Costa Rica – SFFaudio

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 #900 – READALONG: Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Jesse and Alex (Pulpcovers) talk about Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Talked about on today’s show:
read all the Crichtons, middle school, volunteered at a library, everything else available, the John Langes, paperbacks, the 10th Michael Crichtons, theoretically a John Lange novel, a Murder In Hollywood, the pirate sites, don’t trust the estates, a better writer, Timeline is mid-1990s, several revelations, hey mom, how you doin?, science, biology, animals, a bad choice, doctors don’t actually have good jobs, mechanics (essentially), a human being, you can’t just buy a new car, how doctors are, horrible people if they think their magic powers are useful, patients vs. objects to be experimented on, genetics, amphibians, snakes, turtles, parrots, he wrote a screenplay, Westworld, they’re all the same subject: theme parks, the evil master plan, the whole purpose of it was for a theme park, the company is gonna make a theme park, exploit this stuff, telling some investors, a little vague, not as good a book, this new technology is going to change the world, genetics, make nuclear look like nothing, the quantum realm, a good movie, not to fanboy over the most popular thing, The Andromeda Strain, mainstream books, Michael Crichton doesn’t come out of the science fiction ghetto, technothriller, weird science fiction guys, don’t worry, Margaret Atwood, marketing purposes, fight against that, he didn’t read Astounding, Larry Niven, the classics, a parallel evolution, born in the 1940s, 50s and 60s wise, he tells us, he loved Conan Doyle, The Lost World, kinda pulpy, Ian Malcolm as his Sherlock Holmes, he comes back, they thought I was dead for a while, his only sequel, The Terminal Man is his Frankenstein, the story of the guy who had a tin-foil, literally gave him foil, insane asylum, turned it into a thriller, The Andromeda Strain is The War Of The Worlds, in an interview somewhere, a neat twist, an inversion, a baby and a sterno drinker, Congo we could argue that it’s King Solomon’s Mines, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, getting all the classics, an Ian Fleming one, a James Bond one, doing his best to tip his hand, a lost nuke story, Thunderball, Grave Descend, really good, get crackin on these things, pirate books, parallel evolution, axes to grind, the theme parking of reality, what tattoo it was, Robert Picardo, emergency medical hologram on some lady’s arm, liked Star Trek Voyager, the worst of the best ones, pathetic and sad, Disney adults, bought out, Larry Ellison’s son, the phrase is the important part, they have rides and stuff, maybe Universal Studios, aging out of it, a whole Stars Wars theme park, a class of Star Wars adults, a new Punisher special, Marvel adults, some patheticness in our society now, a lot more in Westworld, Westworld is a great novel, the mystery box problem, such a thing, horrible writing, one of the things that killed the new Lord Of The Rings show, J.J. Abrams, just tell the story, a weird artificial mystery, writing the novel chapter by chapter, no idea where the story is going, cohesive idea, a lot of speeches in this book, the Jeff Goldblum performance, Michael Crichton’s voice, he’s smart, had to compare the movie to the book, what the book was doing, might as well do it now, almost a perfect movie, in relief to the book, the ideas in the book, the differences between them, Hammond is the bad guy in the book, the same kind of bad guy as we see in Timeline, obsessed assholish ceo, an explicit liar, the flea circus, dream of entertaining children, he brought the kids for a specific purpose, approval more likely, “spared no expense”, sitting at the end with the ice cream, his death in the book is transfered to the death to the bad guy from Seinfeld, Nedry, who the traitor is, intro scene on the beach, all the terrible personality traits, the villain of the movie vs. the villain of the book, motivation, Drug Of Choice, a book, a phrase, during covid, injections, not ivermectin, not hydroxychloroquine, buy my own island, the trigger for everything goes wrong, eaten, in the sequel movie, nibbled to death, Peter Stormier, stuck in a bunch of other movies, the family on the beach, Jurassic World, parents getting divorced, the aviary dorm, the movie follows closely, Eric S. Rabkin, had a hand in the script, a Hollywood movie director, enough juice, a Spielberg movie, how to make money, to be filmed, wanted to make a movie with Sean Connery, the opening of Timeline and the opening of this are quite similar, a road trip, Mexico and Costa Rica, a huge glaring flaw, Costa Rica doesn’t have an army, a civilian military, Hammond and Muldoon, heavy armament, rocket launchers, SPAS-12, tase the dinosaurs or rocket launcher, a solid 50 caliber, Ray Bradbury, Fritz Leiber, this is a trope in science fiction magazines, James Patrick Kelly, people go back in time and hunt dinosaurs, recreating that, definitely cool, some little slippage, dispense with it, how many raptors are left, after the kids are switched, why is the movie so good?, the best scene in the movie, the t-rex, the banner falls down, when dinosaurs ruled the earth, something to put in your trailer, when Steven Spielberg dies, so visuals, pure Spielberg, they’re in the helicopter, the stand-in for Crichton, love interests in the movie, the kids are in there too, heading back to the mainland, are those supposed to be dinosaurs, the idea of the book and of the movie, colourful birds, a symbolic hint as to what’s going on, if there is a message of the book, what dinosaurs are like, probably wrong, popularized The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn, such good speeches, we’re destroying the planet, the earth’s going to be fine, we’ll be dead, don’t overstate it, weird mental trap, be precise, it hurts for a while, moving the needle, referencing earlier work, I was not a paleontologist in the early 90s and the 80s, middle school, a position being argued for, doing research, a lot like Carl Sagan, a science popularize, the book holds up, the CD-Roms, the kray supercomputers, super-secret navy lab, it has 300kb of memory!, nobody has 3 krays, $80 on ebay now, Malcolm in the book, complex systems are subject to chaos theory, he’s a Cassandra, we do build zoos, see I was right, as a narrative thing, to be charitable, able to interview Ian Malcolm, the first zoos were not very good, video reconstruction based on photographs, a scale flying machine before the Wright Brothers, flying machines, figuring out control surfaces, excited about airplanes, go to the airshow, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Dulles, a space shuttle, an SR-71, downtown D.C., why aircraft are so important, a peak of technologies in a physical space, see and understand and climb into, smaller and smaller, difficult to appreciate, bi plane vs. monoplane and tri-plane, let’s do 4, tri-plane was peak for a