The SFFaudio Podcast #886 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Ablest Man In The World by Edward Page Mitchell and The Man That Used Up by Edgar Allan Poe

The SFFaudio Podcast #886 – The Ablest Man In The World by Edward Page Mitchell (38) and The Man That Used Up by Edgar Allan Poe (24 minutes) – both read by Tommy Patrick Ryan, followed by a discussion. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Tommy Patrick Ryan

Talked about on today’s show:
2 stories, The New York Sun, 1879, Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, 1839, a 40 year difference, will have listened if they’re going to, cyborg, not a novel, not a book, people say that, what’s so fun about reading and hearing people’s reviews of The Man That Was Used Up they are in the story, lots of fun, in the Poe, a bit of a broken record, they’re programmed, speeding up more and more, firebrand, clever of Poe, scan through those words again, The Tempest, very boring infodumps, did it with voices, with names, read books, the use of the n word, negro, you don’t understand, if that’s your tripwire you’re not in twice, the other n word, not in there, if you edited that out that’s really bad, it is there!, you’re a bad person, bosom said I scalping is a rough process, Pompey, Del Ormes, “Now, you nigger, my teeth!”, it being in the literature, comfortable, necessary, to be faitful, it’s okay for Huck Finn to do it, the one time, part of what’s happening, Elijah Wood, where the Duke and the Dauphin, if they’re this then I’m a that word, totally said the word, epithets, down to the bottom of the text, D-N the vagabonds said he, who wrote that?, the character, “D—n the vagabonds!”, The Rats In The Walls, Wayne June, didn’t know it was in the story, so important to keep it in, words like that, don’t want to say it, so much hate in it, integral to the story, demonstrating, other and reduce the humanity of black people, natural to call them that, Twain is anti-racist, Poe is not, H.P. Lovecraft, Poe would have fought on the Southern side, lived in the North, not for the right for men to own slaves, Poe is a super-weird guy, the puzzle piece that was missing, a question on twitter, it was the answer, The Cask Of Amontillado, exemplifies, a less stripped down Tell-Tale Heart, almost no context, names and dates, the old man is his father, the old man, the narrator is crazy, based on metadata, not quick to disagree, a curious little scene, are you of the brotherhood?, give me a sign, removes a trowel from his pocket, a gesticulation, I am a Mason, a secret society thing, active in this period, more than a little, this story is really angry, mysteries encoded in, hiding things in the stories, makes it rich, took him in as a ward, Poe’s adopted dad was a Mason, abusive to his adopted mom, traveled to Europe together, the wealthiest man, left Poe nothing, trynna reconcile, cheating, left the bastard children money, the one chosen child, we don’t have access to John Allan’s mind, a revenge story, a personal revenge story, joined the army, went to West Point, about a military man, how would we prove that Poe would have joined the south, more than just slavery, boil it down to slavery, think about H.P. Lovecraft, wanted to join WWI, applied and accepted and his mom got it scotched, makes no sense, athletic and imposing, a good walker, it wasn’t about athleticism, it was about being a man, what if this story if not about being a man, they are very similar men, 1000% percent, caught up, lose track, in common with both of them, Pompey, the black valet, Pompeii, Mt. Vesuvius, second richest man, Crassus, private army guys, triumvirate with Caesar, the colour of the man who’s used up hair, black, it has no colour, black is all the colours, his whiskers, also black, oh that’s Poe, a black mustache, black hair, in the black and white photographs, Brutus, Julius Caesar, Marc Antony, the evil that men do, et tu Brute, the one word to describe Brutus, his dash word, Dante’s Inferno, a traitor, the argument that they’re trying to keep the Republic, in both stories, his scientist creator, engineer-watchmaker, extracts a promise, how do we get this story?, he kills him, and then we get the story, one way of keeping the secret, a betrayal, literally murders robot men, talking about it, in the context, something to pair, cyborg or whatever, the original cyborg story, of the two which one is the cyborg story?, partially cybernetic, partially