The SFFaudio Podcast #778 – READALONG: Houston, Houston, Do You Read? by James Tiptree, Jr.

The SFFaudio Podcast #778 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Scott Danielson, Trish E. Matson, Will Emmons, and Jonathan Weichsel talk about Houston, Houston, Do You Read? by James Tiptree, Jr.

Talked about on today’s show:
a collection of feminist science fiction, 1976, Vonda McIntyre, Racoona Sheldon, what dynamite on my bookshelf, me, and yet you showed up, cardboard box with sawdust at the bottom, The Screwfly Solution, she has a hobby horse, a point of view, Robert A. Heinlein, what people on twitter were saying about this book, interested in what the text says, the audio drama, the acting, the choices that the editor made, the ending, the central metaphor, it’s a pun, girls don’t read, classic history, a lot of sparks, pretty good, time jumps and transitions, what the hell’s going on, in chronological order, the novella jumps around a bit, the audiobook narrator, not great job, textually complex, she wasn’t terrible, all those voices, the Connies and the Judies, Australia, the Canadianism, the one word: aboot, northern Canada, northern Alberta, any kids?, no evidence for that, still under copyright, good prominence, more actively marketed, we are digging this stuff, we readers, we heard good things about this author, Hollywood is making so much Philip K. Dick, the estate is trying to sell that stuff, the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate, not being exploited, getting books into hands of people, Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, especially Andy, a tremendously translated narrator, Oliver Wyman, a vocal chameleon, Katey Sagal would be ideal, a spark of comedicness, a very serious story, a little too serious, I’m holding a skull while reading a book, wry humour, not brought out by the narration, super-subversive, the men were just being drugged and put back to sleep again, being put down like dogs, the “good one”, he has no brain for him, why he drinks the hemlock, Socrates ending, sweet smiles, he’s drinking it willingly, the circumstances are such, antidote for the drug, it makes a choice, he’s saying that unknowingly, pretty horrible, tastes cool going down, peace and freedom or death, so horrible, everybody is making their own decisions, hive mind, girls talk it out, it’s a pirate ship, Jesse, is this anarchism?, the answer is: maybe, approval from them, on a pirate ship, orders when in battle, the platonic ideal, Blackbeard, the golden of piracy, mutineers and slaves, the consequences for breaking one of the articles, quartermaster, share you out, this is not a pirate ship, an anarchist society, how your house works, the husband is the captain and the wife is the first mate, a horrible household, patriarchal households in the US and Canada, religious ones, a lot to say about religion, not organized like a captain, corporations, a lineal structure, flatten the structure, a company vs. a corporation, we never go to Earth, three drunk guys, the entirety of the story, did she have a POV, what people said about this, psychopaths, I’m so glad you are not my boss, this is horrible, quotes, back up your evidence, while Jesse does a search, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, The Tyranny of Structurelessness, observations of various feminist groups, the loudest voices dominate, nebulous, a more ruthless power, a world being inherited by woman, this is not facts, migrant, reproduced by cloning, rich white women like herself, Alice B. Sheldon, your faces oh my sister, from the male perspective, a culture of women who no longer have that problem, David Santa something, irradiated itself, quite the read, SinclairJM1987, if all men die, we are already capable of impregnating ova with another ova, in the 1970s, all the human males died, you girl girl!, holy shit!, women studies department, discussions of the books we’re reading, we think cloning is bad, Hitler’s army of clone Hitlers, making millions susceptible to disease, 11,000 different clones, 4 lines, this is a problem, so provocative in this book, the way some people think about Heinlein, good for me, dangerous for you, second wave feminism, Herland, The Yellow Wallpaper, Will should love this, three men get in a balloon, a retelling of The Lost World, a lost plateau covered in women, three American men show up, let’s party, active rape scenes, the sequel book, entirely Amazonian society, women do men’s jobs, so hard, to the nth degree, this is nightmare world, mom killing you, this guy’s a fuckin monster, protecting women from other men, giving no fucks, there are good men, in vino veritas, Thomas Ligotti, Wayne June, that sounds interesting, even harder than The Screwfly Solution, the hard feminism of Tiptree, uncompromising, ruthlessness of a pleasant smile and a faraway look, this is for your own good, sperm samples, Ethan Of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold, get some eggies, artificial wombs, needing genetic diversity, why did she put it into space, just for the joke?, the pun?, money, farmers, everybody takes turns, four industries, activities, the loom, there for fun, Venus is boring, two million people, interest and work, a very ambitious book, cut down, too much at the beginning, the meat of the middle, the jokes, bad take about H.G. Wells not needing to be read anymore, oh my god, no idea, right away, told by the narration, Andy, androgen, funny jokes, what was the name of the chess move?, Dagmar’s gambit, a real person, a celebrity, mononamed celebrity, like Madonna, Prince, singer, comedienne, actress, stunning physique, dynamic personality, towers over Frank Sinatra, plays dumb but is smart, Judy, the Australian, American and British actor, Cary Grant, Archibald Leach, tripped out on drugs, shoved into the girl’s shower, dick in his hand, such a girl, sympathetic to the women, stereotypes about men, why she’s so dangerous, we don’t need men, set the deck, frustrated with the story, not kind to the women, she’s mean, some ideal utopia, no!, Heinlein’s worlds as utopia, The Boys, Homelander is a hero, she’s suicidal from the beginning, hates the structures, wants change, she wants to smarsh the patriarchy, making a statement, not