while, the shape was more important than the number, by the middle of the 30s nobody’s doing biplanes anymore, this seems to work, the end of the book, cleaning up the details, only eating the things that are high in, catchphrase, ‘they’re turning the frogs gay’, read a lot of stuff, Alex Jones, very defensible, Plato, really wide, crazy voice, he’s a doctor, they read the same stuff, used the word gay?, the tweak on the quote, a really good book, based on science, high concept, describe what the book is about, characters being characters, Snakes On A Plane, Sharknado, best elevator pitch: Jurrasic Shark, The Meg (2018), the action of this book is a lot like Aliens (1986), Alien Earth, monsters get out, all deadly, feed you to their babies, Hobo With A Shotgun, Grindhouse, the Fu-Manchu one, sign me up, covers of books are like that, boob armour, the Beverly Hillbillies, Gilligan’s Island, the premise of the show, a sea-shanty, he’s excellent at this, the book is really good, he’s less good at people than he is a really good stories, Eaters Of The Dead, accessible content, explicitly Beowulf, the other is crazy, sort of a character, an arrogant asshole, the kids are the kids, the scientists are interchangeable, Sam Neil, by picking actors who look like something, what he’s seeing, Ian Malcolm is in the book as a real character, the kid actors, concertizing, relationships and interests, hacker girls 11 years old, very draggy section of the book, chock full for charts and illustrations, the menus of the computer, menu screen after menu screen, how to reboot, skim over it, as a blueprint, the film succeeds in the way that the book can’t, the demon of success, the audience demands other stuff, read The White Company, we must have more Jurassic Park, the curse of success, I just can’t finish the last book, sequelitis, marketing, ranking it in the Crichton books, better than Timeline, the drop in the quality of the writing, he’s getting fettered, a paperback market, he’s not doing the Michael Crichton thing, Disclosure, a legal thriller, the technothriller, Prey, taller and narrower, a babboon or a monkey running a barcode, patentable, life finds a way, the distillation, right to repair, in normyville, aircraft parts, legally impossible to fix their aircraft, extraction stuff, go back to physical media, massive files, 10tb movies, you can do it, going back to physical media, back to horse and buggy, especially on twitter, owning their own copy of a thing, you want your own copy, a big paperback guy, digital, search it, takes up no space, another copy at home, a book server, audiobooks and ebooks in one app, update the language to be more inclusive, like they’re behind, excited about amphibians, a business that’s self-sustaining, follow your interest, getting into rye, fertilized the pig pen, not really into grain myself, that lack of interest by most people means they’re behind the times, find a way to get a computer in the house, I want my own modem, mom, the 14.4 for my 286sx, I’ve heard good things about the internet, cultural lag, subject to forces of control, it’s a prison break, life is a prison break, it’s always been a prison break, ceolcanth is really important, what’s going on in evolution, what normies are doing, playing phone games, tic tock, scrolling vertical video, “brain rot”, Moonraker by Ian Fleming, watchable, Tex Avery, Bugs Bunny style scene, he’s on the last leg, Roger Moore touching a lady’s leg, they fight, Jaws appears out of nowhere, never see the stewardess again, the implication is…, he and another Bond girl, giving the captor the eyes, a wink, which sexy person tied up on the table, funny thing underneath, Hugo Drax is named after Lord Dunsany’s younger brother, Hugo Boss, funny uniforms, Lord Plunkett, big long names, Ian Fleming knew the younger brother who was in the navy, a weird connection, a small world in that class of people, lords and second sons in the UK, they all know each other, why Roger Moore movies are fun and funny, the laser fights, every scene is payoff after payoff, as close to Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd as you can get, delightful, they’re just horrible, he’s cool lookin, the cars are cool lookin, there’s no humour, there’s no fun, darker as they go, good action movies, good Bond movies, fairly dark, Casino Royale, so bleak, mommy issues with M, he’s a servant, darker earlier James Bond movies, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diana Rigg at her Riggiest, good to go to the source, almost all of them are Canadian public domain, did somebody fake-up a new James Bond thing?, anti-MSM, that’s a sentence, an anti-trans diatribe, Bond was struck by something, not even a pretense of diversity here, Athelstain, women or non-white or disabled, he was king, so fuckin unbelievable, a human, artificial intelligence is mostly bio, people operating on automatic, some human signed off on it, some estate said this is James Bond suitable material, people want to adapt these things for a different audience, expand the audience, Hunger Games books, teenage girls and people who used to be teenage girls, a boy fashion show, a frequent complaint about many things, they don’t care, PBS guy Charlie Rose, the sequel, he knew he had a big audience of children, he had an agenda, compatible, inevitable interest, a challenge, not mentioned is the big piles of cash, rationalizing it, a sequel is very hard to do, more of the same, too different, the problem, the goodreads ratings are all 3.6 except when it is a series, 6 books into the series, the hardcore fans, the declining number of readers, do not finish, do not rate, a crazy feedback loop, more of the same, The Lord Of The Rings, way off topic, gave up, the story had ended, much more like Sherlock Holmes, this high concept, Snakes On A Plane 2?, Samuel Jackson, one of the coders, Arnold, nameless secondary characters, evacuate the island, random nameless staff, storm coming, core group, random security guards, the chef, killed in the lodge, a security guards desk, is there a body there?, dead people, killed, splatted, eaten, death count goes way down in the movie, a little ride at the beginning, the hero characters, Sattler and Grant, an item, a very good movie move, subverted in the book, he doesn’t like kids, spends a bunch of times with the kids, she’s my grad student, he’s a widower, obsessed with one thing, live out in the badlands of Utah, if he had grown up and joined the military, work for great ideas, a lot of fun stuff, Binary, about psychology, parallel characters, the baddie the goodie, mirror images, a binary gas, mix two liquids on the plane, late 60s novel, early 70s movie, the book cooks, a naked lady on the cover, not a lady in the book, raw psychological paperback mindset, 400 pages exactly, all of yesterday, all week, Robert E. Howard and Hugh B. Cave, The Cult Of The White Ape, see you on the internet.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #744 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Skull by Philip K. Dick