person, seems to still retained his original consciousness, brain dead, a mechanical brain in him, a human with a computer brain, still a computer, just not called that, where’s the cy-part?, where’s the borg part, a guy with a toupe is a cyborg, a hearing aid, cochlear implant, not human anymore, t-800, Robert Patrick t-1000 is not a cyborg at all, breaks the rules for time-travel, like the Bionic Man, Cyberpunk 2077, Neuromancer, Robocop, mechanical elements built into the body, mechanical components, what is ultimately the story?, a really good sense of humour, they’re supposed to be funny, wry smile funny, wears glasses, what really is going on?, unpopular channels, talking about books, no that’s wrong, the man THAT not WHO, he’s not a man anymore, he was used up, argument, doesn’t have any humanity left, where is his consciousness coming from, he/it seems to be self-aware, really just a robot, robot brain in a human body, W.C. Morrow, The Surgeon’s Experiment, finds a monster in the house, a man who’s had his head removed, a feeding tube in the neck, glandular excretions, a super-muscleman, no eyes, no ears, weird facts about the 20th century, Mike The Headless Chicken, ran off but didn’t die, a sensation, a roadshow, still roost, some success, chopped a lot of chicken heads off, what makes a man a man, asking that, man in the title, theoretically about cyborgs, really bad eyesight, a satire, the reputation of a man, what that man is actually like, he’s an assemblage, it starts with his name, the last sentence, kind of a joke story, going in, an artificial element, if you didn’t know, you might not have known, wires, pulleys, a heap, pushes away with his foot, explicitly mentioned, that heap is talking, our readers in 1839, twist endings for a joke, not a ha ha joke, this is a truth, an aspect of a joke, Brevet Brigadier General John A.B.C. Smith, 1 start general, he’s not, a brevet captain is not a captain, because of respect, interject, adhd perking up, Hamlet, as brevity is the soul of with I shall be brief, he’s aware the words are related, that’s not brevity, that’s the joke, Polonius is a doofus, proceeds to talk uninterrupted, his advice, he’s stupid, a pompous fool, not the greatest investigator, where or how, coulda been a major, the yellow hair who George Armstrong Custer, they promote, they call him a general to puff him up, John Smith, what his actual name, who is the doctor, John Doe, middle initials, A. B. C., E.A. Poe or Edgar A. Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, the fashion of the time, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, T.P. Ryan, Tommy P. Ryan, every part of his name is fake, if this story was set in the 20th century, this would be a Kardashian, a lot of work done, personality is fake, the music is fake, wearing make up, about being a man, a man is a man is a man, the shape of his legs, a really good set of shoulders, a shoulder connoisseur, I know what good shoulders look like, Tacitus, the received pronunciation, Warhammer 40,000 related, while the Kickapoos are real the bugaboos are not, the thing every body is afraid to say, a fake man, fake received opinions, supercuts, safe and effective, newsreaders paid to read ads, he’s this he’s that, the newspapers, a puffed up man, a puddle on the floor, the remains of all the things that was taking from him, scalped, leg shot off, the elephant that’s standing on him, he was used up, ship of Theseus as a man, bugbear, boogeyman, boggart, use over time, just before 1900, 1950, copies of Poe, almost created this word, popularized it, when we look at it, all the thing that Poe is laying down, reviews of Poe, contemporary reviews, a lot of reviewers were getting what he was laying down, resented it, [Our Opinions Are Correct], ‘Poe is third rate’ is this jealousy or stupidity?, super-ignorant, his nova, his explosion, The Pit And The Pendulum, Hop-Frog, as a kid, conventions or rules, pedestrian with the language, well written, once, twice, remember, spectacular, fascinating, he has a thing for orangutans, his poetry, The Raven, Annabelle Lee, Eric [S. Rabkin], more to say, hidden stuff in everything, wait 20 years, read it again, read it again, extracting things, one of his humour pieces, not your everday fare, they’re kinda bitter, doing his best, what happened to this man?, served his country, used up every little bit of him, puffery, in use to describe, grade inflation, mediocre