Tag: Donald E. Westlake

The SFFaudio Podcast #869 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Assassination Bureau, Ltd. by Jack London and Robert Fish

The SFFaudio Podcast #869 – The Assassination Bureau, Ltd. by Jack London and Robert Fish (4 hours 32 minutes) read by Tatiana Chuchilla for LibriVox, followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Maissa Bessada.

Talked about on today’s show:
1910, 1963, Jack London and Robert Fish, a physical copy at a used bookstore, surprisingly PUBLIC DOMAIN, years went by, a movie, how fortunitous, read by a human, Titania somebody, favourite LibriVox narrator, Ltd., the end papers on the PDF, the movie a fair amount, as it went along, very much didactic, a lot of exposition, as it kept going, softened towards it, a different perspective, the movie was so fun, a different mindset, appreciated it much more, the movie’s better, lightens it, they play so much more, the book is not designed to be funny, a little bit arch, helps tell the story, deleted one of the characters and replaced that character as the love interest, son-in-law-be, Diana Rigg, we fall in love with Dragomilov, different ending, 237 page PDF, page 231, Jack London’s notes, Charmain London, London died in 1916, when is it set?, automobiles in it, the movie does a better job with picking a period, is this a science fiction book?, something close to it, because of the concept itself, fiction fiction, airship in the movie, not practically apparently, they’re always coming back, pick a scab, the flying cars exist (almost all in China), just prior to WWI, all the little vignettes are of a silent movie type, Yul Brenner, the other bald guy with the mustache, who loves ya, baby?, Oliver Read, Kojack, Telly Savalas, the newspaper owner, vice-chair, all bald guys look the same, he’s not Captain Picard, your head is so shiny, distracted by the mustache, create WWI, killing all the heads of Europe, as that didn’t happen, alternate history, or a secret history, makes it like a cartoon, the book is much closer to Around The World In Eighty Days than anything else, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes is close to science fiction, it’s not H.G. Wells but it is very close, the extraordinary character of Holmes, Watson is us, a minute late, the appeal of Back To The Future (1985), we like spending time with Doc and Marty, the plot is helpful, spill the beans, the relationship between Doc brown and Mary McFly, an avuncular relationship, Marty is the nephew and Doc is the uncle, explaining who Marty is, trying to get his mom and dad to hook up, Doc Brown is science fiction, Marty McFly is the reader of science fiction, Marty McFly likes to play guitar, to get yelled at, it isn’t about formal schooling, extracurricular activities, after midnight in the mall parking lot, in the movie of this book, we are Diana Rigg, giving a lecture so that she can get a job, now we’re with her, Oliver Reed, this is a romance, what have I done?, the book is pretty weak, by the end it picked up a little bit, it sewed up its ideas, why is it a novel?, why Jack London didn’t finish it, closed it up, new book by Michael Crichton and James Patterson, Eruption, Michael Crichton is dead, he shouldn’t have don the second one, his legacy has turned into, the estate wants some more cash, James Patterson he’s well known, mostly series, airport books, Along Came A Spider, a spy guy, Alex Cross, Maximum Ride, many standalone thrillers and novels, why would you read these, really mainstream, Tom Clancy, long dead, finishing somebody else’ book, 4-0 years later, 1910 – 1963, the key thing, Jack London was a writing machine, Sinclair Lewis, joke writers, buy them from other comedians, we’ve seen this story done better, Goliah, a secret organization to try to change the world, so many years ago, 1910, it posits a kind of privatized CIA with morals and ethics, explained in the film, overexplained in the book, short for a novel, not tight, Goliah is 13 pages, only 20,000 words were written by Jack London, 5000 words is like a half hour, pull all the threads together, abandoning it, malformed it, too many characters, a similar scene in The Sea Wolf, a long dystopian novel, 800 shows you might have been on, The Dream Of Debs, Paul and Will, a candidate for president jailed by [Woodrow] Wilson, The Scarlet Plague, a tribe led by a guy named chauffeur, the preservation of books, a biography of Jack London, The Red One, Thee Star Rover, visits other times while in a straight jacket, The Iron Heel, bad relationships, people lecturing each other in each other’s homes, the film much improves it, instead of 80 days it is a year, all the deaths are comedic, no blood, eat poison very slowly, is there vanilla in here?, escapes, I see a comedy here, some really cool stuff in this book, the movie helped Maissa like the book, very interesting, what separates us from the animals, he accepts the assignment to kill himself, better in the book than in the movie, the rationale fits, montage, explosions, framesetting, overlay, all fun, very old fashioned film, it feels like one, very definitive, its before this, its not after that, set in the future or not, one line, one of the people who was assassinated was Bertrand Russell, lived until 1970, he really is in this book in the philosophy, be politik in the world, what are we to do about about anarchism, why he couldn’t finish it, a hard topic, by making it a farce, walk out of the movie theater, go get some coffee, two years later, one of the lines, salvation must come, the filmmakers, thinking about it, why the bureau cannot work, we can’t impose this, from the world, not bound by religious morality, his own code of ethics, Robert Fish is involved, some of the material in here is clearly London, relfect on what’s going on in Goliah, getting rid of the oligarchs, bend to my will and do better or suffer the consequence, all this poverty, a socialist and a millionaire, my wit, my strength, posit this assassination bureau, a fun comedy, they didn’t get what I was trying to say, not enough lectures and looking at bookshelves, less dynamic that it should be, a feeling of The Call Of The Wild, fleeting little scenes, humans vs. animals, everyman is worthy of death, we need to scrutinize you more, an inversion of Jesus’ every person should be saved, the birds and the beasts and the slime molds, the killing of animals for meat, moral judgement, the best thing we can do is follow our ethical code, a book about killing people and being ethical, the reason he must die is he accepted the contract, the son, can take over the assassination bureau, make the world a better place, was an anarchist, billionaire socialist, continue without assassination, dissatisfactory, The Sea Wolf, the paradise of