going to be the ultimate solution, women as cold, things of interest, it’s kind, it’s not like they tortured dogs, a laboratory experiment, almost clinical, rape scene, how are you feeling, deliberately off-putting, she’s making a statement about women, shame and humiliation, power, like a scientist, nobody has had sex in 300 years, is he going to emit sperm now?, emasculating the rape, not about power and violence, how interesting, the male perspective is embodied by these three guys, canny, too much of, Lorimer, most sympathetic, he gives in, impenetrable, need to drink this hemlock, can’t we all get along, written omnisciently, playing a character, hypermasculine stories, unable to write, edited by Vonda N. McIntyre, David G. Hartwell, when her name was found out, her spigot dribbled out, Racoona Sheldon is a new hidden identity, no big gap, gets something wrong, introduction is so interesting, on Archive.org, on page vi of the introduction, The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin, who is sacrificing whom, and return to his own time, the world of the future, his name is on a plaque, we did not mention our epidemic, editorial take, Lorimer doesn’t die in the end, causes the deaths at the beginning, utter buchwa, women on the ship, “our epidemic”, the context, 6-65, as to your first point, space cadre, 0.0, notice the tense, the men’s polio shots, killed virus, childhood diseases, he does not mention their epidemic, x-chromosoming epidemic, they’re gonna die, let this sit for a minute, Y: The Last Man, the premise, one dude and his male monkey, three astronauts, it’s a tour of earth, visiting a whole bunch of women, who’s gonna do this, he’s not really important, he’s a juggler, society continuing on, a much softer take, more ruthless, the simplicity of The Cold Equations, a birth defect, infanticide, suckle, stroke, clean, bury after you strangle, the horror of this story, mischaracterizing Jesse, such a mean lady, we all have aggressive fantasies, pop into your head, society tells you a lot of stuff, finding your identity, this language thing, this history thing, notes of their lives, she’s revolutionizing so many things, couple of hours, she’s brilliant, one image, crucific in one hand gun in the other, volume of information in one image, Zardoz (1974), the gun is good the penis is evil, symbolic heavy, negative female stereotypes, chatty Cathys, if you read this as a woman, that’s so wrong, women don’t innovate, tweaks, legit stereotypes, she doesn’t only do stereotypes, smorgasbord, a buffet, a time travel book, women kill all the men, a female utopia, men need to hurry up and die, who are the sympathetic females, sympathetic, very interesting too, when he’s all excited, I felt like hitting somebody, we need to make one strong for those manual tasks, open this pickle jar, extra hormones, anywhere near queerness, if somebody wrote this today, of course I love my sisters, unrealistic, how much Connies and Ingrids, this is not a sex bus, lose a lot of context, the sex act is consequential for a lot of people, can result in babies, a lot more casual, changes the focus, that’s how the one guy, put up a statue to my penis, they dose them, the truth drug, lack of inhibitions, let’s find out the truth of these men, shade the truth, omit things, unskilled liars, change slightly, the central joke, we do for a fact, our so called great books, who do you read, there’s our future Surak, Shakespeare, not very realistic, talking to other women about books, being frustrated by that, this is not all women, terrible episode of The Twilight Zone episode Not All Men, the consequences of this, let’s take this story and say it is not a cartoon, not a dystopia, humanity has lost its soul, half-species, half broken, trying to keep the language the same, the sick part, where the men won’t understand the women, if you’re not going to write books anymore, real trouble, studying history a lot, not realistic, outside of their experience, Andys perform the roles of males on stage, all set in space, an interesting stage play, when the rape scene starts, hard to watch, we don’t get a travelogue, soulless broken, a knife edge, it could fall one way or fall the other way, nobody is right in here, really mean, very cool, everybody sucks here, Am I The Asshole (a reddit forum), is this really a normal thing, a family of violent alcoholic, hard-ass, is Jesse gonna feel oppressed, smothering, if she was dumber and tried to do this, smart, wise, typical man, they need a gun, kind of American, if written by a non-American, the captain is religious, is that allowed by NASA, he’s number 2 on the ship, Buzz Aldrin, fumbled words from Armstrong, magnificent desolation, prescripted by a committee, a lunar base, that’s not our world, in 2023, circumsolar expeditions, page 14, he often says that too, the sparkle of Spica, like a blonde fu manchu, what’s his plan, evil world domination, those orientals with their devious ancient knowledge, reverse colonialism, planting the seeds for what she’s trying to say, hard to take a good take, what’s the good take, the evil Kirk separated from the good kirk, Scott’s wisdom, the good Kirk can’t make decisions, they’re gonna be suckin my cock all day, that episode is so strong, one Kirk running around the ship raping women, Yoeman Rand, that wasn’t like me, that’s not how women would run things, some women are really fuckin bossy, Margaret Thatcher was a woman, evil lady, city garden societies, more vicious that men, Mayor Daley, that’s the theory, Jesse doesn’t buy it, personal experience, a head nun, the abbess, fraternal brothers order with different characteristics, a benedictine nunnery, who’s most experienced at this particular thing, deferring too much, everyone in this podcast today, Will, Scott, Trish, Jonathan, don’t forget Paul, we’re on a boat in the middle of the ocean, solution solved, Heinlein, anybody been on a boat before?, Jesse has been on a lot boats, who knows how to swim, how to solve this problem, seniority is the traditional way, these are the elders, they have seen many summers, many winters, society, we’ll have a meritocracy, what have they developed, fertilizing ova, some innovations, only 2 million people, all we see is the ladies on the