kidnapping – SFFaudio

The SFFaudio Podcast #736 – READALONG: Blaze by Stephen King

Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Evan Lampe talk about Blaze by Stephen King.

Talked about on today’s show:
Richard Bachman, the intro and/or an interview, 170 pages and rewriting the first 100, a lost book, kind of a cool story, the least interesting Bachman books, the original when he dies, 300 years later, they’re going to find that the book is radically different, Thinner, Stephen King wrote that book and not Bachman, the reason he was outed, it was easy for people to tell, 8 hours 15 minutes, Ron Mclarty, obvious it was written by Stephen King, so pessimistic, gangsters, Roadwork, optimism in the novels, 35 years, 1972/73, 2007, Rage, The Long Walk, The Running Man, the things that he’s done to make it updated are very odd, The Smurfs, the updated version of The Stand, when a new Donald Westlake book comes out, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, updating the dates, the estate doing it, adding in cut pages, it’s inconsistent, the world seems of the 1970s, what year is it set?, set in the present day, all the profits from this book are going to a charity, sad house for boys, rich guy who wants to do good, Hard Case Crime, they don’t pay on time, maybe he cares?, why does he have to update it?, he needs to update it, something changed, salvageable material here, saleable, contemporary radio announcements, to make it more present, orphanages, the backstory vs. the frontstory, the present vs. the past, a fifty year gap, a kidnapping plot, Child Heist by Richard Stark, Jimmy The Kid by Donald E. Westlake, Parker, Dortmunder, Stark does the dark, Dortmunder finds a novel, follow this recipe, George created the plan, Blaze fulfilling the plan, the old Richard Bachman vs. the new Richard Bachman, redeeming Blaze, he loves the kid at the end, good question, very King, he almost kills the kid a few times, Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck, is it supernatural?, his son is smart, he shines, he’s actually not dumb, he’s been convinced he’s dumb, Charlie from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, George is the superego, don’t masturbate, displayed intelligence, there’s a wisdom in wash your hands, he’s not retarded, he’s just slow, bad at math, the hand of Stephen King vs. the original hand of Richard Bachman, he gives his full name, slow vs. stupid, why did he do that, you wanna get caught, raising the kid, keeping the money, going to someplace warm, we’re going to Disneyland!, that marketing phrase didn’t exist in the 70s, a much grittier book, afraid to think about it, the kid dies, the rewrite that saves the kid, comparing it to Mice and Men, George kills Lenny, too damaging to rabbits and ladies, he doesn’t know his own strength, the dustbowl, hobos, interesting characters, this only exists because of the rewrite, page 49, a pile of newspapers, raged about the redneck republicans, the republicans hated poor people, that goddamn wet in the Whitehouse, page 160, dumb shit, the republican national committee, page 125, a republican senator who had taken a bribe, 173, rich asshole republican millionaires, page 161, replacement republican, fuck those rich republicans, page 80, how the republicans fuck the poor, fat stupid republicans, “right wing”, who are we supposed to root for, we feel sorry for Blaze, he can’t be doing it to help the story, throw in HIV, the feeling is still in the 70s, the whole counter-culture narrative, hippies vs. the man, no need to think too much about it, he couldn’t resist, it doesn’t help the book, at the end of the book, the baby name, another junior, a cut on his forehead, forehead damage, trying to make some connections between fathers and sons, how a state raises a child, what we should do, what we should think, this little baby’s not going to have a scar, Blaze is snuffed out, especially for Lenny, if the town gets to him, Lenny is dangerous, societal problems, Fondly Fahrenheit by Alfred Bester, a disabled person, George tells him so, he’s sympathetic to the kid, raise him right, he’s incapable of it, this book’s message is unclear, he’s doing it AGAIN, a recurrent drumbeat, the politicians are taking bribes, campaigning for the Democrats, he can’t help himself, organized crime, in the machine, more cynical, zone out that stuff, like the boobs in Philip K. Dick, it has a woman therefore it has boobs, this is a tremendous tragedy, social programs, the orphanage, the schools, the prison programs, Bluenote the farmer, very Bachman, our institutions no longer function, that’s how capitalism works, The Running Man, why the society broke down, the best part of the book, at the local town meeting, they’re having sex!, it’s consensual, stealing stuff, leads to babies like Blaze, good upstanding Republicans, don’t beat your children, I’m going to take you on, not being a kidnapper, stealing sweaters, kidnapping is wrong, Bluenote is actively trying to fix society, his lecture about capitalism, the god of this book kills him off, direct message, The Philosophy Of Stephen King, positive reviews, of course, 50% is Dark Tower content, 25% shining related, nothing about IT, big into philosophy, the philosophy of Donald E. Westlake, in setting patterns, in some certain details, resignation is a kind of philosophy, how to be an individual within a society, Bluenote is the most Stephen King like character in the book, he kills him, why?, Bachman writing the story, in the end, a tragedy, if Blaze had stuck on the farm, his adopted son, a nice spot at the table, the farm supervisor, no poker, he’d be good at it too, that closes that door to Blaze, for this book to exist, to have him go down the path, wrong ideas in the history of humanity, evolution is a ladder, evolution is a bush, technology is progress, trying to make things less worse for some sometimes, what went wrong?, no social programs for people like Lenny, full of social programs!, you can’t own this kid anymore, send me a picture of you, major tragedy, trying to get his shit together, if I can get that money, a big hammock for me, a little hammock for him, the stereotype of the Democratic answer: throw money at welfare queens, he kills off the characters he can’t fix, an inheritor of capital, that Lovecraft trope that Evan identified, hide the past, kinda bleak, mostly right, King would have been better off, Bachman is dead, The Regulators is basically a King book, he shouldn’t have rewritten it, he should have published it with Hard Case Crime, a very 70s book, ever cover is shit, Blaze carrying the kid, the girl in the blueberry fields getting fucked, the saleswoman at the baby store, he’s fucked up this book, break into the university library and make a photocopy, more authentic, this feels inauthentic, because it was a Bachman books, more short stories, very brutal, very Bachman, what does that society mean, an allegory for life, not my life, live longer than me or not, it’s horrible, almost too easy, a baby being spoonfed, we don’t feel like Blaze is wrong, he kills the dog, he kills the old lady, when he kills the FBI agent, a movie agent, play up the FBI angle, the George angle, supernatural, the movie of Thinner, a gypsy curse, curses the lawyers, nice body