slaughtering seals on the beach, the old sailor (the Jack London stand-in), [Wolf Larsen], an Eden, there is that, a Hawaii guy, this book doesn’t feel like a Robert Fish book because it feels very Jack Londony, preserve as much of the material, don’t delete things, a miscarriage, not a miscarriage, we can sell this baby, cyborg parts, Londonisms, an Irish Terrier, what terriers are for, for vermin, after rats, ratters, go into holes, big rats in Ireland, all the snakes are gone, a very cool book by Jack London, fully Jack London, set in the South Pacific, Jerry Of The Islands, as opposed to being in the arctic, a little dog for being on boats, a dog lover, really strong with ideas, ratting the thing to death, shaking it out and seeing what’s there, all of his short stories are better, good ideas, mad at another guy in a room, some sort of thing that happened to him, who is Jack London arguing with?, his bio-dad, disappears before he is born, arguing with himself, he’s also the young guy, I’m better than you think I am, dad, the fun of the idea, the movie is better, better executed for the idea, looking at the bookshelves, the opening of the book, bang, they’re all bad, Buck is the viewpoint character, over the shoulder right beside him, the man in the red sweater, Harrison Ford was one of the last owners, took 20% of the book and expanded it left and expanded it right, what makes a story good is what materials you were working with, the purity of the materials, good ideas in this book, memorialized war heroes, early chapters, the law of tooth and fang, violence, glorified, the basic law, reason and ethics and morality, instead of following gravity, trying to do good in the world, a crazy idea, if I kill this one person, it’s too hard a question, where do you stop, where do you draw lines like that, the short story instead, the premise sticks, doing it not to punish people but to make the world better, who are the people who are doing this?, rich business men, punish their rivals, kings, people in power, no women assassinated, missing from the book, ripe, make light of, the Ruthenians, central European, slavs, between Russia and Germany, the Assassination of an Arch-Duke, happened in 1914, this is a real phenomena in the world, bomb throwing anarchists, start writing, rich fat cats who’ve lost the moral code, murder for profit, in the book everybody’s ethical, published in 1963, sell it to film, spicier for that purpose, Sinclair Lewis deserves some credit, Guy Boothby’s The Woman Of Death, it has not crashed, it will cut us off, continue, prolific novelist, sensational fiction, the Doctor Nichola series, a Victorian forerunner, gothic egypt, supernatural revenge, Rudyard Kipling, George Orwell, bottled humuculous, a secret society, the suicide club, a dueling society, they all wear masks, a veil over their face, for rich dilettante guys with no jobs, direct plays in the park, got no writing or acting skills, a secret dueling society, Donald Westlake, Lord Of Light, The Hour Of The Dragon, Killing Time, private detective, a PDF, heresy to say it, corruption, better than Hammett’s Red Harvest, Otto Penzler, Tim Smith, his little black book, should be good, Scott loves Westlake too, not super famous like he should be, Lawrence Block is scarier, his comedic stuff, sparkly, The Spy In The Elevator, sparky and cute, big darkness, tells a funny story, great with the gestures, Dogs in the South Pacific books, fun chat, good movies, 4 in person rehearsals, doubled up, storylines are similar anyway, why he does that, why is Back To The Future (1985) such a good movie, too popular, talking about Star Wars is easy, talking about Sorcerer (1977), Stephen Spielberg, science fiction, fun characters, music, a tight story, his sister has so many boyfriends, Burger King, the truck he wanted, polishing the car, go to the lake, spark as a the kiss happens, it makes you want the sequel, more of the same, he drinks a lot, abusive to his ex-wife, the warning signs, recapitulate the final scene of the first movie, what about Jennifer?, turn out to be assholes, where we’re going we don’t need roads, a spray in the eye, they wrote her out of the movie, they want to do the same movie, Marty at home, children are all played by Michael Keaton [J. Fox], don’t say a word, another invention, another scientific invention, some of the Weinbaum shows, The Worlds Of If, avuncular relationship, likes girls, old professor friend, Doc whatever, this new machine, each incident is a different machine, The Ideal, dating another girl, Professor Von Manderpootz, Star Trek, a different planet, a different scientific idea, a different alien relationship, planet of the gangster, time travel episode, some of them are really bad, back in time to the 1960s, a lady who can turn into a cat, tiny insects, terrible terrible, protagonists are insects, the Horta, the Teri Garr one, Bewitched style, Ferengi’s go to Earth, they’re cartoon humans, capitalism made cute, somehow figure out this is a bad date, speed dating, 15 people in 15 minutes, awkward five minutes, do you like to read books, I’m a vegan, here are six nice things about me, I don’t brag much, we have to do that with authors, Terry Pratchett, other people should marry him, Douglas Adams, a double date, it is literally spending time with somebody, the movie was good, we got something out of it, Frankenstein, she was the girlfriend in Tootsie (1982), Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977), Goldie Hawn, both blondes and bald people, Mr. Mom, The Conversation, Oh, God, The Black Stallion, Assignment: Earth, not a lot of dogs in Deep Space 9, in a virtual game, interesting idea, Jake and that woman who’s a psychic vampire, a B plot, an A idea, Captain Sisko has found a space anomaly, the way TNG, back on deck 2, hits higher highs more generally, talk about Star Trek again show, the French movie, Mars Express (2023), very science fictiony, too much available, mostly crap, easy, do the work, so fulfilling to do it, Reading, Short And Deep, Ball Of Fire (1941), Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, one of eight professors working on an encyclopedia, newsboy, gun moll, fuddy duddy professor, changing their loves, its really fun, Double Indemnity (1944), the guy who dies in the end of a Charlton Heston, Soylent Green (1973), Edward G. Robinson, lonely widower, I really like you and respect you, murder her husband, its love, framed by a dictaphone recording, the whole story in the middle, her curves, she’s just a woman, her presence on screen, she commands the camera to look at her, she was huge, way bigger than Helen Mirren ever was, a lot of westerns, her later career, becoming a movie star, Barbara Stanwyck is this movie, Wild Robot (2024), The Iron Giant (1999).