The SFFaudio Podcast #744 – The Skull by Philip K. Dick – read by Scott Miller for the Lost Sci-Fi Podcast. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (58 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, and Scott Miller

Talked about on today’s show:
The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, Vintage Sci-Fi on YouTube, look up The Skull, 50 episodes, multiple short stories in one episode, super-short sci-fi stories, rave reviews, SFFaudio.com was broken, mostly not broken, the PDF Page, a long list of things you should record, great recommendations, sci-fi guru, just over 10 years ago, to get into it, a couple of good attempts, worthwhile, insulting by not praising, Jesse from the past, Michael Moorcock’s Behold The Man, a religious revolutionary from 1960s, The Variable Man, this weird category, unsympathetic, a hunt, his most technically astounding like stories, more pure Philip K. Dick, Paycheck, boob action, a big sweaty hair guy, he’s not a hunter, he’s not a criminal, H.P. Lovecraft, Dunsany or Poe, his own feelings, trying to write an Astounding story, stories are better than novels (plot wise), a really awesome and interesting, themes and ideas wise, undercooked, fleshing this out, maybe he thought he nailed it, read the whole thing, from start to finish, fascinating, Karl Marx, bearded, communism!, fascinating, old enough to vaguely remember, commie madness, narrated, fell in love with it, Human Is, a lot different, kinda dark, kill somebody, a fascinating story every way you can possibly find, why is Conger’s first name Omar as opposed to John?, or James, John Connor, Jesus Christ, a Jesus story, oh man that story’s so good, guy goes back in a time machine looking for the historical Jesus, makes a stink about a shepherd who’s also a fisherman, nailed on a cross, Mary and Joseph, Jesus is intellectually disabled, he is the guy he goes looking for, really cool, trips over himself, the relgious aspect, the plot for The Terminator, trucks and explosion, James Cameron, Harlan Ellison, who he was ripping off, beat for beat and scene for scene, Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2, Alien and Aliens, beats played against, why is The Skull the influence?, creating the guy he’s sent back by, the variation is God to Jesus vs. Jesus to Jesus, Paul didn’t see it, killing Mary to prevent Jesus, a thin read, Ellison’s Soldier, Demon With A Glass Hand, both are cited, Soldier (1998), to kill Jesus, the Roman Empire hires him to kill himself, this peace religion that’s screwing up, the savior of mankind, Cameron was wrong, general science fiction and a couple of stories by Harlan Ellison, part of the story of The Terminator, the time travel aspect, time vortex, back in time, Scott chose Paul’s side, Evan doesn’t care, they both exist, earlier than everybody else, pairs well with Prominent Author, religious ideas, earlier stories, naturalistic explanations, writing the Bible, dictating the bible from memory, really funny, the whole thing is for the joke, the context is this mundane, a commuter story, what Dick was trying to do, later Gnosticism, weird Valis nonsense, luddism, peace culture, where human progress comes from a lot on the frontier, stagnation, when the frontier dies, the bad guys, the empire, we’re in a cul de sac because of this religion, sympathy with the empire, fearful of stagnation, The Variable Man, Mr. Spaceship, Dr. Futurity, a weird death cult, based on violence vs. based on peace, restoring a culture of conflict, 200 years of peace is bad, they need to get rid of the dumb people, the survival of the fittest, a rejection of public life, apolitical people, a fascist idea, Conger’s reaction, you’re not a believe in this religion, fearful of some of its mysteries, those burning things on the wall, I don’t know, braziers, an unholy person, they’ve broken into this church and stolen Jesus’ bones, the ending, he’s the guy he’s waiting for, if I was this guy, I was confronted with my own skull, a comedy, the reason you keep a skull on your desk, there is no escaping death, thinking deeply, the religious teachings, why did Jesus act that way?, he’s got a piece of god in him, sacrificing himself, this fate, there’s peace in that, the evil AI plot, 1952, his fourth story, Roog, The Little Movement, Expendable, and Beyond Lies The Wub, a little alienating, stories about abortion, a technical achievement, the setup, the execution, the setting, the 1960/61, gives some lady a heart attack, science fiction explanation for resurrection, slem gun, a religious ecstasy, my lighter malfunctioned, swamp gas, the speech vs. what people remember from what he said, peace and non-violent action, the statement that gets remembered, those who killed will die, gallows humour, really ironic, Christ’s statements, if were were to read Jesus’ statements from a different point of view, unedited/unexpurgated, councils, tossed out, assuming a historical Jesus, the gospels, Omar Khayyam, Omar means long lived, Conger?, conquer?, too normal a name, Costa Rica, an exotic middle name, Jerome, a saint, raised Catholic, saints names, in hindsight, an animal, an eel, long lived eel, snakey shaped, an ouroboros or an infinity symbol, Karl Glogauer, a carpenter, the shining man, Joe, the communist element, interested in communism, he’s from Oregon, set in California, Colorado?, where the first church was founded, the jail where they kill him, arrested from being a communist, red scare, those reds, report anything strange or unusual, he’s not wearing a mask, he’s refusing a vaccination, how long?, the red scare is over in 1970, Nixon is going to China, movements, Black Panthers, the relationship is different, disentangling of the American left from Moscow, left movements, its gonna continue, reporting his fellow Californians he’s worried he’s a communist, the authorities and the people, waiting, a good