The SFFaudio Podcast #839 – Jesse, Scott Danielson, and Maissa Bessada talk about The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown by Lawrence Block
Talked about on today’s show:
2022, the last book in a series?, where do you go from here?, very meta, The Burglar Who Counted Spoons, the Mondrian, the Spinoza, read them all, high hopes for super preparation, Burglars Can’t Be Choosers, What Mad Universe?, recommend that one to everybody, no Carolyn Kaiser, becomes a regular, he didn’t know what the formula was, imagine my surprise, selling books, thw worst Lawrence Block book, goes down so smooth, worst book is still great, everything in between, how violent is it?, ptsd from reading, A Walk Among The Tombstones, that series, traumatic, ooh this is dark, Westlake has his normal books, the violent ones, Tucker Coe, Donald Westlake, so many series like that, he used to be in television, now he’s an amateur detective, under a whole other name, so many Westlake, Lawrence Block’s still alive, 2 years old, reading this style, ebay, feels out of place, 1977, Bernie Rhoddenbarr doesn’t age, this happened 12 times, Bern, he would have aged up, a spry burglar in the prime of life, drink all day, a cozy, a weird alternate universe, New York didn’t change that much, a reckoning, you can’t be a burglar in modern sociert, video of you, teetering on the edge of oh I hate this, set in the modern, the ideal version of my reality, google’s still there, but Amazon and ebay aren’t, a fantasy a lot of people want to have, he’s american, more like school shootings or lynchings, he chose the apple pie universe, listened to it, totally recommend it, clunkier, Lawrence Block is a smoother writer, the smoothest writer Jesse has ever read, comforting and cozy, he never puts a foot wrong, the meta aspect of it, swirling whirlpool, he convinced me, Chapter 12, asterix asterix asterix, the superdeluxe handlettered version of this book, he’s never that meta, genuine SF, genuine meta SF, a writer for a pulp magazine, transitions to another universe, a capcitor rocketed to the moon, zapped out of existence, wakes up in another world, a dark cold war, their past diverged 30 years prior, fit in without an identity, investigating a parallel world, what we see here, solipsitic with two characters that had it happen to them, one of many parallel worlds, the perfect world of a guy he didn’t like, all the science fiction he’s writing about is now real, the show coming out tonight, the audiobook and the podcast, very very meta, other bad news, Richard Ferrone died in 2022, it can’t go anywhere from here
novels:
Burglars Can’t Be Choosers (1977)
The Burglar in the Closet (1978)
The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling (1979)
The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza (1980)
The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian (1983)
The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams (1994)
The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart (1995)
The Burglar In The Library (1997)
The Burglar In The Rye (1999)
The Burglar On The Prowl (2004)
The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons (2013)
The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown (2022)
three short stories:
Like A Thief In The Night
The Burglar Dropped In On Elvis
The Burglar Who Smelled Smoke
a movie version of the second book, Whoopi Goldberg, Bobcat Goldthwait, gender flipped the characters, Hollywood doesn’t do the books exactly right, such a literary guy, Peter Peter is reading a book, the manx, Raffles, stealing from this dynamic, E.W. Honung, Arthur Conan Doyle’s brother in law, that’s cool, a burglar version of Sherlock Holmes, shacked up together, the Moriarty of crime, supercozy, similar to one of the short stories, an American boxer comes to town, burly bodyguards, the biggest diamond you’ve ever seen, the master burglar, amateur cricketer, can’t resist, an amateur amateur, help I’m trapped, there’s a scene referenced in here, Ray Kirschman, gather everybody together, that scene is elided, a ripoff of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe, professional consulting detective, ratiocination, an agent who wrote, his own version of it, a sex quest, Greenwich Village of the 1960s, fishtank instead of