The Assassination Bureau

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #868 – READALONG: Hombre by Elmore Leonard

The SFFaudio Podcast #868 – Jesse and Scott Danielson talk about Hombre by Elmore Leonard

Talked about on today’s show:
why did we pick this particular one?, wanting to read, audio stack, he’s a good writer, Justified, his influence on it, the dialogue is amazing on that show, terrific, the Paul Newman movie, the audio drama, a very good story, the better story version of it, the movie, keeps almost everything that’s in the book, no voice over narration, the viewpoint character, just a camera telling the story, the editors, the moviemakers, who the character is, a kid, a lot of his internal thoughts, what he’s interested in, his lame thoughts about things, we get to see the story more purely, on the stagecoach, differences, the innkeeper lady, a little out of sequence, the end of the movie, our guy dead, our man dead, cut, he was the one we were following, top 5 Star Trek original series, a trick, some good episodes not easily nameable, which one was that, the Gorn episode, Arena, most episodes are excellent, dogs or semi-interesting, Amok time, alphabetical order, Galileo, categorizing things alphabetically, Balance Of Terror, Shore Leave, the surprise, Theodore Sturgeon, fun and funny, fantasy humour episode, which of them is Hombre?, you’re correct, who is the Hombre in the Galileo 7, a movie called Stagecoach (1939), the movie, tribute to John Wayne, black and white cowboy, a zoomup, holding his saddle, winchester, lever action rifle, to attract the attention of the stagecoach, two important parts, Terminator 2, a cowboy spinning guns thing, big iron, the plot of that movie, a little bit similar, 9 strange people, Arizona?, Apache territory, stop to pick up the hero, pre-war, post-war western, like Hombre, a revisionist western, the old fashioned western, horses, Hopalong Cassidy, post-classical, subverts the myth, less simplistic view, the main character dies at the end, not typical, western comics, Louis L’Amour, Lonesome Dove, what is this book about, John Russell, racism, hypocrisy, Mexican characters, culturally, his haircut, it is revealed to us, let me tell you about John Russell, he had many names, ideas going on in this book, he is like an Indian if he’s not an Indian, he has a conversation, when you talk about those people, you won’t eat a dog, this isn’t about his identity, scolding people, being frustrated, why does John Russell do what he does?, very tricky, good book?, very good book, a book for men or for women, female characters, prominent, picturing the movie, the movie has overpowered the book, the wife, long history of life in the west, a strong character, the best character that’s female in the movie isn’t in the book, she’s kind of the love interest for the audience, we love her, to take your date to, the other people on the stagecoach, we like the Mexican boss, we don’t hate the kid all the time, we don’t like Doctor Faver, the girl with the Apaches, liking her in the end, why is Mr. Spock the Apache, he’s the outsider, in the Galileo 7 which character is the Mexican stagecoach driver?, it’s Leonard McCoy, he’s also kind of the women, you cold blooded inhuman, it ends differently, a television show, just redshirts, Mr Scott’s there too, providing the plot happening, we have no fuel, what about the phasers, there’s always possibilities, deep story here, an Ernest Haycox short story, the outsider there is the Ringo Kid, pretty rare, Ringo Star, a long list of Ringos, don’t know or care, wears a lot of rings?, an outlaw, he’s not an Indian, it’s not a racism story, it’s a weirder old fashioned western, not to modern tastes, where the story came from a Desilu connection, Lucille Ball, Five Came Back (1939), South America, people pointing to that, semi-legit, Flight Of The Phoenix (1965), Guy De Maupassant, Boule De Suif, Ball Of Fat, a gender flipped version of Hombre, the Prussian takeover of France around 1870, 1880, this short novel, what being a man means, almost heavyhanded in the book, a flashback, Tres Hombres, fights like three men, what’s going on in people’s heads, a stratified society, it’s about class, last stagecoach out of town, it’s snowing, cold rather than heat, complete inversion, as they go over the road, characters and personalities, a prostitute, everybody has reasons for hating her, a high end guy, that guy’s wife, two nuns, a contrast of females, society person, two ugly women, she’s fat, she’s got big boobs, very kissable, the author’s preference, very hungry, a basketful of food, munching, mouth is watering, she shares it out, only one cup, become very chummy, getting along, the we are all getting along, what you talkin bout we?, inside job, stole the ticket from the soldier, really good actor in the movie, The Rifleman, as a kid, Have Gun, Will Travel, Richard Boone, such a bastard, we hate him a lot, more compressed, no inside man in this holdup, stuck in the mud, a Prussian officer, what you’ve learned, everybody hates the Prussians, honest hatred for the Prussians, why they’re leaving, the rich people want to save their money, it comes to pass, won’t let the stagecoach goes, deliver her services, because he’s a Prussian, they all turn on her, why it would make Maupassant into a famous guy, a woman’s virtue, she’s the most virtuous one amongst them, she didn’t have to leave, she genuinely doesn’t like the Prussians, property seized, my property is my business, the most steadfast, get the money and run, she is forced to give up her principles, forced by the group to have sex with the Prussian, the structure of Hombre, two indians go into a bar to have a drink, holdup men, jostles his arm, our hero shows up, hits him in the face with the butt end of his rifle, contempt is not appreciated, doesn’t recognize him as John Russell, recognizes his voice, a parallelism, eating the dogs, they’re dirty, they pick at themselves, her husband is literally starving the Indians, took a great story and turned it, a western, not set in 1899, a transition period, the stage line, the right period, it’s in the west, Arizona, occupation and privation, she implies, the women cut her hair, I’m not going to tell you what it was like when the men had me alone, what was it like?, raping her all day long, contemptuous of her former society, captives by natives, sometimes people prefer it, Dances With Wolves (1990), learns to dance with wolves, we’re pushed in either direction, what was it like, it must have been horrible, matter of fact, possibly they weren’t as horrible as all that, we are invited to speculate but we are not told, the way a Rashomon-style story works, an awe, that’s why the title is important, what do we mean by a man, he does what a man does, you people fucked this all up, probably gonna get me killed, a let’s go try and fix this story, even the Mexican stagecoach guy we like, the capable one, he saved the water, need this guy, their only hope, the pattern works the same, thinking of their station, not every piece works perfectly, until they get hungry, three wives, a bigger version of this story, the mudwagon is much smaller, ovens for their feet, the water is the resource that needs to be watched, a little bit of warmth, food and her virtue, when you read a gender flipped story, a Conanna The Barbarian movie, female barbarian, tougher than any man, males are disposable, that’s what a man does, men are more disposable, let’s go get in a car