and shitty, our country has never been better, bullshit, this is that phenomenon, with stocks, not self, you do it to your peers so they do it to you, what the fuck?, toss that off at the end, hatin on Lovecraft, a throwaway, trying to make Jesse angry for no reason?, you don’t need to read anything past ten years ago, read contemporary people to do puffery, scratch my back, you can’t say it then everybody would know, log rolling, something that people do, we told them they would, this immoral, super-common, a fake election, it’s not what you know it’s who you know, so angry at his fake dad, rejected by the masons, parents were actors, a lot of shit is fake, get a job, enlisteds, buy your way out, I’m going to be an officer, I can outrace you, I can outswim you, gunnery shit, the calculation shit, mixing the gunpowder, this is also not me, I’m better than this, I’m going to make myself the first wage earning writer in the United States, without the nepotism, what is a man?, puffed up generals, took an injury, a pathetic asshole who doesn’t know shit, not what’s going on in the other story, we need to talk about the Mitchell, a tendency, umbrage, your telling me the earth is hollow, okay maybe, Poe is not a good writer?, jealousy, articulate, a lot of the greats, take the time to see what’s in there, more people probably dislike Shakespeare, as an English major as an actor, puns and wordplay, the Hamnet movie, being at odds, the push and pull, the complete works of Shakespeare, being forced to read Shakespeare in high school, travel to other places, other languages, to speak Spanish, they feel stupid, read my novel and my friend’s novel, their stuff sucks, willing to entertain Hollow Earth theories, second rate, third rate!?, one of the best, how does he stack up, these are not the same story, The Ablest Man In The World, really fun, Arnold Schwarzenegger accent: *take the brain out of der! throw it in the Atlantic*, hints of it, the Swiss guy was on point, the valet, Auguste was a French man, another Caesar, an outline of the story, the same hotel room, my master needs help, doctor professor, anybody who wears glasses, the connection, carrying a nice handbag, so hard to see, read more, the artificial title, these stories run along similar lines, very famous, a baron, not a baron, fake name, administers some bourbon, whiskey from Kentucky, medicine, not a doctor, a reaction that’s positive in some way, screw my head off, a “deceptive wig”, so good?, some other kind of deception, pressure on his brain, messes up the lubrication of the gears, why was he sick in the first place, examine a little more closely, better than plot happens, the inventor caretaker, stop touching his head, a payment of two gold coins, on a parapet, kicks the ladders down, wants to force the interview, kick the ladder down after you, so nobody else can climb up, good writing, making a metaphor, the backstory, some sort of autist, abandoned by his parents, doesn’t speak, can sniff a little, can taste a little, calls out Charles Babbage, 19th century mechanical computer, IBM Hollerith machines, the most caparable man in all the Russias, Sherlock Holmes’ smarter brother, he is going to become a Napoleon, the domination of two continents, removing his brain, Kentucky bourbon, to his wife: thrown the man overboard, Mycroft Holmes, saved two continents, look how goddamn smart Edward Page Mitchell is, smart things, having fun, there is something about being smart, being smart as a man is, this stupid part of being a man, continuously making the same mistake, taking alcohol when he shouldn’t, dating girls, the baron, not drink the bourbon again, the maid said oh go on so he did, a girl’s whim, not very fucking smart, inventing a mechanical brained man, getting away with it, a comedy piece, we can take it seriously, having a crutch is making your a cyborg, men become Napoleon, the descriptor, the infodump section, on the precipice, Napoleon wasn’t ten times higher than every other man, look at what he did, a Star Trek episode for this, Spock’s Brain, Spock was always robotic and inhuman, because of a kind of discipline, he’s vegan, operates only on logic, unlike Data, an improved man, more ordered, he’s a stoic, along those lines, riding through the emotions, slightly different, Spock’s mom is her name, full Vulcan and really emotionless, overcompensates, the Worf story too, half-space-elf, even more cut-off from his emotions, more