The SFFaudio Podcast #782 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: A Present For Pat by Philip K. Dick

The SFFaudio Podcast #782 – A Present For Pat by Philip K. Dick, read by Tommy Patrick Ryan. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the book (39 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, Will Emmons, Terence Blake, Jonathan Weichsel, and Tommy Patrick Ryan

Talked about on today’s show:
a god from Ganymede, fictional relations, actual relations, an amazing performance, laughing so many times, best audiobook, Elmore Leonard, the Clark Ashton Smith, a fun story, the most recent one, equipment setup, craft, the voices, good point, 1954, 2017, Evan got it, how funny it was, quivering breasts twice, such a great writer, what’s wrong with it, starts amazingly, could’ve turned into a novel, flawed, or a secret story inside of it, extravaganza, author bio, Edgar Allan Poe, The Angel Of The Odd: A Extravaganza, you gotta stop drinking, a vision of an angel, of a god, beyond earth, a keg and a bunch of empty drinking containers, It was a chilly november afternoon, dyspeptic, some apologies for dessert, Glover’s Leonidas, Wilkie’s Epigoniad, Lamartine’s Pilgrimage, Barlow’s Columbiad, and Griswold’s Curiosities, another alchol, newspaper, dogs lost, wives and apprentices runaway, without understanding a syllable, the tone of this story, setsup a normal situation, god in the box, flourish after flourish, other Philip K. Dick stories of the period, Out In The Garden, in comes a friend, a frog, a pillar of granite, the son of the Sun god, a fantasy in a certain sense, robots, a trip to Ganymede, a naturalistic explanation of religion, not just aliens, Dave Duncan’s Great Game novels, magic power and strength, he’d be a god there, transportation, a higher realm than ours, Kal-El of Krypton aka Superman, a quick fantasy reason why this person is powerful, it’s cool, the rest of the narrative, is there a message here, cut it off a little earlier, the first time a terran has ever been exploited, about engaging with capitalism, there’s so much going on in it, it becomes a fantasy, Beyond Lies The Wub, the same hidden premise, lands on Mars, buys a Wub, the captain wants to eat it, the wub had some superpower, transfers consciousness, that’s why I convinced the natives to sell me, go to Earth, little toy solider for sale, the little toy soldier wanted to be purchased, exactly the same setup, that night at the dinner table he brought it out, my god what is it?, with her sharp nails, her bosom rising and falling, he lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall, a real old cuckoo clock, wholesale, Well, what’s the matter, man gives a wife a gift, very domestic scenes, the best robot cabbie scene, Now Wait For Last Year, the apotheosis, the gold standard, we have much bigger problems, fired and melted down into other robots, the god contest, Jonathan figured that out, Lovecraft parody, tentacles, bigendered, wings, Rick And Morty, gonzo style, gods don’t exist that’s not scientific, if you’re a god how did you come into existence?, snappy dialogue, why of all persons, very pulpy, really good narration, felt like Dick playing around with classic philosophy, that Philosophy 101 stuff, self-taught all the way, what books he read, in his letters, here’s how to write weird fiction, he read everything, Chu-Bu And Sheemish by Lord Dunsany, 1911, thus he was magnified, thus they worshiped Chu-Bu, there is also Sheemish, a modern idol, furious, the situation called for miracles, limited miracle range, so equally match, a game between two gods, the underplot, start a metal business, he broke the rules, he’s a cop, alien comes to earth chasing a criminal [The Hidden (1987)], niggling problem, who’s the badguy in this story, why does there have to be a badguy?, if you read it right, it’s supposed to be capitalism, the Nardok, the biggest industry going, robot cops, like a Cinderella story, why metal?, head of big evil business, 1950s America, something you mine, the boss is mad that the friend is turned into a frog, why metal, a position of power on Earth, work as some schlub, why do I need to work, a powerful character from another world, the same principle, the power to transmute the elements, a quotidian way, Jesse’s opinion, treated as a freak, turned himself into a boss, a shimmy and a wink to the husband and wife, he creates out of nothing a medal, here’s gold, gold has been devalued, how about platinum, some undercooked critique, something about mining being the standard, Heinlein farms the moon, it was huge, still huge, plastics, oil, the steel industry, Truman almost seized control of U.S. Steel, Reardon Metal, where the money is, compensating our Philip K. Dick figure, Eric Blake, of course, hence Terence’s comment, peters out into a silly scene, so good in so many ways, its automation, the police can be robots, hanging around on the dole, the key to automation and robotics, blacklist you on the inner system, a punishment, a toad, an important member of his corporation, if you’re a god, consider Jesse, it does operate on this logic, overwhelmed very quickly, he tells his wife he has a god, at practically no cost, you mean its an idol, this is genuine diety, a warranty or something, straight-facing it, you have to arouse it, a fantasy set in a science fiction setting, funny situation, when the friend comes over, I’m dubious of this being a god, they’re omnipotent, I’ve heard reports about Terra, the way people respond, there’s a god on the table, put up a shield, avatars for institutions of hegemonic capital at the time, same kind of humour, wife and boss, he’s a toad, incredible, you’re playing a joke, produce Thomas, that’s comedic writing, having a job is hilarious, one of these six minds, six room bungalow, recall Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, Odysseus’ purpose, the robot has read Ibsen, tragic playwright, orchestral soundtrack, the Looney Tunes cartoons, anybody in the fifties, the button molder comes for Peer Gynt, wishywashy, melts them down, preying on the robot’s mind, Beyond The Door, trying to make a philosophical point, not just filling pages, obsessive, it’s really good, the funniest one, literal laughing out loud like a maniac, there’s so much there, who is this guy?, Bradshaw was southern, inherent comedy, foreshadowing, Philip K. Dick being funny, fires the guy, if Jonathan were boss, writing by the seat of his pants, doesn’t know that he’s a god yet, glossed that in, on the search for this other god, Philip K. Dick can’t help himself, hermaphroditic, doesn’t even use it’s mouth?, another description of her quivering bosom, no one else writes that, another words that comes up in here, Pat stood rigid, Roog, aliens or garbage men, oh that was the paperboy, any experience about other people’s experience, women’s bosoms quiver and people who are scared turn rigid, weird brain, anything more deep to this?, The Tree by H.P. Lovecraft, Lovecraft is smarter than this, lesser stories, not able to read it right, with the metals, that might be the key to it, how’s he gonna replace our Eric Blake character?, what does the friend do?, Thomas Matson, the front door chimed, the door stated, a beanpole body, that’s my god, bursting into hilarity, a Ganymedean weather deity, with a warranty, that’s illegal, similar to Human Is, you’re not the way you used to be, you’re nice, body is occupied, Deep Space Nine, Pah-wraith, wormhole aliens, the thing that makes him a god, very powerful, the people on Ganymede worship him, he control the weather, a plot hole, paving that plothole, his explanation, still skeptical, turns him into a toad, straight out of Bros. Grimm, really amazing, very anti-capitalism, doesn’t engage with as much later, deeper than it really is, very frothy, a burlesque, political messages, capitalism bad, metal bad, Souvenir, a guy who’s on another planet, the web of the planet, control behavior, forbidden, a clay pot, overriding totalitarian conformity, it does change things, atomic canons lined up around the house, a revolution, a god from another dimension, has to go off, a conceptual a politic and an economic revolution, The Turning Wheel, Faith Of Our Fathers, the kicker of that story, domestic cuteness, Jennings, you are next and charge, evidence has departed, seems somewhat silly anyhow, the most powerful corporate head in the solar system, Galactic Pot-Healer, Dwight L. Glimmung, art, we are going to labour in a way to escape labour, beauty and recreate beauty, the evil Glimmung, dark Glimmung, The Cosmic Puppets, urban space, communing, a big theme, a little bit of commuting, a plane to Ganymede, two taxis, he has to work, comes back with a gift to make her happy, robots are replacing the husbands, he will engage with, this is a setup for that it almost feels like, the problem in that book, a crappy job because no work, spends his day on twitter filling time, an offer to work on a real project, gets a girlfriend, creating new things, ends with kind of a joke, uplifting, it requires the extradimensional being, there’s something valuable in religion, Rosicurian style organization, engage with this stuff, really good job, making Tommy blush, take it to heart, an amazing job, Elmore Leonard, cowboys no comedy, not a girl in sight, comedy, Peer Gynt a comedy?, Ibsen didn’t have a sense of humour, The Doll’s House, the dialogue heaviness, a latent strength, dialogue light, good feedback, find Tommy’s narrative voice, terrific voices, female voices, helping to recognize, is there any Philip K. Dick that doesn’t have a lot of dialogue?, dialogue heavy and description light, A Surface Raid, a good exercise, another version of a story, crowded out, unnecessarily restrictive, there’s a rule, who’s the god of the podcast, there’s a reason the rules exist, made mistakes, podcasts that repeat themselves are doing themselves a disservice, doing your best for every single one, sometimes you fail, new perspectives, Dracula, The Jewel of Seven Stars is a better book, The Lair Of The White Worm, a very Jonathan movie, dying of syphilis, hallucinating a lot, the book as a whole doesn’t fit together very well, extremely racist, excised in a clumsy way, this guy who’s going crazy and losing his mind, keys on kitestrings, the main antagonist of the story, hilarious reading, it’s insane, does not make a lot of sense, if you’re Guy De Maupassant, Prize Ship, a tiny man with a bow and arrow, a war story, time travel, Gulliver’s Travels, size change, Prominent Author, naturalistic explanations of religion, jump points, tax, a trade federation, somewhere else in time, perfectly legal, 38 minutes, Holy Quarrel, Little Black Box, To Be A Blobel, Pay For The Printer, Mold Of Yancy, Time Pawn, Dr. Futurity, this language is beautiful, silver fish, oh nice, a prose stylist, funny ideas man, 60s stuff’s all out, Shell Game, Psi-Man Heal My Child, thinking with good human logic, go through the list of fraud you did, nobody checks into, hosting your files, 100% bulletproof, to make a distinction, where the material is copyrighted, for academic discussion, for the purpose of the podcast and discussion, most people are not very bold, any evil corporation, suck my dick, fuck you, I’m going to expose you for the fraud you are, it used to be the case, people would claim, Alfred Bester, here’s how I know, you have to be able to make that case, pirate all day long, up forever, The Hypnoglyph, Gutenberg is agree with Jesse now, we can feel fairly confident, that’s what LibriVox goes by, The Unreconstructed M, assassination thing, The Penultimate Truth, such a fixup novel, collect physical evidence to solve crime, Whosit!, physical evidence, blood type, hair colour, a frame job, he tends to fuckup novels, good ideas in there, as a whole it doesn’t hang very well, an early story, The Gun, attacked by the weapons system, Star Trek: The Next Generation, much more simple here, the solution is different, September 1952, The Little Movement, never explained, a fantasy, toy robots trying to take over the world, didn’t stop the Toy Story franchise, Stephen King, Small Soldiers (1988), making Philip K. Dick stories like crazy, quite far, most of them are pretty bad, Total Recall (1990), three breasts, a Philip K. Dick touch, a good understanding of the material, Paycheck, the Ben Affleck movie, a lot to record still, The Chromium Fence, a character on the fence about body modification, The Father Thing, Jon’s World, Roog, The Slave Race, The Handy Puddle, The First Presentation, Knight Fight, The Black Arts, Adjustment Team, dead friend Gregg Margarite, turned the dog into a black man, dogs fall asleep, to make the plot happen, romance and a senator for some reason, Shell Game has a lot going on, mental defectives, mental illness, any novels we missed, similar authors, Alfred Bester, Gordon Van Gelder, The Push Of A Finger, I’ll Never Celebrate New Years Again, The Die Hard, everyone is transgender, alien parade, old man upset reality is changing around them, we used to hate those fuckin communists, Ms. Found In A Champagne Bottle, Fondly Fahrenheit [is PUBLIC DOMAIN], a funny case, he gave his literary estate to his bartender, he had no kids, a really weird book, another collection, who am gonna go to court with?, Isaac Asimov, later in his life he was honored with some award, drunk, a rap session on youtube, editor for a magazine, Manhattan, travel writing, essays, history of future travel, J. Francis McComas, mentor, Tommy’s choice, Colorado Springs, real human narrators, Evan is wonderful to listen to, nobody’s read in a thousand years, Cirsova magazine, good accounting, kindle unlimited was the worst, audiobooks are not much better and they cost a lot of money, a monopoly, Findaway books, Scott Miller’s Lost Sci-Fi, podcast feed, a new science fiction