horror, lizard skin, fuck you man, they meet with him, pass the curse on to someone else, cursed cake, fuck it I’ll eat the pie too, a bleak ending, Friday The Thirteenth: The Series, Red Letter Media on Creepshow and Creepshow 2, Ted Danson and Leslie Nielsen, The Raft, a very different thing than a novel, for an anthology series, a Twilight Zone with a harder edge, isn’t that strange, isn’t that a reversal, the worst part of The Mist, the religious lady, King’s point, we can’t actually get along, but is he wrong?, in The Stand too, once the government is gone we’re all going to kill each other, ruined for King by Bachman, The Running Man, They Live (1988), a politically active story with a solution to the problem, operating on instinct, George is an inconsistent character, when he’s a ghost, kill the kid, I don’t want what Bachman wrote, George is not mean to the kid, George is a different kind of dumb, what can you do?, this book offers no solutions, one of those Fugitive movies, he was innocent the whole time, I don’t care that you’re not guilty, Blaze goes to the paupers field, his kid is gonna be a football player, very dissatisfying, Stephen Kinged out, Fairy Tale, the pictures, the reviews are quite good, not very many good reviews, Pauline Kael, what Evan is doing on his podcast, a bunch of theories, what exactly is Evan doing, reviewing vs. writing a review, this podcast is not a review podcast, a two hour discussion of a book is not a review, some amazing insights, It is too long, The Stand is longer, 7 books, 4000 pages, an investment of time and energy, another one like Revival, it dug pretty deep, Firestarter, a daddy daughter adventure, the mom’s dead, kinda sweet, The Night Flier, The Mist, Rage, Roadwork, Revival, Everything’s Eventual, Danse Macabre, the big house book: The Shining, Pet Semetary, 90s stuff, playing with ideas, before he was injured, high concept stuff, Dolores Claiborne, Bag Of Bones, his twitter account, people he’s following, he doesn’t follow many people, defunct TV shows, using twitter as a way of journaling and sending messaging, you can’t read that many things, what does it really even mean, Stephen King plays Bachman on Sons Of Anarchy, he’s the cleaner, 80s preferably, he’s a cool motorcycle man, fun character fun scene, off the air for years, he’s not interacting with probably half the people he would see, people who tweet at him, is it not a bubble, Jesse is in a bubble, 24/7 interested in rescue animals, desert running, 10,000 or more following, 10,000 or more followers, dog about to be put down send money now, actively trying to save the world of rescue dogs, vote and give money to charity, clearly what Jesse is doing is not solving it either, drink more beer, smoke less cigarettes, in the genre space and as a person, sentimental and squishy, fun fact, very disciplined, eating less is hard, other sins, Evan found food kinda boring, half Polish and Ukrainian, cautiously exploring the food of Vietnam, how was it Paul, [TIME TRAVEL HAPPENS], the changes didn’t help, what Smurfs?, an issue with King, Cell, engaging with the ideas of cellphones, stupid but kind of interesting, Samuel Jackson, a zombie movie with cellphones, transmit the virus by having a phonecall with somebody, a new collective consciousness, a science fictiony idea, no tech, a payphone, he fucked this book up, he’s gonna wait five years, I can fix Rage, I can fix the school shooting book, he can’t fix that book, a pretty funny project, make Stephen King fix rage, Misery, Cujo, I’m going to break your legs unless you fix Rage, I need sequels, writer friends, writers being threatened by fandom, Misery is pretty good, the captivity and the torture he endures awakens creativity, a very meta book, hardcover Misery, a Hard Case Crime, there’s life in this character, if you bully the author enough, appreciated, send Evan an email, a genuine listener to Evan’s actual podcast, a quiet listener, a year of Mark Twain coming up, a total Mark Twain readthrough, 7 or 8 volumes, Cosmic Computer/Junkyard Planet, regular time, a [Larry] Niven story, a political point about the lefties, Stephen King and Larry Niven should write a book, the Dungeon series created by Philip Jose Farmer, he can’t even write with himself, Bachman’s dead, Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain, The Many Headed Hydra by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Skull by Philip K. Dick, jetlagged and no wifi, The Story Of Civilization, the origin of capitalism, Shadows In Zamboula by Robert E. Howard, Prince Alberic And The Snake Lady, Bartleby The Scrivener, Black House by Peter Straub and Stephen King, to honour him, Ghost Story, they’re all 22 hours, he bulked it up, thin volumes, writing in the modes of [James M.] Cain, [Jim] Thompson, and [Richard] Stark, Wisconsin people like long books, Sinclair Lewis, highest per hundred person presence of bars, not a lot to Wisconsin, man, the scenery, the longest most brilliant books of the 70s, August Derleth, Robert Bloch, is Joe Hill the baby in this book?, literally the kid in Creepshow, Cabinet Of Curiosities, like an issue of Weird Tales, the new you skin, a horror story for girls, body horror, she kills her supportive husband, so bleak and dark, based on a webcomic, the Lovecraft adaptations, the Pickman, Popeye’s accent, they fucked it up, The Dreams In The Witch House, a bad choice, Gilman, The Graveyard Rats, The Hound, the practical effects, relies on CGI, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, necromancer, cliche Lovecraft, they’re all period pieces, Lot 36, a new star even tho he’s old, Tim Blake Nelson, a Cohen Brothers actor, Watchmen, punished, traditional, The Autopsy, Michael Shea, infodump is bad, exposition is good, The Outside, a comedy, so gruesome, morally disturbing, putting the goop on, The Murmuring, The Walking Dead, The Viewing, a 70s period piece, how big Black Mirror was, two stories from Weird Tales, movie based horror, weird fiction, the whole point of the weird, Lovecraft [isn’t] a horror writer, a science fiction writer, a good example of weird fiction example, the relationship between students, “Dicky”, a class based thing, an age based thing, the colloquial language, “dropped him”, Arkham, the subways, Boston, Salem, that annoying plot, the immigrant woman, her families heirlooms, cliche end, EC Comics is not weird fiction, a realm of knowledge beyond you, the way it was done, the hopping never pays off, NOTHING, focusing on the can of TAB, bad direction, bad editing, a prisoner in Vietnam, the class analysis was fucking awful, this guy is racist so he should die, listening to right wing radio, hate listening, “right on”, we’re supposed to hate this guy, after that monster kills him, the whole thrust of this story is to see a deplorable destroyed, having debts, spite, selling him lots on the sly, he’s punished for being an asshole, in a Lovecraft story, punished for his ancestors, Jesse is politicizing the story, they had the same problem, physically attacked for debts they owe, a gambling problem, David Hewlett, this is very cool, most people wouldn’t do it that way, chopping up rabbits, I’m glad I’m not a woman, try to appreciate it, Brown Jenkin, underrated masterpiece, see you in two weeks, don’t disturb me.