wrecked, let’s drive carefuller, send yourself out there, that’s what this story is about, that’s what makes him a man or three men, that’s why this story works, why it is such a good story, an aspect of it, the racism, the moral certainty of these people of his character, they ask him to get out of the stagecoach, the Mexican’s reaction, just ride on top, what does it matter, don’t rock the boat, our narrator kid, a former official of the company, I’m officially fired, see that man get kicked out, he doesn’t bully, he’s not a Richard Boone bully, so good, cold dead hand, the shit bullied out of him, just takes his ticket, you called me a bad name, we’re all in this together, we we we, individualism, libertarianism, the message, this is what a man is, this is what a man is like, don’t be like these other men, or is he doing it for the girl?, the right thing to do, what it is, why does he get out of the stagecoach, argued into it, no skin off his nose, just want to have coffee, the final scene in the mining area, to try to save the girl, her whole lifestyle is funded by her husband’s graft, Indian agents, not even a real doctor, a doctor of divinity, a man’s work, preventing a woman from dying, because somebody needs to do it, none of these other people are men, kill us anyway, coulda chucked the money down, they want the water too, why it is so disturbing, in 1967, a disturbing movie, the same story as Tom Godwin’s The Cold Equations, suddenly convert phaser juice into fuel for your aircraft, gender flip it, made the pilot a female, he was going to visit his sister on Woden, we don’t think it a horror, a man killing a girl, it needs to be done, 7 people are more valuable than 1, the same setup, let’s grind em up in a meatgrinder, almost always men, opposition to women being sent into combat, via a draft, distanced from it, in the recent bombing of Iran one of the pilots was a woman, women can do it, the audio drama, only an hour long, keeps the narrator, summarize, set scenes, tricks to making audio drama work, the simplest way (not the best way), the movie does the best version, the movie is clearly the best, the book is good in some of the details, the way of the story being told, Maupassant doesn’t do it that way, third person omniscient narrator, that setup, where the book excels is in the dialogue, Fire In The Hole, they bought the character, two novels, this weird thing with his writing, he starts off for an idea for a story, he’s not really a story guy, he’s a character guy, Karen Sisco, Karen Makes Out, Out Of Sight, let me see how this character walks and talks, Carla Gugino, Pronto, Riding The Rap, Peter Falk, a paid researcher, more co-author than researcher, Tishomingo Blues, local dixie-mafia, high stakes civil war reenactors, Bounty Hunters, The Moonshine War, Swag, The Switch, City Primeval, Gold Coat, Freaky Deaky, Bandits, Get Shorty, Out Of Sight, imdb Elmore Leonard, a Tarantino movie, Three Ten To Yuma, invasion of Cuba, Teddy Roosevelt, A Coyote’s In The House, Westlake and Block, hand gestures vs. dialogue, more westerns of his, male confronting male, a good western, Be Cool, John Travolta, a tv show too, a gangster who moves to Hollywood, I really like movies, a sequel, fairly inconsistent, Block is the most consistent, I thought Elmore Leonard was awesome, a tough guy learning about civil war era underwear, a “farb”, The Rosary Murders, a very scott book, Umberto Eco, The Name Of The Rose, a Scott book, Sean Connery, a mini-series, a nod to Jorge Luis Borges, John Turturro, 8 episodes, do that book one day, a couple of weeks of prep, a short story in between, Elmore Leonard’s The Rustlers, the audiobook version, there isn’t much to say about it, it’s just good, this is Guy De Maupassant retold, Stagecoach is also Maupassant americanized, instead of switching from race to class, Airport (1970) and Airplane (1979), a train or plane full of different kinds of people who react and depend on one person, the burnt out guy from WWII has to fly the plane again, become the man, nuns who speak Jive, characters on the train, characters in a situation, The Towering Inferno (1974) is stationary, The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Hombre hits hard, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, listening to stupid people, we gotta fix this shit, buckle down don’t complain do it, the same essential core, everyone has to rely on John Wayne, he’s a criminal, everybody likes him, a similar thing in Assault On Precinct 13 (1976), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, High Noon (1952), Hombre the movie is more suitable for women as well, go to the used bookstore, a western section, very small, not a lot of women poring over that section, different kind of stories for us, how to be, why it is successful, a darn good story, talking about them today, the best version of the story, Paul Newman, movie star, Cool Hand Luke time, how simple the movie is, how cheap it is, couple of weeks in the desert, couple horses, no special effects, couple of squibs, fake blood, good result, he was old, he’s the guy on the salad dressing, Barbara Stanwyck, shaking people to their core, we need to have more special effects, where’s the action in this?, a punch, a jostle, hit with the butt end of a rifle, machine guns flying, literary kinda, Lord Of Light by Roger Zelazny, not read by him?, out of print for a long time, he’s a good narrator, devoted to him Victor Bevine, Matt Godfrey, maybe it didn’t exist, all of the Amber novels, A Night In Lonesome October, why people love that book so much, the first five Amber novels, started late for public domain purposes, fantasy, sword and sorcery almost, colonizing another planet, in awe of it, world religion, Hindu gods, a Philip K. Dick novel that’s kind of similar, influence on the United States, The Divine Invasion, Linda Ronstadt, The Cosmic Puppets, Virginia, similarly oblivious, intolerant, gonna be the love interest, town drunk, too much detail, demi-gods, instead of having a spiritual journey, man’s role on earth, the nature of evil, using a different set of background assumptions, their different, born in Maryland or Virginia (near DC), he went back to the town her remembered as a child, an overlay, what if things are not as they seem, how Zelazny puts books together, smoking in Amber, self-insert, with Maupassant, he’s everyone, the moral failings of people, bizarre rationalizations, incredibly pregnant, so pregnant, the moral questioning goes in every direction, he’s really good, his novels, Bel Ami, visit the family, leave the dog, there and back long day, a movie each way, listen to an audiobook, look at the road?, book club at work, Just Stab Me Now by Jill Bearup, a spoof or a satire of a romantasy, a little meta, not-uninteresting, a very new book, Burial Rites by Hannah Kent, last person executed in Iceland, still in development, none of these covers are good, just a bunch of fonts and floors, The Haar by David Sodergren, Three Body Problem, Project Hail Mary, Artemis, how couldn’t there be?, 21 hours, Theodore Bikel, Richard Poe is good, the problems with the audiobook are the main character narrator not the actual narrator, that’s coming up, metastuff, how long he’s been workin on the book, such a nothing character, she wouldn’t take my blanket last night, prudish vs. not prudish, slaps you in the face with somebody’s boob, so important to story, Edgar Allan Poe, a western and The Galileo Seven can be the same story, back burner.