ship, what they tell us, a 17 book series, so much idea to be mined, very easily could have been a novel, keep it small, to the idea, very very good science fiction, it doesn’t even need to be set in a spaceship, the pun first, what’s the difference between men and women, Jesse is reading too much into the play on words, it’s not the focus of the story, having the word read in there, difficulty reading, partially occluded, a very fun metaphor for what she’s doing, we’re partially blinded, Earth should be here, October not April, a tiny little package, it couldn’t be any shorter, 1972, When It Changed by Joanna Russ, a planet settled 30 generations ago, a plague wiped out all of the men, whether the women want it or not, dueling scars, killed three women in duels, dueling scars, German empire, Nazism is a distraction, ova fusion, mainly agricultural society, a couple more generations, overwhelm us, a contrast to Tiptree, violence certainly still exists in this female society, a mayor, other political currents, a different view of an all female society, just one point of view, play on gender in the 1970s, The Left Hand Of Darkness, very New Wavy, Again, Dangerous Visions, a biography out there, 1976, one preceded the other, a male activity of practicing violence, no violence from the women in this book, very soft/passive, not demonstrative violence, men went after getting these scars, dueling class, guards all over their body, fencing, to prevent eye damage, you give the guy a scar, they don’t want to lose an eye, it works either way, put on your armour, if you don’t have one, people would cut their faces, the Nazi ideology, showing their masculinist, a John Sanford book, scatheless, glass fragments to show the boys back home, cutting women in the face, a man with a cut on his face is more male, heightens his desirability, Otto Skorzeny, cheek with the duelling smites, being tall, women are acting like men in that situation, men and women are different, we have more range than that, a lady who’s proud of their dueling scars, Paul can imagine a society where women are in charge, the hot thing, the one episode of Star Trek The Next Generation, where men are tiny and women are amazons, the very male of the audience of the show, lot of heterosexual women liked that, Jesse is not a heterosexual woman, ideas by the footload, it hurts, more other works, Seven Eves by Neal Stephenson, doorstopper, cloning and other techniques, the definite this, the definite that, yet to be , Brave New World is not a cloning book, eugenics, 888 page, is it a definitive cloning book?, quasi-sub-species of humans, traits and subtraits, chemist, farmer, biology is not destiny, way to long, if you like that sort of thing it’s your thing, Jurassic Park is a cloning novel, the scientist in the book, sinister in the book, genial in the movie, sparknotes, analysts say, Cyteen, your definitive clone novel, a masterpiece, the most ambitious sci-fi novel, what makes it so good?, Will’s just a young buck, the concepts of nature and nurture, the basic plot of the novel, multi-generational cloning project, get this brilliant chemist to come back, stuff in the background, free labour, citizens, clone brothers trapped on this compound, attracting all this attention, wheels within wheels, a lot of crunchy intrigue and shenanigans, a secret colony, the whole Cyteen world, cloning and tape learning, the old fashioned way, two ideas of feminist theory that are different, become leaders in those institutions, the women should leave and start their own institutions, radical feminist, maybe that would be horrible, right up to the end of this book, I don’t want to hate her, women are capable of a lot, a contribution to society if given equal rights, wait sixty years, what would happen if women had a society without men, this is horrible, twitter takes, maybe we just need to give them more books to read, getting focused on one part, an idea that a lot of people have, the author is advocating, his vision of the future, the characterization that comes in the movie, smiling handsome children, Doogie Howser comes on with a Nazi uniform, rooting for these Nazis, sometimes Heinlein is bad at his strawmanning, humanity has been strawmanned, reading Starship Troopers as fascism, putting murder in their book, deliberate misunderstanding, a deliberate missing of things, a sophisticated story, Lord Of The Flies, foisted upon children at school, find out what this means, the answers are made up, this is human society?, no girls on the island, hey high school kids, I need to tell somebody about this book, it’s gonna hurt, too strong, it isn’t that subtle, the material is smarter than the scholastic material, always, skipping all the inconvenient because parents would be upset, with a particular ideology, from a fundamentalist perspective, don’t give women any power ever, Scott is that in the Bible?, man is the head of woman, women should submit to men, is he right about that?, should men submit to women?, David G. Hartwell, the way the old human race used to run, bisexual, maybe it’s not as horrible as we think?, trust their words, returning to Earth, pitch pumping, Return From The Stars by Stanisław Lem, different solutions, an interesting parallel case, integrate back, the lost astronaut problem, a Planet Of The Apes story, kind of an asshole, fucking monkeys, kissing one at the end, 247 pages, Will could read that, 1966, a long tradition, deep freeze, coming back from star missions, disruptions to society, in January of 2024, Jesse likes short stories, Sword Of Welleran, Radium Pool, short stories pack a punch, sometimes there’s nothing to say, The Cave Girl, ad 250, in the Koran, 300 years later, no technology has changed, your king is the same name?, a role playing game, we haven’t stumbled over a railroad yet, back in time, a cutoff for the sewers, Romans had sewers, centralized heating, when some piece of tech began, differences between the various steam engines are very subtle, China before Europe, smartphones existed before the iPhone, old social media sites, an unrelated question, start a company called twitter, if you don’t use it you lose it, this tweet doesn’t exist, tweets don’t exist anymore, Skippy Peanut Butter, old Marvel or DC