Blaze by Stephen King

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #726 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Isle of Pirate’s Doom by Robert E. Howard

The SFFaudio Podcast #725 – The Isle of Pirate’s Doom by Robert E. Howard – read by Connor Kaye. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novella (1 hour 24 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Connor Kaye, Alex, and Cora Buhlert.

Talked about on today’s show:
1975?, this story did not sell, 50 years after death, 2025, who has the copyright?, nobody the fuck knows, how can you claim to have copyright if you are not the artist, the author, I have copyright over something someone else wrote, Fred Malmberg would happily take your money, you would be surprised, unauthorized games, Queen Of The Black Coast audio drama, Red Nail, they changed their mind, this is the grift of the copyright system that we have, some corporation is sitting on the rights to insulin, all out of patent, a fairly little known story, willing to take the heat, Sailor Steve Costigan, Mark Finn, because it was rejected, the U.S. system is weird, when did Ambrose Bierce die?, stories that exist, Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, B. Traven, half the stuff of Midwood, she shared a name, a werewolf story, reminiscent in plot, recycles plot, The Fire of Asshurbanipal, 1927/8, Patrice Louinet, get into some new markets, Blue Book, Adventure, Argosy, in terms of its content, an adventure story, romance angle, it’s simple, reading it in context with the Valeria adaptation (in Savage Sword Of Conan), he didn’t put a bunch of research into it, a fight scene, the background lovecraftian horror temple is pre-Mayan/pre-Aztec, Mogar, Gower, not finished for sale?, Almuric, size wise, but more polished in some places, there’s something weird about how simple the temple scene is, trap-laden temples, the lesser Conan stories, Shadows In The Moonlight, Queen Of The Black Coast, with the gender flip, the POV character is following the badass around, a formidable female character, Novalyne Price Ellis, Dark Agnes, C.L. Moore was selling that sort of thing, she’s masked here, she’s a fop, pulls the motorcycle helmet off, the curls!, drama, very modern, adversarial, win each other’s respect, emerging as a trope in stories, a competent woman in a field that men are dominant in, something we can largely attribute to Robert E. Howard, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, not proud of their virtue, Valeria is not Valeria from Red Nails, Valeria would not cry, not about that, I have lived a man’s life, Black Amazon Of Mars by Leigh Brackett, Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, question my virtue, a very narrow thing, not having sex with all the men on the ship, Conan adjacent, beautifully illustrated by John Buscema, surprisingly close, rocks and knives with flintlocks, making valeria cry, I have no birth control, Conan, why her virtue matters, how immature Howard was, Mettalus, Island Of Pirate’s Doom, a “merchant” sailor, an owner of the ship, a mate, Robinson Cruseo, contempt for pirates vs. fear of pirates, a little naive here, the story we’re getting from Connor, guy in a tavern tells a story, two and a half days, careful not to sleep in the same place, gotta keep her virtue, write to market, not a spicy, Spicy Adventure Tales, how Belit is marketed, nude, a hat, a big coat, breeks, the sun be strong, the rapier she’s got, not doing that research on the temple, pirates don’t bury treasure on islands, pirates take their treasure and spend it, Blackbeard’s Ghost, Elsa Lancaster, bail out these old ladies, we spent every bit of that in one week in Jamaica, Klaus Störtebeker donated money for salted herrings, Robin Hood, a lot of heads, a great story, every north German kid thinks he’s really really awesome, Indian tribes did hide treasure, the temple here is awesome, more backstory, Fire Of Ashurbanipal, the rumors, the legends, cool backstory, a mechanism, metal, Iron Shadows In The Moon aka Shadows In The Moonlight, in the Vilayet, iron gods, the pre-carib elder race, waiting for the Lovecraftian, polished up that idea, why is there revenge working out that way, the blood, cracked through the altar stained with blood, the gem, when the blood comes down and gushes out of them, one last blood sacrifice, not enough setup, walking up to the gallows, Queen Of The Black Coast, booby-trapped altar, two endings, the weird version and the desert adventure version, snake bite vs. actual demon, a Weird Tales version, pump up the Cthulhu element, the vengeance, the anger, the hatred, they through their gems into the sea, they’re shiny, pirates want them, you’re a lich, that’s your reliquary, feather from an alien space god, Yag Kosha [Tower Of The Elephant], the work being done, a different kind of story at the end, pretend to be my sister, I need more adventures, she’s 20 years old, old enough for marriage, he’s not doing enough work to explain this island, the writing is solid, the motivation, why didn’t you make it an Aztec temple?, a new market, hot markets, long established, Spicy Stories, Fight Stories, Action Stories, he leaves himself open for more stories, the Helen Tavrel series, Steve Harmer, some other character, trained as a doctor, wounds being treated, written over a couple of days at most, the name “Steve” main character names, eight individual Steves, two Steve Costigans, Post Oaks & Sand Roughs, the most explicit example, when you see Steve he’s putting himself into that character, re-written and patched up into a much better story, a few off things in the ending, The Gods Of Bal-Sagoth, poetic irony, crushed by a statue of a god, setup and paid off, he played with it, it has to be a more important, the setup has to be better, to better effect, the payoff, Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981), uncovering the Ark of the Covenant, close your eyes, don’t look, we watch, should I close my eyes?, Nazis killed in various ways, one burns up, the reveal that there’s this jewel, the two heroes look away, their bonds are mysteriously cut (by God?), God was really nice, Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom (1984), Metallus/Steve, a much better payoff, a legend about a curse, Steve Harmer has been on this island a few days, a Robinson Crusoe setup, a nice ship, easy coincidences, a meet-cute, skating on his good writing skills, what would have made it something special, conked on the head a couple of times, disabled in one arm, a way of doing things, kicking ass, those Conan stories, the dynamic of Red Nails, a little back and forth, a mass murdering pirate, sleeping with the whole crew, feels kind of juvenile, he would have been 22, sexual experiences, a story problem, a good story, when people poop on Vale Of Lost Women, it cooks as a story, the implied raping, horrible slavery, an outline of an ending, gross racism, super-strong images, very very visceral, I’m not going to force women into sex, Conan doesn’t rape women, what he put into it, if we think of this as the research, this is the necessary work, The Pool Of The Black One, giants, a green pool, a stream of death, a strange Conan story, on the island of weirdness, “Conan, I was swimming”, the adaptation, a big ream of paper, they don’t have the firearms, they’re not from Spain, Zamora, Argos, where she’s Valeria and she’s talking about Conan, her