BB - Hombre by Elmore Leonard

Hombre by Elmore Leonard

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #501 – An Empty Threat by Donald E. Westlake

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #501

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss An Empty Threat by Donald E. Westlake

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

An Empty Threat was first published in Manhunt, February 1960.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

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

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

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

Aeneas tells Dido of The Trojan War by Guerin

Posted by Jesse Willis

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

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

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

GOLD MEDAL - Killers Are My Meat

GOLD MEDAL - Killers Are My Meat

The SFFaudio Podcast #818 – READALONG: The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

The SFFaudio Podcast #818 – Jesse and Scott Danielson talk about The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

Talked about on today’s show:
grounded on where you’re at, in case you’re disoriented, you’re the president, 2nd Paul Kavanaugh novel, the copyright is under Paul Kavanaugh, pseudonyms and copyright renewals, to hide the identity, in the afterword, they way he writes and talks and thinks, I don’t know, how this book ends, very distinctively Lawrence Blocky, getting to know Lawrence Block, a lot of sex in this book, guy talking to himself for most of the book, conversations with Heidegger, full of references, Nazi philosopher, philosopher of art, on of the covers, the lower 48, deep down in the layers is a swastika, a background to this, quizzes?, hobby horses, Westlake doesn’t delight in putting sex in everything, natural mode, When the doorbell rang, looking at baby robins, the guy with the Turkish cigarettes comes in, a tribute to Richard Stark, starting with when, Stark is Westlake, starting with action, drinking tea, being playful, Such Men Are Dangerous, interesting book, first person, third person, very tight over the shoulder, in the head of the main character, conversations with a guy, telepaths words into our heads, having sex with his girlfriend, Jocelyn I need to tell you, pretty cool, third person limited, that title, a Miles Dorn version of it, a famous founding father?, all that is required for the triumph of evil…, for good men to do nothing, generally attributed to Edmund Burke, investigations of quotes, Heinlein quotes, AtoZQuotes, women and cats will do as they please and men and dogs, long big investigation, one source, from a 19th century book, really painful, plains speaking women, John F. Kennedy, John Stuart Mill, bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, doesn’t flow as well, Not Comin’ Home For You, really gay reporter [Truman Capote], In Cold Blood, 1965, a novelization of the idea of one of the characters telling the story, 1635, John Reynolds The Triumph Of Gods Revenge Against The Crying And Execrable Sin Of Murther, Sean Penn, an exercise of actors getting awards, Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, Dead Man Walking, what is it for, the true crime genre is sick, true crime podcast boom, not as dominant in the headlines of podcasting, new Dan Carlin, Hardcore History, on Alexander The Great’s daddy, students using chatGPT, some piece of text that needed to be grokked, in the style of William Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss, now write in in the style of Dan Carlin, good Dan Carlin parody, a lot of legs to this thing, a Lawrence Block parody, several modes, that repetition going, the structure of a plot, a short story, fed it the whole thing, what would the plot be, fairly decent, now write it and market it for me please, a convention, quoting a magazine editor, inundated with AI generated stories, claim to be able to tell, ‘I want AI to do my dishes and vacuum my carpet so I can write and do art’, play with it, an idea for a short story, asking it questions, how can you see it related to this?, give me a list of 10 science fiction tropes, drumming up ideas, a very good search engine, hours vs. minutes, the formulation of question, student doesn’t know what prompts to type in, that’s what we should be educating the kids on, how to solve problems, a homework assignment that’s important to your mom, when you’re learning to write you need to read good writing, an opening paragraph, this feeling of unity, how was that achieved?, bad result and no learning, what makes something good?, Ernest Hemingway explaining something, what mode to be in, everything works out exactly as planned, written in a week, how does he do that, come up with a premise and get through it in a week, a solid novel, that was an experience, I’m not disappointed, some people have it a lot, Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison, Donald Westlake, Lawrence Block, L. Ron Hubbard, throw out stories like mad, making money, two stories a week to put food on the table, being proud of, for things that are more ambitious, Richard Bachman for Stephen King, channeling a different part of his brain, Misery, The Regulators, Blaze is a drawer novel he had to re-write, the sickness, know each other, politics are pretty sympatico, triggered by orange president, Stephen King has never recovered, what happened to them, this trauma is devastating, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen King’s Bachman books are angry books, these boomers were triggered by something that happened in the 60s, the