comics that come back, an Unknown Soldier, Obama is giving Batman a congressional medal of honor, if they don’t do it, Superman movies, Captain America with a van, Fantastic Four, serving a particular point of law, it’s not going to work Jesse, laying fallow, Weird Tales is technically still around, they’re separated by incontinuity, all the old titles with any sort of cachet, this is that old thing you like, Babel by R.F. Kuang, what makes a Scott book?, coming into Scott’s orbit, experience it for yourself, did not make the Hugo list, capital R reason, the locus award, fantasy Japanese invasion of China, not a Jesse book, T. Kingfisher, extremely, very charismatic, not a Jesse author, character focused, Jesse hates characters, historical fantasy battles, Evan might like this book, The Oxford Translator’s Revelation, what Evan likes, non-Americans, set in Oxford, Jonathan likes provocative stuff, What?!, oh good, starting to get a sense of Westerns vs. science fiction, hard to get a read on, they like books you would get at the library, the Dragon Awards, less radical, certain subset of fandom, still trying, decrying, this is terrible, own set of blogs, leftists ruining science fiction, evidence, proof, slide into the dms, Wells is archaic at this point, socialism was just a theory, are they trying to look for a fight?, Wombat Soco, a Morlock P. thread, the same mindset, we didn’t know back then, same idea, the strength of Wells is how he presents his ideas, he never says that, communism, socialism, they’re synonyms, a weird and dumb thing to say, even the Our Opinions Are Correct, just a troll of Jesse, okay whatever, don’t read Wells, Wells was passe, they think that, maybe they haven’t read, a chicken or egg thing, otherwise your missing good stuff, fish for squid, hallucinations, fermented kimchi, Heinlein promoted long pig, if there’s a restaurant and it is humanely prepared, thank you Trish, we had a delicious conversation, not even a cannibal, cannibal curious, cannibal flag, we all had mother’s milk, it’s attractive, overstating the case, no cannibal restaurants, lab grown human meat, on a farm for a week, a mink had gotten into one of the chicken houses, summarily executed, deboning two chickens, homegrown rooster, the differences are massive, radically different creatures, very different meats, bones and skin, chicken breeding, 22 rifle, firearms acquisitions certificate, nobody kept the fur, mink in the trap, not of the execution, Evan quit harder, facebook, dms to people, like their comics, what’s life like outside of twitter?, free and easy, focus on particular thoughts, wind in your hair, dog at your side, a playtex commercial, The Mysterious Stranger, more Twain, the Library America, Twain recently, that’s the problem, more definitive than others, the audiobook really shapes it, Francis Stevens, Behind The Curtain, The Elf Trap, we’re booking way into the future, strong ideas, fantasy, the Amber series, very absorbing, tripped out stuff, Robert E. Howard, Conan, doing philosophy, they don’t believe in god, like Triumph Of The Will, a canny hobby horse, gothic novels, hah, defeated it, he’s know for this characters, that’s really cool, Conan is basically the anti-christ (but not in a negative anti-Christ way), he doesn’t die, Trump: I likes sons of god who don’t die, the Christ story is really cool, it relies on love, lust and vigour and love of adventure and love of living, almost falls in love with Belit, he has his good cry, he’s fine with it, comes back with the dead, thank you very much, in the year 6000, reconstructing Jonathan’s personality with AI, what a reviewer wrote about it, that meant that I was in charge, Vomit on the moon book, another leap for human kind, first openly transgenderwoman on the moon, the irony, a lack of progress, satirist, people don’t know what satire is, Adam Chronos, the strong beautiful, black transgender woman in space, who the hell wrote this?, both sides, strength and beauty, what on god’s earth is this crap, missing the irony in the text, a hot topic, in 1000 years, distance, people forget, its much easier to see after a little bit of time, reading Jonathan Swift, the big enders and the little enders, a religious dispute, thou shalt crack the egg, some religious fight, the annotations, Jesse doesn’t trust annotations, the original publications, people’s bad ideas, the guy in the big red shirt wants to murder Jesse, he’s a communist or whatever, even Penguin books?, do tons of research, Schmoop, Trish, Sparknotes, where’s the quote, not quotations, Bokanovsky’s process, just look at the text, that’s illegal, that’s what the news is for, following a lot of libs, a hatelist on Biden, the argument wasn’t about the things that were posted, if it’s true I don’t care, always look at the original sources if possible, clon is not in it, google ngram, clone is a very old world, 1867, it’s happening in the 1940s, copy down what chat GPT says, cloning humans, the mammals don’t survive, a barrier to continuing, not a real viable solution, she’s clever, no, Jesse’s right, Scientific American, Popular Science, this is very interesting, Dolly the sheep stuff, most people don’t read a lot of science fiction, she’s very good at it, The Game Of X by Robert Sheckley, Strange Exodous is Abernathy, also an Italian movie, Seventh Victim, sign up for this game, hunted or hunter, the sevens club, bullet proof jackets, a girl who is suicidal, you don’t have to keep playing, if you’re in the game it’s fine, The 10th Victim (La decima vittima) (1965), The Monsters, Galaxy, H.L. Gold, blow will’s socks off, the newest thing that has happened for some time, where the new thing was happening, a substance resembling fire, on his thick tail, the fifth day of lugat, I have to go home and kill my wife, I’d hate to be late, Mindswap, so many good books to read, wait 10-15 years, the whole series thing, a sequel, everything has to be a series is deadening, counterexamples, The Stainless Steel rat series, Harry Harrison, they’re funny, very enjoyable, making exceptions, the first 3 Dragonlance books, too many, The Weirwoods, gets bad in the middle, good again at the end, plot holes, each one grates on you, a real dip in quality towards the middle, thank you so much.

