Galileo, ftl around the solar system, really cool, glued, fun, the truck drivers, tying people up, how the first Indiana Jones movie works, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, an airplane, a snake, lots of action, because it is awesome, a serial, it feels like a serial, out of Planet Stories, solar system based, several planets, Heinleinesque, spacers, run cargo around, that’s what our guy is, Mercury to Pluto, WWII bomber, overstuffed with aircraft, Brazil please buy an aircraft carrier, conned Canada into buying two aircraft carriers, all the WWII pilots, skills that nobody needed, cargo aircraft for cheap, [DC-3s], ex-military cargo aircraft, quite liked that feel, I like science fiction, reputation is damaged, a womanizer, somewhat aliens, related to humans somehow, Star Trek shapeshifters, human emotions, why they don’t all look like Hortas, recessive voice thing, his first clue, dashed off, it’s good, enjoy science fiction and then have favourites, a dose of things we’ve been missing, four gravities, she can’t stand up, the goodreads reviews, the politics of the gender stuff, strong reactions?, two main women, the hellflower addict who rejects him, the sister of the guy who died, blackmailing him, Carolyn, a strong woman a part of a crime family on Mercury, not a human crime family, crack cocaine, the evil cartels, infiltrate the evil cartels, setup a guy to infiltrate it, you can’t infiltrate, more operators, betraying his own people, in retrospect, so nice, speculates, what could motivate a person, he doesn’t dwell on the horrors philosophically, is it okay to push drugs, not cool, he thinks about that a bit, the dynamics, Carolyn had a flower in her hair, threw it in the trash, he wanted her to be sober, I prefer sobriety, feelings created by this chemical, 20th and 21st century society, Spanish Fly, mythical stuff, date rape drugs, Fat Albert, Bill Cosby, a drug that makes women want to have sex with you, so they can’t defend themselves, an effect that cigarettes have on people, bring you closer, alcohol, lowers inhibitions, an ex-smoker, conventions, the people who are out there, artists out there, deeper conversations, the most important part of it, coffee has replaced that, let’s go have coffee, tea or matcha, it’s basically candy at this point, the whole point of the phrase, let’s spend time together, cigarettes is a need, two different levels, the addiction to cigarettes, we see it in movies, hey sailor got a light, smoke in the classroom, when it is illicit, you’re out there to smoke, you ask them for a light, the social introduction, Victorian style dramas, introduced, where’s your calling card, introduced to society, we only are mutually introduced, your way of self-introducing, all social-strata, a keen observer, a light in their own pocket, they are need of human to human interaction, marijuana, social, smoking pot alone, used to be very very social, you share it, you pass the joint around, drinking alone, out with folks, think about drugs all the time, what’s it purpose, it’s to get the people addicted to keep them down, cannabis keeps people from rebelling, heroin, hooked on that, a bunch of purposes, opiates are used in medicine all day long, people don’t like pain, mental pain, bad news on the telephone, alcohol jar, a smoke, externalizing the internal when it is performative like that, a real phenomena within the human being, in folktales nobody every says I love you they just give you food, the silly premise, sexually irrepressed, the wacky tacbbacy, the same for opium, an invasion, the East India pushing opium into China, extract from China, cartoonish in this book, take over the human solar sytem, the Hudson’s Bay Company, the Dutch East India Company, replace Americans with Japanese, lebensraum, ethnically cleanse the area, the book doesn’t quite work on that level of a historical analogy, an action adventure, those James Bond movies, how silly they are, he was talking about real people, Doctor No, a throwback to Fu Manchu, a Yellow Peril, the Fu-Manchu books, how drugs influence people, the appreciation of beauty, coming in from economic warfare, the flower connection, fields of purple flowers, The Screwfly Solution by James Tiptree, Jr., the editorial introduction, May 1952 publication, SPACE OPERA, science fiction at it’s best, science fiction’s greatest asset, space and time and immensity, it’s the ideas, space doesn’t have to be in it, time and immensity, the immensity of the solar system, the immensity of the galaxy, transitioned to another solar system, looking out the bubble, the different constellations, that’s really good stuff, real, stuff happening, the most colour and movement, subplot, purely cerebral story, a thing of beauty and joy forever, no blonde priestesses, he’s selling this book to us, paying my ten cents, looking down my nose at spaceopera, what’s being written today, stuff happening, science fiction is the setting in which stuff happens, the rightful queen, the unrightful queen, favourite stuff, Tau Zero by Poul Anderson, Hyperion, Dune, another drug book, is this a stuff happening book?, a little more than that, well-paced, this book is better than it appears to be, the dedication, one of Campbell’s ex-wives, may that’s his wife, used to be Campbell’s wife, fun to find someone new, my god the sparks!, I just can’t believe how sparky this is, Simak without as much poetry, without as much meditation, philosophical thinking, a collection of stories, The Worlds Of George O., Highways In Hiding.

Hellflower by George O. Smith PYRAMID

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #898 – READALONG: All Flesh is Grass by Clifford D. Simak

The SFFaudio Podcast #898 – Jesse and Scott talk about All Flesh is Grass by Clifford D. Simak

Talked about on today’s show:
1965, the point in his career, without serial in magazines, what’s happening after 1958, distribution is just awful, Galaxy, Astounding/Analog, F&SF, magazine sales, hardcover 1st, Doubleday, purple covers, it’s ok, mid 60, psychedelic covers, horrible, Foss cover?, spaceship with blowout, a science fiction book, flowers and faces, rocketship = science fiction, dragon = fantasy, good cover or not, where we start, what’s the cover look like, favourite, love this book, a fan, one of his best ones, the suspicion of the main character, suspicion of the flowers, he/it/they be, is it justified?, Simak’s behind it all, trust Simak, aggressively hostile at times, talking to the politicians, personal suspicion, harsh circumstances, losing his business, can’t pay his phone bill, unsettling, am I losing my mind or not?, very Philip K. Dicky, guy standing in his garden talking to his tree, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, a delusional homeless man, careful framing, trying to go for an effect, clunky careful framing, this is just a crazy man, all he has to do to be a secret hero of earth, a solipsistic power fantasy of a child, reinforce that, drinking himself to death, Tupper, autistic?, something wrong with him, the primary source of contact until the phones get going, until the barrier shows up, backstory, setting up the scenario, particular distress, it’s cool, so many Simaks, Dick is similar or vice versa, he really cooks with short stories, that old Del Rey paperback, to read Simak is to read science fiction, kinda true, you think of space, other alien planets, are they really other planets?, what recurrs in his books, humanity is screwing up badly, there’s a way out, a friend named Gavin, the solutions he always gives are fantastical, to the point of destruction, a science fiction trope, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the one with Gort [The Day The Earth Stood Still], we will destroy you, Simak was already on it in 1965, gotten into scraps, town asshole, a pretty brutal fight, blood, the girl runs off, periods of things like that, lash out, a surprise, dogs fight, turning on each other, snarling down on the ground, a real town, Millville, population 127, the town is disappearing, instead of Ray Bradbury nostalgia, I’m still here, world wars, humanity as a species, we are bad because we did nukes, those rockets have yet to go off, putting this collective guilt on us as individuals not to do war, follow orders, like we’re the bad ones as a collection, Bradford or Brad, humanity itself is worth saving, not a Malthusian you fuckers have to stop breeding, Ring Around The Sun, empty and beautiful, mobs, a newspaperman, hip deep in that, he’s seeing everything, the plant is closing, this is key to understanding, look at the news and process it everyday, local news, see the trends happening, the tv says there’s going to be good weather next week, the current state of humanity, WWII, throes of Vietnam, greed, corporations, extremely pessimistic about humanity, an optimism about what humanity can be, on the whole humans good, extreme ideas, the knowledge of the universe, this incredible knowledge, tap that, solve these problems in ourselves, recurring stuff, that optimism, laying down some goodness, the interaction with the flowers, he does talk to an elm tree, through the telephone, in his best novel, Galactic Pot-Healer, talk to Mr. Job, an ai that put you out of work, go to Cleveland, radio broadcasts, look in your toilet tank, doesn’t like being mentally ill, you are needed for a great project, a return to a belief into something bigger than yourself, raising the sunken cathedral, find a purpose, a novel of a romantic poem, the romantic poets, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth, continuous as the stars that shine, along the margin of a bay, they outdid the sparkly waves, a jocund company, the blissful solitude, no alien intelligence inside these daffodils, how’s he gonna resolve this book?, what if we’re cut off from this possibility, the other species can cure humanity of its ills, they aren’t just healing us, they’re replacing the broken things in us, witch-doctor, penicillin, an alien economy, the way the romantics work, you go for a walk, the