adopted father, a sexual jealousy, who is this Metallus guy, Roy Thomas fucked up, if you put Conan in that role…, makes Valeria make no sense, you can’t change the relationship and not have it no difference, pre-Red Nails, it’s post Red Nail, it should have been Valeria backstory, the Red Brotherhood, Valeria likes adventuring too much, talk to my pirate dad, making Metallus a merchant, Roy Thomas misunderstanding, what makes Roy Thomas a good writer is he’s a copier (and we like that about him), bad decisions, he’s not a Robert E. Howard clone, from a mate to an owner of a ship, one is a hired worker and the other is a guy and a try to make business, why he got beheaded, Hamburg and Bremen, a hired hand, join the pirates, he should become a pirate, Valeria should have contempt for merchants, not enough research on pirates yet, he likes it, Belit’s a pirate, you have to learn about pirates, how Howard loves pirates, an essay about pirates, a biography of Howard, what happened to pirates when they were caught, a photo, a great spike driven through his head, this gruesome picture, sailing under the skull and crossbones, tried to runaway to sea, Robert E. Howard was an only child, he had a duty, everything is explained, Howard didn’t really like authority, gone Steve Costigan, he likes the romance and the adventure, the reality is something he doesn’t like, a good romance, the research for other stories, its better than this, there’s a girl, kidnapped by these pirates, the weirdest of the Conan stories, what’s the deal with this island, stuff happens, pirate Conan stories, The Black Stranger, L. Sprague De Camp, The Treasure Of Trancios, bizarre Conan, Black Vulmea’s Vengeance, a strange Conan story, discussing the character, the main quote, gigantic mirth and gigantic melancholics, his personality is weird, almost sadistic fun, very intelligent, Conan The Socialist, he’s very very intelligent, he’s a schemer in this one, Nudist Camp by Orrie Hitt, the climax, temple collapses, taken up to 11, Riptide by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, the treasure is the sword of St. Michael, this huge underground cave dome, that’s the end of the book, they get one coin, Oak Island, so crazy, its all based on the premise that pirates bury their treasure, zoom out a little bit, no x marks the spot ever, Captain Kidd, innumerable theories, where it could have come from, Vikings!, viking theories, they’re gardening, there’s something down there, 16 seasons into a reality TV show, you can’t admit there’s nothing there, why do you go to the moon?, do you want to make that your particular purpose, could you find something else to do, digging at oak island, that work, that obsession, proof you don’t need any payoffs, here’s a hairpin!, a literally sunk costs fallacy, bankrupted dozens, pretty good, a very Alex movie, Uncharted (2022), checks a lot of checkboxes, rootkits on movie CDs, action adventurey around the worldy Indiana Jonesy, Swordfish, a helicopter with a bus, they do that with Magellan’s ships, Magellan personally circumnavigated, still intact somehow, boarding actions, all special effects, passable entertainment, the kid who plays Spider-man, game lore, the guy on the beach is the voice of the main character, cargo nets and cargo boxes, run over in the sky, well put together?, Nicholas Cage has to find the constitution, a little lighter than National Treasure (2004), a 500 year old ship in the tropics, worth watching, just pirate it, Alex has read every Dirk Pitt novel before Clive Cussler died, goofy, Winston Churchill sold Canada to the United States, definitely not James Bond, amazingly goofy, lend-lease realism, Sahara (2005), evil billionaire, underwater archaeologist, vintage cars, 1929 Dusenberg, John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee books, a TV show, a private detective sort of setup, people love the series, a colour in the title of each one, The Girl In The Plain Brown Wrapper, Lawrence Block was a fan, people obsessed with the writings of John D. MacDonald, technothrillers, Tom Clancy, Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz, Abe Lincoln was kidnapped, the murder at the theatre was a coverup, ship full of gold, The Da Vinci Code but fun, clones Nazis in Antarctica, streak of ridiculousness, Ghenghis Khan’s tomb, a lost Viking colony, a lost Hawaiian island, weird cult living underwater, Pacific Vortex, The Mediterranean Caper, written with his son, born in 1931, Night Probe, a secret base on the Moon, the Nazi base in Antarctica, Sam Tripoli, Newschwabenland, Klaus Schwab, making everybody eat bugs, a grain of truth, Admiral Perry, did they find a Nazi base there?, no matter what it is, serpent men, George Bush’s back, no matter what it is, its always been written about in fictional literature, The Shadow Kingdom, why George Bush and his friends are all lizard men, its so true, its a metaphor, what resonates with people as being truthful, it resonates because it is true, passed along as a fact about the world, the description of aliens, glowing beings, the greys, H.G. Wells, a little piece, drawings of what man will look like, absorb our nutrients in a bath, he’s making fun of it, the newspaper makes fun of his making fun, 20 years go by, here’s my theory on aliens, The Red One by Jack London, an ancient alien spaceship in the South Pacific, how did that mega-structure get built, space helmets, focused on heads, shrinking heads, a giant ball impacted on this South Pacific island, a literary antecedent that comes out as a conspiracy theory, when we hear something we like we pass it on, watching Stark Trek, a retelling of Plato’s Cave, a retelling of The Tempest, steal from the best!, make some real cash, Connor has the adjectives for us, we find a lost Conan story written by Robert E. Howard, a retelling of Red Harvest, A Fistful Of Dollars and The Maltese Falcon Conan, Conan The Rogue by John Maddox Roberts, steal from the best, classic noir with Conan in the middle, a remake of Yojimbo, a redoing of Red Harvest, the Bruce Willis one Last Man Standing, prohibition era, the only thing that’s missing is the girl, brass bra no less, the new S.M. Stirling Conan cover, The Peshawar Lancers, the British Raj in India in the year 2000, a Russian cannibal cult you say?, cannibal culting is the way to go, not a series!, a standalone!, the audiobook exists, 17 hours, is it 17 hours good?, Space Cadet, Ministry Of Disturbance, Adventures Of Tom Sawyer, Easy Go by Michael Crichton, Drug Of Choice, almost a Philip K. Dick novel, a Hard Case Crime reprint, patients in comas with blue pee, Hollywood Scientology cult, soma, sex island you say?, Jeffrey Epstein island, it’s all in your fuckin head!, super suggestible, do you have tennis, sandpaper your elbow, shitty food you think is delicious, Klaus Schwab: you will own nothing and you will like it, down for At The Mountains Of Madness and The Mysterious Island, a quite long fairy tale, dedicated to the Rani of Sarawak, the super gay guy: Oscar Wilde, Black Priestess Of Varda by Erik Fennel, you’re going to love Nudist Camp by Orrie Hitt, a seething novel, to worship nature, sunbathe unclad, strange sect, voluptous Ada Holden, began to love nature a little to passionately, she-devil, her own glorious body, this is a smut book, Brother And Sister by Donald E. Westlake, Almuric is out tonight!, the second Cora show, time flies, see you on twitter.