Tor Double 11 - Houston, Houston, Do You Read? by James Tiptree, Jr.

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If it was him they were after this time.

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

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

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

The Skull by Philip K. Dick

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

Podcast

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

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

The Pre-Persons by Philip K. Dick

1974 Philip K. Dick Letter To Joanna Russ

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #682 – READALONG: The Screwfly Solution by James Tiptree, Jr.

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #682 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Scott Danielson, Evan Lampe, and Trish E. Matson talk about The Screwfly Solution by James Tiptree, Jr.

Talked about on today’s show:
Racoona Sheldon, Analog, June 1977, special women’s issue, Eyes Of Amber by Joan D. Vinge, Analog, not just for men, Ben Bova, a 1970s thing, Women Destroy anthologies, all Harlan Issue, throw all the women in one basket, J. Michael Straczynski, a sausage fest, representation by gender, a piss per job, one woman per this episode, making room for women, what her logic was, Angel Fix, to suit different markets?, James Tiptree, Jr had to intervene on behalf of Racoona Sheldon, Robert Silverberg had to make a huge apology, it was very clear James Tiptree, Jr. was a man, the Andre Norton story, she was not hiding, a quasi-medieval romance, rationalization, this story is about rationalization, the whole religious cult element, super hard SF, as a historian, certain biological experiences (like love), fairly universal across humanity, across time however…, culture, movies, love songs, something physically is changing in these men, all the cultural baggage would be dispensed, morality wouldn’t win out?, the first time a zombie wakes up, turning some aspect up to 11, to set the society’s norms, urges, the story of Adam and Eve, uncomfortable, people use it for whatever they want, good science fiction, why Jesse likes adaptations, The Twilight Zone adaptation, the new Dune movie, The Masters Of Horror adaptation, the 90210 guy and Elliot Gould, commas missing in the PDF, the narrator of the story has comma problems but the characters writing the letters don’t, her diary entry, a fun format, enough material for a hefty novel (or a quintology), if Steven Baxter wrote this story, a hard topic to fully satisfy everybody with, like H.G. Wells’ The War Of The Worlds, horrific, creeping dread, clamping down on the news [censorship], the horror of the nice rational scientist, feels himself changing and can’t stop it, bestial/primal instincts, awakened by the aliens, existential dread, we are the monsters, we’re all going to die, humanity is going to kill itself, people do it to themselves, completely chilling, On And Off A Mountain Road, metaphors, cursed film episode Cigarette Burns, a slasher, the focus is on the micro, the outer image, Alan in Colombia, his job is what the aliens do to us,