birds of the air, the grass, the trees, then you go home and you write it down, an experience of nature, a nature walk transformed into a piece of art, aliens who want to contact humanity, a solution, they need our love, they need us to appreciate them, an olive branch, the flowers say, we need living space, we have no hands, for the benefit of each of us, many earths, a common aim and purpose, that’s heavy, that’s the threat, suspicious of corporations, Monsanto says, they’re resistant to this, the terminator gene, making ip laws on nature, when Simak posits some aliens, can’t we just trust them, he is the god of the book, this god is good, malevolent aliens, if Lovecraft wrote this book, Mars is a dead world, never been any evil acts done on Mars, a kindly touch, some encouraging words, that’s a sterileness, uplifted, in a quest to enjoy symbiosis with other minds, first contact, we meet aliens and we become friends, a flower garden, cherry blossoms, blackberry blossoms, we need a closer relationship based on me eating part of you, what those bones were, they wiped themselves out, never developed properly, delivered to his plate, the money being grown by the flowers, not real money, what makes it not real?, it hasn’t been officially blessed, cynical and looking for trouble, a communist!, even they’ve got a program in Mississippi, how important money is to us, if each of those bills had a new serial number, it’s above our pay grade, be able to spend it, break the system, some flaws with the book, the dome, Under The Dome, definitely came from this, aliens again, playing a game, adolescent, he fails on his endings a lot, what it did to that small town, The Tommyknockers, The Mist, the scene in the grocery store, we gotta sacrifice one of us, I should sacrifice myself, the homeless guy rushes in, back to his father, looms over the book, the original sin, cultivated and cared about them, a repayment, an investment, a very weird book, it takes the sentiment and thought behind romantic poetry and turns it into a science fiction novel, the barrier proves this guy’s not crazy, to prove existence, pass in between, permission somehow, there’s something there, create the crisis and the proof, if this were a Philip K. Dick novel, calm down bro, running around town, an invasion like Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, the horror of mental illness, thinking people are demons, a man in crisis, good hints, what’s she gonna do, all the great people who came out of this town, self-insert, a business guy, not super-imaginative, straight laced mind, a means to fund other projects, set aside some of this money selling gadgets, write cheques, really cool, a collection The Gentle Invaders, The Midwich Cuckoos, the barrier, a whole town in put to sleep, 9 months later all the women are pregnant, still rape, a new hybrid human alien species, too gentle to make the aliens malevolent, Leigh Brackett, Fritz Leiber, Mack Reynolds, 1969, Hans Stefan Santesson, editor of Fantastic Universe, Edward D. Hoch, 60 cents, Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 1966, Judith Merrill’s review, long winded, right after Earth Abides, John Christopher, personal nomination, conformity vs. individualism, some zombies too, no hasty conclusions, solid speculative content, oxymorons, meaningful and eminently readable, our protagonist is an individuals, mobs, rumor vs. fact, there will be peace, we will be nuked, panic, she’s bringing her own stuff to it, him vs. the government, some bigshot through the dome, NPCs, quite well realized, the father of the girlfriend, knows himself, this is your money, here have a drink, self-concious of his own limitations, a history of all the people in this town who are making a big impact in the world, they’re all inspired by the flowers, no?, a walk in the woods, lovely daffodils, a spring in your step, the beauty of the nature, a Doc Labyrinth story, shoes that come to life, a living thing, zany guy’s house, latest invention, The Preserving Machine, allow beauty to survive nuclear war, transformed into a living creature, lay eggs or gestate, life persists even in the face of disaster, these plants preserve knowledge and truth in themselves and want to share it, the animals that come out are reflections of what Philip K. Dick thinks of the chamber musicians, deadly serious, plant life is the thing I’m talking about, jokes about my favourite musicians, this field of flowers is beautiful, cultivate your own garden, write a poem, maybe someone will like, a rifle and a tower, kill all the politicians who want to make war, get better soil, love it, very biblical too, these are not even a monocrop, they can be sticks or vegetables, fruit, how amazing fruit is, eat me, take me, get my seeds elsewhere, this deliciousness serves us both, our relationship to animals, chickens, beef, get upset, how can you eat that thing, a creature, ready to be harvested, what they’re there for, this planet must be sterile, only because it can feel pain, our relationship and its relationship with us, the whole animal business, a lot more nightmarish, the John Wyndham line, the humanity, cause war, I’m cool the way I am, a good book, a line in here, they need us, use their knowledge, make it meaningful, take on meaningful, a computer database that’s no one using, the big PDF page, to read an appreciate, to turn into audiobooks, the cost is your time and clicking on it, self-aggrandize, treasure must be appreciated, not forcing your hand, crappy stories too, not trying to curate, this is exciting, make it more available, it would be bad if nobody ever appreciate it, building a library and nobody comes, adds meaning when people use it, a beautiful sunrise, a beautiful starry night, it needs to be percieved to have its full flower, never been an evil act on mars, nobody tortured on Venus, no genocide on the Moon, a really satisfying chocolate bar or what have you, thumbs up!, really happy with him, more than half-way through, the repeated theme, industry is disrupted or be disrupted by new technology that makes everything free, The Visitors, free car, free house, forever car, forever house, all super-cheap, gadgets, little things that can be made in that small town factory, outside factory in the next dot over in the endless, The Fisherman aka Time Is The Simplest Thing, the impact of technology on people, how can I make my life more like that, mow more lawns, get more cash, give money to this hospital, some scam, when a corporation is trying to get me to give money to a charity that’s some scam, we have to do something, go for a walk, be kind to your neighbors, don’t give into the idea that you are guilty of what your government does, Heinlein being in favour of the Vietnam War, I’m in favour of good things and not bad things, thinking about the people around me, think locally, notice the effect of the global effect, you have to be nice to Tupper, he lies to the mom, the bum who’s always scrounging for money, intimately invovled, a very subversive sort of take, eccentrics in a small community are worthy of attention and not being dismissive, where the bum lives, drinks himself to death, a fellow human, he’s asking, something there, gotta do some more Simak methinks, on the other hand, a PDF that eventuially got turned into an audiobook, Hellflower by George O. Smith, a short novel, the cover has a lady, a space surfer on the skids, an alien chemistry of unstoppable evil, the flowers are bad, a star master, soul shattering ruin, the one unparonable error, he didn’t die, bog on Venus, the cool gleaming sea of deep space, the vilest parasite in the universe, peddler of a poison, plants bad book, plants good book, fun, before we do another palate cleanser, a good narrator, 160 pages, nice and short, Saturday May 30, nice short book, Hellflower!, some Virgil Finlay, quite pretty, considering reading, not public domain, 3 pages, pretty cute, from the same magazine, Startling Stories, Take A Seat by Eric Frank Russell, I am got through, much luck, psycheport machine, tremendous, something knows, must slither like mad, might never find again, I am excitement, his thing, it call strong, get self sender activated, deep and dark, never done before, foice-sensor, counterswing circuit work, is mighty brilliance, streakiness, of what I do not know, not like mine, nothing but dark, am slow and careful, hearers on top, only two hearers, true mind cry behind noises, much poor, one this side one that, feets, what fore these bits, no fouice sensor, many hard bits in body, other think, it want to keep it maybe, Jelap, everlasting in dark, it know smell, other thing, as for reptiles, smell only olfactory spray, if eater is much small, have thing in it, flat soft, not dexterous extensibles, come cold and round, try to move feets, suddenly I find eyes, seek sensors, much poor only two, maybe eyes discarded, am fool, eyes have soft covers, blingbirds, much laughing for relief, there is four things, have wearings over bodies, shiny bag, two stiff tentacles, white and soft like bark bugs, mind call, much gentle, none receive, no controls, I am seated, sound noise, controls might injure, they make noise with eater, force wind, sloppy gargle, odd one with bag, very white, make think they see me inside, hold himself much white, he help it up when other arrive, enormous strain to reach me, is foolish not to tell, involuntary, shift feets a bit, show psycheport, shift feets, they much stupid, with eaters, one odd comes close, looks inside, middle cold thing I felt before, how can I make noise deep inside, do not like me, put wet on it, touch this, that, they is finish, much white, clamour in distance, stiff tentacle, light go much low, elctron fluid through me, they deading me, an alien sense its way through something, the alien has transferred consciousness to a human, the alien is in the human’s body, the wife or the husband, I am Jelap, I am the guy who’s not here, an electric chair, wanted to not be there, reached out into the universe, experiments on an alien planet, the dying or just shocked body, wild, the key for me, this is horrible, odd one comes close, is he alive?, middle cold thing, stethoscope, cannot hear me inside, trapped in this body, a couple of Lovecraft stories, Beyond The Wall Of Sleep by H.P. Lovecraft, The Shadow Out Of Time, travels the world, steward and caretaker, 30 years older, finishing the lecture, they regress him, vegetable people, they’re explorers from Earth’s early history, transferring their consciousness, plant monsters, cute, a good one for Reading, Short And Deep, a great story, class in five minutes, date not set yet, bringing Rose with her?, so little of her husband, a little bit of email, a computer thing, a major computer guy, switching jobs, take care.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #892 – READALONG: Ring Around The Sun by Clifford D. Simak