Klingon than the klingons, hey this is fun to be a klingon, all the Star Trek memes are fun, Professor Rapperschwill, Professor Dumbkopf, we respect these guys, a fun and funny story, I’m not an expert on anything unless it were poker, an American overseas, called for it, nothing to drink over hear, my wife wants to hang out with the barons and the dukes, the titles are important, very simple guy, if you don’t do this, he bluffs him, the winner of this contest to save the world, the ablest man in the world’s brain, a big joke, a smart quick and wise man, Poe is the guy who constantly has this battle with alcohol, rumors, really really smart, unappreciative of that, make your feelings change, take drugs, works fast, cheap, available on every corner, The Angel Of The Odd, The Black Cat, alcohol in Poe’s life, a factor in his death, what’s he doing in this, the smartest man in the world, can speak many languages, he tricked the British, he flustered the French, easily tricked by a pretty girl, a supercompetent man, what makes you able, disabled real fast, the lifting of the wrist, what makes you able, what’s hidden in this story, the monster who’s the professor, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, in the tradition, conceived in Switzerland, a ghost contest, Dr. Poliodori, Lord Byron, innovative, sardonic sense of humour, not a light and fluffy story, neither of them, doesn’t dwell on child abuse, and murder, what is your reaction to finding out that most people are super stupid, investigate for uourself, regular smart american, Connecticut Yankee, studied engineering, a blacksmith, knows how to make stuff, telegraphs and printing presses, invest my money, printing is going to be huge!, all the right answers, the point of the second story, pretty hard reach, really not seeing what is being laid down over and over again, what really matters, as smart as this guy can be, even the robot, literally has somebody has access to this very treasure, calculator brain, certain ways of looking at it, alcohol and women, the dumbest shit, as a man, men are different from women, men think of themselves as disposable in a way men don’t think women are, property, in that time, often though of as ways to cement marriages, the patriarchy, the way of the world at the time of these stories, treating women as inferior, not the focus of either of these stories, about being a man, one is like what is a man, a man is Napoleon, a war hero, not getting your body parts shot off, immense pressure to go off and join the war, roving gangs of girls pinning chicken feathers on them, the meatgrinder, cute and fun and a way to meet boys, volunteers instead of conscripted guys, girls have power over men that’s hard to quantify, your not a man, a sense of yourself as a man, war hero, he was used by the government, they rewarded him with all these honors, all fake, lost all his body parts, kind of an asshole racist who needs help to have himself assembled every morning, there’s a big gap between them, model of a man, current congressperson, eyepatch, fell into the trap, now I’m a war hero, this is fake, everybody says about, brought into themselves, now regurgitate, Michael Jackson, and afterwards, they were all saying the exact same things, the narrative created around it, take stuff in and regurgitating is not being a man, investigating, hero protagonists are just regular men, the reality is not what they thought it was, saving us from a Napoleon, saving us from a certain kind of body modification stuff, reading that much into it, not the title characters, the investigators in both cases, in the Poe, to tell us what’s going on, doesn’t take a lot agency in the story, why is he doing that?, whenever you start investigating things on your own, Poe is a third rate writer so I don’t have to read Poe, Desultory Notes On Cats, these incredible stories, the contrast, both the source of the narrative, doesn’t really effect the narrative, takes an active role of agency, blackmailing the guy, hinting he knows more than he does or saw, get the guy’s brain out, even silly to say more than it’s fun, ridiculous premise, ridiculous conclusion, worldbuilding, the Poe is a little more cagey, learn it at the end, the repetitive nature, a true desperado, something is going on, how beautiful his bust, we learn early that there’s something, he is in fact, he has a computer brain, the Mitchell, more realisticly a cyborg, more