orchids, to be his Archie Goodwin, told from the pov of an Archie Goodwin standin, echoing out, if you were a fiction character, being on the typewriter with him, don’t let this all be a dream, the cop-out ending, Lewis Carrol, Little Orphan Annie, 99% literary allusion, when did the plot even start?, The Screaming Mimi, any other Fredric Brown, Arena, Knock, Ballantine, the Star Trek episode, his reputation, a two sentence story, how Knock goes, the last man on earth sat alone in a room, there was a knock at the door, The Case Of The Dancing Sandwiches, Joe Haldeman’s The Hemingway Hoax, alternate universe, came back with Beatles songs, Jefty Is Five, Harlan Ellison, radio shows that stopped existing, books that were never published, really good, read by Harlan Ellison, The Screaming Mimi, read by Stefan Rudnicki, series characters, fantastic stuff, who is this Westlake guy?, Jason Sanford, the Reacher book, that first Reacher book was pretty good, compartmentalized, Fredric Brown’s Hall Of Mirrors, a lock that needs to be opened up to reveal what it is, experimental and thoughtful, doing it seemingly for himself, that meta aspect, an invitation rather than a story, it was a monkey, it was a woman, it was an alien, what made him the last man on earth, couldn’t be much different than this and still be good, can’t really complain, the Burglar series, Sins Of The Father, the Matthew Scudder series, ex-cop, he does his research, his life is a writer, he’s observant, has traveled, a lot of research, found out today, Transnistria, google it and it is real, alcoholic, in AA, a much darker version, fairly cozy, [A Walk Among The Tombstones] Eight Million Ways To Die, they loved the book, would make a great movie, then doesn’t, Reacher is better as a show than a movie, Tom Cruise Reacher movie was fine, more character based, the format, 2nd season in Toronto, a 3rd season, talking with Terence about it, Conan but with a pension, Conan’s not a patriot, other books to read, sitting in a cafe somewhere maybe, the main complaint, the body type, what is Bernie’s size?, taller than Caroline, 99% of this book is dialogue, I opened the cupboard and pulled out some cookies, chili, added some cheddar, whenever that’s happening, throwing down a red herring, that character is thinking, the dialogue is just great, why Carolyn was needed, gets a girlfriend right away, a person to dialogue with, she was the murderer, she goes to prison, lesbian poodle washer, to bounce your dialogue off of, Doctor Watson making notes about what Sherlock Holmes is doing, his writing skill is a combination of limited life experience, deep interest in research, and reading a ton of old stuff he really likes and wants to tell you about, his whole life Lawrence Block’s been a writer, he considered burglary, what’s going on that part of the book, when did the plot start?, in the first book, instead of having money they had credits, instead of a metro card, a subway card, happens in the dark, subconscious time, in the dark, an amazing sequence in What Mad Universe, grab a bunkbed, there’s a blackout right now, aliens are destroying parts of earth, a WWII allegory, a fog of blackness, push through, after getting off of the public transit, somethings walking the streets with canes, a monster coming, meets up with a burglar, drive by dead reckoning, 60 feet that way, then take a right, a super creativity there, a meta-science fiction book set in a science fiction universe, this book is not science fiction at all, influenced, Voltaire underneath all of it, Candide, ties back, back to Spinoza, a rich stew, a chili with cheddar put on top, what you will remember is the coziness, Peter Peter and the four bodyguards, barely remember them, what about the money, stealing from your friend on a ship, doom him again, a cruise ship, assisted living, if he was 30 in 1937, how old is he in 2022, died in a book 20 years earlier, I read all of Lawrence Block’s burglar books just to get all the callbacks, very fun and light, no gore, there’s a dead man in here, Bernie, he’s wearing your tie, Agatha Christie style, a snowstorm, cops can’t come, has to solve the murder, how he writes these books, why don’t we go upstate, takes his typewriter, a comedic element, even death isn’t dark, the apple pie