Stephen Harmer art by Stephen Fabian for Isle Of Pirate's Doom

Helen Tavrel art by Stephen Fabian for Isle Of Pirate's Doom

SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN - Island Of Pirate's Doom

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #610 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Star Hunter by Andre Norton

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #610 – Star Hunter by Andre Norton; read by Leonie Rose

This unabridged reading of the story (3 hours 37 minutes) is followed by a discussion of it.

Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Will Emmons, Trish E. Matson, and J. Manfred Weichsel talk about Starhunter by Andre Norton

Talked about on today’s show:
Ace Double d-509, Voodoo Planet, 1961, Planet Of Alien Monsters!, a thrill packed account, an interstellar safari, All Cats Are Gray, plotting, geography, this planet somewhere east of the Sierra Madre, a planetary romance, Burroughs’ Africa, Colorado-y, southern Appalachians, water cats, The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose Farmer, relationships vs. biome, safari planet, the sounds of little animals, its the seas are so shallow, Beast Master by Andre Norton, Eye Of The Monster, The Sioux Spaceman, it feels like a series book, space buffalo trap, the sloth people, the takeaway, colonial planets, the county library, The Crystal Gryphon, Quag Keep, bait and switch, Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein, a lost heir in space story, the alien mystery was not even solved, People Of The Crater, Star Born, the preliminary art, Jesse is always seduced by the art, a big hole, a famous science fiction writer, Tarzan as a scam (Tarscam), reframe it from the boy’s POV, Lovecraft’s The Outsider, YOU ARE LORD GREYSTOKE!, every time there’s a piece of technology in this story it fails, the alien field, nevermind about that, as a piece of science fiction all the technology is basically useless, let’s have the kid genetically tested, a half-assed plan, a D&D character rolling a 1, provide complications and fill pages, compare this to Kim and The Jungle Book, Citizen Of The Galaxy, Romulus and Remus, my Robot Jox (1989) movie was not inspired by Transformers, I can do that, an heir to something greater, the greatest spy in the Great Game, a mop boy, a dive bar on a cantina planet, part of this Mandalorian religion, a drugged cup of joe, the fake lost heir, intrigue on an alien planet, maybe they’ll find the actual boy, a The Prince And The Pauper situation, writing it over the weekend and handing it in, the Time Trader novels, could Paul draw a map of where they go and what the geography is?, a safari for what?, that looks like a great book, hiding in the foreground, TECHNOLOGY!, sloth man, even the sloth kid doesn’t get the star treatment, spy vs. spy stuff, in the background of the universe, it could have been a cool story, their sociology their anthropology, if you have a science fiction premise, implanting memories in people’s minds, what would that mean?, I am from the future and here is my rocketship to take you to the Moon, promises to the reader, skeptical straight from the getgo, the sloth people, this should be some sort of mirror to our hero, what is he doing there?, turns out nothing important, (drawing Jesse in), aliens secretly running a planet, the Jack Vance Planet Of Adventure novels, Fredric Brown’s Arena, that story is all symbols, a plastiform hand just like Luke Skywalker, Cool!, make him cool!, gentlefemme, one of the things she’s famous for, pardon Paul’s language, economic classes, ethnic groups, an external mystery or threat, Jumanji, Finnish for God, why?, how much drug taking is going on, maybe this *IS* the Great Game, sort of a YA novel, the relationship that Kipling had to his wetnurse, an analog for him, sympathy for the lower classes, of earth stock, because billionaires, a fascinating universe hidden behind the meandering weak plot, special skill, now he wants revenge, it doesn’t work, what was all that for?, an episode of Johnny Quest, if you follow it closely, the art of Johnny Quest, for small children, disrespectful to children, Lord Tyger by Philip Jose Farmer, create a Tarzan in real life, an interesting premise, counting on Farmer for more fun, more interesting than fun, decepticons stuff, Farmer doesn’t know what he’s doing, explanation (don’t care so much), heavy at points, sexual violence, what Tarzan would be like in real life, bad things, a bad person, lynching black men who killed his man, an aesthetic choice, chaste on camera, the whole wild child phenomenon is fascinating, when these things happen, it has happened many times, parents abandoning children, adopted by animals, a logic to it, what is what we do to all our pets, domesticating them as a part of the family, my furbabies, dogs are a part of out society, we have capabilities that they don’t, why Jesse?, I know how it ends, Jesse has his own systems, everybody is immoral in this book, the systems they live within are immoral, sloth guy, that’s a lie, totally immoral, that’s the name of the book, he feels guilty about it, the kid has no future anyway, killed in a bar fight, there’s another way to run this, Andre Norton tries for a saving throw, c’mon man, going along with it would be immoral, you can’t lie to animals exactly, maybe Will would look at it from a legal POV, what are they liable to be charged with?, unlawful confinement, the police’s involvement, condoned by the state, intelligence circles, that’s all they do, yo, programming people, kidnapping, a capital crime, the quasi-police, entrapment, she doesn’t know what she’s doing, ok I’m writing a book this weekend, a Norton quirk, criminals are heroes in the past, Robin Hood, Suicide Squad, The Many Colored Land by Julian May, in the news this week, statues getting pulled down, they were given statues, Winston Churchill, you can’t be a good person and run the empire, the only good person, he’s vying for power?, Jesse can be wrong about books, The Mound by Zealia Bishop and H.P. Lovecraft, maybe totalitarianism and…, the gaining of knowledge is the only thing worth doing, I was promised a headless ghost living in a mound, that’s shit, their heads are inside their torsos, fine here’s your book, dismiss Norton as not worth reading, this is her worst book, Sea Siege is worse, that’s not cool, a nuclear war, trails and goes nowhere, the scene on the cover is fairly early in the book, some ace books, The Zap Gun by Philip K. Dick was written to order, a philosophical meditation on the meaning of weapons, it tricked me, the power of a really good cover, when you were young, on an island with no electricity, Smaug sitting on that pile sold me, John’s selling his book based on the cover, the promise of the cover, Lawrence Block doesn’t make bad books, this speaks to me, Jon’s first science fiction book Starman Jones, an aerospace museum gift shop, there’s a little monkey guy on the cover, there’s always Starman Jones, an up and comer, Red Planet, their best friend Willis, a YA thing, the hero or heroine and his furry companion, Star Beast, a pet in the family, we should have just read that, Star Beast is fun, how the economy works, the avuncular wisdom of Heinlein, off planet, these are competing books on the used bookstore bookshelf, more of the same (more cool interesting stuff), more of the stuff you love, Animal Kingdom, crime, Isaac Asimov, Donald E. Westlake, Larry Niven, playing fair, The Long Arm Of Gil Hamilton, Blaking Bad, there is a kind of detachment once you realize the government isn’t going to help you, a quasi dystopia, that perfect setup, he did the right thing, his students are making fun of him, I’m going to use my skills for evil, your background premise, it shows the deficiency even more, orphanages, debatable, unchecked institutions, surplus kids dropped off on people’s doorsteps, orphan trains, WWII, The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe, Ellen Barkin, a family of adult boys, they all hate the mom, willing to kill people, they have a lot of money, you cant go to the cops or the church or the neighbors, sharpen some weapons, put some food aside for a rainy day, following a situation like that, The Shield, he gets a desk job, a weird kind of punishment, at least he’s not happy, the audience for that show is all the people who don’t have that day job, what do you think Andre Norton is thinking, the drugs and the orphans, a massive dystopia outside the tiny little view of it, expand please, the traumas of the post war moment are right under the surface, America in 1961, before the War on Poverty programs, back from WWII and the Korean War, taking turns at the uncle’s house, the backdrop, our society, in this strange sci-fi setting, plenty of orphans, Fake Heiress, another survival technique, assumed identity, past the Mississippi be a different person, Henry Morton Stanley, Joseph Conrad, ornamental last names, the morality of big game hunting, accidentally hunt humans, trophy hunting, grandbosses, contact protocols, implied shooting of aliens, another technology failure, this stuff never fail, there’s only a few of them, a class thing, the guides, the rich guy doesn’t need the food, this trap may be there to kill water cats (over hundreds of years), very small planet, passive fishing, shortly thereafter the megafauna disappear, anything we cant domesticate becomes food, having a distaste for big game hunting, ridiculous and stupid, maybe hippos are yummy, a taste problem, go read a book yo, just something to do, like jetskiing, what the billionaire class does, I must have my water cat, rich clueless idiot tourists, the collector who wants to classify every butterfly, on the level intellectually of really liking go-carts, a very basic visceral thrill, something to brag about, The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, he’s exactly like Zaroff now, this is his castle now, that’s a Jesse thought, Jesse just wants to hunt people, check it out, Trish has a different conclusion, the most popular download, more than a quarter of a million downloads, the Russian angle, a 1924 story, his noble seat, now he’s gone too far, Shiptrap Island, a different show, recommendations, Sneaky Pete, bonds vs. bail bonds, satisfying, Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey, great great great, Jo Walton review, doppelgangers, earth stock vs. space stock, compact vs. elongated, The Smoke Ring, The Integral Trees, big ideas, small plot problem, their tree is falling apart, those big ideas sure are big, we squeezed this very slim volume dry, something she does often, it is not PC, it is PC, it can be both, identifying with the natives, an anti-colonial novel, The Sioux Spaceman his hawk-man style costume, a very political book, she changed her name to match her pseudonym, that sounds like fun book, it sounds like Star Trek, investigate the universe and fix it all up, a stagnant galaxy, a Foundation TV show, let’s get on this spaceship and have a conversation, one day there should be books in a library, on the other side of the galaxy, one day there will be a Mule, that will be important, Paul Krugman must be wetting his pants, a superhero movie about The Mule, the I, Robot (2004) movie, The Naked Sun, a murder mystery.

Andre Norton's Star Hunter - preliminary art by Ed Emshwiller

Star Hunter by Andre Norton

ACE DOUBLE D-509 - Star Hunter by Andre Norton

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #594 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Horror At Red Hook by H.P. Lovecraft

The Horror At Red Hook by H.P. Lovecraft

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #594 – The Horror At Red Hook by H.P. Lovecraft; read by Gordon Gould. This is an unabridged reading of the story (57 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, Julie Hoverson, and Trish E. Matson