science fiction, what would it mean, did he kill that boy long ago?, wasn’t much of a boy, fits into a really good tradition in science fiction, Flowers For Algernon, a dumb guy gets uplifted, becomes lonely, heavy lies the head that wears the crown, Understand by Ted Chiang, oxygen deprivation, see patterns, Limitless (2011), Stranger things, Fallout, Pluribus is the way to go bro, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, makes me think, A Picture Of Dorian Gray, what do you do with a monster like that?, the prequel sequel series is even better, Ted Lasso, something of a sports fan, what’s cool, their invasion is quite different, meaning, its smart, is it for or against it?, it’s complex, tried it, want to believe it is healthy, affected, rna sequence, transmission from outer space, telepathic, peace on earth, they don’t kill anymore, indeed, how do they eat, if the apple falls from the tree by wind, when you get focused on ideology, missing pictures, lots of places where there’s no evil, no an evil thing ever happens on Mars, also no good things happen on Mars, Satan’s world, we live in a fallen world, we suffer through it, more modern in aspect, holy books, veganism is a way to make the world a better place, cheaters, breatharianism, water once in a while, our bodies need food, eating living things, watch it dialogue free, have things happening, a confirmation of what you’re inferring, shows that are designed to do that, opposite in this, working on an art project, the only thing, write in my journal, the correct way to be, probably making a mistake, aesthetic judgements, through argument, which is the better story here?, of these two, excellent stories, in terms of being entertaining, clever wordplay, an actual plot and a message, the condition, flip them both ways, partially articulated it, wordplay, we have this, reveals that the technology exists, a clump on the floor, this guy and this technology, a change in the world, even more power in the world, why does he do that?, threatened by him, can’t take either one seriously enough to make an argument that strong, cartoons, some level of empathy, Wile E. Coyote, our guy is worried, hyper-intelligence, it’s not even him it’s the professor, if this guy were this smart and doing all these things with a regular human brain would he have tried to kill him, in a certain sense, his body, the baron is dead, the child that was the guy, our narrator is okay with it, I didn’t kill this guy, threw him overboard, a scream, maybe it was the seagull, our narrator, make all these political changes, poisoned or stabbed him today, feel justified, the reason it is not murder, so cartoonish, so light, done funnily, done for serious, horrible and scary things in it, a light touch upon his arm, Ms Ward, bless me, to save the girl from a marriage to a robot, how white you are, it has effected him, saving your peace of mind, how have you done that, too droll, the reaction, why these stories exist as they do, laughter is the consolation for the pain of reality, bad marks in school, people who seem to not have a sense of humour, in order for humor to happen, that’s not fair, humorous, a humorous person, a good laugh out of funny and terrible situations, gallows humour, reacting in a way that’s a coping mechanism, being a man, to be aware, he’s amazing, a little rundown, The Crystal Man, an invisible man story, decades before Wells, a time travel story, The Man Without A Body, transports himself across town, fairly funny stories, The Tachypomp, faster than light, infinite speed, building up on argument, infinite speed, super innovative, legit science fiction stuff, that H.G. Wells does later, after Poe, aware of Poe, published anonymously in his own newspaper, not magazines or books, you’ll never see it again, these are all by him, supergenius stories, thinking all about science, if this goes on, it doesn’t feel like one because it is so funny, The Senator’s Daughter, California, Boston, New York, vacuum tube transport all over North America, Chinese in love with a white girl, Chinese Vegetarian Party, he’s in love with this girl the father is racist, Boston, all in the course of an evening, marriage laws, still racist, a cryogenic chamber, wait until her father dies, fluffily written, before electricity is a bill thing, why is his reaction to be droll?, a coping mechanism, the world is kinda stupid, stick in these monkey bodies, don’t meet your