universe, a scoop of ice cream, nobody gets fat, ice cream headache, raising your hand and swirling it, the names, the Cubby Hole, the Bum Rap, just great, this can’t work anymore, New York is unlivable, there’s no customers, what happened to Jesse, went out of business, everything works out in the end, it’s not an uber, your taxi is always there waiting for you, a kind of assisted living, food is good, the Bowlmore being taken down, a commentary on how New York has changed, the bowling alley coming back, because it’s a place where you wear other people’s shoes, multiverse, a strike, a gutterball, a nice metaphor, a thing to bring back, the same setup every time, the thinking, to reframe, the plot’s here!, in the context of What Mad Universe?, swapped for the main character in the other universe, there’s two of them, change places, an interloper, the other Bernie stole something and disappeared, the place broken, the domestic native Bernie breaking into his own shop, there’s a red herring, alternate universe Carolyn, hey there’s a lesbian in my bed and its me, slipped into each other’s minds?, the pocket universe created, dissolved out of existence, he didn’t really write Science Fiction ever, [Make A Prison], Richard Lovelace, he’s not a science fiction writer, other Fredric Brown, doesn’t feel like a science fiction, alternate universes, how does he get there, very Alice In Wonderland, we made it up, oh it happened and we made it up, something Eric [Rabkin], Alice’s Adventures Under The Ground, Alice is bored, the end of the reality, she sees a rabbit, everything after that is fantasy, do that book sometime, should be available, done with metaverses for a while, the Hollywood stamp of a approval, Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), Deadpool 3 (2024), nothing matters, women are always giving phone numbers, The Burglar Who Counted Spoons, fine, nothing matters, enjoying this book despondently, kill me now, all just here playing our part, even more meta than What Mad Universe, based on a milieu, the cover of the magazine is described, reading this in Startling Stories, #BrassBra bikini, a green space girl costume, this is our uniform, everything about that, Mad Magazine, Colliers, recursion, going deep inside, a story about a writer for a magazine about a story about a writer of a magazine, referencing fans, Surprising Stories, not about science fiction, science fiction is old hat, rocketships in the future, needs to make money, plagiarize Isaac Asimov stories, it was better the second time, that’s the imagination that sparked Bernie into making this universe, the imagination that sparked Lawrence Block, a cat, Nora, a black cat, a Nick?, a dog!, a German Shepherd, therapy dog, dogs with jobs, a lab, even more approachable, naturally good at it, this one will go to school, not Nick, we need a reason to read The Thin Man, Bernie?, Carolyn?, Douglas, dogs named after tree, Douglas Furbanks, his half brother, previous litter, different colour patterns, some stuff on his head, colouration, exhausted this book pretty quick, so entertaining, tell me tomorrow, Bern, star star star, Chapter 37: I explained., we skipped a whole scene, flow so well, not homework, Raffles asking to be fed, dog burglar, keep working on it, two on the schedule, another Simak, Lilith by George MacDonald, 1895, 1969, among the the darkest, the most profound, the cosmic sleep that heals tortured souls, a Christian universalist, salvation is hard won, Mr. Vane owns a library, much like a Raven, the wraith, 351 pages, sounds a little dark for Maissa, children’s books?, Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series, The Wood Beyond The World, might be fun, The King Of Elfland’s Daughter, too close to your xmas, Project Pope by Clifford D. Simak, A Choice Of Gods, Mistress Of Mellyn by Victoria Holt, highly regarded, The Tower Treasure by Frank W. Dixon, Hardy Boys, The Mystery Of The 99 Steps, cozy and hilarious, pretty sure Nancy Drew is a lesbian, skinny dipping, blue convertible, doesn’t have a job, always nice, suspicious but too polite to say, a new suspect, pretty sure this one’s a robot, she’s not eating, a lot to read into it, locking people in rooms, that’s gonna solve the problem, her main device is a flashlight, soft and cozy mysteries, big