fight, they had heard about the incident at the fountain, religious ecstasy, he’s gotta beard, police, closer and closer, one of the men tossed something at him, a rock, he smiled, don’t you have any bombs, throw a bomb, let em have it, toss a few a bombs, Colorado, 1960, burn him at the stake or we want change, the knife’s edge, kill the witch or embrace change, I have a gun he says, its a metaphor they think, my sword of truth, I bring not peace but an invisible sword, they want a leader, a subversive story, they’re interested in communism, he’s got a beard, a phenomenon, wearing beards is back in fashion, a mustache is strange, beards are in, beards are out, beards are back, beatnik beards, long pants will work for me, the only guy on TV with a mustache, copycats, clean shaven Space: 1999, the Klingons are, fashion has changed in the Federation, grapple with his religious beliefs, pioneering stuff, Behold The Man but better, more science fictional, Paul was convinced, monochromatic, The Age Of Faith by Will Durant, the furious number of sects, subdivisions, religions don’t remain unified, 200 years of Islam, get each other excommunicated, the first church, that’s not how religion works, Phil, he’s kind of like a Leigh Brackett hero, in prison for breaking the blockade, a trapper, grew up on Mars and the Mountains of the Moon, fur trapping stuff to Earth, this is not a well read man, defiant of Earth secular authority, resisting non-violently, mining that, in contrast to the people of 1960, anti their government, in favour of their government, their goading him, clever, the different social groups, 1961 and 1960s, underneath the surface, Small Town, Time Out Of Joint, paranoia, interested, why is she there?, why is this beautiful young woman at my door?, swami, a speech impediment, a future accent, not conforming, check his ID, First Blood (1982), a fantasy of we treated our veterans badly, what if there’s a reason people are acting this way, interesting and subtle, this joke element, anxiety about stagnation, hence the need for war, his ultimate answer, another solution, kill Sir Francis Drake, that weird collection of strange stories, author insert, when he grows a beard: I’m turning into Karl Marx, hitting on high school girls, the wife stuff, trial wife, his mistress, a product of that religion, how does that extract, Scott Danielson teaches new adherents, derived from the Bible, quite a stretch, he says a few words, very Heinleinian, Robert Silverberg, month wife, swapping wives, commodified, contractual, The Crack In Space, marriages around him, serial monogamy, four trial wives, the stuff about the universe, the newspaper, when he goes to the library, Cooper Creek, a flower in here, a set of symbols, flower, skull, an hourglass or an infinity symbol, the girl is supposed to be that, what the beef is about, the chocolate, older guy lusting after this young girl, comparatively lustless to his other stuff, teenage girls, the creeps, when you speak those words, he’s looking at her, the man looked him over critically, it was warm, the little kerosene heater, in her flowered dress, its a good room, Mrs. Appleton, another biblical thing, Chicago, the middle west, no foreigner, its part of the United States, he’s dumb, he’s ignorant, his words are profound, a riddle, an odd paradox, a funny joke, they laughed faintly nervously, they would puzzle over it, very neat, why Philip K. Dick is remembered, just really good, what happened to the skull he carried with him?, what happened to the slem gun, the time machine itself, something in his belt, the crystal cage, The Crystal Crypt, a pink beam style image, work it out, very biblical, per-ordained, he was the sacrificial lamb, exactly like Jesus, the major action of this is religious ecstasy for a second, car chases, false memories, at what point did you realize, pretty early, read so much science fiction, it is the obvious twist (now), Kyle Reese doesn’t know he’s the father of John Connor, but John Connor knows, sending his only dad, half way through the story, he didn’t notice the teeth?, he never studied the skull carefully before hand, Scott I’ve invented a time machine, go back and kill Hitler!, time travel stories are all over, repeat ideas, the original The Time Machine story, time travel paradoxes, Philip K. Dick is underrated, Valis this and Ubik that, Three Stigmata, Hugo or Nebula or whatever, other than Galactic Pot-Healer, everyone of his short stories is better than every novel, focused in on short sci-fi, outside of Isaac Asimov, the number one seller, Bradbury received more acclaim than Dick, people love Philip K. Dick, more comments and emails, only 130, commercially viable, its personal, Prominent Author, picture the guy near the end, with his shoulder thrust back, so proud of his work, what Dick does, I can see him in the church, a grotto, early Christian underground, catacombs, Beyond Lies The Wub, even if students don’t know what happened they still like it, consciousness transference, he’s eating himself, Jesus taking the eucharist, when the priest comes by eat the cracker and drink the grape juice, what does this mean?, Of Withered Apples, what a great story!, can I go play with my tree?, his brain was weird, pre-wired for weirdness, his earliest letters (to his mom), trying to get out of gym class, Mom, send my pills, CBD oil, sad to narrate, The Crawlers, it’s a hitter, it hits, take a break man, not something you want to hear, how dare you do this to me, The Pre-Persons, abortion trucks, Evan could handle it, Will, his girlfriend/wife wanted or got an abortion, get a bren gun and lay in wait at an abortion clinic,

Past the grove of cypress trees Walter — he had been playing king of the mountain — saw the white truck, and he knew it for what it was. He thought, That’s the abortion truck. Come to take some kid in for a postpartum down at the abortion place.