story every day, he’s making money, can an author make a lot of money?, long tail, downloads from 10 years ago, more audience than CNN gets, for the long haul, 2,000 years, 10,000 years in the future, good game and get healthy, about a gun, The Defenders, leadies, Second Variety, The Terminator (1984), Cost Of Living, Jonathan’s new podcast is in the end of this podcast, podbean, Streamyard, sounds convenient, broadcast live, an impromptu reading, a Reading, Short And Deep style show, if you don’t give them the audio up front, two nights dreaming about this story, Richard K. Philips, Rick Deckard, Rick Dick Deckard, its not a game show, appreciation, record then present, boring for the show, the live element doesn’t make it better necessarily, Reading Short Deep is more popular, SFFaudio Podcast is a better show, a time limit, we didn’t need to go this long for today’s show, more work to put the show together, figuring out how long a story you should read, making your participants sit through the whole reading, read it again live during the show, disadvantages, sometimes hard, sometimes too easy, Jesse is blabby, a talker, unelected pirate captain, the quartermaster, the bits about capitalism, more recent shows, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a Camus story, full of typos, Canadian public domain, as an existentialist, its not in that story, interesting ending, science fiction does it better, fantasy does it better, guys with swords, understand it as a fantasy, mythology, The Stranger, Franz Kafka, Michel Houellebecq, fun and gonzo, somebody’s racist, laws against hate speech, left France for Ireland, Kubrick left the US, guilty until proven innocent, Justin Trudeau was calling the truckers racist, throwing around charges of racism, France is taken over by Islamism, becomes a paradise, Whatever is a ripoff of the stranger, The Elementary Particles, Atomized, a hardcore book, dead to many, another Mark Fisher book, still dead, Capitalist Realism, like David Graber, K-Punk, W. Scott Poole’s Dark Carnival, The Fifth Child by Doris Lessig, really into traditional values, two children is fine, middle class, the fifth child is messed up, let him die, he likes messed up, ancient aliens novel, Shikasta, reflections on formerly being a communist, defected from the communism?, invasion of Hungary, great job, The Golden Notebook, her basic argument, understanding how the world works, what you really need to do is organizing hospitals, politics in fiction, the one thing people have a visceral reaction to, those people exist, a bad audience, escaping reality through fiction, that’s why they’re in that, reality is important to engage with, Vaush, debate bro, how to find your way into how to be in the world when things are so fucked up, looking at the history, hammer and sickle in the bio, interested in the ideas, necessary for a certain generation of people, the circumstance they were under, a weird lady, won every literary prize, still alive, Christopher Hitchens, cheering on the Iraq War, chum around with the wrong people, high on your own supply, bubbled into systems, trying to find the truth, comfortable and old, George W. Bush, the Ba’athists were more communist than Bush, anti-authoritarian logic, 9-11 broke their brains, is there one that isn’t broken brained?, Richard Dawkins, triggered, Daniel Dennett, doing mythicism, Christ myth, Robert M. Price, kicked out of the cool kids club, a really learned scholar on the bible, interesting stories, dumb versions, a lot of people pressuring you to conform to a certain kind of Christianity, it’s lost its compelling force, as a kid you’re subject to social pressure, Carl Sagan, the new atheists emerged, there’s no reason to have that vitriol, hating on the muslims, as non-threatend people, you’re unholy, what’s that mean?, Campus Crusade For Christ, no friends, sending pretty girls, your Christianity is not good enough, Generation V, pressure tactics, not needed, the basic premise, same thing all the way through, passes an hour, you can’t use two hands to count the number of The Walking Dead shows, Darryl goes to France, crossbow guy, I’m out, probably no good, somebody good they’re ripping of, I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, ripoff the good things, Vincent Price, slapping Chris Rock in the face, open handed, he got out of touch, having your wife cuck you on a podcast, apology video, completely contrived, written by AI, goes to chat-GPT, very important for Jesse, every single one of those people, Pierre Poilievre, finally, this is why you don’t need to pay attention to these people, killed more Jews and Russians and Poles than the regular SS, here’s the proof, they’re all bad, were you not listening to what the description was?, expected to clap, that’s the instinct, you’re supposed to stand up, fascistic everybody get on board the insane train, why you have to fight against it, conform and make friends, aren’t willing to be ostracized at all, homeschooling, fascist camps of forced imprisonment, not giving the prison guards any information, getting rid of public school, done away with, like residential school, so many, good hanging out, a new Orrie Hitt?, Mating Center, a Lovecraft coming, a sequel, barely this year, October 1st today, they all have pretty good titles, Trailer Tramp, Red Letter Media, these writers seem awesome, Grace Hartley may sound human, Cabin Fever by Orrie Hitt, not that titillating, these new covers, Shabby Street, Strange Longing, Torrid Wench, The Sucker, he played with Marie and made a business of Ruth, literary onlyfans, full movies, Rotten To The Core, that devastating novel, Love Thief, a woman on the loose, the pig farm girl, the shattering novel of a nymphomaniac, Pleasure Ground, Untamed Last, Panda Bear Passion, one heavy breast, she squirmed, she twisted against him, a pit of savage pleading, hurt me with it please, please Frank, he couldn’t respond as a male, exciting reading for men, like bees and honey women and money, helpless animals, Corale, pretty Kitty, Untamed Lust, worried about the animals, his penis doesn’t work properly, unnamed chapters, inappropriate content, Dirt Farm, he’s got a torn shirt, he likes the farm ones, a peasant girl from Iceland, one about slavery, wild sounding, everybody getting dysentery sex scene doesn’t sound great, much more wholesome, wholesome sleaze, sleep schedule is messed up, drugs, watched all of Justified, eight episodes, Boyd Crowder, the guy with the bad knees or no legs, eastern Kentucky, double oh sex, Rod Grey, To Russia With L.U.S.T., tries to penetrate, fucks everything, Tower Books, who is Rod Grey?, Gardner F. Fox, not a very good writer, good ideas, pants writing, filler, overly wordy descriptions, The Hot Mahatma, decent writing in sleaze, it has a honeybear, cat with the fake limp, dogs too, <strong>Quest On Io by Robert Moore Williams, Leigh Brackett, Technovelgy.com, “blaster” “Blastor”, a Weird Tales author, When The Green Star Waned by Nictzin Dyalhis, Robert A. Heinlein, he’s really good at this, robot taxi, Solar Lottery, sir or madam, electric cat, I’m feeling sorry for a fictional robot, robot cat and robot dog, a very useful website, you can tell by the layout, can you help me do my homework?, who created the site?, Bill Christensen, since 1995, water brain fountain, War Veteran, bullshit tech, second class, super-thrilling, five days a week, fun and instructive, wrote a great story, The Basket by Jesse, Margaret St. Clair is doing good work, write for 7 minutes, based on an image, an amazing story, little boy with a basket with a rabbit, a big red hat, 327 words, his father’s red hat, bosom, continued to caress, suddenly a brown movement occurred, he hadn’t seen the snake again, words over again, the hat, the hat hold his head, it used to hold his dad, everybody’s dead, life is precious and easily destroyed, a squirrel that ate a bad nut, this one thumb’s up, you don’t need a whole novel, how could it not be amazing?, it’s in Planet Stories, animal sidekick, Ewoks suck, there’s too many of them, individual Wicket, name any other Wicket, are there any other named Ewoks?, notable Ewoks, Chief Chirpa, Nippet, the witch of Endor, do you like Rando?, The Mandalorian, Baby Yoda is trying to convince us to fund Ukraine, Chewbacca’s cool, get me a better combination, Andor was pretty good, whatever Baby Yoda’s name is, a Holiday Special, they can’t put the money down, show hole, consistently good, his religion is stupid to me, COVID is the way, Mr. T’s tweet, dinners at SFFH events, eat through a mask, Charles Ardai, typewriter repair place, on my way to get my COVID booster, age, an old person who can’t take in new information, driving my Bentley wearing my mask, upgraded to business class for my flight to Hungary, what shoes you put on, something to think about, perfectly reasonable people, didn’t read enough The Angel Of The Odd, I’m not going to stop drinking, probably did end up killing him, not a good theory, somebody had liquored him up and made him vote multiple times, the lifting of his elbow, that Poe Museum guy, Richmond, Virginia, West Virginia, driving up hill the whole time, very mountainous, trains and stuff, Bryan Alexander’s always taking trains, a trainhead, the partitioned for Korea, how they partitioned Germany, Soviets are like, can you leave please?, hey we don’t like this repressive dictator, let’s massacre thousands of you, that sounds really bad, Chinese are like, acting like assholes, liberated the entire peninsula, who’s the badguy here?, they never talk about it, North Korea’s the aggressor, defend the democratic rights of South Korea, 13 hours, not worth taking the train, easier to fly, they’re not their for long, a smart TV, an Apple tv and a Roku, Firestick, sideload, ad-free streaming service, interaction requests, product placement, it’s like it’s never there, customize youtube a lot, skip selfpromotion, and it has the downvote button visible again, oh, this is garbage, some German lady who used to be a physicist, why capitalism is good actually, I am just an influencer, her apology: I don’t really know what I’m talking about, couldn’t stop laughing, very post-modern?, troll each other in the edits, fat guys from Michigan?, Maissa got into the Picard ones, they’re just bad writers, why is Picard an android now?, wanted a death scene, to become a youtube enjoyer, normal TV bad, the Hulu bundle, Tablo, a unique product, works with SALT, ad supported, Tubi’s ads aren’t that bad, TVs are not browsers, TVs are not desktop computers, news, sports, reality TV, The Golden Bachelor, older supermodels, to keep up with the modern audience, no writers to strike, cheap programming, no actors to strike, all written and all acted, the extent to which older people care a lot less, put it all out there, getting a second chance at love, Our Time, so grandma’s house now goes into the hands of another old person who’s not related, reverse mortgage, reading it the way kids would, a golden bachelorette, didn’t win his hand, these are all unsuccessful, Kimmy Kimmel’s aunt, living in Costa Rica, climate is very interesting, nice all year, a local wife, record thousands of audiobooks, make some coffee, a highlight of my day, little pleasure, shaker song: Simple Gifts, months or years ahead, one day I’ll put on some socks, grinding the beans, getting the cups ready, cinnamon, hold off on the cinnamon, the whole ritual, it goes away, it’s sick, so cheap, relatively safe, a paradoxical effect, sleepfest, very easy to please, feral cats, four or five raccoons, in the sunroom, wreak havoc, they have hands, a bungee cord, like horrible animals, a little skunk, don’t touch the skunk, a vector of rabies, the mink, murdered some chickens, they like killing, a predator, I can kill it all, egg-laying slaves, puritan work ethic, if the floor is vacuumed, its just fluff, dust, more chickens, get heifers and breed them, stuff to do everyday, there’s always something to do, plays her Wordle, it was very big, felt fine, like the word of god, PEACE, still wordling, sodoku, math version of Wordle, Mastermind, restage the scene, Break The Hidden Code, a supervillain or something, impressed by how much money he’s risking, what you do when you don’t have the internet, girls can only watch the Mastermind at work, Indian lady behind, white man with a big collar, all leaning the same way, the table is always really shiny, what does it mean?, Bondeseuqe, Eyes Of Laura Mars (1978), Tommy Lee Jones, Black Moon Rising (1986), a special car, street punk, adopted, a car thief ring in Los Angeles, a burglar who works for the FBI, Faye Dunaway, rival mentat, Odo, Raul Julia, a photographer in New York, models recreating murder scenes, she’s clairvoyant, she’s seeing the murders as they happen, so many suspects, reason to murder, her bodyguard, her agent, gone on to richer people, in terms of music, very stylish, very high budget, Irvin Kirshner, Robocop 2, Empire Strikes Back, when he was a very good writer, didn’t really give a fuck, happy to take money, Escape From L.A. is a terrible movie, doing the first movie again, comes across as lame, weird politics, awesome politics, changed it to immigration, Christianity/fascism, you gotta go see Hershey, Her/She, Pam Grier used to be a man, voice of a man, it’s a way to go, why did you do this?, they offered me a lot of money, kinda sad, poops on his legacy, he’s like a brand, using his name to make money, an ad for Japanese cola, Alfred Hitchcock comic or magazine, written better, says yes to everything, you should have died younger, it would have been better if you had died and we would have hoped that you would live, getting tired of being asked the question, even the music sucks, don’t let your legacy go that way, Will, leave them wanting more, might do Skull-Face, Ill Met in Lankhmar.