heroes, makeup and fake boobs, that’s James Cameron, a television show called Intelligence, references it, secret agent with a computer in his brain, Bionic Man but shitty, if there’s a reference there, embracing the government or progress, smile wryly, heavy, they’re not identical, 37 minutes, 24 minutes, 1 hour of listening, one from Weird Tales, March 1923, Ooze, Francis Stevens, a blob story, The Stuff (1985), media savvy, bowels of Holly, Alex (pulpcovers), Die Hard (1988), The Terminator and Predator, summer of 1991, a Christmas movie, that’s the joke, It’s A Wonderful Life (1946), what is a Christmas movie?, set in Christmas, visited by an angel (instead of 3 ghosts), Back To The Future II, Scrooged with Bill Murray, is Groundhog Day a Groundhog Day movie?, The Fellowship leaves Rivendale on December 25th, the other camp, days are shorter, nesting feeling, not go outside, any movie is a Christmas movie [at Christmas], themed to the season, can you put pineapple on pizza, actually it is quite good, everywhere that isn’t pizza, on the ham, that’s fine, by itself, with other fruits, mango, the greatest of all fruits, the pizza is improved, pepperoni, jalapeno, this is important, aesthetics are about making arguments, the mouthfeel of, into your body, literal taste, coffee is a thing that is bad until you like it, smells bad, it is bitter, now it tastes good, you came to appreciate it, the drug that’s in it, nobody really likes the taste of alcohol, when babies are born they like ice cream right away, no acquired taste, levels of sophistication, grok what Poe is laying down, reject Poe, never be able to reach that level, comparing my stuff to him, don’t look over there, that’ll make me look bad, take my word bro, can’t be generous enough, that would be pathetic, not intellectually capable, you grow into, as you get older sweets become less and less interesting, tiger ice cream (orange and licorice), way too sweet, eat this eat this, very undercooked, grown into this man’s body, all over him, a handler he maybe sorta doesn’t know about, a Rashomon sort of thing, a confection of brilliance, awed at the floor show, really early ideas, electricity is mentioned, the part of him that’s not the cerebral part, what triggered the sickness, dashed this off, what a dasher, a sparkling little story of brilliance, Sunfire is her last story, the 5th time, stack em, prereading, ooh wow cool, mountain of stuff, Red Dwarf, the reboot, seeing DVDs of their own show, lived in a world where they were famous, really solid after the 2nd season, pretty entertained by it, hang out in nature, play music, one of the next ones, editing this up in 6 months, no LibriVox version, a lot that don’t, a little more work for them, ultimately you’ll be more longer distributed, more widely distributed, weird restrictions, more exposure, lead to something, how much time I’m putting into it, strict with regard to sources, if not on Gutenberg, it hasn’t been processed, making PDFs, some audiobooks, 2 B R 0 2 B by Kurt Vonnegut, a very solid novel, Goblin Feet by J.R.R. Tolkien, Seuss is noice, Scrambled Eggs Super, a nature place, Eric S. Rabkin, how that word should be pronounced, realistic to know, full disclosure, not a paid project, more or less in one take, you a thousand times over any kind of robot, you can make the robots better, they have no consciousness of what your doing, funny and fun, shouldn’t he have the same accent as the hero character?, able to do everything, super-competent, so few opportunities, a lot of the best narrators, slight modifications, straight narrators and performers, if a shitty performer, if you can’t do a voice, go too far with him, Bronson Pinchot, it’s all in the guy’s head, a cast off line from chapter 18, making it harder to access, a performance is good, an audiobook is transformation from the text on the page into a person’s brain, George Guidall, Scott Brick, Tom Parker, Grover Gardner, audiobook narrators have pseudonyms, recording for other companies, we have robots we don’t need them, fun to talk to you about these things, invested, share, the McCaffrey and Philip K. Dick, Prize Ship, pairing really helps too, the length of the stories, how am I spending my time, references and things, a little bit too twee, “excessively or affectedly quaint, pretty, or sentimental”, everything is a reference, a huge problem with nostalgia, unpopular as an idea, funko pops, memberberries, valuable as