Jesse and Scott talk about Ring Around The Sun by Clifford D. Simak

Talked about on today’s show:
Galaxy 1952, 1953, one of his earliest novels, Cosmic Engineers, Empire, not really Simakian, very Campbelly, Campbell rejected it, City, guess the right answer, what does the D standfor, the D stands for Philip K. Dick, this book is superDick, kinda wild, a kitchen sink, so much happening, under the discipline of a competent writer, a great writer but competence is not the word for him, not natural, tons of wild ideas, under control, why does the little girl show up in the first scene?, cookin breakfast, infodump, why are you not married, this book is largely about childhood, child-like, we’ve been following an android the whole goddamn book, growin a beard, getting hungry, the big conflict is he’s fighting with himself, split into three, given his essence, what kinda book is this?, fairyland, as one might, familiar with fairyland, the topped stripes, a very strange book, David Pringle, a critic, The 100 Best Novels 1949-1984, an English Language Selection, 2 simaks, Way Station and City, 1949-1984, this is a good book, a Tall Tale, too complicated for its own good, prose style, a new plot twist in almost every chapter, a very ornate book, the McCarthyite era, economic speculation, technological panaceas, telepathic androids, robots who are also hungry, a very good Simak novel, after reading Shakespeare’s Planet, Way station, good book, sparkier, All Flesh Is Grass, Stephen King, parallel structure, not just because it has androids, a forever car, at the end of his career, a ton of Simak, keep going, recurring things, revist these things, houses, something was in the house, a bit of mental separation to avoid conflation, coming from everything you witnesses prior, every person has in common, they had some sort of childhood, even if you’re six and im sixty, graduation, your first job, your first love, start with the basics, always a possibility, Simak is not a boy, gotta get that top, almost Bradburyesque, the system that we live in, the economy, Star Trek economics, the forces, people protecting what they have, extraction, it doesn’t seem possible, not as good as The Visitors, almost all the parts, false notes, so many sparks, as maturity sets upon you, that theme I touched on earlier, very mysterious, setup pretty early, rumours of a forever car, it’s cheap, when things are happening in the economy, participate or not participate, cultural discipline like the Amish, they have to review it, they have to make the case, a benefit vs. a disruption, assailed by iphones and androids and robots and waymos, you can’t control what your government decides to subsidize or ban, all you can do is see what’s happening, the solution, the pretentionists, super-interesting, grilling him, what his particular cosplay is about, a sign of what’s going on, the conflict, there is technicality conflict, partly fighting with himself, why is this disruption happening, Simak would like some alternatives, razor, lightbulb, everything is free, how close they are, comin out of WWII, this cold war thing, spread outside of the cities, a big country, no target, constant extreme disappointment and hopeful, the mob is in the background, he doesn’t let that get him down, not a black pill book, locking us into ways of behavior, he’s searching for it, can’t we just all agree, a nice walk, changing of the seasons, an agrarian populist, doesn’t want cities making all the rules, we need farmers, making sure that way of life is protected, rustic rather than agrarian, people who love the countryside, people’s views on policies, one colour another colour, different motivations, the people have needs, one needs a truck and the other needs a subway pass, the uniparty (whatever flavour) doesn’t give you the cheap reliable bus or truck, supersmart, what if we take the idea of automation and use it as an application of disruption for the benefit of people, teetering on the edge of being evil, Crawford is a representative, a think tank, a billionaire class or higher, deep down they’re all the same guy, essentially just Simak, we’ve got to do something, the doing something is writing this book, for serialization in Galaxy, Simak was a newspaperguy, the Minneapolis Star, keeps you in a world, an academic, who the president is, tax policy, you have to understand it and get it out there everyday, being a political advisor, the politicans don’t do any research, so many things going on in this book, what’s the motivation behind this, even the Cold War might be wrapping up, set in the 80s (or 77), worries about the economy going bad, the word carbohydrates, we don’t just need foodbanks, soylent green, a FOOD episode, Gravy Planet aka The Space Merchants, on a parallel earth, manufacturing carbohydrates, wood goes in cellulose comes out, the scene on one of the covers, exploring the factory, bringing in raw materials, who is paying for all those robots, selling at a subsidy, inputs are free, drill down, what his economic solution, nobody gets paid anything, all profits, everybody gets everything, communism, altruism, Crawford is a sympathetic evil guy, I wanna let you live, make me understand it, you can’t threaten the way things are, the alternate people who seem leaderless, Robert A. Heinlein, By His Bootstraps, time doesn’t exist, this book has a lot going on, a coup happening, a breakoff civilization, agrarian populist, there’s no voting, there’s only opting in or dropping out, this is not an evil book, Beggars In Spain, Slan, mutants, quasi science fiction, his first sale is published in 1952, 1953, Clifford Dick Simak, Dick’s not influenced by this, this is a parallel extraction, Dick cites Null-A and Van Vogt, Realms Of Fantasy, renfaire shit, Society For Creative Anachronism, the 70s, mutant = X-men, rebellion, The Golden Man, the danger room, his subversion of mutants, what if they’re superattractive to women but don’t know how to read, women with three breasts, so mutated they look like slugs, so mutated we don’t recognize them as mutants, what John W. Campbell was asking for: more mutants, mutant stories, in essence, you’re supposed to think I’m a SLAN, we the people who can see the future, man walking on the Moon, telepathy, an autist when it comes to tops, he can think about childhood real good, I can read a different science fiction next week, the podcast mutant, observation/joke/question, people on twitter, how much to spend on editorial revisions/covers, they’re in the bubble, you’re the weirdo, as a percentage of the population, people who read 10 books a year, they absolutely exist, 1 guy Tony C. Smith, discovered science fiction as an adult, got excited about reading like a kid, knew how to read, just didn’t do it, book addicts, get books cheaper, give books cheaper, can’t afford them, and thus SFFaudio was born, a family of readers, both sets of grandparents, reading something non-fiction, an immediate upbringing, ancestrally, school teacher, shop teacher, great uncle, voracious reader, great grandparents, their book collection if they had one, you inherit things you don’t even realize, they have different things, are you ashamed of your books, gi joes, transformers, music, a personal culture for each family, used to be anyway, figuring out what this book dealing with, it’s so big, society and the personal, the weirdest aspect, that’d be loving himself?, the most broken part of the book, too spinning in on itself, wow, an interesting thoughtful guy, recurring, hopefulness, knowledge in the stars, Time Is The Simplest Thing, disrupting the economy, read this week, chapter 33, so he was an android, an artificial man, the cunning of man’s mind, the mutants did!, even he himself would never know, artificial women too, and a host of other gadgets, wreck the race from which they sprang, China is disrupting our economy!, good jobs, the mystery of the story, how he composed the book, it mostly fits together, the mystery is less important than rumniating on the topics themselves, sparky full of ideas, flying witches on broomsticks, steal ideas, bring them home through Mexico, Walmart style disruption stores, wow, rejected by the girl’s family, fairyland of youth, memory, super-hilarious, the past is the most interesting place, a hilarious and interesting genre, the Merryland books, 1672ish, Erotupoia, Bettyland, a genre of fiction, a visitor reports back on a place he went to, a geographical version of a woman’s body, hills over there, rivers down here, having fun, making fun of the genre, with childhood, that Bradburyesque sense, certain scenes, endless summer, how come we can’t live in a good world, feel that, meanwhile, boardroom tables, privacy policy, extract more from you, televisions are so cheap, they’re using the tv to influence, Netflix button, put ads in your operating system, Enshittification by Cory Doctorow, the whole point is to extract from you, a car you can hand down to your grandkids, forever clothes, forever razor, Stressed Out by 21 pilots, momma sang us to sleep, build a rocketship, you need to make money, getting out from under, whoever’s doing this, Vickers says, and his parents need to be thawed