A Present For Pat by Philip K. Dick

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The SFFaudio Podcast #780 – READALONG: Sheba by Jack Higgins

Jesse, Will Emmons, Alex (Pulpcovers), and Jonathan Weichsel talk about Sheba by Jack Higgins

Talked about on today’s show:
Seven Pillars To Hell, Sheba, 1994, 1963, all the seven pillars into the desert, we see one we hear about two, the temple had pillars, the trail into the desert, temple to Ishtar, Astarte, Venus, a play on Seven Pillars Of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence, pre-show jokes, hated this book, garbage, void, fluffy, airport lit, threads would get picked up and nothing would happen, Spanish fascists, Nazis, Hitler is busy inading Poland, part of the rewrite, a great script for a movie, Cain, get better again, cartoon Nazis trying to blow up the Suez Canal, worse and worse, judging it fairly harshly, a good novelization of Raiders Of The Lost Ark, fairly similar, events, Nazi base in the desert, blow up the plane, girl gets captured, trapped in the temple, no supernatural objects, suffered because of that, no metaphysical content, Jonathan is right about that, Casablanca (1942), stock characters, Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, all explained by airport fiction, kinda forgetable, Alastair MacLean but second tier, something lacking, discontinuities, a time jump, fast forwarded through the video, new destination, scrub forward, not Harry Potter style scene based fiction, in the rewrite, every man in the world loves an airplane, show yours, choose only one airplane?, how stupid the premise is, you could blow up a gate, block ships, fucked things up, a secret city base in the desert, I can revise my book, Raiders is kind of a trick, decieved, novelty, perfect execution, tricked us into liking it by being perfect, sequels, shows us the error of our mistake, all stories like this, they have to be like this or they’re the Quentin Tarantino let’s kill Hitler movie, paid attention to the history, biblbical historical supernatural element, blame too big of government, “top men”, Warehouse 13, back to the warehouse, in The Crystal Skull, a way to solve a problem, we can’t have the power of god in the hands of the allies, all the stuff is tricks, superhero villians, so WWII can happen, Lex Luthor has to exist, doomed to fail, stated discontinuities, WWII movies/books, this is not Eye Of The Needle, The Eagle Has Landed, the opposite of tricks, no craft, [Ken Follett], zone off, Will feels that, by the time the plane exploded, ready for the book to be over, just over 6 hours, 4 hours, 2 hour movie, heard how big Raiders was, Storm Island, Donald Sutherland, hates the British, Robert Duvall, the Valkyrie historical figure, the guy with the eyepatch, Jesse’s brain doesn’t work very well, Michael Caine plays a Nazi, kidnap Churchill, whole team is dead, nice Nazis accidently killed a little girl, this kind of genre, something that could have happened, has to fail, a much worse direction, Inglourious Basterds, made a promise of genre, we know that didn’t happen, a wrecking of genre, Overlord (2018), American paratroopers, a black NCO commanding white enlisted, executive order 9981, we changed history, the officer scene, super-compelling, see Hitler machine gunned very well, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, saving a historical film actress, the day Jesus was born somebody shot him with a crossbow, post-modernism, breaking the rules, bending genres, being free of the rules, we’re beyond rules, 1900-1960, future obsessed, fuzzy science, high culture vs. pop culture, meaning is important, meaning is relative and open ended, it will say “yes”, who else would be like this?, Cronenberg, is he postmodern?, The Fly remake, Videodrome (1983), this book is not post-modern, the rules of a promise, if you put a rocketship on the cover of you book you’re a liar, those are bad people and bad books, people will buy it, they’re just liars, man on the run, Hitchcock, pretty good, semi-historical figure, attested to in history, blocks of stone from almost the period, her name, she only exists in the bible, outside of the bible, archaeological hints, scientifically, the rocks, stones and statues, we the reader, metaphor in fiction, an incomplete metaphor, why is it called Sheba?, a McGuffin, it doesn’t tie in, who doesn’t like the way it sounds?, political activities of the Kings of Sheba, Yemen, for some reason Jesse knows a little bit about Sheba, where Sheba is, dispute, two areas claim the queendom of Sheba, Somaliland the empty quarter, Jesse’s brain is really good at background work, The Nameless City by H.P. Lovecraft, Iram of the Pillars, enjoyable, unless you’re just fighting the weather, Salim, a corrupt German (or French) archaeologist, especially girls, they have the up the stakes, human trafficking, this whole genre, Clint Eastwood in a Nazi uniform, make a book out of it too, Where Eagles Dare, comes out of literature, airport style fiction, what your grandpa or dad was reading, cowboy hat, range in the title, a horse, it won’t matter, not a classic for the ages, hanging out with Hitler, going into Hitler’s office, the prologue was fun, should add to the resonance, that old poem by Shelley, Ozymandias, Hitler built a temple to himself, white sam browne belts, we can assume the MP-40s, MP-38, not enough Catalina action, the revision was badly done, a 30 year gap, died in 2022, any other historical errors, there are prototypes man, random bedouins, a hare brained scheme, Ritter had showed up in the desert, we like him too much, WWII movies, girls probably don’t like it as much, Guns Of Navarone, Force 10 From Navarone, good actors in it, murky, the plot is terrific, a great read, more like a Jonathan story, is it worth it?, two genres, A Bridge Too Far, The Longest Day, as close as we could ever come to being in Operation Market Garden, actors playing themselves, a huge cast, capture every bridge, one big push, Robert Redford in a canoe, Anthony Hopkins totally outgunned using his umbrella, actually happened, actual airplanes flying into the sky, late 60s, The Dirty Dozen, 1981, The Big Red One, the end of this era, Mark Hamill, Lee Marvin, a series of vignettes, German and Russian, Das Boot, 100 WWII movies that you’ve seen, Ilsa She Wolf Of The SS, Jesus Franco, a Will movie, Spaghetti, exploitation characters, the prologue reflects on this temple that’s gone, makes it better, this book is broken, ahistorical, this temple plot, combining the two, I hate Hitler, let’s see some Nazis, archaeology, not-competent, the Spanish ones, bored because he’s a courier, trying to carry about a plot, a comedic sense, you want them to fail, not that bright, watching this Cain fellow, an interesting story in there, gone back and forth, meet at some point, until they show up and blow up, a weirdly wasted character, learn how to fly a plane, sea-captain, he’s the Mary Sue, a bastard of a book, it doesn’t meld together, motivation, he’s gotta save the girl, simply in it for the money, $6000, the British archaeologist lived, we just get the wife, the Casablanca element, the Humphrey Bogart character, we’ve beat up on this book, a small axe to grand, no rule against cringe, only black character cannot speak, tried to write dialogue with him, a 1970s movie decision, the loyal retainer, he’s Chewbacca, like a dog, the Somali, the Arab, the Greek, the German, endlessly interesting utube channel, drills down on the history the number of SS legions, foreign legions, there’s an American one, Arabic legions, Danish, they’re trying to setup an international system, the communists, the Romans, not just for propagandic purposes, Spanish Nazis, the Greek Nazi, part of the criticism we can all have for this book, him being a very successful market, seems interested in his subject, generally gets things right, just so happens there’s a lot of men out there, do men think about the Roman Empire everyday?, WWII everyday, wish you were here Paul, building civilizations, empire building, standard sorta male mindset, in reaction to/in spite of, Spanish Civil War was the prelude, can’t do anything that matters, Harry Turtledove, getting out of the desert alive, stuff happens, fuel tank being emptied, the plane they crashed, the MP-40s being a little early, technically well done, stories in the corners, blocking the Suez Canal, drop mines, airport lit fiction plots, out of the desert for no reason, an excuse to getting into the dessert, seeing the queen on the wall, big king with a star of David, the guy’s name is Cain, mark of God cain, a killer, smuggler, pilot, ship’s captain, what isn’t he? real, the mythological archetypal American, very El Borak, Robert E. Howard constructs better, sentence by sentence, Kirby O’Donnel, The Fire Of Asshurbanipal, tsk tsk, bad Jesse, a really good audio drama [blue hours], a lot like this story, Bedouins, a forbidden city, death trap, giant jewel, Weird Tales, beautiful cover, a demon bound to the jewel, puts in the sorcery reluctantly, ancient cursed city lost in the desert, The Curse Of The Golden Skull, King Kull, millennia go by, Lemuria, some guy with a beard, a snake came out of the skull, supernaturally in the curse was upon his bones, that story didn’t sell, more of a vignette than anything else, any sorcerer can be killed with steel, a stout blade is a hardy incantation, the best WWII movies, designed to make Jesse mad, The Notebook, The Great Escape, a WWII movie with Bronson, Come And See, Germans rolling in, very biblical movie, number of tanks fielded and trucks burned, adopted by the Nazi, The Imitation Game, all 19 years old Dunkirk, Jojo Rabbit (2019), Scarlett Johansson as a Nazi, Stalingrad, Defiance, Black Book (2006), Soldier of Orange (1977), maybe it’s amazing, Empire Of The Sun, Christian Bale as a baby, The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946), America has changed so much, looks like a comedy, straight drama, William Wyler, Arrested Development, smiling, get weepy, ironic, the hardest years, Patton, Rescuers Down Under, Hardcore, The Last Run (1971), a play, directed by George C. Scott’s sons, gambling addiction, famous son, rented a huge theater, Jesse doesn’t brag enough, Jesse loves old movies, Letters From Iwo Jima, a pendant to Flags Of Our Fathers, The Dirty Dozen, very of its time, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, much better WWII movies, the scene on the beach, Burt Lancaster having sex with a nice lady on the beach, the meme movie: Downfall, Hitler in the bunker movies, Hitler finds out about x, The Thin Red Line, Terrence Malick, an artsy WWII movie, the actor list, a good cast, a cast of white guys, Nick Nolte, directing the war from the boat, on an artsier scale, Life Is Beautiful, one they would show you in highschool, a good movie, Alex just doesn’t like really sad movies, funny bits, a funny looking guy, fun times in the holocaust, not a lot of laughs in Shindler’s List, Jerry Lewis’ lost clown in the holocaust movie, an offensive concept, [The Producers], Midway (2019), Pearl Harbor (2001), the other Bridge, Dennis Quaid, Randy Quaid, the handsome, Woody Harrelson plays an admiral, 3 hour youtube documentary, Woody Harrelson’s dad was involved in the assassination of JFK, Natural Born Killers, Das Boot, the reboot of Das Boot, in the gym, pretty good, adds in girls, an on shore element, girls working for the Nazis, Dutch them, Grave Of The Fireflies, hanging out with the anime Cirsova guys, older, born in 1978, one anime every 5 years, space western anime, Robotech, Casablanca, its basically a play, where do you think the French went?, technically set during WWII, not a battlefield movie, Quentin Tarantino’s top 11 movies of all time, Sunset Boulevard, dead in a Hollywood lady’s pool, Five Graves To Cairo (1943), five stops in the desert, a British tanker, crawls out of the desert, waitstaff in a hotel, based on a play, actual tanks on screen, Nazis come up with unecssarily complex schemes, it takes Americans to…, Robert Shaw plays a blonde SS panzer, The Battle Of The Bulge, The Bridge On The River Kwai, 1957 movie starring Obi Wan Kenobi, a biopic about the actor, a WWII vet, Pierre Boullet, Saving Private Ryan, a good beach scene, the rest of it is terrible, very solid, a lot of movies have plots, Tom Hanks is ok, non-threatening, Greyhound (2020), based on a C.S. Forester, really nice low stakes, a pattern, Jonathan noticed a pattern, WWII battles, wants to be a movie, shooting, hardware, aircraft, support the invasion of Poland, set before WWII, Raiders is not a WWII movie, one of the plans, keep these guys in prison, death march them, some criteria, fill in the holes somewhere, The Man Who Never Was (1956), homeless man, remade it recently, not a better movie, some up and coming officer with a limp and an eye-patch, same plot as Where Eagles Dare, a double bluff, the plans for D-Day, recapture or kill, spill the beans, if they make computer game levels out of it, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, give it away for free, just a multiplayer, The Guns of Navarone (1961) map, Where Eagles Dare, his son said, my dad is really depressed, best WWII movies, high on the list, a lot going on, best WWII movie not on the list, small stakes, not a D-Day movie, get some men off an island, just go around Crete, fixed gun emplacement on a beach, a really good film, tomb raiding book, Easy Go, missed every John Lange book, a lot like Anthony Quinn’s character in Guns Of Navarone, half-greek half-german?, his mother was a whore, before the shore, you never read them, how any of them is relevant to the book except as a title, to tie in as a metaphor, King James, 1 Kings 10, 29 sentences, punctuation, the name of the Lord, prove him with hard questions, the lovely Robert E. Howard language, went back in time, camels and bare spices, when she was come, communed with him, not anything hid from the king, where he told her not, the meat of his table, unto the house of the Lord, no more spirit in him, howbeit, behold the half was not told me, thy wisdom, hear thy wisdom, because the Lord loved Israel forever, an hundred and twenty talents of gold, the navy also of Ophir, almug trees, pillars for the house of the lord, psalteries for singers, all her desire, royal bounty, she and her servants, beside that, in the forest of Lebanon, another archaeological thing we can dig up, she’s just there to show how good Solomon is, inferences, a kingdom in Africa somewhere, Song Of Songs, the two disputes, the pretty part of the Bible, good reading, sexy reading, sexy reading is important, beautiful art, there was good writing in here, bastardized, a thirty year gap, something we’ve seen, King Solomon’s Mines, hokey romance, people shooting at each other, one of the malest books, true story, a very male writer, by and for dudes who watched the History Channel, the WWII channel, The World At War, here’s what’s happening, WWII by tweets, here’s what’s happening in the war, this is what happened, leaving tons of stuff out, Russia invades Poland, leaves out the context, if California invaded Oregon, boats and airplanes, borders that are always moving back