And he thought, Maybe my folks called it. For me.

He ran and hid among the blackberries, feeling the scratching of the thorns but thinking, It’s better than having the air sucked out of your lungs. That’s how they do it; they perform all the P.P.s on all the kids there at the same time. They have a big room for it. For the kids nobody wants.

Burrowing deeper into the blackberries, he listened to hear if the truck stopped; he heard its motor.

“I am invisible,” he said to himself, a line he had learned at the fifth-grade play of Midsummer Night’s Dream, a line Oberon, whom he had played, had said. And after that no one could see him. Maybe that was true now. Maybe the magic saying worked in real life; so he said it again to himself, “I am invisible.” But he knew he was not. He could still see his arms and legs and shoes, and he knew they — everyone, the abortion truck man especially, and his mom and dad — they could see him too. If they looked.

If it was him they were after this time.

He wished he was a king; he wished he had magic dust all over him and a shining crown that glistened, and ruled fairyland and had Puck to confide to. To ask for advice from, even. Advice even if he himself was a king and bickered with Titania, his wife.

I guess, he thought, saying something doesn’t make it true.

his parents, my god!, don’t do this to me!, Paul was at worldcon at the time, Joanna Russ, get Scott all depressed again, there’s nothing else like it in science fiction, That Only A Mother by Judith Merril, mutant babies, Richard Matheson, close to done, be depressed in future, The Hopkins Manuscript by R.C. Sherriff, Hugo worthy, lady business, compile suggestions, the podcasting group who host that spreadsheet, funny jokes, Paul, sexist, puerile, potentially eligible, Become A Teapot, Ex Urb Ad Astra, Hugo Girl, when is Scott going to get his nomination?, the problem is you have to be active in promoting yourself, put on three medals and parade down the street, The Story-Teller by Saki, look at those cows, that story sucks!, obedient and neat and never asked for ice cream after dinner, sent to a garden, this story is not good, a wolf shows up, there were no pigs in the garden that day, hiding in a bush, the wolf eats her, the finest story ever told, about being good and what makes a good story, genuine and interesting and scary rather than good for you, Robert A. Heinlein book club, Octothorpe, content warning for this episode: capitalism, content warning every episodes, falling out of boats, are you kidding me, The Octopus by Frank Norris, clean vs. explicit, the students spread rumors, listening for the swearing, all informers, feet on the desk, what happened to Conger, operating in a communist country, mad because in Calgary, Alberta, his main thing, WithoutPapersPizza, Trudeau is a communist, grade 10 stuff, this is really wild, worse than I thought it would be, California common core, really right wing stuff, if they are both, anti-communist, Stalin-Hitler pact, they’re going to do communism, the holodomor, terror famine in Ukraine, use over time, why is this suddenly so exciting, gotta distract, Nazis in Ukraine, the Gulag, all countries have prisons, world history standards, the Chinese Civil War, political and economic upheavals, its a revolution, reducing this history, the last famines, and never again, famines in British India, a comic book artist who quit DC, Superman with a protest sign, Babylon Bee, a big talker, parents from Libya, join my anti-socialist social club, truth, justice, and the American way, until they killed Gaddafi, this woke agenda, trying to jazz him up with no cape, interesting to somebody, the reason his dad was not welcome in Libya, highest standard of living in Africa, upset Cubans in Florida, health outcomes, if you look at GDP in the Mao era, development outcomes, built hospitals, universities, analyze the causes of the cold war, so blatant, still occupied by the United States, talk about a client state, when we do it it is not bad, whoever wrote this is not seeing a big thing right in front of him, appeasement bad, trying to avoid a war, the lesson we learned is he shouldn’t have done that, more like Churchill, hard to understand, so out of date, read a book, a school textbook from the 1970s, not Zhukov, leaving a lot of stuff out, the human cost of war, write essays?, show they learned through assessment, the Yalta pact, economic recoveries, biased in every aspect, the “free world”, within the context of this you could do a lot of fun stuff, bring us into space, you have to defeat the Nazis so you can Operation Paperclip them, very noisy here, different space, dog barking, economic policies, absence of free press, Stalin targeted them on purpose, liquidating the kulaks, cultural revolution, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Canada took some immigrants, my parents…, we’re getting their story, victims tell their story, being cut-off from his family, a country controlled by a domestic government, improving public education and health outcomes, against an entrenched state bureaucracy, the Shanghai Commune, Democracy vs. Communism, what do we call a society we’re in right now?, the concept of totalitarianism, the Axis of Evil, they don’t like freedom, authoritarian, you can’t protest, you have your bank account seized, you have to have something injected into your body, to make cash, capitalism is authoritarianism, all you need is a job to know that, triggers a meeting, make it better for the kids, nothing is going to change, unprofessional behavior, they don’t want Evan, resigned for spite, minimize your expenses, head of the social studies, administrative stuff, nod and smile, making their lives miserable, interesting debates, can’t we all get along I need this job, this is all real stuff, who cares?, what does it matter if the kids learn propaganda, that autism thing coming out, they don’t care about this stuff, the education business, we wanna have standards based assessment, it shouldn’t take as long as the second world war, The Shining is a good show, that first Heinlein juvenile, a lot of stories, Beyond This Horizon, a good long run, novellas, Universe, Common Sense, mostly a novel guy, like Philip Dick that way, Requiem, If This Goes On, sometimes its just a cigar, an insurance story, Let There be Light, patents something or doesn’t patent something, a black box, I don’t need to patent it, inaccessible to them, more like the cotton gin, a copyright guy, in the business, legally married, Fredrich Engles [worked in a factory owned by his father], he’s a human being, Karl Marx did speculation, pretty poor, fuck you do what I say, slave, being a hypocrite is a big deal, trying to live in a society, cheap labour to exploit, hold their visas over, to keep body and soul together, Thomas Jefferson.