in Scott’s childhood, The Three Investigators, The Green Ghost, Hitchcock licensing, Tom Swift, Robert E. Howard, spoiled the ending of Odd John, Olaf Stapledon, 2025, crazy, thinking about 2020 in 2001, thinking about 2000, Blade Runner soon, the future is not like I thought, dig back in old books and magazines, Ray Bradbury story, some guy named Oxford, Don Congdon and Associates, copyright strikes, The Exiles, Usher II, read by Leonard Nimoy, a couple of Robert A. Heinleins, The Green Hills Of Earth, the old days, he was on that, 2000X, Yuri Rasovsky, Dirk Maggs, Judge Dredd, Batman, audio drama, normal audio drama, a signature style, Independence Day, Dredd (2012), hyperbolic, 2000 A.D., of all the stories to do, make sense for a British comic in the 70s, a super-evil dystopia, six months in isocube, caffeine is illegal, everything is evil, the guy you care about is the bad guy, a parody of the United States, Mega City One, space judges, death judges, a complete alternate universe of Marvel, super-team this, league of evil mutants everywhere, not allowed to have wives or girlfriends or sex, a whole other universe to explore, a parody of the United States, adaptations, British actors putting on American accents, entertainment from another universe, anime, William who lives in Japan, Dragon Ball Z, waved a wand, computer games for education, they don’t learn anything in school, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, a mission to meet this ancient philosopher, world rich, you learn the things that you’re interested in, time is up!, see you, hear you, an hour early, editing later, Strange Darling (2023), it’s musical, some violence in it, the actor, based on two movies, so out of the loop, movie trailers, movies can be good, few and far between of late, artsy and innovative, 97 minutes, not a rape scene exactly, a choking scene, everything will be okay, prefacing, the opening credits, the movie is deceptive, Kyle Gallner, the lady, very good actors, not super super handsome, good at picking scripts, credited with a name, the demon, the girl, a little conversation, are you a serial killer?, this based on a serial killer, all lies, shot entire entirely on 35mm, that part is probably true, very important, art movies, not boring art movies, a structure, a movie in six parts, chapter 3, chapter 5, you’re gonna love, watch it during the day, cat hair is coming off, The Wild Robot (2024), Pedro Pascal, delightful noting traumatizing, cenobite, not into slasher movies, tricky slippery fun, deceptive, Ed Begley, Jr., plays an old hippie, very beautiful, hyper realistic, red and green, colour palated, Giovanni Ribisi, Dinner In America (2020), an hour 46, set in the 80s for no reason, a punk rock musician, sex letters, a pet store, fishtank cleaner-outer, straight laced parents, it’s like she’s retarded, no diagnosis, this is a romance, you’re rooting for them both, 91%, The Substance (2024), somebody’s back is stitched up, too scary, Bettlejuice Bettlejuice (2024), daily streaming charts, this chart has no value, Conclave (2024), sequester, new pope, Twelve Angry Men (1957), 12 pious men, Isabella Rosellini, good 4 lines, a lot of lurking, moves, stares, Stanley Tucci, its scary, a guy choking somebody, it’s worth it, movies that are manipulative, Pulp Fiction (1994), a buncha country roads in a forest, shot in Oregon maybe, the Red Letter Media guys, accidentally made a Kyle Gallner special, a follow up, at it for a while, he’s not ugly, Jennifer’s Body (2009), Smile 2, Scream 6?, Red Eye (2005), Red State (2011), weird revenge movie, picking good movies, who are not beautiful, pick good stuff, fun to see an actor you like in a movie, Eric Roberts will be in any movie, needs the cue cards, quite good, afforded his budget, not a professional actor, he’s just the attraction to make the movie a little more saleable, you know what you’re talking about, Star Trek: Lower Decks, how much they love it, the actor who plays the male lead, Jack Quaid?, six Jason movies, a crossover with Star Trek Strange New Worlds, cartoon worlds, hated discovery and Star Trek Picard, east to swallow, these are meant to be on in the background, if you’re very young right now, tiktok and instagram, you have to be taught, kids used to get bored, never