the 2019 reboot of THE TWILIGHT ZONE has an episode called “NOT ALL MEN” which is credited to Heather Anne Campbell

it seems to be an uncredited remake of the MASTERS OF HORROR episode “THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION” scripted by Sam Hamm

Not All Men / The Screwfly Solution

except the latter is an adaptation of a 1977 story by James Triptree, Jr.

and the former isn’t

evidence:

Both have family dinner parties

The Screwfly Solution DINNER

Both have cakes with words written on them (“welcome home” and “happy birthday”)

Not All Men DINNER

Both have women being murdered by men

Both have the military showing up

Both have atypical meteors showers

and

Both have their respective blonde female protagonists driving around by day, and being chased by night, in identical yellow Volkswagen Beetles

on the left TWILIGHT ZONE on the right MASTERS OF HORROR

Not All Men / The Screwfly Solution BEETLES

THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION is biological Science Fiction and visceral Horror – an alien invasion story like THE WAR OF THE WORLDS by H.G. Wells, as intellectually rigorous, but brutal, scary, and gripping

NOT ALL MEN is decidedly not – it is almost a comedy, but there are no laughs

THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION suggest we are victims of biology

NOT ALL MEN suggest everyone has a choice and most men choose to be bad

the MASTERS OF HORROR episode makes a character from the short story gay, and makes him resistant to the biology that effect most men

the TWILIGHT ZONE episode has a gay character who chooses to be resistant

and both have females disagreeing, in their yellow Volkswagen beetles, about how to understand what is happening to the men around them

THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION is full of conscientious men and women, scientists, trying to figure out what is happening and how to help their families and the world

NOT ALL MEN has basically no scientists (@ the end, maybe?) but has a marketing company doing some sciencey or something?

THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION has the most brutally noir ending imaginable, an ironic one given the characters we follow around for the story, perhaps the last woman alive on earth watching the new tenants of Earth arriving and knowing humanity is finished

NOT ALL MEN ends with a deus ex machina, with cops or the army saving our viewpoint characters, fade to black

blood tests turn up nothing

a twist ending that throws out the main idea they’ve been pushing (the red meteors were a red herring)

there a line at the end of the episode that supposedly explains it all:

“The meteors…they were a placebo.”

then we get the cut-rate Rod Serling closing narration:

Jordan Peele (cut rate Rod Serling)

“Tonight, Annie Miller found herself in the center of a mysterious and violent epidemic. What she encountered was no material disease but rather a plague of conscience. One that gave men permission to ignore decency, consent, and fear. And tonight, all it took was a few an
innocuous little rocks to turn men into monsters here in the Twilight Zone.”

at one point during the craziness in the streets one guy says

“Fuck your feelings”

And this is the level of analysis and writing we are dealing with.

more than 2000 imdb ratings for each

IMDB RATINGS

4.8/10 for THE TWILIGHT ZONE “Not All Men”

6.4/10 for MASTERS OF HORROR “The Screwfly Solution”

Finally, both were filmed in British Columbia

THE SCREWFLY SOLUTION is set in several places, including Texas, Michigan, and British Columbia

i don’t think we know where NOT ALL MEN is set (other than a really lame corner of The Twilight Zone)