The Skull by Philip K. Dick

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #500 – READALONG: The Word For World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #500 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Maissa Bessada talk about The Word For World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin

Talked about on today’s show:
So it goes, the natives don’t like Paul, stop raping, a novella, dense, Again, Dangerous Vision edited by Harlan Ellison, out like a rocket, commissioned in the ’70s, the introduction and the afterword, easy to write, a boss with ulcers, lacking charity, anthropology, an army planet, a metaphor for Vietnam, wood, sawmill workers, not all that it was, Dump Island, ansible, gender, the role of women, the whole Biblical thing, a Prometheus story, The Streets Of Ashkelon by Harry Harrison, Avatar (2009), Dances With Wolves (1990), thinking in the shower, The Power Of Kroll, a giant Cthulhu monster, nasty colonizers, Creechies, Ben and Sam, Gunga Din, Rudyard Kipling, strange conclusion, a lover of the exotic, unconscious of his own hypocrisy, a really good writer, very praising, effortless and beautiful to read, two pieces of yesterday, a ship-load of women, a crop failure, tame this planet, smiling jiggling line of little figures, effortless, The Lathe Of Heaven, Portland, the geography on New Tahiti, mostly ocean, how can you have a northwest corner?, all kinds of jungle, temperate rainforest, things don’t start growing on your purse, Costa Rica, clothes never dry, go naked, beautiful beyond words, life expressing itself in every corner, sound-wise, bugs and birds and frogs, the smells the sights the sounds, confronted and embraced, exhausting and wet, insects are the measure of how much life is going on, horrible insects, the giant red deer, fish, squirrels, her boss, it had been done before, come from Earth about a million years ago, monkey, her Hanish-verse, names of trees, a conspiracy, right but wrong, if you listen to those E.T.s, everything from sex to thumbtacks, gook, creatures!, green fur, super-asshole, Davidson, a split-rail fence, first reefer of the day, it might have been Idaho in 1950, a distant bird, what is undeveloped, so connected to the Lathe Of Heaven, you can’t beat them, round up the ringleaders and threaten to give them hallucinogens, from Selver’s point of view, dreams, that’s implied, a built up culture, oblique glimpses, another guy named Orr, cool!, training to dream, they never sleep, a broken sleep cycle, cat-nap your way through life, active dreaming, forges, wheels, helicopters, and laser guns, the good news about reading Ursula Le Guin, witch-doctors, the men’s lodge, lord dreamer, tell me about your dream Selver, killing all the guys at Smithcamp, a stepping stone, in the pre-story, a hot afternoon with two prostitutes, 220 other women, aliens came, “went spla”, how could they be to blame, a god, a Promethean technology, ideas as weapons, Jack Vance, weaponizing a culture by means of ideas, had he learned to kill his fellow men, an infection, a foreign plague, a psychological psionics, a raincoast, a physical change to the landscape, the same is happening to Davidson, your thinking gets all screwed up, hard to know, company, helicopter logging, by that point in the story, they’re kinda loose, lumberjacks and flapjacks, chopping down trees, wearing high heels, a looseness to the military, captain vs. colonel, the army and creechies, a whole section, the ansible anagram, two different directions, the U.N., smash the radio, how a place affects you, with your person and your purse, Collapse by Jared Diamond, the Medieval warm period, unsuitable ways, winter is coming, refusing the ways of the Inuit, Thailand, the hotel food, the hotel water, the Hilton is not Thailand, rejecting the whole part of the plot, the smash, transmitting false information, this machina ex machina, answerable within your own lifetime for what you did, the League Of Worlds, administering the American Empire, The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, NAFAL, the economics, luxury goods, a kid in Chicago, rats, a nightmare, a powerful image, the Tet offensive, who the creechies are, deforestation, defoliant, massive swaths, agent orange, under that plan, Brazil, another dead Earth, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, a minor story, city?, warrens, Sarnath, India, H.P. Lovecraft, The Doom That Came To Sarnath, summary, subject to interpretation, Jason Thompson‘s adaptation, isolation, solitary, an out, I’m a god you’re a god, going native, bringing life back, a backdoor, maybe in 20 or 30 years, what will happen when I die?, the gift of killing, always touching each other, Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, go me!, murder has no reason, what’s going to happen?, interest in dreams and reality, everybody knows Scott, how simple truth was, famous for flying, if we knew what everything was, perception errors, what the word dream means in this context, dreaming the previous days information, pieces of yesterday, paying attention to it, great detail, every time we go to sleep its like we’re rebooting, hard to see the difference between, alternate New York City, what is a book if not a dream, it has no physical consequence excepting piling up, Karl Marx changed the world, George Orwell, taken from the world and then dream, her dreams are more real than she is now, Philip K. Dick’s dreams are more real than he is now, dreamed into existence, an E.E.G. subject, the Parthenon to a mud-hut, the aboriginal cultural of Australia, the Dreamtime, counting coins, shared dreaming, trees communicating to each other, considered as the trees, page 35, things looked pretty neat for a logging camp, endless meaningless, in your face and in your eyes, corruplast, eaten by the jungle, a permanent stain, being newed again, the world is always new, the creechie women, why the women listen, the afterword, the boss is a man, he didn’t want to play, he wanted to moralize, he was a man, when women are taking more assertiveness with their role in society, what feminists should be looking up to, the role of gender, The Left Hand Of Darkness, a lot of tea, Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, too much kicking, what makes a gender role a gender role, captured incredibly well, George Orr, murder and revolution, a feminist streak, the ecological devastation, an act of rape, this is a new time for the world, at the farthest grows the Tree where the fruit ripens, the roots are deeper than the forest, no evidence that the creechies aren’t human, Colonel Dong, not really about Vietnam, every kind of human is represented (other than women), Euraf, Asian, all in destruction together, ill, bowels, water illness, when you go to the jungle you get bit, Selver’s name, self, selfish, subversive, kinda Buddhist, Taoist beliefs, Tibet, the land of Buddhists, Tibetans who resisted with weapons, shooting at your enemy, submission poses, certain traditions, surrender symbols, it doesn’t have answers, a lot of questions, terran man is clay, they are trees, Earth is rock and static, Trees have roots and grow and are more interconnected, not as rich as Dune by Frank Herbert, the desert planet, Waterworld (1995), the culture is deceptively rich, a pretty high rung, a good writer, CBC radio’s Vanishing Point adaptation from 1989, too much screaming, we don’t see it, straight from the book, very faithful, singing = screaming, a weird noise, a fantasy set in a rainforest, played on the title, probably pulling, urination, not concepts!, language!, reading books, no censorship, hygienic homosexuality, sure he’s a 20th century tough guy, what does that mean?, she’s way ahead of the curve, so ahead of its time, straight on with what is a gender role, this metaphor, what does that mean?, why Ursula Le Guin has a prominent position, always interested in interesting stuff, a pipe-smoker, just Gandalf, pipeweed.