Talked about on today’s show:
Weird Tales, January 1927, a reprint, a very fat dude, Robert Suydam, sit suits em, Providence by Jacen Burrows and Alan Moore, the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, re-framed in a more logical way?, Rhode Island, flashback, closing that story, there’s reasons for that, two parallel tales, from an outside viewpoint, creepy foreigners, a random observer’s pov, experiments on children, very very subtle, The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, who’s telling the story?, the guy is totally bent, Lovecraft’s descriptions and judgements, he knows more, why is he telling this story to us?, Cool Air, the frame of the psychiatrist, there’s this Irish dilettante detective, a working police officer, his grandmother told him, you read odd books, Bosch, Michael Connelly, True Detective, Robert W. Chambers, the undercurrents are more interesting than the murder, what is motivating stuff, the terrible block collapse, the architecture is very important, “some magazines”, go hang out in Red Hook, why this investigation would actually happen, some inferences about why maybe the actions that take place, tramp steamers, this is actually the events that created Innsmouth in a contemporary setting, the promises are the same, the results are very similar, they’re not fishmen exactly, Kurds, Yezidis, Devil Worship: The Sacred Books And Traditions Of The Yezidiz by Isaya Joseph, Catholic Christian tropes, morphing these things together, The Transition Of Juan Romero, underground, Huitzilopochtli, old and new world deities, they’re ancient, Eskimos, Mulatto sailors, heterodox cults, hybrid squalor, Lovecraft’s narrative about the working class, a smaller version of New York City, Ra’s Al Ghul, symbolic collapse, the Yellow Peril stories, Sax Rohmer, the authors are attracted to the things they’re writing about, Harley Warren and Randolph Carter, reluctant fascination vs. actual inclination, a gentleman wouldn’t act this way, immortality, The Alchemist, The Tomb, the promise of Innsmouth, the interview, worldly freedom, a high position in another realm, keep the people materially starved, a rich man passing through the eye of a needle, younger, trimmer, he learned the right folk-dances, Lilith shows up, how dare you cheat on me, broke with tradition, became a Mormon, got his planet, he sorta gets what he wants, the city is like where the penguins go to lay their eggs, the real kingdom is under the sea, undercooked, Lovecraft’s sexuality, the creepy unmarried rich old fat guy with lots of foreign guys working at Greek restaurants, a lifestyle choice, read Providence, Robert Black is a gay man experiencing Lovecraft’s story, crossdressers, its in there to be read, wanting romantic love with a male, we were immediately best friends, a lack of a father figure, everybody needs a friend Julie, stuck at home with cats (and your two aunts), he graduated, the reason I was borrowing all these books, being obsessed with cursing a family, life is for the living, enjoy the Earth, the murder of his bride as a sacrifice to Lilith, they drain her of blood, why is he dead, is he actually dead?, death is not permanent for him, progeny as another form of immortality, why its so silly, Lovecraft is a punch downer, it’s okay for Jesse to make fun of anybody up the social or money or power ladder, his grandfather’s coachmen are helping him build his forts, that coming down, weird languages, the, there wearing sharp American clothes, an attraction, he’s a bright guy, this looming horror in his family history, his sister was abducted by aliens, The X-Files, in any particular story Lovecraft is not inconsistent, the focus is down (generally), the trauma comes from the police being shut down, a judgement, investigating stupid stuff, illegals, anti-Irish prejudice, Lovecraft distancing himself, we have real life stuff in our society, a Jeffrey Epstein story, people running things cozied-up to sex-criminals, there’s something going on, The Dreams In The Witch House, European and Asiatic magic, a west Asia peril, Asian dregs wisely turned back by Ellis Island, once sea-farers were pure and nice, Norwegian or Dutch children, “real people”, why did those buildings collapse, Lilith didn’t get her wedding night, Suydam’s sabotage, he finally saw what he was marrying, don’t stick your dick in crazy, the tumbling over of the plinth, the underground docks, rum-running, piracy, the church, The Courtyard by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows, a disused church that’s also a nightclub, an atheist, Evan’s scolding Lovecraft, people are fucking complex, his brain is broken, these are horrible and disgusting and why am I so attracted?, homophobia, race hatred, fear of corruption and degradation in his own family history, his armor is being a gentleman, this active brain, he sounds so wonky, having conversations to think about these things, he really buys there are primordial cults out there, back to the geography, Dagon, working class resistance movements, The Many-Headed Hydra: The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, who sustained the beliefs?, who holds that key?, the working class people, the most exploited people in the system, the victims are the villains and have a lot of power and they get away with it, Suydam’s an anthropologist, gathering books together, listening to their songs, watching their dances, boarding them, what Malone’s doing, cheap guitars, stinky food, when you’re a little kid, try this, I don’t like that its green, xenophobia and xenophilia are dispositionally closer than you think, a knife’s edge, his apartment was robbed, he couldn’t get a job, their marketable skills are better, his clothes were stolen, his clothes were his armour, maybe you haven’t tried the right kind!, let’s go to a Thai restaurant, dinosaur porn is a thing?, Chuck Tingle, now its in my browsing history!, a meme that pops up, the Karen meme, the Wine Aunt meme, a massively old cultural tradition, KnowYourMeme.com, fear and fascination, Mesoamerica and India, monkey