out, so it turns out…, horrible capitalist system, all my contents are correlated, he was the guy behind all of this, go talk to the robot, the plan is to make things better for people, doing these things to the economy, the importance of knowing what your doing, mindfulness sounds really bad, pitchfork and torch, we’re gonna do this to accelerate the badness that’s happening, the evil people in our world, saying to themselves, if they think of you at all, we have a mandate to make profits for our shareholders, Cora’s tweet: every time I see this guy I want to punch him in the face, Albania’s ai minister, power good government with good solid nuclear power, the disruption happening seems familiar to us, the forever car, how people think about Teslas, tended to be publicly enthusiastic, the promise of them, the batteries won’t, in the frame, bends the frame, throwing the car away, the cars have televisions in them, all the smart cars, Windows 10 isn’t supported anymore, your Ford Focus isn’t supported anymore, Ford Mustang from 1964, a throwback pickup truck, can fix it yourself, anyone can fix it themselves, emissions are why, you can’t achieve good emissions without electronics, waiting at the light the engine is turned off, save theoretical emissions, the biggest expulsion, it’s all gamed, theater, try not to play any games you can’t win, the casino, not gonna win, not gonna go, Bryan Alexander travels a lot for work, an endless nightmare of airport problems, sleeping in the airport, much rather not, it’s incredible that we’re here, what air travel is going to look like in the future, bar lounge area, seats too small, crammed in, extracting you, the Chinese with their flying cars, not allowed to disrupt our world, the pretentionists, Samuel Peyp diarists, pretending to be cats and dogs and birds, my area of study is Aztecs, online video games, Balder’s Gate III, escapism, building games, Minecraft, the biggest genre, survival, farming, sandbox games, everything’s easy, 2 seconds to mine, crafting, rock and stick and 2 seconds later you got a handaxe, 10 minutes later log cabin, building your own log cabin, pretty satisfactory, digital log cabin, didn’t have to get sweaty, I live in my game, the people at the renfair, jousting, friendly and together, conventions, leavin the world, a bubble for 4 days, similar interests, I was somewhere else, Robert Silverberg is still alive, every science fiction convention, during COVID, theoretically left science fiction for a while, he feeds on the same interests, people that read a bunch of books, grinding horror, driving across the United States, the next 2 Dortmunder books, if you’re painting a warehouse, a lot of ceilings, intense labour, a kind of pretention, you’re out of your head, drudge work, great experience of another world, arms and eyes, appreciating some thoughts goin on, a really amazing thing, a kind of dissociation, something going on in this book, MK Ultra, The Manchurian Candidate sort of stuff, CIA, human robotoids, wipe people’s memories, implanted memories, very Philip K. Dick, for political control, assassinations, interrogations, send messages, the Jason Bourne series, MK Ultra fiction, extensive in the United States and farmed out to Canada, we have to invest, at least 20 years, the Chinese are doing it, maybe the Russians are doing it, POWd by the North Koreans or the Chinese, act strangely, obviously brainwashed them, we need to be able to brainwash, how can he be an android, fully functional, a scene where Data has a beard, can he control the growth, you can imagine a model of Data that has that ability, everything about him is a man except we’re told he is not a man, people are programmable, you learn these languages, something that humans have that dogs don’t have, responding to their environment, programmed to learn human things, Simak is reading the paper and reading between the line, Philip K. Dick was not a connected guy, he worked at a music shop, this is not public at the time, from the Nazis originally, news stories, the Korean War, they must be brainwashed because they’re rejecting the United States in favour of North Korea and China, on the wrong team, other possibilities than mind control, the most powerful street is Madison Avenue, both are scary, K Street, think tanks, the justifications, the oligarchs to do what they want, Crawford is not as bad a guy as we thought, come on friend, he said softly, Simak doesn’t want war, a lot of horror, he doesn’t know the way, hopin to make the place better, less of a Catholic book than his other ones, not a Catholic guy, some of the thoughts, more of a spirtual level to it, how Arthur C. Clarke’s The Star, a jesuit, a relationship to the stars, pathos and suffering and understanding, more scattered, touch on it a few times, page 178, end of chapter 39, how he came to be, his purpose and his end, a tool of immortality, the orderly progression, the next step, law unto the entire universe, the strength of human face, divinity, terrible need of faith, question and doubt, no need of faith, faith replaced with knowing, questing, a lot of great stuff in this book, so sparky, continually impressed by him, so philosophical, idea books, not stuff happening books, thoughtful and exploratory, an OCR, the fire wheel dog formula, the formula of the mutants, an earlier forward step, fire, cook things, pull things, dogs?, bows, plumb line, technologies, ssomethin super interesting, an extinct [breed] of dog, canis vertigus, the turning dog, manor house, run on the wheel to turn the spit, a small dog with curled legs, literally three technologies all together, replaced by motors, technology leads to technologies, a border collie, different labs, different from goldens, programmed differently, retrieve birds from swamps, love your children, take you on walks and be happy to see you, herding, keeping their sheep in their proper place, moving them from place to place, talking about technology in that way it is science fiction, you can’t have science fiction without connection to technology, it isn’t engineering fiction, mine the asteroids, that isn’t about how to make the rocket go, atomic pile!, what will it do to the people?, if there is a main thrust in this book, products that will no longer have to be manufactured or repaired, intentionally destroying society, a tv with spyware built into it, well you’ve got food that free, who is being evil?, the oligarchs, want progress to stop to maintain the status quo, conserve their profits, pretend I was somewhere else, more interesting or better or not like this, zombie apocalypse games, Project Zomboid, ambulance driver or cop or teacher or athlete, survive for as long as you want, an endless game, no victory conditions, Sid Meier’s Civilization, if they’re trying to hurt you, doing it and don’t care, changing it to help me win this game, taking stuff from you and putting it in my pocket, Crawford is from the old guard, America 1950, the other world mutants, help the population, he makes a film, talk to the pretentionists, evacuate the earth to these other worlds, on to the stars if necessary, a temporary solution to this particular crisis, we in our present, people out of work, carbohydrates are the solution, going off to be pioneers, let’s do enclosures, fill it full of sheep, goodbye people, crimes that can get you exported as your punishment, free land in an empty continent, more profits for Hudson’s Bay Company shareholders, love or indifference or hate, probably not going to be neutral, “mutants”, not telling what’s going on, we spread this out, $500 per room, trade that in, they’re not trynna make a profit, the help is accelerationist, for a not religious guy, lying is evil, deception is not necessarily evil, you shouldn’t lie to people, the oligarchs are hurting society somehow, the mob, trynna hunt people down and kill them, offscreen in the book, “populist”, kind of a slur in the United States, people getting what they want, close to fascism, we bind you up together, a whole bunch of farmers, get our voices heard together, the popular voice vs. the bound stick for violence, on team Simak, a bit of violence, story is about conflict, Hamlet the play, the first detective story, when does the ghost appear, the soldiers see Hamlet go talk to the ghost, the ghost of his father, the rest of the play is him trying to testing his hypothesis, does my mom know?, to know or not to know, should I just go along?, a philosophical investigation, everybody dies, Ophelia dies, he kills Polonius, the ultimate answer is maybe you, do I want to turn over this rock of knowledge, feel something, catharsis, detective fiction comes out of Poe, when it hits with Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie, a little bit of science fiction and a lot of mystery, this essential question in us, not being satisfied, a conspiracy book vs. a mystery book, turns out it is a third of me, what a book!, so good, glad to have read it, YouTube video, different things there, what Simak next?, May 2nd, The Handle by Richard Stark, gonna love it, Way Station, All Flesh Is Grass, 1965, how many did he write in the 70s?, lots in the 70s, A Choice Of Gods, Enchanted Pilgrimage, The Fellowship Of The Talisman, The Werewolf Principle, The Fisherman, a rusty rocket, a scene in the book, so rich, he’s the man, overcountry travel, he’s the flyover country science fictionist, New York guys, Bradbury in Los Angles, Missouri, Colorado, California, Orson Scott Card in Utah, when you get to the west, Wyoming, east of, Ohio, Kansas, is Kansas the west, right in the middle, Shaun D. Standfast, passed away, notebook lm, 9 interviews, living in Minnesota, geographic and philosophic backwater, east coast, New York, distinct effects, professional isolation, the science fiction swim, tied closely to his desk, a lot of publication with John W. Campbell, rely on letters, a Clifford Simak letters set, Isaac Asimov and Jack Williamson, Minneapolis, Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson, tell me more, the distilled info, people that like audio, an audiobook, make it feel like a real conversation, shaving and smoking, pops out an mp3, my android ran out of cigarettes and is grateful to have some more, how much Dick have you read, not as coherent at novel length, some of the images, his best novel, very disputed, Galactic Pot-Healer, very funny, it ends like a flat tire, great scenes, not exactly a Simak novel, what makes it so great, if he’s Tolkien it is his Lord Of The Rings, rougher and sillier, the basis as a place to escape, wasting time on the internet, gets a call from god, raise a sunken cathedral, other pilgrims, yarrow stalks, The Man In The High Castle, how great Dick can be, what did we settle on, All Flesh Is Grass.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #889 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Travels With A Donkey In The Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson

The SFFaudio Podcast #889 – Travels With A Donkey In The Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson (3 hours 51 minutes) read by Patrick Wallace for LibriVox, followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion are Jesse and Maissa Bessada

Talked about on today’s show:
1879, blanked out on the Cévennes part, a CBC ideas, travel writing, a Mark Twain, couldn’t do the show, abandoned the book, sad sad story, travel literature, living in Egypt for two years, everything is different, letters home, describing what’s happening, bringing up baby, Bringing Up Baby (1938), exaggerate a little bit, Travels by Michael Crichton, private about a lot of the stuff, public about a lot of the stuff, travels with his sister, before he died, a bunch of things that happened to him, picked from earlier and later things, his parents, what income bracket they’re in, guessing, early stuff is all travel stuff, exotic locations, Spain, very good writer, extraordinarily thing to write down, scuba diving, the bends, not enough air, lucky to be alive, I had to resist that quite strongly, an incredible thing to say, in the desert, elide the relationship, some movie start, a spiritual retreat or something, not a super-spiritual guy, nobody understands, profound effects, hike Kilimanjaro, tall, weird, super-smart, a wealthy background, might have been CIA, lot of people’s dads were CIA it turns out, more like a memoir, not exactly travel, being in medical school, attitudes towards corpses, young horny guys who think they are able to cure all diseases, resisting that, The Terminal Man, writing on the side, instead of being a doctor, more of his stuff, that’s definitely true about him, travel incident, Paul Theroux, The Old Patagonia Express, Eric Idle, travel writing, A Year Off by H.P. Lovecraft, does this sound familiar, a grand tour, really?, a travel guy, so expensive to travel, it fits, the poetry of it, over the top, he’s so cheap, he’s a dreamer, the dream, an inheritance, a small budget, Let’s Go Europe, Let’s Go Central America, a cheap place to eat, you’ve got to if you can, travel broadens the mind, going everywhere, much cheaper: read about those places, we don’t always agree on everything, animal abuse, I’ve made Modestine my slave, it has to have been, he’s much softer that the average person, he felt guilty, he’s in love with her, he had the good manners to cry about it as he’s selling her, wait a minute, I’ll cry now, a new boss, locked herself out of the school, she had her bible group there, a rumor about Jesse, show a student something inappropriate, wallpaper, Mort Kuntsler painting, no nudity, a painting of a woman, offended a student years ago, Predator (1987), just 3 years older than me, go down the street to the bookstore and read the novelization, books don’t have literary restrictions on them the way games do, in this book there’s a scene where Robert Louis Stevenson after a cow, he calls them sluts, referring to Modestine, her faults are based on her race and sex, it’s hilarious, disparages women left right and center, a word for female women, [wench], other than a physical journey, a lot of religion, the least religious parts, going through time, donkey pilled, donkeys are cool, cat pilled, dog pilled, a she ass, a jenny would be the right word, jack and jenny, second in his estimation, even though the wife can read and the husband can’t, they’re inferior, second class citizens if even citizens, up and down stuff, catholic vs. protestant, non-christianness vs. christianness, geopolitical landscape, I’m a lame woman who can’t get out of bed, go next door, it’s like time travel, he’s alive while we’re reading the book, casual sexual partners, a woman with low standards of cleanliness, going into a monastery, not converting, very reasonable, finest set of wrinkles on her face, we won’t meet again because I’ll be dead, my man is completely ignorant of everything, these are all real encounters, shades of his interpretation, just 12 days, felt like months, the audiobook not in the original, it doesn’t fit the book very well, it is not the journey, and now the book is starting, reading with your eyes vs. reading with your ears, following characters, from moment to moment, a section that really caught me, some thoughts are the most beautiful things and then they vanish, wow I love that, so beautiful, “vanish”, more deeply, an atmosphere of pleasure, so disposed my spirit, in another country, in a different time, done me good, scan their features, a god travelling by our green highways, ope, the lighter about our business, I dined with a pair of Catholics, captivated by him, the one that everybody knows, Doctor Jekyll And Mr Hyde, a guy who’s one guy who’s two guys, transforms like The Hulk, all the superhero stories are derived from older stuff, nothing that isn’t, Silver Surfer, Galactus is god, Spider-Man, Superman is the most simple, he has no characteristics, he’s from space, his wife didn’t like it, he threw it in the fire, you could have fixed it, he wrote it again, the sparks of his wife, it was supposed to be a surprise, go in with no spoilers, The Sixth Sense (1999), oh he’s a ghost, not art films, fell asleep while watching the movie, the little boy’s saying: I see dead people, Bruce Willis and the kid, it’s dark, slow paced, a build up, the whole point of the movie, so heavily on the twist being the thing that makes it good, you know who the hulk is right away, the origin story is just to get to the thing, unassuming New Yorker, tension there, with great power comes great responsibility, they’re the same guy, that was the sensation of the book, doing something nobody had really done before, reading Edgar Allan Poe, The Black Cat, axes his wife and burns down the house, The Tell-Tale Heart, murders in the domestic sphere, it’s a parody, he’s making fun of something, a guy who drinks too much, out of perversity he kills his cat, the cat comes back the very next day, a curious colouration, who owns this cat, he kills the cat a second time, that’s the question: why does all this stuff happen, you drink too much, it’s about teetotalling, what is The Tell-Tale Heart about?, feeling so guilty, the narrator, he’s so upset about what he’s done, he’s hearing the heart under the floorboards, a powerful piece, we interpret him at the end, they can hear the sound of the beating heart under the floorboards, nervous very dreadfully nervous, the hidden thing inside of Poe, late last year, it’s about his adopted father, disowned him, John Allan, Poe and his older brother, orphaned, father disappeared, mother died, this one child, they broke up the kids, explains so much, of this famous actor pair, stage actors, adopted mother who loved him, was jealous of him?, win back their relationship, the richest guy, fucking around with Poe, Poe was a handful, a lot of stress, a great artist, I have to be forgiving, a professional writer, they traveled to Scotland when he was a child, early 19th century, wouldn’t fund his education, gambling debts, why the psychology is so awesome, he has massive passions, gave nothi9ng to Poe, his illegitimate children, enmity, some trauma, The Cask Of Amontillado, revenge for something never stated, people’s interpretation, all coming from the personal, hwy he’s going anywhere, an affair with a married woman, trying to walk it off, still living with his parents, get some life experience, Fanny Osborne, adopted the son, Jack London revered Robert Louis Stevenson, makes total sense, Jerry Of The Islands, Call Of The wild but in the South Pacific with a Terrier, boat life, Brother Of Jerry, a Pacific guy, Japan’s invasion of Korea, massive success, big career, very short, Wolf ranch, he buys a boat, many other science fiction stories, he goes to where RLS is buried, Tahiti/Samoa, traveling for his longs, a weak constitution, consumption, photos of him old, 44, brain hemorrhage, a lot of coughing, not good for ya, he wrote a ton, a few famous things, A Child’s Garden Of Verse, age 7, young man, wearing a fez, huge 20 hour biography, précis it, Requiem, by Robert A. Heinlein, the starry sky, poetry of them, almost the people were the problem, sleeping inside, outside with his stars, oh here’s the desk, we don’t use it, the horror of this book, causing so much strife, strife between people, an ultra-right wing, crazy woke leftist, not religious at least in clothing, 1 protestant region, a lot of governesses, their religions are compatible, peaceably together, exporting their people, the means of dividing people, the one paradigm, things are happening in the world, that guy is a demon, he’s just demonic, doing demonic things, if you literalize things too much it clouds your thinking, the way to escape this, alternative points of view, not hiding things from your kids, not allowed to DM any more, keeps kids out of trouble, creates love of vocabulary and reading, positive things, explore morality in ways that are safe, ruinous, never lie to them, tell the kids about stuff, etymology, pencil, pen, peninsula, a male body part, that’s the root of it, penne pasta, it is cool, whenever we’re talking