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, Volkswagen Beetle, understanding the point of the original, we might be unable to control ourselves vs. choosing to be bad, just attacking, just aggro, one of these is science fiction and the other is something else, nightmares, mass hysteria and people’s choices or an alien disease, the hope of the species, woken from crazy aggressive killings, In The Mouth Of Madness (1994), The King In Yellow by Robert W. Chambers, a meme vs. an enzyme or a hormone, social pressures vs. biological pressures, do you read Sutter Cane?, if so you’re infected, the reason I’m killing you is because you’re a communist or a homosexual, explaining inexplicable impulses, a phenomenon we see in reality, Trump as a symptom, the Cult of Adam, “angels”, interesting things in a compressed space, Dracula, the epistolary format, the personal and the broader picture, different perspectives, perfectly expressed, something terrible is happening in England, layers and layers of intertextuality, this is all a suicide note, yesterday I saw an angel, a real estate agent, a devastating last line, all the adults over six years old, feral kids, like a lot of Star Trek episodes, we did it to ourselves!, higher doing what we do to lower or higher species, Huston, Huston, Do You Read?, gender dynamics, women disposing of men, this thing called kissing, Y: The Last Man, a response to When It Changed by Joanna Russ, ovafusion, all female civilization, Sheri S. Tepper, a whole genre conversation, The Children Of Men by P.D. James, The Last Hawk by Catherine Asaro, gender reversed romance plots, men are the hysterical, the second most dangerous primate, another primate note, the rhesus monkeys, spider monkeys, chimpanzees, biological similarity, not well discussed at the dinner table, mating behaviors, Fritz Leiber, opinions from twitter, wishing people would read it, even the uninfected nodded and saw the killing as natural, the result is extermination, God’s will, committees, kill camps, bad things are happening, no one in authority, the mundane aspect, being called to Florida, a car flotilla [aka a convoy], the NIH, Triptree lived in Washington, D.C., her husband and her were both CIA, part of the interest here, Deep Impact (1998), a bunch of people in a control room, the media, something weird is happening in India, 150 adulteresses in Saudi Arabia, very similar headlines, “so-called Sharia Law”, Michael McKean (of Spinal Tap), #YesAllWomen, scarier and scarier every day, an over-reading, anonymous submission, George Sand, other reasons, “trans-phobic”, whatever else, transphobic by structure, a binary opposition of genders, gender binarism is real and meaningful, structurally queasy, men as naturally pedophilic, socially compelled into a straight marriage, there’s a lot there, you gotta consider the context of the story, Heinlein was, reading transphobia into texts [from 1977], Trish is cancelled, a failure of imagination, phobia is without meaning, outside the scope of what she’s exploring, how they turn on the boys, a non-binary view of sexuality, reading too much into this?, aggression hacked sexuality, a less binary reading of sexuality, she’s thinking super-hard, what is sexuality?, this strange focus on a part of science that doesn’t get a lot of attention in Science Fiction, our hero Alan, his relationship with his wife, it gets hot, he starts fantasizing on the airplane, crushed the Coke can, you need to kill me if I show up, I should throw this knife away, really good hard SF, he knows there’s something wrong with him, he should kill himself, killing (and possibly raping) his own daughter, slightly misreading what’s going on, the chase mentality is real, ovulation in some animals needs this, kinda Kinsey, the weaker have been killed, artificial wombs, Podkayne Of Mars, freeze your zygotes, Lois McMaster Bujold, people’s wrong takes, the most devastating counterargument to #NotAllMen, they are connected, an expression, traction after #MeToo, the defensive reaction, downgrading the impact of #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter vs. #BlueLivesMatter, sarcastic uses, #AllMen, aggressive seeds, bombing Dallas, men are evil, seeds of violence, misogynistic in structure, a jihad against women, in order to do evil is to choose evil, we are biologically determined, human beings are more than their biology, condemned by our biology, its not a disease, on the ground, isn’t it horrifying that we are biologically determined?, the hashtag vs. the Twilight Zone episode of the same name, explicitly rejecting Tiptree Jr.’s idea, we should summon the will, what if we are biologically determined to do everything, an MRNA injection, a hard bitter pill to swallow, what the story is suggesting, it helps Scott make choices, seeing this in all its horror, if we don’t have choices in reality, the illusion of choices?, what about the screwflies?, they’re just flies, we write stories, we’re not as complicated as we think, slaves to our hormones, he doesn’t kill himself, noir, not pulling its punches, biological determinism or mostly biologically determined?, influenced by stories, closer to chimps or rhesus monkeys, bonobos?, sex as a way of saying hello, a dispute over a sandwich settled by sex, institutions and ideology shape how we interpret and overcome biological, the birth control pill, change society, what science fiction is, geology, how old the Earth is, life-changing, a very good science fiction story, harder than H.G. Wells’ The War Of The Worlds [not The Time Machine], take the war to Mars, maybe somebody’s working on something somewhere, so good, 1 hour to read, that fake stuff that’s 16 books long, fake science, 2 north 75 degree west, anthropology, WHO inoculations, just watched an episode of Masters Of Horror, Cordwainer Smith, off in Africa with her parents, the horse latitudes, bringing experience to the table, its not because she’s a girl, long short story format, The Women Men Don’t See, The Woman Who Was Plugged In, semi-interesting, externalize evil, religions antagonists fighting god, the devil is trying to put bad thoughts in your head, avoiding responsibility, easier, Alcohol Anonymous’ plan, accept the higher power because you’re weak, these religious pamphlets make so much sense, Genesis 3:16, women: feel the pain of childbirth and obey your husbands, short stories are a technology for delivering ideas, don’t be anti-good story, some people are willing to put anything into their bodies, good short SF is a vaccination against long terrible series that do you wrong.