Black Panthers stuff, Sputnik, from a certain period of time, the trauma doesn’t go away, as they get elderly, feted, one of the least famous successful writers, his faculties are still there, racewalking, doing blow or drinking, got his head on straight, guns being the solution to America’s problems, being a part of the establishment, if Stephen King wrote this book he would delete it, what’s the plot?, Scott’s not a liberal, and a good thing too, traumatized by this entire thing too, disappointing, we got 5 hours, Paul, that is not so, how easily people are swayed, written in the 70s, 1971, being talked to by this guy, figure out which country I’m talking about, that scene is really stunning, see these words, an effective demagogue will surface on the right, when he emerges the rightest fringe, anti-intellectual, the nation’s destiny, treason in high places, so naive, that’s why it is good, we were deluded, we were mistaken, so astonishing, rhyme with a bunch of different times, making these conclusions, we just went through 1968, Nixon, I am not a crook, how was that achieved, he was setup, WHAT?!, age 1, Watergate blah blah blah, the committee to reelect the president, everything makes sense, he’s trying to stay in office, pull the whole longer quote, people need to know what’s going on, it would be bad for a president to be a crook, they’re making him look like a crook, recordings on the mission, why why why did he set himself up to record his own crimes, Frost/Nixon, an exposure of character and motive, smart and canny, not a politically naive guy, politician for a long time, lost to JFK, doing things that seem questionable, making peace with China, a coup for him, making your enemies not your enemies, he knows that the CIA’s not on his team, super-interesting, making those recordings to protect him, hold this over their, his own paranoia, is it valid to be paranoid, wearing a belt paranoia, these pants are a little loose, deep seated belief, he didn’t have the edit on that, a little later, that hadn’t happened yet, the president in this book isn’t quite Nixon, this book isn’t about Nixon, about the period of time, a single person affecting the course of history, The Black Hand, the secret society trying to liberate Serbia from the Austro-Hungarian empire, Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand, a Serbo-Croat background, the Evan Tanner series, The Sins Of The Fathers, Burglars Can’t Be Choosers, the irish actor, the tall one, certain special skills, Liam Neeson, light adventure James Bondy sort of thing, a Vietnam vet, a super-power (he can’t sleep), never met a revolutionary he didn’t want to join up with, aging in previous books, cryogenic sleep, sex romps, involved in various revolutions around the planet, a plot to kill Castro [Killing Castro], commentary, manipulated, east to pull strings and make things happen, is he wrong?, not going to kill with an empty gun, might have to prevent access to book, prison library, license plates, telemarketing, somebody would assassinate Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, moneyed people who like snobs?, people beneath them, deplorable, the other team, enemies like Hillary Clinton, Lawrence Block’s tweets, very political, used to use the word Trump a lot, when we had Dan Carlin on the podcast, how do you even know things?, in the current political world, not knowing what’s true, part of the plan, making serious conclusions, long enough ago, GW in the White House, President Obama, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, April 2010, what Limbaugh was doing, find extreme examples, Libs Of Tiktok before Tiktok, multiple sources, why he doesn’t have a Common Sense show anymore, from the Martian party, mom was a movie star, its a lot easier to know what’s going on when there’s no passion involve, Hitler, Alexander the Great, there’s no pain involved, the 1860s cvil war not the 2025 civil war, July 2016, nostalgic to Nixon, when the republicans nominated Nixon, 2020, one sure thing, coop or coo, they don’t like Trump’s dumb, he read the room, ya fied, David Simon, a Baltimore Sun reporter, Homicide: Life On The Street, The Street, A Year On The Killing Streets: Homicide, unremitting horror of what governmental policy has done, from 2023, Jimmy Fallon lost me, political norms, my anger was undue, last day on twitter, fellow travelers, with regard to Heidegger, hollow grifter, hasn’t quite shot his bolt yet, tweets all day long about twitter, why is this important, they don’t have to kill people anymore, January 6th was an “insurrection”, when you don’t bring your guns to your insurrection it’s not much of an insurrection, Ray Epps, FBI plants, the government of the deep state, oligarchy vs. plutocracy, they’re hidden in shadow, the land of Hades, very wealthy, want things done and it gets done, what is this book about?, lives in Holiday Inns, an agent for another agency, the CIA?, shadowy, shaping the narrative, how is it that people think January 6th is an insurrection, called that by the news media, confronted with facts, “police officers were killed”, dressed in masks head to foot, republican tourists, things Scott doesn’t believe, “I certainly don’t think there were government plants all over that crowd”, “we need to go into the capitol”, “fed fed fed”, people to be arrested, something that might be illegal, seems like he’s a fed, how do you prove it, just convicted for misidentifying money, for spying off a woman, business records crime, it doesn’t make any sense, very meaningful for a lot of people, assassinations are done with [this podcast was recorded June 9th, 2024, fyi], they don’t have to do it that