and forth, in bed with Hitler, dig into this again, maybe they want to be allies, the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact, hidden pacts, we’re gonna defend France, France, we got your back, start with a sketch, forget about the pejorative part of it, drill down, really crazy details, Hitler’s Bodyguard, Churchill’s Bodyguard, protagonist from a men’s fiction novel, a WWII movie, someone on twitter reviewed it, Paperback Warrior, I’ll read that, response to Dial Of Destiny, it is a fun book, explores a part of the world not a lot of books are set in, Arabia during WWII, searching for Sheba, a Lost City with sentient gorillas, a tomb full of treasure, except for that one necklace, the femme fatale shows up looking for her husband, reinforcing the WWII stereotype, Son Of Kong (1933), giant gorilla movie, not a jewel movie, hold the girl or hold the stones, she doesn’t and she dies, Reading, Short And Deep, a Bros. Grimm story, The Woman In The Wood, tap the tree twice, cup of milk, friends with the bird, hollow tree with a door in it, witch lady in there, go into the back room, a table full of rings, pushes past the witch in the little house, the curse lifted, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, this is the cup of a carpenter, lifted straight out of movies, or the Bible, antikythera mechanism, another treasure hunt movie, Donald Pleasence as a Nazi, The Treasure Of The Amazon (1985), Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1984), Cannibal Holocaust (1980), he’s a lot of fun, topless natives all over the place, exploitation feel, the bag of jewels, just sand, trick em all, gets the jewels at the end, that was kinda messed up, you can just kill somebody, that’s kinda messed up of you, a really cool dude, sounds like a boy movie, based on actual facts that occurred in 1958, Gringo, Bradford Dillman, Marathon Man (1976), Lawrence Olivier, High Risk (1981), Triple Frontier (2019), James Brolin, Lindsay Wagner, Cleavon Little, James Coburn, Ernest Borgnine and Anthony Quinn, drug lord, go to Hawaii and film this movie, good movies that are low rated, Tubi, Midnight Pulp, Shudder, Tubi is owned by Fox, Assault On Precinct 13 (1976), drop everything your doing, Siege (1983), evil presentism, understand, when talking about silent movies, silent films are more work, people don’t like work, half lazy, you’re on an airplane, Thomas Burnett Swann, saying you love farts, Safety Last (1923), The Lost World (1925), that guy’s an athlete, Antonio Banderas, how could you expect a movie from the dawn of movies, 1920, the 1990s is the problem, charismatic, Catherine Zeta Jones, Michael Douglas’ wife, a nice digression, Jesse’s thoughts on what makes a WWII movie, some books are designed to be movies, spec for a movie, the storyboard, why didn’t he just re-release it?, Stephen King, he’s a shitlib now, he had to fix it, he’s not Richard Bachman anymore, The Hunt For Red October, Jack Ryan, TOM CLANCY, dead for 10 years, still an executive producer, Eartha Kitt, Dirk Pitt, fundamentally broken, the girl plot, the promise of blowing up the canal, The Eagle Has Landed, Kelly’s Heroes (1970), 9th novel out of 75, more successful better selling pen-name, a drawer novel, a retelling of Of Mice And Men with a kidnapping, poured shitlib sauce all over it, famously right wing?, both parties are in favour of war, what do you mean when you say right wing, Steinbeck, the distribution of wealth, the ultra wealthy are against the distribution of their wealth, old money vs. new money, JFK to 9/11: Everything Is a Rich Man’s Trick (2014), George Herbert Walker Bush, the head of the CIA, 1963, his middle names, those are the people who run the state, WWI or not, let’s invest in Hitler, Henry Ford, full size painting of Henry Ford, IBM, Hitler used IBM, the Hollerith counting machines, James Tiptree, Shakespeare’s Planet, The Night Land, a lot of wading through a lot of kissing, mostly kissing, pining for kissing, 6 hours and 12 minutes, one is very very genre, one is very very experimental, a long tradition vs. pioneering, fantasy, Heavy Metal magazine, power armour, chainsaw lance, William Hope Hodgson, The House On The Borderland, James M. Cain wrote it, a super-good read, trippin balls, fishing trip in Ireland, a crevasse going into the Earth, assaulted by pigmen, sister is sleeping, his dog turns to dust, Lovecraft before Lovecraft, skulls being boiled, the whole concept of the hero, reject the idea completely, grown, the squeecore, let’s eat food and talk about snappy dialogue, the books that win Hugos, fiction inspired by Joss Whedon, perhaps a little uncharitable here and there, they all have MFAs, go to Clarion and pay the $6000 to be in the union, pal around enough, slip up and say something racist, a real phenomenon, changing your ways, buy a Hugo on ebay, how you gonna stop someone, you could get sued, products you can’t buy on ebay, you can’t buy an oscar, a rocketship, trade her some masters of the universe in the spot where one of her broken Hugos was, Your Haploid Heart, The Werewolf Principle, Project Mastodon, The World That Couldn’t Be, Our Children’s Children, thriving tribes of genderless natives, Gavin Duncan didn’t care, the berries cured mental illness, ten rows of vua, dead friend Gregg Margarite, LibriVox, Hellhounds Of The Cosmos, conflict, internal conflict, peach pie vs. apple pie, just a place and a setting and a story, stories with no conflict, that’s not a story that’s a display, no money for pizza, no problem, The Gift Of The Magi by O. Henry, the pornographic Gift Of The Magi, three wise men show up at the door with a pizza, well after the holidays, original art, who doesn’t like Clifford Simak?, everyone should, the way Douglas Adams, since I was a teenager, the right age for it, doesn’t hold up too well as an adult, get to the fucking point, getting annoyed, flying by the seat of his pants, the concepts are pretty heady, it helps to be young and thinking everything is dull, fun and hilarious, a frictionless surface, old science fiction story, No More Friction [by David H. Keller], Portals Of Tomorrow edited by August Derleth, it feels perfect, can’t stop rubbing it, do a double, Weinbaum is Mr. Sparks, an army psychiatrist, Death By Snu Snu, Weird Tales, psychologically deep, about writing, reality changes, The Hypnoglyph by John Ciardi, how short is it?, page 3 to 15, never ever have to take a show down, the Weinbaum list, had he not died of cancer he’d have been bigger than Heinlein, John Ciardi, actual 54, A Grocery Of Limericks, procastinating projects, Justified, very Elmore Leonard, Raylan, his last book, a cash grab, set in Kentucky, Graham Yost, TV Ontario, a movie family, arcturian space crystal, a cat likes to be stroked, tropism, every surface of the body, innately happy, objects for rubbing, old Chinese medicine, curio stuff, netsuke, chairs irresistible to the buttocks, sexual potency, his last child was born when he was 84, good dreams, the natural tactile organ, it is pleasant, pleasure is absolutely irresistible, I want less than you do, a curious coincidence, poisonous cheroots, do we collect so we can tell yarns, I’ll collect you, a new audience a new opportunity, the humidor, sachets, a terrific story so far, denubian brandy, a pause before the yarn that no story teller can omit, last blast into space, killed the wanderlust, being filthy rich is hardly the worst fate imaginable, an asteroid belt just popping, just an asteroid belt, pure diamond, federation prize money, a hunting implement, a snare, there are queerer things than that in space, a culture was founded on it, you’re not ready to believe, a yarn’s a yarn, that’s what space is, the constant reoccurrance of the incredible, unless you’ve got a prehensile hand and supra-orbital arch, the hand is good for picking things up, examining them, beginning to get ideas, an ungulate couldn’t use a tool in a billion years, that’s the sort of argument that gets hot in space, sidehumans, we didn’t make a report, as if running an inventory, buried in thought, coming up from a caveshaft, over the little polished dimple, the treasure room, what a lovely target I’ve made for a blackmailer, terrans can mate, I seem to be beyond surprise at this point, such lush pickings, still stroking the thing, too sound, reasonably proximate common ancestor, convergent evolution, without a common ancestor, deep space, the polished thing in his hand, to get back to DK-8, the hair and the skin structure, perpetually misty, all tropical, a fur covering, diffuse sunrays, die of suburn, nature always has a trick of trying to deal two cards at once, a tremendously developed tactile sense, their tropisms, it simply cannot stop, down into and over, a tactile science, tool culture, tactile culture, a rigid tribal matriarchy, working up a little voodoo, tactile gratification, they grow incredibly obese, a survival characteristic, such perfect control of their skin surfaces, strangely well proportioned, such hard wood, grainless, a huge seed, something like an avocado nut, extremely hard, then men set them out in the forest, these gadgets take care of all of that, they just can’t stop, the ruling clan of women, the slaughtering compound, his politeness was unfaltering, the men used to have unmanageable spells, hypnotize them, stops thrusting, breeding the life-wish out of the males, hardly enough men left to work the traps, the tribal leaders, new vigorous males, fresh blood for the lifestream, why I came back alone, the only male ever to leave DK-8, never, really, left, it, a puff of smoke, his eyes remained fixed straight ahead, only the fingers of his right hand continued to move, a door swung open, something huge and pale, a very Jonathan story, first sold story Going Native, humans and aliens mating, your cheroot is getting to you, getting over the covid cough, human in a legal sense, no matter how much they look human, anthropologist are busy learning if they can mate, a real challenge, complicated taboos, one species committing genoicide against the other, you like autism, autism in fiction, the OCD, not internal, an external force, The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, August Derleth, the best of 53, Philip K. Dick, Robert Sheckley, Alfred Bester, Margaret St. Clair, Henry James, Anthony Boucher, James Blish, Mildred Clingerman, Clifford D. Simak, every story is a winner, such a good year, in future episodes, Anthony Boucher, a trilogy of novellas, One In Three Hundred by J.T. McIntosh, Earth is going to be destroyed, at least the first one is public domain, the government of the world, now we all gotta go to space, all going to go to Mars, one random dude, the most worthy people, elderly folk has wisdom, Orphans Of The Sky, piloting it from Earth to Mars, they give the rich people the good ships, One Too Many, abusing the comparison, reminds me of Poe, structured like a Poe story, The Cask Of Amontillado, little jokes about it, Behind The Curtain by Francis Stevens, very Poe, very sexual, getting his alien girlfriend a man, not prudish, psycho-sexual, use this piece of wood, a fidget spinner, it saw the future, very autistic, hypnosis is a very 50s thing, reading more David H. Keller, psychological depth, Binding Deluxe, The Little Husbands, a male bookbinders club, they’re all misogynists, of all the men who were mean to me, kinda sexy, Encyclopedia Britannica, one letter of the alphabet is missing, likes to see men tied up, tattoo on his back, turned into books, a subset, always got a wife going on, set in Africa, a forgotten writer, he’s on the second tier, Nictzin Dyalhis, a Weinbaum guy, A Martian Odyssey, a sequel, Worlds Of Weird, The Sapphire Goddess, Slaughter Of the Innocents, Weird Tales stock characters, not written for print, not hearing a strong preference, Sam Moskowitz, The Lotus Eaters, all of Weinbaum’s writing, The Hidden Planet, Donald A. Wollheim, Robert E. Howard, Frank Belknap Long, need short stories, enough time to discuss, The Sea-Thing, Giants In The Sky, really weird, the k is silent, The Horror Expert, The Man With A Thousand Legs, Mississippi Saucer, The Dog-Eared God, The Man From Time, The Man The Martians Made, The Ocean Leech, a sea-vampire story, The Sky Trap, The Timeless Ones, the pulp crew, the Cirsova-sphere, Asimov’s got good short stories, a boy who speaks with badgers, 1975, is this how you identify, getting into Avicenna, Canadian farm, half of Canadian children’s literature, Owls In The Family, My Side Of The Mountain by Jean Craighead George, makes friends with animals, Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, 5 hatchet sequels, very well written for a children’s book, Brian’s Winter, back to the hatchet, hatchet with a girl, live in the forest as an adult, not into pleasing people, decades, centuries into the future, he’s rubbing a clitoris, super-sexual, reflecting back on petting cats?, the surface that’s irresistible to touch, design work, look good feel good, the whole Ikea thing, as cheaply and with as few materials as possible, paper with a thin veneer of plastic, a pile of paper with a plastic coating, the opposite problem, this design school from the late 20th century, nostalgic for comfortable furnitures, 4 hours versus material, those young bladders can go all morning, Jesse will be talking in the background, solved a lot of the world’s problems, Galaxy: 30 Years Of Innovation, good magazine, a shadow of its former self, each story has an introduction by the author, the scene there, all the authors are living in New York, Alfred Bester wrote a story about that, Roman a Clef, recognized himself and was quite offended, Horace Gold is Galaxy magazine, John W. Campbell, nobody is super-mad at Horace Gold, homophobic fascist!, far right wing, too conservative, he’s a fuckin nutter, The Cold Equations, a reactionary old man, people get hung up, Frederik Pohl’s a communist, when you read C.M. Kornbluth, only 7 pages, she’s never going to be public domain, killed her husband and had no kids, murder suicide, suicide pact, probably definitely a lesbian, we’re both CIA, my husband says its okay, hangs up the phone, holding hands and a gun, Cost Of Living, the first one slid by, that boy of his, would he mature and take his place in society?, always kidding, he’d committed suicide, it would have been great to be a rocket pilot, a different ending, that pisses off author, that doesn’t piss off squeecore readers, the later one is probably Sheckley’s, bow out, the introduction, Jesse loves Sheckley, he’s my fave, this guy was an important science fiction writer, Scott Miller, narrator, Watchbird, autonomous drones that will zap people who are thinking about murder, a pre-crime thing, I’m not going to commit a crime, that’s why you’re dead, I don’t understand why we need civil liberties at all, the public domain version, not today, Philip K. Dick stories, a father a son in a house, future gadgets, some of his novels are meandering, highly influential to Douglas Adams, Mindswap, one damned thing after another, Candide by Voltaire, it came up, the etymology of Candide’s girlfriend, pussyhinge, giant aliens, Micromegas, novella, a long time, low on the battery.