teeth, land bridge, earlier migrations, far east religions and Mesoamerica, sanskrit god, Magna Mater, Philip K. Dick, the psychological archaeological dig on his own brain, Malone dreams, late into the night, your dreams are tinged (remembered or not), Fate Of Cthulhu, it doesn’t resolve, too resolved, the hints, more plausible, really poetic, turning racism and hate into poetry, The South Of Red Hook, the collage of adjectives, Wayne June is the high priest of reading Lovecraft, oh the horror, as he unpacked his adjectives, Clark Ashton Smith, listen to Lovecraft, the David McCallum readings, the sounds paint a picture, more beautiful when read aloud, a composer of dread dirges, Julie Hoverson’s German versions of her audio dramas, 19 Nocturne Boulevard, Ghost Story by Peter Straub, like The Beatles and David Hasselhoff Julie’s big in Germany, a random section, very sexy buildings, homes of taste and substance, once green space, a many windowed cupola, the buildings are the sexual attraction, the class, what Providence and New York were made out of, Moby-Dick, an alternative way to go, its almost like Lovecraft without the racism, squeezing each other’s hands under the sperm, a beautiful male love story, the ship captains are out of control, refreshing and delightful, super-experimental, if you like, Nathaniel Hawthorne, stodgy vs. dynamic, The Confidence Man, Typee, anti-racist, what he really is, they’re all into that shit, eugenics, not degenerating, prevent degeneration, mail away for the French books of knowledge, scolding Lovecraft, juvenile and silly, so ridiculous, Samuel Johnson, Lovecraft’s vision of the 18th century, the Maroon communities, the stuff that we have from back then, Jane Austen, how many pounds a year, investments, milkin the cows and shoein the horses and making the shoes in the factories, writing about the hoighty toights, it’s not his maleness or his whiteness its his class that is fucking up his brain, he has an iron grey, not one of those lowly university of Hawaii doctors, not the hybrid squalor doctors, the Massie Affair, the Volumnious Podcast, a PBS documentary, a prize fighter, a hung jury, the conviction, the territorial governor, a sentence of hour for murder, the headline sensation for weeks, rabid for the justification, how dare those coloured folks, a honeymoon in Hawaii with some Tiki gods, very sympathetic to the native’s point of view, exemplifying the common thought at the time, an exotic location, pre-war Japanese hatred, if the Japanese get their shit together, concentration camps, the underlying lie, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, you don’t want to have any bastard children, Saudi Arabia, the time investment, the is the squalor and squalidness, how chemistry and planetary systems work, biological jealousy is so fucking low, tigers and bears, Shakespeare vs. bears, flinching every minute, from a modern perspective, Victor Lavalle’s The Ballad Of Black Tom, a great deal of understanding, dirty cops, turning to elder gods and chaos to topple, Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff, the HBO TV series, eldritch horror in graphic form, Abbott by Saladin Ahmed (and Sami Kivelä), Kolchak, Bitter Roots by C.J. Carmichael, subject yourself to it, feeling more deeply, yellow peril, he just read that book, E. Hoffmann Price, the peacock’s feather, claw marks, the chick dunnt even get a name, Lilith, only needs one name, Trish’s point, there is racism in here expressed by the narrator, really beautiful, Sax Rohmer, upholders of the British American Empire, colourful and rich and full of life, throwing off western imperialism, they never defeat him and dance on his grave, when you read Robert E. Howard, almost who reads these stories comes away racist, trauma, micro-aggressions vs. macro-aggression, a paeon, doing so much, so short, very deep, as racist as The Call Of Cthulhu but not more racist, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, Evan’s article, the sailor as villain and victim, him at his racist worst, one of his most horrible stories, The Street, a sacrifice, the sacrificial goat, as racist, a broader brush, foreigners and miscegenation, are they actually transforming people, more subtle vs. less defined, that beauty of language, an incantation, some of the fun, Will Emmons, ancient astronauts, the current plague theories, people who don’t read fiction, fun ideas are from fiction stories, if you watch the opening credits of Survivors, passport stamps, how the game of telephone works, the 5G tie in (Huawei) [and Stephen King’s CELL], Jack London’s The Red One, Chariots Of The Gods?, whatever witch-cults they had were not summoning up Lilith, Cultures Of Darkness by Bryan D. Palmer, capitalism, Venetian masquerade, Haitian voodoo cults, the Masons, Jazz clubs, an epic history of working class cultures of resistance, not really having sex with the devil, one bad harvest away from starvation, that’s the life you live, the horseshoes, Christianity fills-in that uncertainty, the transubstantiation, Christians who believe in crystals, the zodiac, a pseudoancient horoscope newspaper business, memes hack into your brain, incompatible, or separate traditions, Pokemon, Star Wars and Star Trek, The Peacock’s Shadow by E. Hoffmann Price, November 1926, the innermost sanctuary, a Luger and a mirror, Through The Gates Of The Silver Key, New Orleans, everybody’s reading the contemporary stuff, no trigger warnings needed, some Kurd could be offended, Kurdistan, its happened many many many times, the partition of Poland, Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys, a much more victorious story, the sequel, Suydam’s inheritance, Martense Street, The Lurking Fear, scrapin people’s faces, poems written about her, The Dunwich Horror, it drives Julie nuts, him retelling his failed marriage, obliged to call out, Poe couldn’t stop talking women, Poe’s the funniest, How To Write A Blackwood Article, The Predicament, Lovecraft is funny, a certain passage, they know they’re not because they ate em, issue 7 covers, Night Gallery.