about vocabulary, not bird or bark, metaphor roots, understand, misunderstand, not as things to memorize, a list of SAT words, not designed to last, inscribed, cut into written into, epitaph, euphemism, Phemie’s not a name, well spoken, a name from 6000 years ago, number one and number, I gotta go, misinterpret, the word piss pisses people off, the letter, the letter p has now become a word, caca, don’t mention the t word, the trump word, manupulae comprehension, banning words, banning speech, correcting people’s speech, without censorship, the word “nigger”, the offensive word, changed it, censorship is a kind of manipulation and control of people, a good person in a weird time, in the religion discussions, changing words for other words, that was beautiful, he’s insightful, I learned a lot about a dead donkey, her and her personality, she’as pretending it is too heavy, giver her a switch, times in the book where she’s running, approaching something, sharing his meals with her, not just master and slave, words in the book, horses react to spurs, that’s why spurs exist, give it the heel, the programming that you want to communicate, they enjoy running, if Will were here, girls love being chased more than boys love being chased, little girls, “chase me”, why?, boys want to hit each other with sticks, jungle gym, jumping over rivulets, not going to disagree, it’s built in, knows how to stand up, books allow us to communicate not just by modelling our parent’s but with the ancients through codexes, naughty girls, in the context of it, tripwires for people, how much has things changed, I have a goad!, a pinpricking stick, that’ll make it go, almost nobody rides horses anymore, a famous streamer shocking his dog, shock collar, it wasn’t, it’s not a shock collar!, to stay on the bed, part of the set, a very horrible person, those shock collars are legal, enough pressure, relatively unpowerful, animal abuse, shocking part, for training, prevent them from doing damage with their teeth, contemptible, dogs are tools, protection for our animals, comfort creatures, we are in a strange relationship with animals, 1878, definitely different, haven’t touched a real animal, Alex (Cirsova), the farm animal part of the zoo was the most popular, books about cows and pigs and chickens, that screen, a farm in the middle of Toronto, kids want to see these things, we live in light pollution, behind screens, screens and screens and screens, a donkey braying, go to the feed store and pet the cat, we need to and we don’t, most of them don’t have pets, most people didn’t have pets until the 20th century, menageries, a collection of pets, Poe in The Black Cat, monkey, birds, a cat, an attack on teetotalling, drinking is bad, the love of animals, central, cat moms, fur babies, a little overboard, oh yeah, Cévennes, not super far from Spain, what we know about the world, only partially correct, French wasn’t one language for a thousand years, small languages that came together, English has changed significantly in that same time frame, England invaded by the French, Norman French, right near Paris, the borderlands, North of Nice, more towards Andorra, a country between Spain and France, a valley, a little valley, kinda related, the first modern nation state, the borders of France as they are today, let’s get everybody on the same system, meterize gods, the god of justice, the French Revolution, a pretty simple language, a funny thing early on in the book, in the Scottish, answer a question with a question, a hippopotamus or a alligator, I just need to know where I’m going, the water your swimming in, the people of Quebec, still a colony, evolved somewhat, old France, not wholly frozen in time, a time capsule, a colony cut off from the empire, when they import French teachers to be their tutors, also twice removed, the Acadians, regular French, the accent’s going to be different, the culture, an effort to rationalize French, that French rationalization was much harsher, a fashion to add new words all the time, kids fighting against that, the official discipline of it is pretty strong, recreate his his journey, the prequel part, floundering, the kind of book you need to be with it, nice and short, more and more and more, I really like this book, went on a journey with it, probably should be excised, why some things should be excised, The Sinking Ship by Robert Louis Stevenson, Fables, half shaved, to the philosophic eye, she is settling fast, the expression is a strange one, time is only relative, in Davy Jones’ Locker, by parity of reasoning, the position of the ship, spoken like a good officer, the spirit room, there is nothing new in our position, he’s predicting his own death, struck by lightning, something inside you might burst, eating dinner, money in the savings bank, too far gone, or whatever it is, getting drunk since they came aboard, an old salt, good god cried the captain, as she were going down, nothing new in our position, a man’s handsome fashion, hope to be eternal, omit to take a pill, or doing anything at all, perfectly conclusive give me a cigar, a glorious detonation, really really really great, his parents get a doctor, might as well start digging his grave now, find a lady to like me, to lie under the stars with me, where did this person come from?, all of my eggs when I was born, she came into existence around the time of the big bang, I don’t think you take my meaning, the captain has a philosophic eye, his trainee, the wine dark sea, the new day is always rosy fingered dawn, a mental trick to fill time and remember what happens next, Homer is not the author, a beautiful morning, the next day, once upon a time, Brothers Grimm world, When tigers smoked, bad arguments, greeks not having the colour blue, a metaphor, the sea tosses you left and right and makes you a drunkard, when you drink too much you vomit, it’s all metaphor, the effect of drinking unmixed wine, drink wine at parties, put a lot of water in it, tipsy and fall over, snoring on the couch, the host’s duty, mix the wine at the right amount, fell out of fashion, drinking as a vice, a way to make your water purer, we can’t have nice things, when gin came into the UK, blasted drunk, small beer, reading something a little bit older, a lot wiser, bible study, you need read to more than one book, don’t just listen to the one guy’s interpretation, stories from the bronze age and a little later, stories about Spider-Man and Batman, a really good character, trouble in the world, Superman, good hearted, pay your taxes, circumspect, your relationship to the good, old books making think good thoughts, out of the horror of the current thing they want you to care about, a way of engaging, be honest all the time and damn the torpedoes, a man condemned to death, I’m still gonna be me, blowing up early, fits both ways, or do anything at all, convinced by the argument, everything is shaped by what you know, don’t know what cancer is, making really scary faces, smoking causes cancer, the propaganda was, the message little Jesse received, misinformed, skin cancer, what you put into the minds of little boys, looking at it for a long time, schizophrenic, in order to make him less schizophrenic, calmed it down?, afraid of it, a little shaky, gives us a little buzz, a little speedup, largely afraid of alcohol, mothers against drunk driving ads, be a control freak about things, addictive and expensive, if you mix your wine properly, heavy marijuana users, positive effects, chill me out, medical marijuana, stop vomiting, you can sue when they spike your shit, a grow house, filters on cigarettes, a half measure, tar in cigarettes, the disease was solved by having woodsmoke in your home, peanut allergies, exactly, celiac disease, gluten intolerance, glyphosate, why you can’t have any bread, the poison they put on it, our food is contaminated, if you go to Italy, genetically modified wheat, blame autism on Tylenol, when your baby is growing inside of you, folic acid, a good diet to begin with, how did people survive without all the supplements, sold a bill of goods, what happened to consumption, name a guy who isn’t Doc Holiday or Edgar Allan Poe’s wife, the diseases get less worse, at Christmas, with this last name, alcohol drinkers, smokers, 6 uncles, drinking was dangerous, smoking was a bad idea, sailors smoke, everything is explained by looking at the backstory, abstinence from alcohol, get rid of this scourge, husbands to beat wives, cheap alcohol is a tech, fix itself by giving it enough time, China was addicted to opium, a revolution against their occupiers, fentanyl, smaller, cheap spirits were the problem, from too much gin, alcohol poisoning, nobody’s going to be talking about it in 1000 years, maybe we’re talking about, teams and brave talk, our telepathy works fine, cursing you, had faith, chose right, in 2 weeks for a Dortmunder book, space brain, Misha Burnett, Killing Time, this book is great, reading it again, so easy to read Westlake, see the hands spreading apart, audio drama, aphantasia, do you think the way I think, in dreams, see when I’m dreaming, look at the blue ocean, there is a sea, an ocean, rosy fingered dawn is just breaking over the horizon, the sea is wine dark, what colour is the sea, imagine it, good at drawing?, draw a boat, a rowboat, a dinghy, a fantastic artist, another guess, no, do you see things in dreams, the same part of your head, you don’t have conscious access, pink, the colour of wine, the darkness, its deep, hiding its contents from you, why it is evocative, Pulpcovers recorded Rogues In The House, full of colour, a very angry gorilla, takes his cape, I am the master now, monkey see monkey do, a red caped monkey, why is it a red cape?, little red riding hood, all subject to metaphor, monkey men are men who act like monkeys, what’s the difference between us and an animal, a Simak recently, The Visitors, kinda like War Of The Worlds, the invasion of the Earth by slabs from 2001, obelisks, colonizing the planet, bales of cellulose, have a fantastic day.