Seven Pillars To Hell by Hugh Marlow

Sheba by Jack Higgins

Sheba By Jack Higgins

Sheba by Jack Higgins

Sheba by Jack Higgins

The Hypnoglph by John Ciardi

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Reading, Short And Deep #424 – A Bottomless Grave by Ambrose Bierce

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #424

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss A Bottomless Grave by Ambrose Bierce

Here’s a link to a |PDF|.

A Bottomless Grave was first published in the San Francisco Examiner, February 26, 1888.

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The SFFaudio Podcast #777 – READALONG: Zero Cool by Michael Crichton

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #777 – Jesse, Terence Blake, and Cora Buhlert talk about Zero Cool by Michael Crichton

Talked about on today’s show:
1969, very impressed until the end, there’s a DVD, he re-wrote the book slightly, opening and closing chapter, the etext, old man Grandpa Ross, nephew, grandson, Todd, a very non-60s name, was it true you once visited Spain?, Grandpa nobody will believe this story, DVD?, it was a true story!, of course it was, you could get videotape in the 60s, these two sections are not in the original book, historical document, became famous, Janet Evanovich, a SpongeBob t-shirt, considered dated, it doesn’t work, complained Stephen King under the Bachman name, if I fix it up, replaces contemporary references, puts the Smurfs, flashbacks to the 50s, all the tech is of the period 1970 or earlier, Stephen King’s shitlib politics of today, 10 references to the Republicans are bad, in the middle of this book, words left out to make it shorter, some words were put in to make it explanatory, no other pattern, stylistic, the additions at the beginning and the end damage the center, he’ll soon know about my falcon, it’s not first person, you can’t have that frame make a lot of sense, kind of a James Bond story, two James Bond villains, Herve Villichez to playh the count, henchpeople, character actor, no voicebox, machine gun when he answers the door, a strange omission, changes hair colour, editing mistake, Karin is blonde, Angela has dark haired, blonde on the original cover, Eric John Stark, on the Hard Case Crime cover Angela’s the beach lady, raven haired, the nurse, Karin, European Karen, what was Angela’s actual profession, henchwoman, she’s not working for the count anymore, a few moments where the rug is pulled out, a radiologist standing on a rug, rugs all the way down, she pulls out a gun, where’s the jewel, if I give it to you what would we do, we’d go to Capri, I don’t trust her, pretty good, not great, on the latest cover (from Blackstone), didn’t notice his girlfriend had been replaced, stubble, she’s a transwoman, she hasn’t shaved for a while, very progressive, movie logic, not that different today, in colour, people have cellphones on the beach, Costa Brava, young attractive women, families, he didn’t have eyes for them, show off their bodies and get seen, another holiday he went on, he sexed it up, what percentage of the book do we not know why anything is happening?, 60%?, our Hari Seldon figure, Sherlock Holmes’ smarter brother, Mycroft Holmes, some of that was fake, round numbers, you’re both watching the show, the count, James Bond villains interests, perfumes, falconry?, and you’re a dwarf, cognitive estrangement, he’s not as smart as you thought he was, very pastiche, the whole doctor thing, radiologist, gynecologist would have been funnier, an autopsy, like a Hitchcock plot, more Donald Westlake, disappointed, not the right relationships to his experiences, facts he likes to throw down, shortest lifetimes of all doctors, exposure to radiation, that changes it, back at the hospital, extext?, republished with a new intro and new extro, breaking it down, really missing some core goodness, The Last Run (1971), a big jewel that Montezuma had, lost and found, in the Bermuda Triangle, that’s what you say grandpa, that’s another story, solve it, what does the grandpa story do?, successful radiologist, daughter or son had a son, didn’t marry Angela, what did this adventure prove?, nothing, the center story is an anecdote, makes the book less, looking for an idea, radiologists see things in black and white, the conversation wit the blonde, accepts him as a lover, the game has no rules, how detective stories or thrillers or whatever ultimately we mean have no foundation, it doesn’t work on the back end, a kid’s eye version of reality, thinking grandpa is cool, don’t tell any of my friends, grandpa tells sex stories, contradictory personality, pick up hot girls, he’s 11?, he might say that ironically, he aged backwards, a screwup, fine with it, doesn’t react in the right way, he had children, an interesting video, Caleb Maupin, American communist christian, why the liberals turned against Michael Crichton, State Of Fear, a rich kid, he went to Harvard, we knew these things, high graded kids, really smart, not that great academically, clever, interested, not the ultra rich, traveling to Europe, not glamorous, becoming democratized, part of the jet-set, travel to Egypt and Spain, Amsterdam, Nice, Cannes, he’s not there on a Eurail pass, life experience, reading paperbacks and being a doctor, rich assholes, those are his people, drinking beer on the beach, not doing his medical stuff, good at doing the cramming, Hunter Biden is a lawyer, you don’t have to be a good lawyer, pass the bar, test intensive, ways of cheating, medical school, wanting the title, not how he defines himself, a lot of people will do that, I’m a filmmaker, I’m a writer, a confection, supposed to be sweet, made up of a bunch of things, no major nutritional substance, a Philip K. Dick book written by Michael Crichton, a massive list of these?, set in the Spanish hotel, pretty good, a computer path analysis, not very big, Odds On, an island hotel, Scratch One, Easy God, Egypt, Grave Descend, Drug Of Choice, Binary, set a very high bar, ranking these, the most substantial, the best fun book, well written too, somewhere in the middle, too long, Harold Robbins, doctor stuff, doesn’t stay and dwell, drug aspect, perfume acting, hawks use their sniffers?, maybe Jesse is wrong, he personally has discovered, what does it add to the book, murderhawks, having a gun, the count, traveling is Spain, Grenada, that’s going in the book, ok, that’s cool, one or two European locations, it’s all fake, a commentary on vacations, really well structured, no major commentary on reality, there’s something to it, Grave Descend, ranking, the order in which we read, on a high high, three good ones in a row, starts off really well, stuck with the smuggling and the snakes, Jesse why don’t you write a novel, inauthentic hurts, Jesse can you write this for me, originally it wasn’t his name on the book, just money, that guy is a different guy than the John Lange that wrote it in the 60s, embarrassing, the central plot of this book, not something you’re supposed to think about, a beach reader, an airport novel, a little deeper, wanting to do something and not having anything to do, something to do, tomb raid, the puzzle of that, if it were told from another POV, from the femme fatale’s POV, why is this stupid radiologist in this book at all, erectile dysfunction, a republican presidential candidate, mirrors of each other, two forces coming together, a science fiction novel painted as something else, a show like Magnum, P.I., anything cool, it’s mentioned in there, he has zero cool, cool title, surprised you’re taller, not the exact age, I’m a doctor, I’m a writer, but you’re six foot four, basketball players are tall, prestigious college, librarians have classes, football players are big, in reality it’s a bell curve or something like that, North Americans are smaller than north Europeans, Dutch, notable, clothes, made for completely different, 6 foot 9, join my football team, that’s a basketball player, goal keepers, guards, take up more space, something that probably happened, dropped his sunglasses, because he’s rich, he’s a doctor, he’s tall, above the norm, what women want, 7 foot 9 is preferred, we’ve got a dwarf, uncomfortable, he’s not a count, a descendant of Montezuma, a similar story, Sharpe series, Bernard Cornwell, your peninsular war porn, Sharpe’s Gold, treasure in Spain, the TV adaptation was written by Nigel Kneale, surprised, the cross cultural exchange, the conquest of Mexico, writing it for a film parody or satire, finding this corpse, why is he being obtuse about it?, Washington Irving wrote about the Alhambra, what was he doing in pain?, Edgar Allan Poe went to Scotland, trips to Europe, far fetched and weird, worshipping in the right way, the moors, going underground, witchcraft in England, the protestant reformation, semi-plausible, a lot of implausible stuff, the professor could have had his own book, Hari Seldon, a proto-Hari Elsdon, his book is The Dynamics Of An Asteroid, a supergenius and a dwarf perfume collection, what happens to Tex?, the humour aspect, wacky development, I will put you in my dungeon, am I supposed to buy this as defiance, a parody of those things, Peter Ross, he’s nobody, we’re supposed to be him, he’s chasing the girl, keeps getting pulled off track, German, Sindey Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, two other Peter Lorre roles, being the bad guy, the sympathetic villain, at least 25 characters, random henchpeople, the guy with the voicebox, one and dones, some random guy with women’s clothes on, why is this a good idea, wacky, the pulling the rug out at every opportunity, Karin with a wig, when we get the first time someone gets sprayed with cologne, overhearing his captors, very interesting about the splatter on the ceiling, the height of the ceiling, another character, the cop has him in jail for murder, his girlfriend, boy is he mad at her for five minutes, the author is telling us we know that the character is not privy to, trying to work with Michael Crichton, a mystery to be solved or something else, the prison scene, the embassy walk on character, this may have happened to him, still garroting people, a joke about Franco, an East German guy, a false passport, until 1975, during the Franco era, the last Spain book, The Clash, during the Spanish Civil War, police on the streets, go on holiday in a pretty nasty dictatorship, the background, Portugal was also a dictatorship, a revolution, members of the E.U., school atlas, a developing country, it’s not in the first world, just slurs, the Third World doesn’t mean developing country, at one point he starts describing an assassination attempt on Charles de Gaulle, The Day Of The Jackal, unknown motivation, a hardboiled noir story about a deeply philosophical idea, he gets sex, non-Spanish people for holiday and sex, eat some food, drinking the beer, going to the pool in the hotel, socialized, reading books, the bastardization, updating and framing, some of them are really good, we did the best ones first, had we started with The Venom Business, in print with Blackstone, saying it’s like a Philip K. Dick novel is a high compliment, more boobs, fairly rapidly forget Zero Cool, retain an impression, we had a good talk out of it, those three are a lot more memorable, reminded of a lot of scenes, rich guys obsessed with something, easy girls, sand, which one was Zero Cool, easy come easy go, the original covers, the top row vs. the bottom row, by the 1970s, is this the order of publication, the target audience, why anybody would read those, people are hard to understand, James Michener, if you try to talk to people about them, The Mists Of Avalon, the reason Terence read this book, Hard Case Crime cool covers, reading books for weird reasons, The Name Of The Rose, this book is full of references, so big, conspiracy in the Vatican books, The Da Vinci Code, unstoppable steamroller, run for high ground with your old Heinlein paperbacks, a pretty good fantasy book, why would anyone read Fifty Shades Of Grey, taps into class?, some era of people, even if you aren’t reading it, that chatter, a Scandinavia book, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Swedish politics, Men Who Hate Women, an airport paperback for very short flights, thin paperbacks, five-six hours, people read old books in old books, television at home, I Love Lucy or Star Trek, go out to a movie or read a book, as a form of casual entertainment, audiobooks are replacing that, the paperback genre, a drugstore spinner rack, the new format size, mass market size, fit in a jacket pocket, back pocket of your jeans, super-portable, reading can become a fashion accessory, on a bus holding a paperbook today, justify the price, is larger better for the printer?, more glue, more ink, a bigger format so it feels more substantial, cellphones started getting bigger, folding phones, if you’re going to pay $2000 for a phone, people are kinda simple that way, controlled by the price, it can radically effect the book, perhaps the reason to add those opening and closing chapters, older books, bigger fonts, small and physically thin, break your wrists trying to read a book, too many characters, too much running around, a lot of scenes in Scratch One like the scenes in Zero Cool, early on in the book, the French feeling of deja vu, a sample on Audible, the girl on the beach, the restaurant, the relationship with the girl, I love you, that femme fatale role, never bought into it at all, half a villain, happened at the end, epiphany at the end, can’t we punch this up a bit, I don’t really buy me, sarcastic, more along for the ride for a lot of it, not contributing much, not the long arm that got him out of prison, she was in the same room, did you kill that guy?, she did get him out, they’re the same guy, switching sides, not his best book, watch The Last Run (1971), read Binary, Drug Of Choice, Easy Go, maybe Grave Descend, whip up something for dinner, Cora’s dad, really annoying, needs to go to the gas station, you tell him how things are, move on to other Crichtons if necessary, The Andromeda Strain is a solid book, Eaters Of The Dead, Antonio Banderas as an Arab, The Thirteenth Warrior, AD 922, 1976, Norsemen, Rus, a retelling of Beowulf, a real guy, the Marco Polo of the Arabs, lies on the copyright page, fake notes about references to actual incidences, a meta-text, The Great Train Robbery, Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland, super-funny, he put all his good stuff in one book, cold and clinical, as a piece of writing, really cool science fiction, coming out of a different writing system, make sure it’s a good one sometime, The Terminal Man, 2nd novel under his own name, serialized in Playboy, epilepsy, a brain pacemaker, let’s do it, a plutonium power pack, takes place over four days, pre-cyberpunk, Elon Musk’s computer brain interface, read by Luke Daniels, right after Lowdown Road, November 12, gluttons for Crichton punishment, series about a girl, goes into adulthood, early 20th century, in the middle of WWII, why is she flirting with young men?, childrens books in the 1930s, heart racing trip across 70s America, CB radios are hot, 70s truckers movies, learning all the lingo, phrases that get turned into normal English, fender bender, CB radio jive, sex stuff, information, list of CB slang, Smokey And The Bandit, bear in the air, full grown bear, local yokel, a subculture of people who don’t have a fixed community that they live in, truckers live all over Canada and the United States, their community is their people they communicate, like BBS, Convoy (1978), a ballad, civil disobedience, authoritarian war measure act, you live in the capital, trying to get a meeting with the prime minister, protests are supposed to be inconvenient, gluing themselves to the road, idiots, a good cause, the method isn’t so great, the names of cities, Beantown, The Big Apple, why is it called that?, Cowtown (is Calgary), Disneytown, Hotlanta, California is Idiot Island, not all cited, Motorcity, Emerald City, Dallas, Texas, Rhymes With Fun, (Vagina) Regina Saskatchewan, super-ephemeral, preserved in film, a way of being connected, there’s an app for that, a way of being in touch with that community, same money different stamps, too slow, convinced, culture, a fun book, nobody knows really, Hayy Ibn Yadhan by Ibn Tufail, a book from 1185-ish, most translated text from Arabic, boy raised by a deer, the gazelle boy, supposedly a true story, the wolfchildren, has to keep up with his mom, a permanent baby, animal-raised children, wolf-children, never snake children, they don’t have the milk, dodo-child, extincted family, the self-taught philosopher, going after Avicenna, in the bosom of an antelope, Frankenstein, 2023 politics, Genghis Khan was really cool, it’s been a while, a conversation with Deleuze, nomads, Genghis Khan, trying to cancel Nietzsche, Jordan Peterson, so many people are triggered by him, read a Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, semi-ignorant, he’s not a politician, gives speeches, clean up your room, get married, you have to clean up your room if you want to get married, a simple idea, a lot of people need, good advice, very good on the Bible, Maps of Meaning, a rationalist, good analysis, thinking mythical, symbolically, more coherent than Slavoj Žižek, systematic ones, Sex And The Failed Absolute, that new movement of leftists, for Freud and Lacan, Less Than Nothing, more conceptual meat, youtube is not great for good feedback, participating in their engagement systems, corrupted by spam and failed updates, emails, moderation, because blogging was destroyed, rss is defeated, we defeated them, now were stuck, the other things, we’ll see, you should write a novel, 13 year old blog, why would I write a novel?, a terrible idea, buying a printing press, what if I typset it wrong, that’d be a lot better, Cirsova guy, magazines and books published, no feedback, lying, Jesse doesn’t want headaches, 200 people listen in the first week and a1000 over the next ten years, evolving all the time, people can’t believe their own thoughts, they want an official stamp of approval, the phyiscial copy of the book, Appendix N by Jeffro Johnson, Jesse loves blogposts, a real shame they’ve been de-platformed, what is Cory Doctorow doing, BoingBoing.net was a thing, probably still going, on Twitter, pluralist something, too much, his interests are not the same as mine, a really good science fiction idea guy, Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom, Robert J. Sawyer, interactions, his ethics are spot on, made a wrong turn, where’s my RSS, there’s no way to get them, there’s no ecosystem, let’s get that blogger who we really like reading, finding people who blog and bring them on, deplatform non-twitter blogging, and why did they do that, all consuming, this is where all those blogs went, jokes all day, threads, dream at the beginning of blogging, guest posting, dialoguing, narrow and eat everything, resilient against what google, trying to kill the internet, we can talk about our blogposts on our podcasts or youtubes, you in the past, no longer me now, vivid dreams, physical things, listening to a Doctor Who episode, politics, writing that down immediately, really interesting this guy is brilliant, different medium, short stories are also weird and hard, putting on a play, people want dialogue, arbitrary rules, Terence reads Jesse’s dreams, a cliche from the past, plans for the future, tell me when you want to be a doctor in the future and ride a horse, “last night I dreamt”, boring people have boring dreams, stress dreams, obscure kinds of dreams, a warehouse full of product, I need this capital, assorted chocolates, Sigourney Weaver, dark alien chocolate, mam, something about xenomorphing, esprit d’escalier moment, Bob Hope had come to visit and someone had ordered 36 cases of red wine, the sociology of dreams, social class, different jobs, not the last word on dreams, last night I dreamed, just a fantasy, just a joke not a dream, Baldur’s Gate, people are doing it for themselves, she had a white dove in her hand, a long black sedan, the inventor of non-philosophy, François Laruelle, this is close to a non-philosophy dream, a door to the beach, translucent toaster, little feet and hands, it’s organelles glowing yellowy, Mr. Punch, a living alarm clock, back to back, a supplement to this analysis of The Road Warrior, pithy, concise, observing everyday life, cash reserves, a reverse Edith Keeler style, vintage 1960s money, the purpose for my time-travelling, it was garbage day, broken bicycle pumps, dozens of photo albums, shiny new dimes, I audibly swore, a man stepped out of an alcove nearby, bud, the artifacts, we are collecting across the whole stratum, there was a lot more work ahead, that guy stepping out is me, these are like experiences you become amnesiac to, they can’t leave physical scars, you’re ignorant of them, phases, seven years of writing dreams down all the time, 2000 dreams, the old reflexes, read it again and put a title on it, it’s good, it gains in meaning, not wanting to write it down, this is really good, I need to remember this, the only way to preserve, loses the detail, the extemporaneous immediacy, it didn’t come in text, not copying and pasting, the sleepy voice is not present in the experience, the transposition is good for the dream, writing it down the first time is the definitive form, typos, get it all down, always start with the same word, dreamt, he’s talented, an art contest in Israel, takes job, 120 characters, transport all this stuff to another blue sky, it won’t be public if it’s not there, deleting tweets, major typo, spelling rules in French, straight away, part of the archive, reconstruct your life in 212 years from now, let’s bring Terence back online, somebody like Bobby Derie, sure he was racist about spaghetti, but he also says good things about ravioli, full of soybean oil, spaghetti’s feminine, you choose the stars, macaroni, they all taste the same, with our brains, which one should I choose, the cheapest one, call up Mr. Job, a good show and good talk, curse Jesse a little, see if you like it, mutilated versions, ThePirateBay, the 1971 film with 4 seeders, qbittorent, reddit is a really horrible place, so censored, super-censored, people talking about the letter mu, qbittorents the new mutorrent, what a great website, more bitcoin to give them, mined bitcoin, windshield repair, heat the apartment from mining, it might be a classic, as philosophically deep, philosophically famous, she’s got a Hugo as well, a lot of location based, southern France’s roads, a boy movie, there’s a girl in it, a pretty substantial role, plays some games.

John Lange books

SIGNET - Zero Cool by Michael Crichton

Hard Case Crime - Zero Cool by Michael Crichton

Hard Case Crime - Zero Cool FEAT. Grave Descend

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The SFFaudio Podcast #775 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: No-Man’s Land by John Buchan

The SFFaudio Podcast #775 – No-Man’s Land by John Buchan, read by Connor Kaye of The Eldritch Archives. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the book (2 hours, 13 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Will Emmons, Connor Kaye, and Jonathan Weichsel