Again, Dangerous Visions - The Word For World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin

BOOK OF THE ROAD - The Word For World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Word For World Is Forest - illustrated by Peter Eleson

Berkley - The Word For World Is Forest

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #121 – READALONG: Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #121 – Scott, Jesse, Tamahome and Gregg Margarite talk about Joe Haldeman’s novel Forever Peace.

Talked about on today’s show:
The Forever War, Forever Peace, Forever Free, Haldeman’s experiences in South-East Asia (during the Vietnam War), William Mandella, Mandala, Julian Class, Philip Klass (William Tenn), racism, remotely controlled soldier robots, jacks, empathy, sharing menstruation, baldness as a fashion, the nanoforge (a molecular nanotechnology), caper, Stranger In A Stranger Land, heist, “two novellas smushed together”, John W. Campbell, Ben Bova, self help groups, one conceit that remains unexamined, magic machine (aka a sub-atomic replicator), Mack Reynolds, telepathy, asymmetric warfare, prescience, Libya, Pakistan, the two peaces of Forever Peace, what of the aftermath?, applying Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics to people, Gregg is a creature capable of killing, not everyone wants to be the black sheep, is 98% of humanity humanizable?, the earth where everyone is gay, the earth where everyone is a clone, “a giant of SF”, The Memory Of Earth by Orson Scott Card, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, do you grok the group?, “The Hammer of God”, Jonestown, David Koresh, a religion that requires you believe in evolution, punctuated equilibrium, treating the bible like a science book (is problematic), we’re gonna drill into you brain and then you won’t have those feelings anymore, a utopian dystopia, Malthusian theory, the singularity, A Clockwork Orange, moral conviction vs. physical restriction, Gregg needs his murderer (and we do too), Starship Troopers, false consciousness, Women’s Studies, The Tea Party,

“False consciousness is the Marxist thesis that material and institutional processes in capitalist society are misleading to the proletariat, and to other classes. These processes betray the true relations of forces between those classes, and the real state of affairs regarding the development of pre-socialist society”,

following orders (as false consciousness), Stockholm syndrome, identifying with your oppressor, why do people do things that are against their own interests?, Costa Rica, withholding technology vs. holding resources hostage, Plato’s cave, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”, is Jesse making an argument for absolute truth?, what is truth?, “one person’s murder is another person’s dinner”, “God exists or he doesn’t exist”, “assuming we agree on the definition of God”, “we have a bedrock of truth”, Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction, “we’re here and we’re invading your software”, our perception of reality changes, “how can it not always be this way?”, “it’s The Matrix“, Gregg can find reasonable doubt in his own existence, Cogito Ergo Sum (I think therefore I am), René Descartes, “I doubt therefore I am”, Tama has no take, good and bad vs. right and wrong, a mass of conflicting impulses (ambivalence), Heinlein’s militaristic thinking vs. Haldeman’s militaristic thinking, Heinlein’s Future History series, religious conversion, telepathy vs. total immersion, Jonathan Swift, “you can’t reasons someone out of something they weren’t reasoned into”, there are two tenets in Greggism, what you believe doesn’t has to be true, Alan Moore’s personal made-up religion, Scott isn’t a Catholic because of feeling alone, Joseph Campbell “everything is true”, “he was born with a plowshare”, magical thinking, “that’s true for you and that’s fine”, a religious wacko who wants to end the world seems like a tired villain, Source Code, Moon is fantastic (but Source Code is not), the Norwegian whack job, can’t we find another kind of religion, Carl von Clausewitz, The Operative from Serenity (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), effective villains, Robert E. Lee, Adolph Hitler vs. Joseph Stalin vs. Mao Zedong, the Tehran Conference, “Uncle Joe”, Stalin’s ending was noir, Pandora’s Star by Peter F. Hamilton has a great (and dirty) villain, Orson Scott Card’s Buggers, Speaker For The Dead, Ender’s Game, zombies are like a force of nature, Heinleinian villains are not diabolical, the ultimate orbital platform, the English Empire, “besides we’re better than you”, why do English actors always play villains? American accents = movie stars, Vancouver is a science fiction ghetto, iambk audio, the proper pronunciation of “about” in Canada, shock vs. shark, accents are lazy ways of speaking, George Wilson (the narrator of Forever Peace), P.G. Wodehouse, Bertie and Jeeves, the secret language of (drunken) Cockneys, no stupid voices please (in audiobooks), if you hire Nicholson for you movie your movie is a Jack Nicholson movie, Gregg’s signature voice may lose him work, why does the narrative switch between first and third person throughout Forever Peace, Yes, Minister, Goodreads.com, senior civil servant (3rd person) vs. elected official (1st person), The Long Habit Of Living by Joe Haldeman, The Forever War is told in first person (right?)