Travels With A Donkey

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #888 – READALONG: Bank Shot by Donald E. Westlake

Jesse, Scott Danielson, Maissa Bessada, and Misha Burnett talk about Bank Shot by Donald E. Westlake

Talked about on today’s show:
everybody knows their places, the 2nd Dortmuner novel, Bank Shot, the movie adaptation, DNFed that thing, it existed on dvd, just to confirm, be completist, artificial eyebrows, a record for biggest eyebrows, stunt eyebrows, very cartoonish, the broad characterization, pretty close, the money is on fire, the vocab word that best applies to Dortmunder is hapless, luckless, hap means luck, what happend, Maissa?, I’m feeling really happy, luck’s been with with me today, happenstance, how did it fall out?, what went wrong?, character and cartoonish, Herman X, we’re looking at his menu, a negroni, black beans, everything added to the menu is black, how black is he? even his drink is black, just so funny, movies out of Westlake stories, I’m a movie maker, make a great book into a good movie, it almost never works, what killed the movie?, they didn’t follow the book, starts with him in prison, something ridiculous, Upjohn Ballantine, a Dukes of Hazard kind of a way, where you buy the name of the book, they did pass a bank that was in a trailer, the temporary bank was in a trailer, the acting was horrible, melodramatic, one of the actors was Boss Hogg, the fake lawyer that came in to visit, Karp, he’s in one of the James Bond movies, that boy’s out there doing it again, it’s like a movie, this would make a terrific movie, why deviate, this is dead on, the scriptwriter complains about the movie, the film failed due to the direction, never truely done justice to Westlake, slightly tilted, a charming idea, stealing the whole building, into a farce, a marvellous stage director, simply wasn’t deft, ruined what I thought was a good piece, bitterly disappointed, it doesn’t translate, it’s so careful, it seems to flow super easy, everything is funny and fun, and endless mistake, you can’t quite do it, it is the way it is told, a lot more cops, great stuff, up on a hill, mobile headquarters, too much coffee and danishes, want some?, aiming to do what is done in the book, it doesn’t translate to film that well, Brer Rabbit, the Uncle Remus stories, these are cartoons, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, talking animals betraying each other, a pixar style movie, it works best as a book, Shakespeare is not a novel, when you see Shakespeare performed, you can’t mess with it too much, performed on stage is where it is, location shooting, Westlake lives in the text, he doesn’t live in the plot, his character direction that’s the fun part, betting on cards, two sixes, the whole thing’s moving, too long as a movie, the movie adaptation of A Travesty, A Slight Case Of Murder (1999), a cat just knocked over a bunch of things, James Cromwell, accidentally murders his girlfriend, blackmails him, told first person, breaks the fourth wall, points his funny face towards the camera, a comic murderer, pack in all the plot, knock over a bank, why the book is good, how deftly he handles it, The Blonde Lieutenant, the reason Dortmunder is called Dortmunder, worked as a “snow top”, white helmeted Air Force police, he’s filling in the little details there, a blog, the car crash, smutty books in the back, those were all Donald Westlake, the etext, dig around, the complete dot txt, you jammed on your, Kelp, the Pinto, a row of stores on the right, an alley between the two of them, the storage area, full of paperback books, one was called Passion Doll, Man Hungry, Strange Affair, Off Limits, Call Me Sinner, Apprentice Virgin, his topcoat flapped, you were talking about the cops, why don’t you bums get off the road, what you’re gonna get is cops, every character in this book is him or somebody he knows, he’s Dortmunder but also the cousin, making radio dramas, all the pulp magazines, he wasn’t a regular cop, aspects of his own life, scold you, insurance is in this book, multiple times, an insurance scene, two many knees in the way, observational humour, Merch’s mom, the getaway driver, he’s a car thief, his mom is the cab driver, the pinto, an AMC Javelin, making noises as if it had just eaten a Pinto, making fun of everything, he doesn’t stop, a spinoff of his hardboiled series [the Parker series], come in on the seconds, the seconds are better, a heist, something goes wrong, a revenge book, writing The Hot Rock, getting too silly, leaned into that, being hapless, on the Donald E. Westlake, what’s the one that’s on the SFFaudio website, “I believe my subject is bewilderment”, insurance is a hedge about the bad things happening, that’s this whole book, what can go wrong now?, just pushing what could go wrong, teetering on the edge, very improv, and and and, Castle In The Air, many turrets, a megastructure, what a novel is, what’s going to happen next?, where’s Westlake getting all this, out of his life and his observations, they use the book as the template, what they’re lack is the Westlake, lacking the central core material is him, painting in the characters, vignettes as well, build the scene up and have the rug pulled out, the number of Parker movies, Dortmunder movies, they’re all bad, getting it right never works, they can’t do what the book is doing, a Terminator or an andorid, programmed to do stuff, need sleep or something like that, producing the results, doesn’t do anything that’s inefficient, it’s not science fiction, Data goes back in time on some planet, a character who has no personality, in a film you wouldn’t, Mel Gibson, Robert Duvall, Lee Marvin, Jason Stathem, none of these are hits, they take the template and it doesn’t fit, a book writer, The Stepfather, different and dark in tone, a screenplay for The Grifters, Jim Thompson, hits you like a bag of oranges, really bad and good, a writer’s writer, it is astounding, they flow so easy, the characters are great, the dialogue is fantastic, Michael Kramer is so good, just playing, playing out beautifully, when a paperbook goes out of print, a new version, a new cover, new formatting of the pages, it will have a new font, garamond, my favourite, the Frank Muller collection, I’ll read any Frank Muller book, George Guidall, Bronson Pinchot, too performy, what else has he narrated, to become a chameleon, from Eastern Europe accent, as an actor would, George Guidall narrated Dune is the best version, saved this from cassette, almost none are available, the entire Parker run, the Dortmunder run, he was excellent, the epic fantasy nowadays, super popular for that, The Wheel Of Time series, Brandon Sanderson stuff, a little Wikipedia entry, starting in the 1990s, other ones we could do, a Stark, The Man With The Getaway Face, they’re all drop in, The Axe, fantastic book, No Other Choice (2025), the Koreans would do a good job, you will want to, the premise, laid off, fun fun name, drastic cost cutting measures, the 7 men who could take the job, it’s brilliant, William H. Macy, told from the point of view of this person doing horrible things, brings it tight, ensemble pieces, Robert Redford and 6 other actors, a heist, bring it in tight to the one guy, a French version, a Michael Caine version (not an official version), really new, not hit the services yet, Ebert’s site gave it 4 out of 4, Oldboy (2003), are we bringing in Misha Burnett?, a little awkward, working so many hours, traveling for work, sometimes on a Sunday, Bank Shot as a sequel and the foundation of a series, the franchise starts with the 2nd, an excellent example for people, expanding one book into a series, what to keep, what to show, the comic caper genre, prior to Westlake, he basically invented that, the background of The Hot Rock, too goofy for Parker, needed a character, Dortmunder’s confederates, builds such an incredible cast of secondary characters, in every single book, and May, Victor, extraordinary, the person who got me hooked on Westlake, a homosexual encounter, deciding whether he’s going to have sex with a man or a woman tonight, from the outside it looks just like an ordinary garage, foolin around together, he’s a fanboy of radio drama, he’s not looking for sex, dissatisfaction with eh FBI, never even held a submachine gun, he’s very self-aware, secret lair, comin out the the pulp era, drawing from it, did a lot of science fiction as well, the caper itself follow the outline or precedent set in The Hot Rock in being over the top, you know… I bet, Drowned Hopes, the undertow’s got it, a valley that’s gonna be flooded, rob the bank that’s under the water, one of Westlake’s truly chilling villains, in prison for 20 years, they dammed the lake and drowned the village, blow up the dam, kill a whole bunch of people, something Stark would consider, scuba gear, what could go wrong?!, his secondary characters, the cops, that scene, the safe company, the trailer company and the bank, just like on the edge, how far to push a caricature and keep it believable, on the borderlands of a cartoon, something went wrong in the process, we got all these great actors, Robert Redford is not Dortmunder, George C. Scott would have made a great Parker, Gary Oldman [Gary Coleman], Dortmunder is us, we seeing him on screen, muppets might work, that hyper-realized, just Michael Caine is the bank manager, way on down the series, taking out the casino in Vegas, a lock man, you have to be able to introduce characters, ancillary character, Nobody’s Perfect, Good Intentions, scamming encyclopedia, the phone went tick tick tick, two small ticks, arguing with Kelp, I wonder who they’re after, rear ending the car with the books in the trunk, pseudonymous sex books, Adios