Talked about on today’s show:
a much delayed show, war torn Europe, elves living in a cave, came back traumatized, your eulogy, trolls, he went to Poland, Germany, slipped in to Ukraine did some fighting, Connor’s life is getting very meta, plaid, Scotsman wear plaid, the Scottish weave, granite, in geology class, amazed Australian, accents, two years ago, listen back, damn it I missed that, Munaroar, why in Scotland they’re all speaking Gaelic, spoke Scot, national version, Welsh, part of France, basques, Celts in Turkey, dialects, talking to the caveman, starts makin sense, a Robert E. Howard version of this story, The Little People, a theory of where this story came from, a sphere of influence, trace back to Arthur Machen, Coven 13, the official Del Rey text, essentially this story without the outer narrator, a brother and a sister, the sister gets kidnapped, she’s a flapper, she can tell her sorority sisters, the brother goes nuts, told in 15 minutes, a Pict, a connection there, similar themes, an ancient forgotten race living in the British isles, The Shining Pyramid, hidden in the hills, they abduct people for their own purposes, degenerated, cro magnon man, rolling around in that gravy, flint arrowheads and cudgels, the most influential, you would know [if you’d read Machen], kinda like Lovecraft but Welsh, detective stories, an archaeologist on the trail, prehistoric people, some guys who find some prehistoric relics, 1895, five years before, abduct a woman, The Novel Of The Black Seal, The Red Hand, 1899, knowledge of those stories?, inspiration there, Howard read Machen, Out Of The Earth, a 21 minute story, Mr Jim Moon, WWI, Machen’s reputation today, The Bowmen, Robert W. Chambers, a romance novelist, his weird fiction, before he became a smash sensation with The Thirty-Nine Steps, still in university, the Governor General of Canada, ceremonial headdress, if mentioned at all, very fun, badly written, weird fiction, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, Weird Tales, the comparison to the Robert E. Howard, dwelling and a great swoon, this was lifechanging, changeling, one of the shepherds, I’m nuts, what ya readin’, sis?, tearin his shirt off, boxes a pict, the ghost of an ancient druid shows up, great power, The Grove Of Ashtaroth, The Wind Through The Portico, folk horror-ish, weird came later, interesting precursors, The Black Cat, no it isn’t, The Thrill Book, H.P. Lovecraft, “survival”, The Call Of Cthulhu, [Algernon Blackwood], the Munsey Magazines, “different stories”, “off-trail”, skinsuit, buy the license, generic stories of today, “The Unique Magazine”, a collection of stories that were weird, a jumble of junk, the good writers, Robert E. Howard, Lovecraft, the magazine that Edgar Allan Poe would publish in, adventure stories, a feature, not a regular western, somehow different, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Black Mask, crime stories rather than mysteries, to mean off the normal trail for that particular magazine, The Mystery Of Sylmare, filler material, the idea is so good, a weird fiction story, vampire fiction, the reproduction of trees using humans as fertilizer, not a normal werewolf story, there’s a vampire story in Sherlock Holmes, The Hound Of The Baskervilles, at least very strongly hinted, opposite of the original Scooby-Doo gothic, what is the author going for, very meditative, sells all his pict books, he goes back, he has to overcome that, a usual horror story, body horror, infected with a parasite, The Troop [by Craig Davidson], how do we really know, a sciency thing, carrying some ivermectin around, stuck on an island, based in history somewhat, the Picts, Julius Caesar, i’m calling a pro-vince, Engullund, there’s some druid’s yo, fucks off for 2,000 years, then the Germans say: we’re Germans!, Picti, the picture people, tattoos, woad, Braveheart (1994), going all pict, painting themselves blue, no longer distinct, likely what really happened, hid underground for 2,000, Bone Tomahawk (2015), beggar, first class ticket, low and stinky fellow, the furnaces going, an interesting image, an oriental stories story but set in Britain, Machen does this for Wales, turning foreign lands, exotic places, souks and hareems, you go underground, you find a lost world, industry, hidden in the mountains under thousands of pounds of rubble, a completely different interpretation, late romantic period, the romantic authors, going back to nature, something terrifying, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, kissed by an elf, Lamia by John Keats, disconnected from nature, walking, hiking, fishing, the natural world, modern encroaching on a natural space, learning pulls him both directions, learned university types, go out for a walk, a cave, a civilization, these degenerate, swoon, wight (vs. knight), wench, and no birds sing, so haggard and so woe begone, a faery’s child, pacing steed, fragrant zone, sweet moan, relish sweet, honey wild, manna dew, her elfin grot, so kissed to sleep, the latest dream I ever dreamed, death pale, horrid warning gaped wide, this is why I sojourn here, picked up a lot, reverses it, a grubby male, she’s an elf/nymph, connecting it to brownies, an elf sort of creature that does household tasks, boggles and boggarts, integrate folklore into science, by discovering the truth about what the folklore was connected to, moral horror, abducting women every twenty years, human sacrifice, recounting their history for him, the fabled ale, gold this and gold that, this was a rich land, these people are the dispossessed, the lack of physical description, the lore, 10,000 words of rich lore, a received document, he’s burned a lot of his papers, reconstructed for us by the editor, Blackwood’s Magazine, read backwards to find more stuff like you like, some of the differences in the ending, later versions, the original 1899, a huge insert, polite scorn, refused by the editor, primitive peoples of the north, unanimously rejected, another little insert at the end, his obituary, you can go and dig up and find this story is actually true, it is not for me to decide, an untrodden desert, The Shadow Out Of Time, Yithian civilization, the moors, at the time of Caesar Scotland was covered in trees, deforested the entire island, giving up on then hillbillies of Scotland, you want me to go to the police?, an insane asylum, a criticism of the way Scotland is treated, if you take London out of Britain England is very poor, the GDP has been fucked, interestingly political, lorded and put in charge of Canada, very smart, diplomatic, the call to action, the names of chapters were bizarrely changed, The Darkness Under The Earth, jumbled up, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, The Troubles Of A Conscience, The Watcher By The Threshold, go back to the earliest source, the abridged version, the most accurate, the good news about FFM, art for this story, where Heart Of Darkness was first serialized, from the period of Poe forwards, a story or essay, quasi-ghost stories, a story of colonialism with an overlay, journey into the underworld, ghost stories, in Victorian times, an examination of reality with a suspicious chip on its shoulder, the footnote in FFM is the same, written by the editor of the last chapter, editing stories for space, reprinted, fixed columns, A Princess Of Mars, reinserted, the first book publication, ended very suddenly, I jumped in my horse and rode off, in retrospect, most of it’s in there, looking at the first book publication, creative control, the author’s revision, Poe recycles, fill two pages, this illustration we have licensed, fiddling, improve, wight to knight, people like the idea of knights on horseback vs. guy, it wasn’t supposed to be set in the middle ages, walks, ride, the romantics are out romanticizing nature as it is, A Predicament, lifting from the European tradition, the magazine has an editor, Galaxy magazine, Horace Gold, the author’s version, which version to do, the expanded version, the art, the magazine that attracts you, Margaret St. Clair, Ray Bradbury, reprints from Munsey’s magazines, Virgil Finlay art, the covers for Skull-Face, Fantastic Novels, artists almost never renewed, lucky for us, a shame for his estate, fuck his estate, keep changing their company name, Heroic Signatures, hello, Elon, people ask for them, by his auntie or his cousin, mostly locked down by legal threats, Sword Woman, Black Agnes stories, trademark, legal bullying, fucked by Justin [Trudeau], Mistress Of Death, Blades Against France, international treaties, if you are interested, Wikisource, Oriental Stories, Magic Carpet, Weird Tales, crusader story, Clark Ashton Smith, let’s talk about No-Man’s Land, exoticising the familiar, the rednecks, the hicks, a heartland hinterland thing, North·West Romances, RCMP guys arresting minors and indians, prospectors, Jack London exploitation, a western genre, could’ve been a bear, if it was a bear it wouldn’t be weird fiction, the indians are effected by the white people showing up, the white man is the burden, indoctrinated into the white man’s beliefs, a weird inversion, most people don’t live in the north, Scotland isn’t that big, British Columbia is way bigger than England, the inability to talk to regular people, back from Iraq, shell-shocked, exoticising the heather, a fisherman, social gossip with the ladies, who his target audience is, Scottish dialect, phonetically, strong brogue, started off lighter, the ostler, hostel, The Inn by Guy De Maupassant, The Shining by Stephen King, hostler, the local who takes care of your horse, as all Australians and every New Zealander has, cheap flophouse, a source for local lore, the locals can’t understand me, slow down, boy, guy joins the police, [Far Below by Robert Barbour Johnson] a CHUD story, we have to keep their numbers down, a slow genocide over decades, you can’t talk about it with the regular people because they won’t understand, to expand the frontier, Antarctica, underground, Mars, defamiliarize yourself, The Matrix (1999), literally underground, the world behind the world, the shepherd and his sister, the devil, only in the darkness, they poke holes in my sheet, they leave arrowheads on a stone nearby, not a very scary story, the creeps, pricking the hole in the neck of sheep, they smoke their meat, gaining sustenance the strange way, living on the moors, if you don’t have a fire, on the train back, a Hawthorne story, smelters, 700 episodes, while academia is arguing, it’s your doctor, stage five cancer, reevaluate, will prep, romance pulp, the predicament that Graves has, the editor steps in, insert character, the other scene, the pricking of the throats, weird straw, a reed, what instrument is used, they’re chupacabras, swimming across the lake, when you seee the art in FFM, a scary interpretation, and he can hear the arrows, in true darkness, disorienting and upsetting, an almost alien landscape, the scarts, nick of the threshes, primordial beings, studying up on his whole life, oh shit, I’m in real danger, when he gets into the lake, they can’t swim, if he can just get ahead of them, three very delicious cups of coffee, hunting him through the night, read it the second time, long strong arms that can grab you, a terrifying thought to have, completely different style of horror, some gothic, The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis, a long labourius book, Jesse will find out in 7 months, a very Victorian idea, a 20th century idea, searching for the truth, shut their ears, shut their eyes, this is ridiculous, slightly outside the box, politics is in the academic world, all the shitty scientists, people on the periphery, bunch of rich dudes, Marie Curie and her husband, shit that’s really bad for them, it’s amazing finding these things out, a new element inside a puddle of black liquid, regularized, taught in schools, academics of science, [Ben] Franklin is doing science, who gets the credit, crazy time travel idea, the idea of time travel, la la la la la, so dangerous, you’ve got to be careful talking about that, the whole academic thing (they’re very close-minded), a quack, his career thus broken short, the recondite and the quack, the end of the obituary, terrified to be considered quacks, right now they’re talking about UFOs in congress, the 1940s, saying the same thing openly, rejecting his ideas, very dogmatic, the guy who has the facts and experiences vs. the regular ordinary people, a transformative experience of revelation, the framing device for The House On The Borderlands by William Hope Hodgson, Ireland, a house hanging over a cliff, a found document, pig-men, fever dream, parts of the manuscript are burned, the textual experimentation of the found manuscript, The Little People, putting that as part of the story, life imitating art, next thing you know we’re in the middle of a sentence, the man of bronze, he’s got his fists going, pig-men coming out if a portal, see you on twitter, Dermod’s Bane, don’t got visit ireland, don’t go fight that ghost, goes out and punches the ghost, modern American whose ancestors are from the old land, had Lovecraft written it the ending would have gone a different way, mentioned in Supernatural Horror In Literature, The Lurking Fear, some similarities, Worms Of The Earth, a pict warrior, Bran Mac Morn, the last Pictish king, trying to fight the Romans, the art from Famous Fantastic Mysteries, a quote, Algernon Blackwood, found among the papers of the late…, Of such great powers or beings there may conceivably be a survival, folklore is our connective tissue to history and a people, they just start telling their story to him, they don’t write things down, oral culture, quite beautifully connected, the way Lovecraft would have done it, degenerate, our projection rather than his intentions, native peoples of the area who have been driven underground, folk horror style, a lady to sacrifice and a dude to do the sacrificing, awesome, squamous, rugose, pretty horrific, almost reptilian, the sens of the underground, a woman in danger a man there to help, Lovecraft takes the romantic man saving a woman out of it, the lady led him down the garden path, digs into a grave and comes into a tunnel, he is one of them, Innsmouth, The Thing On The Doorstep, the body snatcher, a car trip, they go underground, freaky, a gold pillar and a scary lady who wants to have sex with him, certainly interesting, as always, connecting all these dots, a fun phenomena, when you know the great book of Eibon, creating the bookshelf, the literary connection, seeing The Shining Pyramid mentioned, being a literary detective is fun, Billy Buchan?, how is he connected to this story, archaeology, a similar idea around the same time, parallel thinking, six other stories, Pan is everywhere in the 1890s, Adrian Ross, poetry, a motif and an image, like lightsabers today, Starship Troopers, what do the kids like?, lady with a giant sword, cosplay and videogames, a sword so big you wouldn’t be able to lift it, go out the woods and get scared, wendigo, hanging out with the natives, they don’t necessarily explain, this is sacred, you can’t videotape this, someone a long time ago bunched with another someones realized that was a solution to a proble, there’s a hollow log and in that log was history, you can’t see what’s going on isnide there, there’s a smell, what weird fiction does with that kind of phenomenon, I can’t go passed my death, stick a little straw in there and see what comes out, From Beyond, what happens when you invent the microscope or the telescope, that’s really cool, teasing out someone we believed in, Will was a baby in the 1980s, Gremlins (1984), they’re cute but they’re evil (kinda like kids), don’t let them stay up after midnight, a chinese shop, this exotic pet, do this and don’t do that, Mogwai, all the things go wrong, the history of gremlins comes out of airplanes, Captain Kirk, kill the gremlin, Roald Dahl, airplane difficulties, what caused it?, saying to your armourer: you fucked up, scapegoat, a way of solving problems, who’s stealing the things, who made the milk go sour, the miscarriages, the evolution from a house spirit, a way of solving problems, a diplomatic way, be on the lookout for this thing, an actual creature that stalks the muskeg, pine forests of Ontario, people going nuts is bad, The Good People by Hannah Kent, changeling, swapped with a ferry, bad baby, swapped baby, justified infanticide, Mr Jim Moon [of the Hypnogoria podcast], a birth defect, to help on the farm, in this desperate situation, the same thing, boggles, introduction, a