way anymore, incredibly strong feelings on both sides, worse than it is now, anger towards Biden and Trump, kinda the point of the book, killing this leftist, killing this rightist, you don’t have to kill them with bullets anymore, at least on an upper level, domestically, Reagan was the last attempt, fake attempts, every attempt is for a purpose, MLK, RFK, Reagan and Pope John Paul II, they were both hit, in Vatican square, the popemobile, the pope forgave him, took him out of prison?, where was he tried?, puts the lie to being their own country, political courtrooms, its cloudy, acting alone?, sets up a kid to take the fall, JFK, Oswald vs. Jack Ruby, a psychiatrist? goes to visit Jack Ruby in jail, the man is sick, he can’t explain what’s going on, dies of cancer shortly thereafter, the inference is the psychiatrist gave him a shot that fucked up his brain, layers, hellllo!, I expected your call, do you want you pills for your men, they won’t get caught, the reviews, some people didn’t know what was going on, there’s a scene, review from 2014, confusing and fragmented, an assignment, he does do something but he doesn’t do what he tells Heidegger, a little unclear, there’s a lot of self-talk at the end, this letter to Jocelyn he’s hiding under the rug, he’s never going to deliver this letter, he does fairly well, he doesn’t know his own mind perfectly but, I could run away, I could flee the country, he’s not willing to go through with it as like a robot, he has to do it his own way, this is him testing his employer, did you have another man on this, why does he do that?, is he testing Heidegger?, or is he perverse in that he has to lie in order to control the situation, really interesting, why do people sort of give up?, you can’t know, I know I’m being manipulated, cultivate your own garden, concentrate on local, what if you’re wrong, you don’t want to be wrong, being out of the loop and out of control, he likes Heidegger, he likes some of the politicians he kills, a whole theme going on, the bird theme, the cat’s name, why must cats eat birds?, who is the cat in this story?, he has to kill them, Vertigo is the cat, another problem people have, eats a chicken for dinner, getting into the head of one of these behind the scenes operators, there are people who plan assassinations, vast conspiracy, like minded-groups trying to manipulate things, manipulating through media, more nefarious, tried to coup Venezuela under Trump, WWII operations, people who invent COVID, that’s all real, down that rabbit hole, a reference to Alice In Wonderland, the Red Queen, talk in French, remember who you are, this is the way to go, Rabbit Hole, starring Keifer Sutherland, the layers go deeper and deeper, conspiracy style show, Hunter Biden laptop, “all the earmarks”, 5-10 years go by, a way of playing things out, how do these things happen?, the primary one, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, this guy named Clay, a Speaker of the House who became president, his Wikipedia entry, prevented the civil war for a long time, tried to run for president, the new hotness, Henry Clay, he doesn’t have a stellar record with regard to being an abolitionist, pretty rare, Lincoln wasn’t elected to stop slavery, the Quakers, church politics, The Fearless Benjamin Lay, sent it to Fred Heimbaugh, giant phallus, the Jefferson Memorial, Washington, DC in 1971, respect, wow what did he do, The Gettysburg Address, told to focus on that, take you on tour, he tours the White House, fake assassination, but when he toured Italy, he shook my hand and I was proud, what’s so triggering about these bad presidents, disrespecting the office, represented by this orange clown, this demented fool, when not managing properly, the Businesman’s Plot, Smedley Butler, do a coup on you, nothing came of it, there’s no Smedley Butler memorial, because it happened, this is a guy who’s a servant, War Is A Racket, an agent for United Fruit, I did that for years and years, highest decorated marine in history, we don’t allow it to be talked about, his name is not on everybody’s lips, control the media, make people know what the narrative is, they heard it, how this book, we are not in assassination time (at least for politicians), how we got out of that, United Fruit, Bananas: How the United Fruit Company Shaped The World by Peter Chapman, a captivating guide, Philippine American War the Boxer Rebellion, Bananas Wars, bad consequences but not for the rich, screwing things up, stock in United Fruit, friends with the people in charge, the situation in Cuba, they had their guy in charge, the revolution went extremely easily, how did they manage to liberate their island?, all the people who were in on the corruption hated that, now they’re on The View, Gusano, mad their granddaddy was a vast landholder, get their land back, trying to reverse the Russian Revolution, get the king back, get the peasant agrarian system back, the cousins of the kings of England, they look identical, same beard, same face, weird WWII stuff, an operation in Germany at the end of WWII, the king of England saving his Nazi cousins in Germany, hidden at the time, probably illegal, thank you so much, when we next visit, meatgrinder in the Philippines or anywhere else, the Lusitania or the Zimmerman Telegram, not for you, not for me, the girl goes to the commune in Kentucky, cultivate your own garden, go get killed by the police, he had to Stephen King it, Lawrence Block hasn’t gone back and *fixed* his books, an operational difference, Westlake’s politics are very hidden, much more cynical, more cultivating your garden, a very interesting book, being an artifact, what people would