Scheherazade, a left handed guide to how to write or how not to write, be a real writer, wants to be a real boy, friend with a spy series, his ideas end up petering out and going nowhere, really sad, how sad it is, The Hook, it’s about Amazon, well before Amazon, hot writer, best seller, once you’re in the system you can never grow past a certain point, I’m gonna put my name on your book, a murder sort of story, he’s better at standalones than he is at series, even when he has a noble failure, Humans, we have more possibilities, thank you for your time, something Simaky, Ring Around The Sun, in about a month, building a carwash, good listening time, 10 – 12 hour days, painting a room, commuting is a big deals, if you’ve got a good book, your arms and your neck and your back, I’ll go in tomorrow I got six more chapters, almost like a drug, makes the time go by so fast, miss my exit, where the series really come in handy, even with Westlake, they’re premium, his Grofield books, not more Parker, they’re adventure, 3 Grofield books, The Dame, The Blackbird, Lemons Never Lie, a job that’s gone sour, Slayground, Parker went into the amusement park, a split, two different experiences, insurance, seeing it all the time, the bank being insured, a real funny subtle one, and you’ll have access, our researchers in Omaha, Nebraska, Anguilla?, a non-fiction account of a coup there, Under An English Heaven, the photograph of him on Wikipedia, the thesaurus, in the news happening, Chernobyl, what would God make of all of this, a bet against the future, Scott Adams, Pascal’s Wager, convert to Catholicism on my deathbed, Somebody Owes Me Money, sitting at the table, some way he can make it pay for him, there’s gotta be a way, this game, getting some food at Walmart, a ricecooker, do you want insurance on that, a $20 item, we don’t get that extra profit, gameifying, take maximum money from suckers, The Handle, a casino off of Cuba, saving up money for his summerstock, since been confirmed, the criminals don’t think of themselves as criminals, a sideline, their real business is something else, Victor is not representative of a stock character, representative of that kind of thinking, he collects cars or something, whatcha doin, the tape’s still going, of the heist while it is happening, the plots, the premise, it’s all about the character touches, had been an MP, a regular day job, health and house decisions, spending am lot of time thinking, using every part of the animal, that kind of treatment, just let me go get my purse, playing Dortmunder, this is a scam, she’s tipped to it relatively early on, only $10, keep talking, meeting again, a slot, put a Parker in there, The Handle, Don’t Ask, Stark stuff, the comedy, formulaic, when you know it is a continuing character, his standalones, The Fugitive Pigeon, the nephew novels, Trust Me On This, the National Inquirer, Baby Would I Lie, Branson, all built up, it’s a Tom Selleck style actor, used to be on a tv show, mystery detective, lives in Los Angles, Samuel Holt, the pseudonym and the character, Paul Kavanaugh by Lawrence Block, One Of Us Is Wrong, didn’t finish it, would have paid more attention, him under a pseudonym, do what he’s doing in The Hook, Stephen King with Bachman, I get these numbers in the mail, his script writing career, been to Florida a few times, Kenya, Kahawa, coffee smugglers, mercenaries, dangerous people, Westlake fans were horrified, very well written, a feel for the utter insanity that was Uganda under Idi Amin, Two Much, other than the premise, seems like it is a light comedy, one pair of the twins out, twins was the whole point, a French adaptation, they don’t play it up, he’s a fuckin horrible murderer, did a show on it not too long ago, give away the ending, like a huge kick in the balls, the last line, sent a joke, I don’t get it, he’s lost his sense of humour, in order to gain all of the money, didn’t really hit me until later, he’s very mature, it’s not manipulation because you don’t feel it, it all gelled, it all worked, never gonna have a sequel to that, The Hunter, Point Blank, the first Parker book is bad, the least best Westlake books, even his noble failures are good, Ed Topless, disses it, a good movie, not a Westlake movie, not a Stark movie, the heist in Jimmy The Kid, Child Heist, it’s a ransom, it doesn’t fit the formula, Parker as a kidnapper, you want to steal something that can move and talk?, the efficiency, when Parker is doing something, going against my better judgement, nobody gets whacked in Dortmunder, bad luck, the rainstorm in Bank Shot, the rain washed the paint away, made the search less active, the captain of the police, funny names in there, one of them is named Block, guys he plays poker with, a book with Brian Garfield, doing cameos, pot-bellied, when the book came out, some diet stuff in there, the doctor character, the backer, Kelp, no matter what he said, “that’s a shame”, it’s money in the bank, we got a good shot on this one, he left the keys in it, you stole the man’s car and turned around and asked him for money, an AMC Javelin, we’re supposed to think it’s the same car, he only drives doctor’s cars, the doctor did fine, it’s double, I’m not in the right business for some things, Help I’m Being Held Prisoner, Ed McBain, Money For Nothing, you have been activated, many years he’s been receiving cheques in the mail, a sleeper agent, Downtown by Ed McBain, as one should, a lot of bad stuff was going on at that time, because of Yoda, the little green guy?, backwards you are, The Empire Strikes Back, stay with me, helping your friends is a mistake, alone in my cult, unfinished, a serial, the first one is done, saves the galaxy, wins the heart of the space princess, the respect of the scoundrel, you did not avenge your father, physically embodied as a ghost, Joseph Wambaugh, his 87th Precinct books, came out of Manhunt, like Westlake and Block, changed his name, went to Hunter College in Evanston Illinois, a more marketable name, a less ethnic name, police procedural, writing what you know and getting the facts wrong, flipped Manhattan on it’s side, when you get the facts wrong, he’s not a cop, he’s a writer, the mugger, the killer, Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, with more consistent characters, a rapist in town, getting there in a circuitous route, On the Sidewalk Bleeding, has to suppress, he’s read the guys, An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge, what good wiring looks like, the intersection, from the 50s until the 60s, it wasn’t a detective magazine, it was a crime magazine, series in there, the characters won’t survive the story, only some of them, like a writing school, getting good stuff out there, a pastiche, I Bludgeoned My Brother To Death Over A Sex-Doll, Whatever Lola Wants, Switchblade Magazine, a heinous crime for the best of reasons, the writer not being a cop, he was a cop, The New Centurions, The Glitter Dome, the movie, there is/was an audiobook of it, Trent Reynolds’ review of Downtown, kinda cool, there are other good writers to find, running out of Westlake, other writers to read, in the mood for a really good book, reliable, painting that room, putting that carwash together, China Mieville’s The City And The City, a dimensional portal fantasy, the aspect that it has in it, occupy the same territory, agree to ignore the other one, The Doomed City by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, randomocracized every year, the librarian is now a janitor, shake things up, when the revolution comes, brushin the streets like the last emperor of China, what are we really talking about here, they’re in hell, not a torture hell, purely psychological, learned, the people from one city have a psychological blindness, not hit each other, consciously repress the knowledge of the other, on screen, really good science fiction on screen, what planet we visit next week, an adaptation, do the same job, film is very different, the latest Parker movie, based on the trailer, they just mention going to a casino off of Cuba, a mishmash of several stories, bits an pieces of seven different scores, City Of Industry (1997), a good scene in it, the end of some book he laughs, he is able to have some kind of human connection, a sexy blonde on a beach, on archive.org, slash fiction, Parker/Grofield gay slash fiction, he’s just saying you’re a part of the team, I find you sexy, handled in this book, I’m not sure if I need a man or a woman tonight, things get stressful, men are too difficult, that fun of Westlake is why, suppressing the humour, the jokes are muted, looking for new authors, Jason Pargin series, John Dies At the End, David Wong, listen to the sample, strong and prevalent, comes across almost immediately, very strong voice, several in a row is too much, we’ve booked The Handle for the 11th of April, knock off a casino, there’s a boat in that one, has to travel 3 or 4 states south, regulation number of lights on it, an experience, this guy is not writing out of his ass, rent a truck, gotta get some insurance, it’s fuckin red herring, right along with it, three sixes, suddenly the whole van’s moving, Merch’s mom, hearts, shoot the moon, she is shooting the moon, get the lowest number of hearts, 13 points for the queen of spades, the low score wins, you get everything, poker I do, both doing it in the same place, him having fun, what the hell is happening, decorated the place up, in the other room blasting, it’s pure comedy, they didn’t really fuck it up, the magic of the book, the magic of the writer, a movie improve on a book, I don’t need a movie version of Parker, or a slash fiction version of Parker, they would go together wouldn’t they?

Posted by Jesse Willis