The Screwfly Solution by James Tiptree, Jr.

Posted by Jesse WillisBecome a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #198 – READALONG: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #198 – Jesse, Tamahome, Jenny, and Professor Eric S. Rabkin discuss The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury.

Talked about on today’s show:
Rock Hudson, The Martian Chronicles (TV adaption), Eric’s Coursera course (Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World), The Million Year Picnic, I, Mars, The Moon Be Still As Bright, Usher II, the hot dog stand on Mars, fix-up, The Long Years (a robot family), Night Call Collect, There Will Come Soft Rains, a book of poems, novels of recurring characters, “composite novels”, “the culminating image of the whole book”, Cortez burning his ships, “were definitely going to need the daughters” (if the daughters are willing), Joanna Russ, Picnic On Paradise, The Million Year Picnic, “tamed nature”, the publisher’s motivation, Walter Bradbury, the market change (with Ballantine Books), “Mammon rules again”, the table of contents, Way In The Middle Of The Air, a more Edenic ending, 1984, North Korea, Earth Abides, the Golden Gate Bridge, getting a sense of the author, H.P. Lovecraft, colour, repetition, word choice, Spender, The Moon Be Still As Bright, Captain Wilder, the instinct to be cruel, the instinct to minimize the horror, the instinct to shoot the tomb robbers, feeling the emotion he’s trying to give us, the physics, nostalgic, seeing it from all sides, Farewell Summer, Bradbury’s gut reactions, The Martian Chronicles as a fairy tale, Isaac Asimov’s reaction, Fantasies set in space, Usher II and censorship, “the Poe machines”, the colour of Mars’ sky (blue and pink), the Martian canals, The Green Morning, Johnny Appleseed, the epigraph, “…space travel has again made children of us all.”, Christopher Columbus, the Chicken Pox plague, Another America, telepathy, the noble savage, a symbolic America, The Pedestrian, Bradbury was a strange guy, Fahrenheit 451, Edgar Rice Burroughs, the Martian high culture, the second expedition, “look up in space, we could go to the Moon!”, dinosaurs!, Mars Is Heaven, Science Fiction is supposed to have knowledge in it, imagery (sight, light, and fire), the brass band, Columbia, The Gem Of The Ocean, music, Humans are technological, Martians are emotional, the window, Beautiful Ohio, music dominates (not intellectual knowledge), Genevieve Sweet Genevieve, “fully lyrical”, the fire lay in the bed and stood in the window, the dog symbolizes the entire loss of the human race, the long monologues, getting it without filtering it, The Musicians, Rocket Summer, “it made climates”, the silences, the music as a symbol for American culture, the killing spree, The Off Season parallels with the second expedition, an inversion, Bradbury has it every way, Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus, Sam Parkhill, an epitome of perverted American ideals, Bradbury loves hot dogs, Dark Carnival, Something Wicked This Way Comes, mournful Mars, America by Ray Bradbury, the Wikipedia entry for The Martian Chronicles, The Taxpayer, the urge to improve, alas, the silhouettes on the house, Chernobyl vs Hiroshima, a grim meme, what gives this book it’s staying power?, Nightfall by Isaac Asimov, L’Anse aux Meadows and Roanoke, maybe it’s circular, “we’re the Martians now and we will be again”, Night Meeting, Stephen Hoye narrated Blackstone Audio, Bradbury’s reading, Bradbury’s first flight, Harlan Ellison, wasting time on the internet, Ylla, The Ray Bradbury Theater, Mardi by Herman Melville, making this book cohere, what part doesn’t fit?, reading it as short stories, “it’s an American book”, robots, decommissioning is murder, Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick had a shared contempt for litterers, crassness, The Electric Ant, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, I Sing The Body Electric, Walt Whitman, “it’s the music!”, there’s no switch, gingerbread and tea, Helen O’Loy by Lester Del Rey, are there stories not included in The Martian Chronicles that should have been?, Way In The Middle Of The Air, The Other Foot, different editions of The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, The Fire Balloons, Stranger In A Strange Land, Grouch Marx (Lydia the Tattooed Lady), The Penal Colony by Franz Kafka, The Veldt, The City, Rod Steiger, Dandelion Wine, The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

The Martian Chronicles illustration by Michael Whelan
The Martian ChroniclesThe Off Season by Ray Bradbury - illustration by Vincent Napoli
Way In The Middle Of The Air by Ray Bradbury - illustrated by Robert Fuqua
The Earth Men by Ray Bradbury - Thrilling Wonder,  August 1948
Dwellers In Silence by Ray Bradbury - Planet Stories
The Million Year Picnic by Ray Bradbury - illustrated by Leydenfrost

Posted by Jesse Willis