RECORDED BOOKS - Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #116 – READALONG: The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #116 – Scott, Jesse, Tamahome and Professor Eric S. Rabkin talk about The Space Merchants (aka Gravy Planet) by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth

Talked about on today’s show:
Frederik Pohl’s blog, differences between Gravy Planet and The Space Merchants Coca-Cola vs. Yummy Cola, com-pocalypse (a commercial apocalypse), advertizing, conservationists -> connies (or consies) is an analogue for communists -> commies, Tristan Und Isolde, Costa Rica, Chicken Little, Fowler Shocken, 1950s. Jews in “the Science Fiction ghetto”, H.L. Gold, Phlip Klass (William Tenn), Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, the Wikipedia entry for The Space Merchants, a study guide for The Space Merchants, Levittown, Man Plus, The Merchants War, Pohl’s interest in psychiatry, Gateway, structural problems in The Space Merchants, identity theft, a hero’s journey, The Odyssey, katabasis, banana republic, the United Fruit Company, Cuba, U.S. Marines in Columbia, Vance Packard’s The Hidden Persuaders, Jack O’Shea, little people are the perfect astronauts, pilots tend to be small people, the continuing relevance of The Space Merchants, “transformed language”, The Left Hand Of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, “the Glaciers didn’t freeze overnight” (Rome wasn’t built in a day), what side do you oil your bread on, pedaling your Cadillac into the future, are there more cars in the U.S.A. than people?, William Gibson, The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed, corporatocracy, Oliver Stone, does Wall Street run the world or is it Madison Avenue?, representative government per capita (per head) or ad valorem (to value), The Marching Morons, dystopia, utopia, citizen vs. consumer, CBC’s The Age Of Persuasion podcast, the effectiveness of advertizing, feminine hygine products, “it has wings”, coffiest vs. Starbucks, Jon Huntsman, Tim Pawlenty, how effective is advertizing?, saturation of advertizing vs. the message of advertizing itself, does advertizing work?, who consumes dog food?, soyaburger, Chlorella, algae, soylent red, despite what he says Eric is not a jerk vegetarian, seitan (wheat gluten food), Moby Dick, Mountain Dew in the U.S.A. vs. Mountain Dew in Canada, energy drinks, Jolt Cola, phial vs. vile, Philip K. Dick’s Do Android Dream Of Electric Sheep?, the Penfield Mood Organ, caffeine, Tamahome likes unsweetened chocolate, what did Montezuma drink all day long?, does has the internet lessen the impact of advertizing?, the spillage from penis enhancement, Eric bought a wide cross section of pornography, “genuine spurious placebo”, Boeing “forever new frontiers”, the Dubai Ports controversy, Cisco Systems, I, Robot, Minority Report, gesture recognition, Yelp, Wikileaks: U.S. diplomats pressed Boeing deals, Bombardier, “he came from an old family”, Kennedy, Bush, Heddy and Hester, Hedy Lamarr, Hester Prynne, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man, The Stars My Destination, “Eight sir, seven sir, six sir, five sir, four sir, three sir, two sir, one. Tenser, said the Tensor, Tenser said the Tensor. Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun.” Rebecca Black’s Friday is a train wreck, Arthur C. Clarke‘s Tales From The White Heart, colonizing your brain, “you haven’t read a book until you’ve talked about it”, is solitary reading a different kind of thing than social reading?, satire, Monty Python’s “The Funniest Joke In The World” sketch, advertizing in books, advertizing in paperback novels, propaganda, recommendation vs. advertizing, making something available vs. thrusting it upon you, metaSFFaudio, The Reapers Are The Angels by Alden Bell, Flannery O’Connor with zombies, why SFFaudio doesn’t link to Amazon.com, Morning Joe, Fox News, Scott is now a politician, Douglas Adams, political debate being replaced by sound bites, Jon Stewart vs. Sean Hannity, Jon Stewart’s appearance on Crossfire, Will Rogers, communication vs. advertizing, jokes are revelations, brand awareness, why do kids want to see Transformers 3?, Cedar Rapids is a coming of age movie about the nature of friendship, why is there no commercial released audiobook of The Space Merchants?, The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein, Them!, anti-consumerism (anti-Americanism), tobacco packaging warning messages (are ads), the tobacco industry vs. the anti-tobacco industry, church advertizing, Scientology doesn’t sell the same message as many other religions, L. Ron Hubbard, A.E. van Vogt, Dianetics, the premise of Null-A, Friedrich Nietzsche.

Illustrations from the original serialization of Gravy Planet (aka The Space Merchants) in Galaxy Science Fiction magazine’s July August and September 1952 issues:

Gravy Planet illustrations by Don Sibley

Posted by Jesse Willis