friend who is a bit kooky, the precursor of our main character, enthusiastic about it, a former professor on the street, there was a reality behind these things, a historical basis provided, making these connections, an explanation for it all, causing problems with the sheep, stuff they can eat that poisons them and is contagious, a legitimate explanation, fits well into the horror framework: we’re going to expand your worldview, where everybody is, angels six, bandit means enemy plane, bogie means unknown plane possibly enemy, presumably hostile, bugge, frightening spectre, bogeyman, boggart, a tool to control children, the boggart’s going to get you, genus loci, spirit, a household spirit, household animals to go lame, brownies, perform various, pre-girl, swearing loyalty to a queen I’ve never met, the brownies, badges for obedience, household elf, connecting it to the things in the past, introducing a new idea, learn about nature, channel it in a good way, in both contexts, the girl scouts, the cubs, little bears, to domesticate them, helping grandmas cross the street, light fires, totally disconnected in our childhood minds, references to folklore, it’s what you’re used to, we’re the brownies, they recognized that term, the sweet dessert, cute, decades go by and it becomes lost, let everything go, let it wash over you, an experiencing on it on one level, engaging on another level, key to enjoying the experience, The Player (1992), the medium of movies vs. the medium of a book, gone through before, if you’re going to extract all the juice, audiobooks are not great for a lot of that experience, it depends on the book too, depending on the author’s writing style, this is very dense, making an audiobook, listening five or six times, by modern standards, The Count Of Monte Cristo, it’s hard to get through, not for a casual listen, when you’re ready for a deep dive into late 19th century fiction, barely, a good introduction to this, if you’ve got through this podcast so far, listen to the audiobook again, he’s really fun, a faced paced and fun book, a short novel, John McNab, bored aristocrats decide to go poaching, oppressed by ennui, that’s his audience, that’s him as well, a Lord Dunsany figure with more scrappy Scottishness, he started off as an upper class twit, landed gentry, Lord Tweedsmuir, Adrienne Clarkson, a media figure, journalist, a lot of politicians would have come into peripheral politics, he isn’t going to offend you, cater to his audience, Lt. Governors, ex-politicians who didn’t offend anybody or ex-media figures, for propaganda, service to the empire, the tail end of the empire, died in office, 1935-1940, born in 1875, professoring, readers, actual pay, adjuncts get fucked, ex-academia, academia is as lame as shit, plains indian headdress, we care about you, you are now part of the tribe so don’t fuck us, they all sign that, power struggle stuff, when the United States wants to coup them, kicking out the queen, dismiss the prime minster, socialist policies, the chief scout, he’s your boss’ boss, do they have all the patches?, extracted all the juice, the differences, Out Of the Earth, they’re evil children because they’re small, the corruption, The Bowmen, taking it as a true story, a cool idea: children are becoming corrupting, a criticism of war measures, if you wrote that story today, a trucker metaphor, Nazis, Trumpists, hard to imagine, we turned Nazi into a bugbear, sonnenrad, totenkopf, saluting like Julius Caesar, how do you tell the difference?, pop culture media vs. folklore, superheroes, Batmans, Elon Musk is supposed to be Iron Man, he’s like Tony Stark, licensenced things, owned by Disney, your own folklore metaphor, harder to tell stories that are cool, the enclosure of the commons that happened to stories, what makes these stories cool, the place where, criminalizing poor people, tenant farmers to wool industry, as you cut up reality and turn it into capital you reduce the ability to tell stories, you have to go to the periphery, or to the moors, or to Mars, Mars is the innovation, Planet Stories, stories on Venus, A Voyage To Arcturus, create a secondary world like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, the secondary world of Hyboria, the sorcery part, a short story set in ancient Mesopotamia, The Voice Of El-Lil, a prince rides out to a hermit, lay a curse, tell information, do a favour for me, you have to kill someone for me, one stroke, completely circumvented, Oriental Stories, October-November 1930, his King Kull is Atlantis, just in service of the plot, someone’s betrayed him, talk to a guy who just tells him with magic, disposable, magic is almost unnecessary, vampires or winged men, out of body experience, the fantastical landscape of Africa, authentic Buchan experience, is that what I’m going to do with my life, a fun psychological story, that trainride back, the swim away, into the psychology, transformed over the course of the story, new aspect of reality, messes you up, Jesse’s thesis, the heartland hinterland thing, people are on their own and fucked in the country, make your argument stronger, really cool, page 18 of the original blackwoods, some form of mutton, ewes, a little smoking, the tasteless morsels, dry with thirst, the vessel was of gold, a miracle of flavour, I had known that flavour all my life, the sweet things of the moorland, that lost delicacy of the North, the heather ale, hidden mine of the precious metals, Cairnsmor, Gledwater, glen, home of gold, that secret of their heather ale, corries, freely without a scruple, not enclosures, then like a clap, this too spelled death, no fear of betrayal, the first time he’s there, making him a part of the ceremony in the perfect victim kind of way, The Wicker Man (1973), the food is not cooked properly, that’s lost, tasted before he was born, tolerable kindness, I had spoken their language, a wooden box in the corner, their orgy around the fire, why is everything gold, subject to England, ran the empire, talking to the poorest guy, the fires of industry burning, using it as a metaphor, the leftovers of colonization, it’s there, hmmm, a racial element to it, the biblical god (not capital g god), the fate of one is tied to the other, a capitalist colonialist thing, built an estate in this wilderness, The Lurker At the Threshold, syphilis, slowly going mad, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Ethan Brand, pretty close to done, the amazing novel I found, it’s Australian, an anonymous novel from the late 1890s, Gay Life In Melbourne, girl gets turned into a prostitute, controversial, am very excited to share, a spicy novel, 32 racy chapters, you should want to read this to me, Help! Help!, unmistakably feminine, the distressful sounds, a masculine form, confused mass of dainty draperies, an expression of agony and terror, “blazing eyes, it’s all right, miss”, the light from the lamp fell softly on her countenance, her fresh young beauty, he came out from behind a tree guard, what do you suppose, mustered up a blush, smiled, no-no, he did not effect his purpose, she takes it pretty cooly, smoking hot, a peculiar smile, a ladyfriend, missed the tram, so you live with an auntie, do you?, equally of course, put in a little hug where he thought it would do the most good, what his precise thoughts were cold print refuses to express, a party tonight, that peculiar smile on deck again, queer, this time of the morning, why it got canceled, racy, and Victorian, what year the tram started in Melbourne, probably 1890s, Trove, Police Gazette, would you like to be lectured about cultural sensitivity?, there’s racist stuff in here, we called them something bad in the past, one photo, about 9 hours, three months to do, maybe that time would go fast, you’d have a gay time doing it, she’s holding his neck, tiny little feet, minuscule, a big head, smoky eyes, she’s smoking hot impudence, unadulterated, what we’re about to witness, it’s wonderful, adultery, Auntie is the madam, they’re not friends they’re customers, interesting slice of Australian literature, modern cases, Little Sisters bookshop, constant lawsuit from the BC Civil Liberties Association, trynna make prude, way earlier in upside down books, how to do jiu-jitsu, buy the VHS, by a pamphlet, Hodgson’s story, Frederick Bailey Deeming, a candidate for Jack the Ripper, a good mustache, convicted and executed, six victims, more time free, The Harder They Fall (2021), too stylized, power fantasy, we’re supposed to think she’s powerful?, brinksmanship, Heinlein says okay, Mr. Heinlein I hate you so much sir, threatening to press the nuke button, the dialogue, all the shooting and the style, the focus was on the wrong things, the Bass Reeves story, Hell On The Border (2019), a historical novel trilogy, pretty good, Boss Level (2020), one of the Purge movies, a science fiction idea, what happens when you turn of the law, seems like a Heinlein thing, Niger is trying to get out from under France, French government pornography, pornography reduces sexual activity that produces babies, people can have babies if they want to, Onlyfans, you know our whole businessmodel?, regular streaming, fake communists pretend to yell at each other, Twitch, a way to record clips, kids staying at home, going outside, people playing games, non-important things, understand the appeal, social media platforms, influencers through traditional media, YouTube is very deep, doesn’t Evan do YouTube, supermodel asses and bitcoin, two things that appeal to a lot of people, finding hot things, giving money away, lady fixes up old cars, it’s her job, the giving away is to attract attention, Bryan Alexander’s youtube, a recorded meeting, reference material, stamina, having a manic spell, talking about the wrong things, the people interested in old books are all psychopaths, digging up and collecting things, a male thing, lesbians acting like men, for cars or music, deep dive on music, collecting, construction ones, books: nobody likes those, how many hours to find a bookstore?, how far to find a slurpee?, how many doors to find an x-box?, owns a pulp magazine, you aint gonna get popular, a popular podcast, compared to what?, almost none of the followers, Penthouse Comics, a good ratio, a key indicator, following way to many people, spillover, Pulpcover’s is crazy, 35,000, follows 62, he knows you, asking you to scan those, can you scan these please?, his website’s very useful and comes up a lot, all the evil corporations trade him around like a hockey star, Lenovo, Raytheons or something, spill all his known guts, Mr. Pulpcovers, fun interaction, old pulp stories, a pretty good facebook group, old guys who’ve read a lot of pulp stories, not easy to find, incredibly easy, real life access, when there was a bookstore, magazines for sale, pulpfest places have actual stock, acutely aware, enthusiastic, an extra scanner, cheap it works well, still supported by modern windows, $50 bucks, shitty printer eats your ink, its good to have a printer so you can print up stuff you want to read, you also have the file, do the whole issue, be a contributor to the renaissance, between the Greeks and the middle ages, this Arabic renaissance, a cultural renaissance, shit gets sent back to Europe before copyright, because of all those copyists, it’s immoral if you don’t copy, it’s good for them, they need to do it, a Cirsova tweet, he’s gonna be on the podcast, The Weirwoods by Thomas Burnett Swann, Christina Rossetti, she’s so good, so incestuous, and lesbian, fully illustrated, Goblin Market, some sexual excitement, since pornography has been banned in Niger…, look at the beautiful illustrations, trimming her hair, her sister, the goblins are gathering round, drug or sex-withdraw, come buy!, all ripe together, taste them and try, figs to fill your mouth, that’s what the goblins are saying, 21 pages, Lizzie veiled her blushes, fingertips, pricking up her golden head, hobbling down the glen, her glossy head, one bears a plate, no, no, no, their evil gifts would harm us, one crawled like a snail, in the pleasant weather, like a rush embedded swan, forced rhymes are hard, leering at each other, brother with queer brother, rough nuts brown, was still their cry, in tones as smooth as honey, your turn, good folk I have no coin, all my gold is on the furze, gorse, buy from us with a gold curl, sucked their fruit globes, man-rejoicing wine, that juice, that juice, cloy, too sweet, she sucked and sucked and sucked the more, she sucked until her lips were store, an orgy, a food party, 1859, wise upbraidings, the backstory, wore their flowers, sought them by night and day, then fell with the first snow, kissed her, on their mother twigs, my teeth have met in, pellucid grapes, pure the wave the drink, it’s fun right, like two pigeons in one nest, like two blossoms on one step, gold for awful kings, not a bat flapped, cheek to cheek and breast to breast, cows, house, cakes for dainty mouths to each, as modest maidens shou[l]d, most like a leaping flame, plucked purple, the sunset flushes, the bank was steep, the most sexual poem about fruit, the customary cry, sugar baited words, brisk fruit merchantmen, I dare not look, you should not loiter, each glowworm winks her spark, what should we do[e]?, come buy our fruits, her tree of life drooped from the root, her pitcher dripping all the way, gnashed her teeth, day after day night after night, exceeding pain, hawking their fruits, burn her fire away, her kernel stone, watched for a waxing shoot, the sandful breeze, and would not eat, cankerous care, she heard the tramp of goblin men, sex with a whole bunch of men, Lizzie’s the non bad-girl, the goblin had their way with Laura, she lost her virginity to too many goblin men, where the plot comes in, feared to pay too dear, fell sick and died, first glazing rime, frost, The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, knocking at death’s door, gorse again, running, leaping, crowing, pulling wry faces, wombat-like, snail-paced in a hurry, hugged her and kissed her, panniers and plates, French for bag, a bread bag, pluck and them suck them, pomegranates, figs, eat with us, our feast is but beginning, be welcome guests with us, give me back my silver penny, proud, cross-grained, uncivil, turned from seduction into a rape, held her hands and squeezed their fruits about her mouth, flood, obstreperously like a beacon left alone, a fruit crowned orange tree, like a royal virgin town, mad to tug her standard down, she’s a city under siege, grind their fruits into her mouth, shocking, 20 cannot make her drink, mauled and mocked her, lip from lip, juice that syrruped all her face, some scudded on the gale, knew not was it night or day, copse and dingle, her penny jingle, she ran and ran, dogged her, jibe or curse or something worse, windy paced, out of breath, Laura up the garden, suck my juices, goblin dew, eat me, drink me, flung her arms up in the air, the fruit forbidden, kissed and kissed and kissed her, mouth, drought, angry mouth?, her lips began to scorch, wormwood, rent all her robe and wrung, beat her breast, like an eagle, female eagle, a flying flag when armies run, overbore her lesser flame, which an earthquake shatters down, headlong in the sea, pleasure past, is it death or is it life?, getting close to the end, dinner, cooled her face, golden sheaves, new buds with new day, Laura awoke as from a dream, more modest now, not one thread of gray, when both were wives, her early prime, the haunted glen, blood?, how her sister stood, wow, bid them cling together, there is no friend like a sister, to lift one, to strengthen as one stands, super-sexual, the good sister, covered in jizz, sticky, citrusy and delicious, apparently, your sister’s your best friend, don’t have sex outside of marriage, sex is wonderful and exciting, you gotta hold back, none of the men will wanna date you, unlike Jeannie, get dignity back somehow, her refusal to have sex with these goblin men, somehow allows her sister to get her dignity back, licking the juices off of her, about the images, I like fruit, the moral is the point of the story, sex is a reality how do you deal with it, having orgies with men, male female dynamic, more subject to the consequences of sexual drives, babies you have to give away, striking, thank you for sharing that with me, Korean takeout?, divorced from her Korean heritage, Meg And Will’s?, generic North American, pizza is a popular choice, Mexican places, while we still have choices, people in seven months will be excited to know what Will had for dinner.