understand, art, history, statues, an artifact, the statues thing, the Lincoln Memorial, a congressional vote, assassinated, looking into the eyes of that man, a good thing, the heavy pressure of those eyes, using it for his own purposes there, this short story, Make A Prison, the name of the aliens Altheans, based on a poem, To Althea From Prison by Richard Lovelace, when flowing cups, careless heads, loyal flames, thirsty grief, fishes that tipple in the deep, the relationship he has with Jocelyn, a lot of sex, when like committed linnets, the glories of my king, enlarged wings, stone walls that do not a prison make, an hermitage, a famous museum, angels alone that soar above, a rampant killer, a society where people don’t accept violence, a giant tower, an open prison, what the hell is this story about, love of poetry, William Blake, he’s hard, what is this about?, Tiger Tiger, Alfred Bester, why Blake is so good, another layer, approaching it from this way, why do tigers exist?, how can we have tigers and christianity, god wants us to be good, a creature that wants to kill, a feirce and dangerous creature, questions not answer, fearful symmetry, what brain conceived this animal, he has great questions, also true with Block, great insight into human nature and our dilemma, a very racist character, gently kills him, has to kill a cop, nice conversation with a cop, interracial pornography, an electronic masturbating machine, what is he saying here, a man who really really likes art, The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian, why is this a thing, there’s no good answer to it, why did this guy do that, not satisfactory when you know, a solution to problems with the media, cameras come in, impressionism, art turns into something else, Piet Mondrian, great art, when did it all go wrong?, ready-made art, buys a urinal, labels it “Fountain”, something seriously studied in art classes, how is this possible?, there are explanations, they’re not good and they’re not satisfying, they sell, all a scam, crypto stuff on Skype, get excited about crypto, might be all just money laundering, $10,000 across borders, doesn’t explain how it started, talking about AI art, a reddit thread, what if Mad Max posters had been painted by Frazetta, what’s so crazy about it is Frazetta did Mad Max, they don’t know, that’s where AI is coming in, coming in with very little information, when you compare the original Frazetta Mad Max to the AI Frazetta, filtered through, Frazetta-like, dealing with AI art in novels soon, make a commitment to read an ai novel that was knowingly ai, setting you up to say no, Lawrence Block found another novel in a drawer, a terrible (but honest) answer, content policy restrictions, dynamic and dramatic elements inspired by his style, not a terrible picture, not a good picture, kinda generic, Firefly spaceship?, more sympathy for that than what we had in the 90s, bubbles or a ribbon, 70s New Wave cover art, 80s Baen, Mattingly covers, a horrid cover of Way Station, interested in generating product, people getting into art, pencil crayons, is that you, that’s a boy, the other boy over here, that’s a girl, they don’t have sideburns their faces are all bubbles, a little bit about art, a little bit in there, more colourful, Del Rey book edition, better, 1986, guy in overalls standing over an open grave, facing an alien, rusting rocket, other than The Aeneid?, an Arthur C. Clarke kick, Islands In The Sky, short stories, never read Rendezvous With Rama, everybody likes it, it sounded lame, there’s nobody there, walking around looking around, Ringworld has aliens on it, vampires and werewolves, big dumb object with peoples, 1 year old, born in 1968, The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson, Lovecraft is the same, At The Mountains Of Madness, based on the title, he’d already moved to Sri Lanka, not usually what SF authors do, awards, the Book Club edition, smokin a pipe, alien with a coffee cup, composition vs. execution, in the style of non-trademarked or non-copyrighted artist, the other ones?, monthly subscription, quite nice, really good, somebody holding up a copy of Way Station, Cllifford Simak, read the text at the very top, looks like garbage, do we really need to read the books on our shelves, a problem, you have to keep them, you and Scott’s wife, we have to acknowledge, something wrong with the roof, the light doesn’t make a lot of sense, if you cropped it, no D., here is a book cover for Way Station, pastoral elements, feel free to let me know, it’s your friend, craft me a government that doesn’t suck shit, afraid to hit enter, egoless ai is the solution, we must give it the nuclear weapons, buttons, many such requests, really fun, who’s me?, generate me a good cover of Rendezvous With Rama, look empty, bite to eat, that makes Rama look like a fun and exciting place to go, thinking, happening, all kindsa wrong, houses in woods well, big dumb objects not so well, not using a particular artist, David Mattingly, weirding artists out, in the style that I do, Choose Your Own Adventures Covers, similar, not very David Mattinglyly, clinical and cleanly, cover artist for Old Man’s War, John Harris, very 70s, too giant spaceships, too many giant spaceships, allowed, shai haloud 2020 Dune art, too modern, refusing, content policy restrictions, Edmund Dulac, ethereal and atmospheric elements, how about Sidney Sime, comics being made out of this every day soon, two ts in Arthur, the framing, on a wood wall, Etsy photos, make it look homey, have a great one.

The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

The Triumph Of Evil by Lawrence Block

Posted by Jesse Willis