bored anymore, research and processing, you need to be bored enough to get into somethings, ants, flowers, sucked into watching puppy videos, a puppy licking a Starbucks cup, the cough, winter related, if you lived in Hawaii, warm places in the winter, dysentery in Egypt, fluish sick?, winter weather, closed up, sealed up, what can we do about it, complain, have you noticed, have you looked at your coins lately, don’t look at your coins, some weird king on your coins, threw me into a universe, who’s this guy wearing a crown, a little peek, both old ladies, queen cookie tin, old lady with short hair, different people, a little faceblind, go into her classroom, a portrait of the queen on the wall, less disturbing than seeing this guy, what the hell is going on, about 5% of the coins, loonies or toonies, a disturbin experience, Charles III, still living with your grandmother, Charles III toonie, a quarter, not liking it, devaluing the money, on ebay, $25 for a $2 coin, ebay’s listings are free now, business model, before Amazon, 1999, ebay used to own PayPal, billpoint, spend the money, Skype, ebay used to be huge, recessed into the background, everybody knows about Amazon, a Star Trek Murder Mystery Box, ABEBooks.com, bought by Amazon, started on Vancouver Island, a competitor, this is why we can’t have nice things, the politics of this book make Jesse sad, an apartment that’s paid for, crazy real-estate investment, unaffordable and impossible, like an elegy, have a living and a place to live, go out for drinks, patches of that past, oh and independent store where they sell stuff and a person works there, runaway to escape, we can’t go back, doesn’t do that much tweaking, taxis arrive on time, customers for his store, his perfect little world, old books, visiting a time, when sandwiches cost 5 cents, coffee was 5 cents, a magazine 15 cents, $18 for a magazine, full of ads and super-thin, you have a phone, what the real problem is, real estate is really the issue, massive decline for a long time, middle to late 50s, drop off a cliff, 1953 is the height, in decline since then, 130 men’s magazines, more like adventure fiction, WWII stories, Chatelaine, competing with each other, steeply fallen by the 1960s, a major distributor selling the real estate for distribution, selling that depot is what killed the distribution, a scramble, super-interesting, blame it on television, movie theaters, what killed the movie going experience, COVID, bad movies, movie fans are all getting old now, the young people don’t know what movies are, small town movie theaters, movie festivals, untrained audience, expensive to rent the movies, a lack of availability of housing, not just for people, nothing they did wrong, investment properties, people don’t even know that they own it, Blackrock, you don’t even know you’re participating, private equity, why is the war in Ukraine happening, Blackrock is the answer, the breadbasket for Europe, sell our grain product, buy up all the land, taking all these debts, if this is a conscious plan, spray glyphosate all over it, the terminator gene style wheat, we’re doing all these things without knowing we’re doing them, everybody’s life is in your phone, imagine cinemas, big leather reclining chairs, $5 movies, $5 concessions, slash to this extent, all the matinees, you need to have something to watch that you want to see, Red One, the Rock, Heretic, supposed to be not bad, hires then marries, thriller, a child’s movie, Venom The Last Dance, We Live In Time (2024), Andrew Garfield, Florence Pugh, out of the knowing things business, Gladiator 2, Wicked, Moana 2, keep your hand in there, The Importance Of Being Earnest, such good words, as in it sucked, not in as they slayed, sad story, Mufasa: The Lion King, Sonic The Hedgehog, Wolf Man (2025), Captain America, Love Hurts, on the Island last, new owner coming, a good movie playing, late summer, old movies, a good date movie, I’m not sure we should be watching this, a movie that’s original, does good work, this is what a movie can be like, 90s comedies, dynamics of the neighbourhood, a girl who’s pregnant driving around town, actor became a dude, Juno (2007), Elliot/Ellen Page, those sorts of people, when was Superbad (2007)?, enjoy your movies, by DM.
Posted by Jesse Willis