The Horror At Red Hook by H.P. Lovecraft - Weird Tales, January 1927

Weird Tales, March 1952 - Jon Arfstrom illustration for The Horror At Red Hook

Dark Adventure Radio Theatre - The Horror At Red Hook

Providence issue 2 - Weird Pulp

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #222 – How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped by Katherine Mansfield

Podcast

Reading, Short And Deep #222

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped by Katherine Mansfield.

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped was first published in Rhythm, September 1912.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson

Review of Veronica Mars: The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line

SFFaudio Review

Veronica Mars: The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line (Veronica Mars #1)
By Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham; Read by Kristen Bell
Publisher: Random House Audio
Publication Date: 25 March 2014
[UNABRIDGED] – 8 hours, 42 minutes

Themes: / crime / mystery / kidnapping / girl detective / spring break /

Publisher summary:

From Rob Thomas, the creator of the television series and movie phenomenon Veronica Mars, comes the first book in a thrilling mystery series that picks up where the feature film left off.

Ten years after graduating from high school in Neptune, California, Veronica Mars is back in the land of sun, sand, crime, and corruption. She’s traded in her law degree for her old private investigating license, struggling to keep Mars Investigations afloat on the scant cash earned by catching cheating spouses until she can score her first big case. Now it’s spring break, and college students descend on Neptune, transforming the beaches and boardwalks into a frenzied, week-long rave. When a girl disappears from a party, Veronica is called in to investigate. But this is no simple missing person’s case; the house the girl vanished from belongs to a man with serious criminal ties, and soon Veronica is plunged into a dangerous underworld of drugs and organized crime. And when a major break in the investigation has a shocking connection to Veronica’s past, the case hits closer to home than she ever imagined.

This is a book for Veronica Mars fans, to listen to after seeing the crowd-funded movie (I watched it last weekend and was not disappointed! While I’ve been watching Kristen Bell’s new show, House of Lies, I miss Veronica and her many mishaps). The story picks up a few months after the movie ends, and Veronica is still in Neptune when a college student disappears during the Spring Break season.

Logan is missing for the entire story (for reasons the movie details) but another person from Veronica’s past shows up that I wasn’t expecting to see again. I hope in the future we see more new characters because I personally am getting a little weary of some of the same old people, but maybe I do not fully appreciate the importance of repetition in a girl detective narrative.

The audio is great fun because it is read by Veronica herself, Kristen Bell. Her voice carried us through the narration of the tv show and movie, and having anyone else read the book would have been a real tragedy. She does different voices for the characters, as well as distinguishing the narrative voice from the character of Veronica Mars. I hope they continue to have her read the future Veronica Mars audiobooks (and I hope there will be future Veronica Mars books).

Posted by Jenny Colvin