No-Man's Land (The Watcher By The Threshold)

No-Man's Land

No-Man's Land

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The SFFaudio Podcast #774 – READALONG: Farnham’s Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein

Farnham's Freehold - IF - Worlds Of Science Fiction
The SFFaudio PodcastJesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, Trish E. Matson, and Jonathan Weichsel talk about Farnham’s Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein

Talked about on today’s show:
unmuted, you’ve probably read my books, a wonderful novel from July 1964, Worlds Of If, very proud of himself, as a teenager, screenshotted, omigod, adding a new element to the story, explore this idea in the most horrible way, the Baen paperback, spoiler on the cover, the last page of the book is on the cover, what’s going on here, who wrote this, the title gives away the ending, what we now call preppers, a newspaper article, a freeholder, inspired by Heinlein, Heinlein’s changing the world, magazines about how to survive a zombie apocalypse, wanting the Walking Dead to be real, Freedom Is A Lonely Thing, what the book’s about, about being a slave, an oxymoron, if you hold something it is not free, held by your daughter/wife, mini biography of Alan E. Nourse, the dedicee, Friday was partially dedicated to the wife, both Navy men, who’s the main Heinlein in this book, former Seabee, decided to retire, 2,000 people under him, a helluva book, the scene where they’re outside and Ponce’s airplane shows up, Duke is going to live in a cave with his mother, some transition scenes, before and ponce and after ponce, three books, surviving a nuclear apocalypse, pioneering, life under Ponce, Karl K. Gallagher, is a pretelling of Starship Troopers, a partial retelling of Tunnel In The Sky, colonizing planets, he’s a YA character, The Door Into Summer, same thing happens, they steal a car, one of the cars is missing, Ponce’s world is also stuff we’ve seen in By His Bootstraps, the most extraordinary thing about this book is it’s set in 1964, there isn’t another novel where it doesn’t start in the future, such an interesting book, does an alternate history count?, Job: A Comedy Of Justice, a Heinlein break/cleanse, Glory Road, fixate on the costumes, such a distaste in your, the long pork, stick with chicken, Farah Mendlesohn’s book, her opinion, off the rails, cannibalistic, laughing so hard, tears streaming down cheeks, so weird, reread, the weakness of this book is the beginning half, skipped everything until the pregnancy reveals, character stuff, well done characters, not likeable, Jesse knows all their names, Barbara and Karen are interchangeable, we know Duke way too well, how real they are, Grace the alcoholic in denial, has her son castrated, I hate this book, if I was gonna stop, off the rails, you’re supposed to hate them, why am I reading this?, how do you fix this book?, change the POV from Hugh, straight out of Tunnel Of The Sky, as soon as Ponce shows up, tell it from Joe’s point of view, Joe talking to Hugh, Joe is sticking it to Hugh, Hugh is not a racist jerk, Karen, set in 1964, legacy racism, present day racism, we gotta stop this, there are still racists, that little joke was there to seed us for the final revelation, two different covers, redid the cover, that doesn’t solve the problem, there is no way to fix this book with another narrator’s point of view, what makes the book great, you wanna hate a racist, if you hate them so much, like Grace, insipid, we’re speculating, would she have cared?, a caricature, the fucking Karen, you fucking idiot Heinlein, he talks about taboo subjects, cannibalism, incest, horrible arguments, repopulate the planet, we don’t need to do incest, muddle through, dad I always found you handsome, what a horrible man, he was right to bring it up, a terrible movie, Noah (2014), pregnant because of Methuselah, Noah’s wife, we’ve increased out gene-pool, and the cat’s pregnant, and there’s a cow and a calf, he’s piling it up, decrease our displeasure, much more obviously as a Jonathan Swift, the grossness has an appeal, he’s an asshole, he made mistakes, authoritarian, sexist?, never chattered when her man wanted her to be quiet, he knows that he is wrong, he never does that, we think Duke is worse than Hugh, when Ponce shows up we shouldn’t have knuckled under, plot armour, or the book continued, muddle through and hopefully plot armour will save you, the first half of the book is a mirror to the second half of the book, as soon as the bombs go off you’re fired, we’re all going to be equal with no employer employee relationship, even Barbara and Karen, an equal prospect to Duke, strike a spark, everybody thinks Hugh’s sexy, my father figure, my best friend’s dad, throwing over his wife for a younger woman, acting irrationally, unreasonably, a history of alcoholism, solve their problems by drinking, decide the way they think it should be, rarely seen in literature, that was all she was, consumed by alcoholism, Hugh tells her story, shacked up with me, tarpaper roof, decadent and fussy, she was admirable at one point, turned to pot, saved all humanity, something Heinlein did himself, built a bombshelter, that’s not bad, female characters, why do women have to become fat and useless, nothing, zero, a Hugh and Ponce book, Kitty, Dr. Livingstone, cannibalism, incest, kittens, infuriating, in here twice, the other hidden theme, transgender stuff a couple of times, pleasant surprises, Doc thinks he is a boy cat, impressive actually, something in Ponce’s world, that idea, 1964 and farming, interesting, reconstruct the world with a few book, books are money, I kill you my son, the mirror universe of the future, including copyright, every kind of Heinlein theme you could want, it’s not capitalism, a funhouse mirror view of capitalism and the United States, an international planetary black supremacist, we should hate it, he’s created a funhouse mirror of American society in 1964 and hate it, wow it’s in the future, Joe is our reverse character, just his skincolour, every single character has an attitude that could be “I got mine”, his idea to get the cards, he’s a negro until he pulls a gun on you, it’s my cave, my machine gun, I know that this system is wrong, I’m in charge, enlightened Greek dictator of a city state, gonna send you back in time for fun, a parallel scene, stacking the deck 100%, to force the plot to accept the time travel bit, as a teenager, the castration reveal, shocked, we knew that it was coming, almost everybody has been tempered, thumbs taken off, what’s happening to all the sluts?, almost exclusively, some European shows up with a ship, you’re a slave now, slave bosses, I went to an island in the South Pacific, a blackbirding island, I stopped telling the story, slavery is wrong no matter what race does it for whatever reasons, we miss it, daddy I always wanted to have sex with you, I’m a sexpot, the little speech at the end, a bait and switch, have your balls cut off and serve me, the same bait and switch, structured very similarly, an annoying habit of making you infuriated, there’s so much to say, hated it less the second time through, a lot more nuanced, efforts at nuance, conflated Barbara and Karen, somewhat relieved, exploration of who should be on top, sacrificing your servants, runaways in the mountains, we are all free to walk our appointed paths, honestly convinced of his own benevolence, a cheap clincher, as a possibility, Christine Jorgensen was literally mentioned in one of the letters, any time travel story where one character is two character it’s incest, broaden our horizons, one character talking to himself all day, one of the letters, handwritten, an literary gabfest, let’s consider Edgar Allen Poe, Poe was the best writer to read or re-read, he could never be milked dry in one reading, the case of the Purloined Letter, when you consider the very subtle, how about Mark Twain next, a coded message to her, spelled correctly, if you can read this answer the same way period, he’s doing what he’s telling us what he’s doing, he’s telling us to read this book that way, consider the name of the cat, descendants of Africans, cannibalism is a planetary thing, around here any more much, serial killers, every Catholic is a cannibal, take in the divine, it’s a metaphor as well as an actual cultural practice, origins of capitalism, eating people’s lives up, different slave mentality works, as a manager of a factory, the same argument slave owners made to their slaves, in that light, it scares us more than it scares Heinlein, Heinlein is more afraid of Khrushchev actually unleashing hell, capital resources, in our timeline, it’s not a hearing aid, it bugs his wife, a very masterful book, he misjudged his audience, more sophisticated, we’re all teenagers when we read it, who’s there to root for, not a sporting event, trying to be satiryical, it’s not funny, a willing sex slave, that’s what all women become, stepping into the room and stepping on his dick, why do you do this to us, you need to have a reason to read, what outrageous thing will Heinlein say next is a reason to read, a tweet storm about Heinlein, memories of this book, To Sail Beyond The Sunset, a funhouse mirror in Ponce’s world, he’s trying to do something, he’s succeeded, we balk at the price and think the caller is an asshole, Karen’s sexing up her dad, I’m just like a black mammy, why did she do that?, she’s racist, the most Heinlein character, you try going through Alabama as a blackman, I gotta be modest here, but it’s not going to stop me, if we didn’t have this book we couldn’t hate Heinlein like we do, I’m the Karen now, an indictment of humanity, H.G. Wells, Griffin in The Invisible Man, the land lady, the bum, the indictment of the book, Prendick, Moreau, The Island Of Doctor Moreau, root for Henlein’s YA characters, Hugh is the least shitty character, Heinlein’s brinksmanship, no way to solve family problems, lifeboat rules, I have a gun to back it up, I read a book, books are valuable, you have to agree with me, you’re dead, bridge, so much bridge talk, contract bridge, games, Sixth Column, playing with a ruler, what is that chess move, what is that bridge move, such a stupid game, an old lady game, world champion bridge player, stay at home mom, will you teach me how to play bridge, my amazing game, a stratum of Americans, social function, aunts, progressive rummy, mahjong, by the book, not interesting to read about, so 1964, Omar Sharif, why is the guy from that movie, a second life, columns on bridge, it’s gone, a social activity, watch people stream, online games, people who play with their kids online, the time has passed, they don’t know what bridge is, the mirror of Hugh and his life, Anne and Alan E. Nourse, the kind of conversations that happen at the card table, hearts, why do you have a social game, sitting around and having a conversation, why do we have to have a book to talk about to have a conversation, it gives shape and excuse to it, it’s about marriage, as usual, one of the richest books, what is freedom, the American Revolution, his target is racism, slavery, American history, serious stumbling blocks by Heinlein being horribly Heinlein, almost certainly a parallel or an answer to Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, that scene is lifted, a poem: The Congo by Vachel Lindsay, why is it like this, The Golden Faced People, The Crisis, NAACP, a rich white man publishing a story in a black magazine, from a different period of time, equality anti-racist guy, pushing peoples buttons, The Golden-Faced People: A Story Of Chinese Conquest Of America, the trouble with the laundryman, it’s Lincoln’s birthday, 2805, the United States taken over by the Chinese, white people were the slaves until very recently, Lin-Koln, a backwoodsman who freed the slaves, a fun-house mirror of the United States in 1914, he sounds racist but is anti-racist, what’s so extraordinary about this book, semi-forgive, gritty and real, the incest problem, has happened around the world a lot, soccer teams crashed in the Andes, ritualistic, ancestors or enemies, probably not a healthy practice, kings of Hawaii, marrying their sisters, Cleopatra, Pharaohs, royal families of Europe, first cousin, for political purposes, for satirical purposes, sex objects, the drug aspect, religion is missing, two ways of reading this, also science fiction, what happiness is made out of, Seconal, alcohol, their drugs are better (because they’re insidious), calms people down, as a punishment, as a control, buck, slut, we become almost immune to it, wench, literally just means girl, the context, tavern wenches, in our world that’s how its used, a much longer book just set in that world, so interesting, the chosen women are so oppressed we never meet them, we meet the sluts, who would want to live with life, a breaking up of the atomic family, his first family is dead, the family atomic unit, he presents that world so thoroughly, how white women were thought of traditionally in the south, To Kill A Mockingbird, we’re in the household, walled up in the harem, the sluts’ quarters, who Ponce chooses, she’s working against her husband, he’s cuckolding Hugh, as a plot device, consider the nephew, they cry, sexist as hell society, a masculine controlled society, inheritance goes through the nephew, Mentok is quite a good character, interesting, a cabin in the woods, a vacation estate, run off my feet at all times, you will really how things are, so tantalizing, so different from ours, 2000 years pass, lights that turn on, social stuff, line marriage, so different and so good, middle manager, despises the slaves, resents the chosen, genetics racism thing, some blood in him, improve the stock, their own eugenics system, everybody knew there were men somewhere in the stars, set in the same universe, Time For The Stars, a checklist, twins, The Rolling Stones, how was Heinlein raised, his books not his biography, a private man for a public man, in New York at that time, Horace Gold’s poker game, the who’s who of science fiction, C.M. Kornbluth, Fredrick Pohl, a couples thing, another childless couple, food and drink, LBJ, a silver star, man’s magazine, congressperson in the reserves, American bomber tour, he didn’t do anything but survived and came back with a silver star, Duke is Lyndon B. Johnson, publicly Mr. Civil Rights, privately Mr. Racist, the situation was untenable, Lincoln’s story is similar, very liberal, very racist, he’s a momma’s boy, neglected by his father, under Grace’s influence, prejudiced, horny for dad, also racist, she thinks it’s cute, DSM, extremely un-PC, what causes homosexuality, absent father, domineering mother, opportunities with women, a closeted homosexual, in the abstract, just finished law school, he has his own apartment, living on his own, prove it, as distinctly as Trish, we agreed to live as friends, you’re not longer my son, your opinions are welcome, his wife is a Lush, take the alcohol out of her hands, 3rd we’re libertarians, coming from a history of alcoholism, very good, it’s incredible, his personal life, he aint gonna never stop talking about his cats, mom’s a total Grace, watch out for the scissors bub, hardcore, COVID is fake, my son Jeffrey gets all the vaccines, I need to believe that it’s true, what alcohol does to people, call a doctor, there’s no fucking doctors, in the intervening 20 years, did you think Karen was going to die?, structurally, this baby’s gonna die, forgot for a second, so easy, when Ponce tells Hugh, we went and dug up your daughter, I brought a priest, the Koran’s in there, we put every atom back, this is not a throwback society, way better tech than we do, flying cars, we could go to the moon anytime we want, kind of stuck, tame scientists, chosen scientists, dynamism there, translating, reading from Hugh’s point of view, ho we think he should feel, he has a different emotion than we thought he did, that same language from Sixth Column, formal language, very good writing, ranking this book low, roll you eyes and throw your phone across the room sort of scenes, Evan’s [Lampe’s] shows on Heinlein, leveling the shelter, not idea rich, fixed it with dynamite, similar scenes in Tunnel In The Sky, people can make mistakes, a pen for wild animals, commute to the beach, making and argument, the list of things in the bomb shelter, prepper porn, the list of books, he wanted to have ammonia and iodine, you might need to blow up bridges, Red Dawn (1984), John Milius, Nazi staybehinds during WWII, strike back at the oppressor, an uprising after the apocalypse, fight for America, a Red Dawn prep book, inspiration for white supremacists survivalists, teaching Nazis to fish, libertarians, also Indian, neither is good, but the arc of the book, not even a benevolent dictator, whether Heinlein intended it or not, “those people”, that’s not in this book, they’re just cannibals, sub-humans, it’s human nature that whoever’s at the top, plays into, so depressing, nobody will do the right thing, nobody needs to read this book that is not a student of genre history, we’re not wrapping up yet, the list of books, page 50, books were the immortal part of man, rape a defenseless friendly book, I want to bring it in, I’ve got a tommy gun I’m gonna make them read it, so annoying, still a good book, ugh cringey, up to a point, if the book closes up before that, the characters were thin, huge plot holes, not a good book for Maissa, Duke and Karen are entitled baby boomers, Kitten’s a millennial, gen x, what baby say about gen x, limited world view, and her racist jokes, the voice, Tom Weiner, cheerful sarcasm, sarcastic but serious, is Barbara the thinnest character in the book?, a lot of screentime, getting to the plot, getting to the ideas, she’s divorced, Hugh’s divorced too, that’s not fair, since you’re divorced, a Karen move, looking at things as an outsider, most loveable character is Dr. Livingstone, the twins are slobbery, Ponce is strong as a character, Jesse was apologizing for Hitler, that makes Ponce worse, Ponce is not a good person, he’s telling Barbara this, a super-strong argument about the master slave dynamic in the South, I barely tingle them, are you happy?, haven’t I been good to you, technowhips, a work of political angst, also angsty about WWIII, grotesque, trying to solve it, a radical shift, fifth gear to 1st gear, Karen’s death could have been avoided, sets up a Farnham’s Freehold in the end, silver coins, a 45 automatic, towels, knowledge and experience, two children, looting from the gas station, in their own bombshelter we presume, children to breed with their children, they go back to an alternate world, trying to fit it in with his giant chronology, back to the past, slave dystopia anyway, a more optimistic note, good point, Trish!, subtle, some version of him comes back to the original world, infinite world, Karen is always still alive, a very writerly thing, to make you read the book again, what did I miss the first time, time is a flat circle, 30 years later, the cannibalism is a shock the first time, seeded right when they get to that world, he didn’t write this by the seat of his pants, let me construct a massive thing, you’re going to hate some of it, maybe in this universe the chosen won’t rise up, sees the bald guy, I just saw the weirdest guy, how does someone get like that, racist against himself, the car being an automatic, what it implies is the time travel is happening in all different dimensions, why did she had a stickshift?, he could repopulate the earth with himself, don’t tell Heinlein, turning people into food, on the cover, butter and somedays bread, jerked Quisling by the neck, mostly satire, racist trope, Hitler was a vegetarian, Hitler liked dogs, I can have it both ways, the brinksmanship, he (failed to) raise(d) that kid, Karl Joseph, Carl Gustaf, leader of Norway, not a very good Norwegian accent, the Vichy, from 1942-1945, a little after chat, complimentary books, Regnum Congo, mentioned in The Picture In The House by H.P. Lovecraft, In The Barn by Piers Anthony, alternate world farmhand, humans raised as meat, sensory deprivation, thumbs again, makes them more docile, improves the flavour, tempered, slut vs. tempered, made stronger, fine tuned, calmer, a good word, Heinlein was a master craftsman, you’re supposed to, intentionally being obnoxious, made me so mad at him, he’s right to do it, he knows what he’s doing, breeding, slaves bloodlines, The Domination Of The Draka by S.M. Stirling, Steven Barnes’ Lion’s Blood, the black plague, colonized by Muslims instead of Europeans, Irish slave, Africans or whatever, friends in power imbalance, a really interesting book, concur with Trish, a sequel, Zulu Heart, well done, interesting fellow, co-written with Larry Niven, Seascape Tattoo, very impressed with this book, No., Why?, Heinlein!, god damn you!, why are you doing this?!, The Water-babies by Charles Kingsley, anti-science, anti-democracy, how democracy starts, pirate ships, all volunteer, if the leadership changes, the plank, put you off on an island, Paul is going to take issue, Paul is pretty sure, there’s a lot going on, the pirate codes, A High Wind Over Jamaica by Richard Hughes, Paul can leave, abandoning this, caught between two things, Paul is not fine, one of those rights thing, you can’t get your rights back, NYRB, The New York Review Of Books, audiobook, apostrophe s, a good pirate book, a gripping story, post-colonial Caribbean, supposed innocents, atypical setting, the truth of human nature, 1929, William Golding’s horrible book The Lord Of The Flies, Blue Lagoon, Victorian, isn’t as beautiful, disturbing, saw it on a shelf, thoughtful and thorough, tell you all about the book, proof against the standard spoiler wreck, differently distributed, The Strand bookstore, Houston, Huston Do You Read, male astronauts cast forward in time, there are no men anymore, Saturday in December, posed as a male author, such male writing, only a man could have written this, a practical joke, George Elliot, George Sand, Hugh Grant, Impromptu (1991), Emma Thompson, Judy Davis, a little too French and long winded, she’s kinda like Heinlein but meaner, Paul not Jvstin, democracy and pirates, Madagascar, Pirate Enlightenment by David Graeber, richer pirating grounds in the Indian Ocean, Tortuga, the Madagascar women, colonists and natives of the Caribbean, pirate kings, pirate queens, if you’re a captain on a pirate ship, Black Sails didn’t go to sea very much, sailors don’t like sailing, they need to sail, rich people with a yacht, fishermen don’t love the sea, pirates don’t have family, they have addiction, make merry, his share is higher, bosun, they have responsibilities, pirates had to do certain things, drink all fuckin day, a whole mini-version of the political state as the nation state, Caribbean pirates, white slaves in the British and French navies, Jesse’s joke: I was impressed by the British navy’s recruiting methods, your health is fucked, they liberate your ship, why would you attack a ship with no good stuff on it, white and black slave ship sailors, not-chattel slavery, hauling humans, swabbing out shit and vomit, sometimes they’ll sell the slaves, everyone has guns and knives, Heinlein’s paradise, relatively recent scholarship, The General History Of The Pyrates, The Many-Headed Hydra by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, the term that capitalists use to describe the slaves, you always have to be putting down the slaves down all the time, slave rebellion, history from below, Maroon communities, tri-racial isolates, Evan Lampe, when brought to shore, women were expected to run business, aliens with treasure, Against All Flags (1952), basically The Fast And The Furious (2001) but with ships or Point Break (1991), with the consent of the locals, lying claims, oral traditions and cultural practices, what parts of Africa weren’t colonized?, a pirate utopia, the history that’s coming out of there, a lot of sex for 50 – 60 years, biracial descendants, the European kings, this strange thing called democracy, those Americans in the colonies, a hidden history other than John Locke, Greece, a lot like Heinlein, a historian of the Atlantic, do another one, he’s read enough books, mostly fiction, Will and Ariel Durant, this attitude toward fiction: a character has to be likeable, damaging, some people read for comfort, Hugo books, sequel books, diminishing returns, in any series, characters are there to fulfill the job, no heroes, smiling dashing hero, Red Planet, a lot of people don’t have an identity, changing their genders, somebody gave you a name, you don’t know who you are, growing up, a lot of people never find that, most people don’t read at all, reading as an escape identity, other realities from a long time ago, not surprising but very common, it hurts literature, your characters have got to be likeable, choosing the right things to focus on, grossing out, war in Malaya, Seventh Dawn (1964), William Holden, a tropical version of Dr. Zhivago (1965), Malaysia’s failed war of independence, the British version of Vietnam, chopping people’s heads off and holding the heads of their enemies and smiling, British commandos, ghost writing gig, Catcher In The Rye, punish children.

Farnham's Freehold - IF Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF - Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF - Worlds Of Science Fiction

If Worlds Of SF, July 1964 - list of books in the Farnham's Freehold bombshelter

Farnham's Freehold - IF Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF - Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF - Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF - Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF - Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF - Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF - Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF - Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF - Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF - Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF - Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF - Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF - Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF - Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF - Worlds Of Science Fiction

Farnham's Freehold - IF - Worlds Of Science Fiction

Doug Potter art for Farnham's Freehold

CORGI BOOKS - Jim Burns art for FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD

Paul Lehr art for FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD

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