an idea, set in a period, Ready Player One, the book was better, trying to make me like it, being manipulated, designed to manipulate, heavy on reference, how Star Trek is connected to The Tempest, oh it is The Tempest, seems evil, playing MacBeth, his daughter!, space Hitler, space Stalin, Patrick Stewart loves Shakespeare, getting rid of Trotsky, modernized, it was good, Ian McKellen on stage doing Richard III, is Stalin a Christian?, the dagger scene, kludgy push, agree to disagree, Marc Singer, The Beastmaster (1982), The Taming Of The Shrew, very grainy video, Commedia dell’arte, Kate meets Petruchio scene, wringing, the stage directions, exit, from within, the words of the characters, a fuckton of work, willing to do the work, as a last bit, the period Shakespeare the best, reveals its timeless nature, really well and really poorly, if that’s your fifth time watching the play, Romeo and Juliet set in Mexico as an introduction, hard for kids to relate to, a fair actor herself, a huge project, Shakespearean chops, wring every last bit of juice from it, the more I study Shakespeare, appreciate what he does, he was an actor, so meta, the man for all seasons, a genius, insane, you are a liar and fool if you think that is a thing, having trouble, parents want to watch Yes, Minister, on point and sharp, great dialogue, Scooby Doo and his friend eat dog treats, the kiss me Kate scene, 1976, not not a big deal, equal representation for women, good writing, super innovative, she’s got spark, almost everything we read about Francis Stevens is lies, that’s not her name, she had many names, forget about the representation, has this person got something for us?, hell yeah!, The Elf Trap, not science fiction, not fantasy, a valance of both, either way it is supergenius, she has a Lovecraft story before Lovecraft wrote it, it seems to be anti-racist, Dark Fantasy isn’t really a thing, pushed it a lot, subconsciously, it keeps coming up, talking for 3 hours, The Outfit by Richard Stark, Claimed by Francis Stevens, Lynne Foster Is Dead by Seabury Quinn, Sartor Resartus, Stragella by Hugh B. Cave, Val Lewton, Clark Ashton Smith, A. Merritt, The Trap by Henry S. Whitehead, With The Night Mail, 30 some items, dud, a piece of crap, in comparison, Sheckley is amazing, a rip-off of a Robert Sheckley story, Seventh Victim, spark and explode and think and laugh, we can be done, not the right show, today we’re not reading short and deep, favourite teacher, consider a good friend and care about deeply, time to wrap it up.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #837 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Mistress Of The Dark Pool by Russell Gray and The Cold Female by Dale Harlow

The SFFaudio Podcast #837 – Mistress Of The Dark Pool by Russell Gray (1 hour 3 minutes) from Terror Tales, May 1940 and The Cold Female by Dale Harlow (19.5 minutes) from Adam, January 1957. Both are read by Mike Vendetti. These are followed by a discussion of both. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Alex (Pulpcovers), Cora Buhlert, and Tommy Patrick Ryan.

Talked about on today’s show:
Philsp.com Galactic Central, can’t get google to work, a huge magazine index, Sgt. Bilko, all the magazine contents, mostly all there, non-genre magazines, Cora’s entry is wrong, Stephenson Paine, only has one story, flourishing in the 1950s, this issue of Adam, pseudonymous, fairly well written, Jack Casanova, K. Robert Howard, a funny magazine, internet archive, before Palestine, you taking down, LibriVox is down, people who throw , PulpCovers, killed the internet archive, hackers?, online activists, a DDOS attack, LibriVox, one of the files was corrupted, work on something else, in 7 months when this podcast comes out Gaza wont be being destroyed, save the best for last, Russel Gray, excellent art, attractive and a good premise, Mistress Of The Dark Pool is just way too long, the biggest problem, an hour and 3 minutes, very similar, lakes, mountains, people in cabins, every stereotype ever, food and supplies and information, Cabin In The Woods, titular cabin, titular woods, go in clear eyed, weird sacrifice thing, the knew what they were getting into, willingly allow the vampire into your home, Reading, Short And Deep, connection through Eric [S. Rabkin], find the hidden sex, much clearer, definitely had sex with that woman, May 1940, written 5 minutes before it was published, before the US is involved in WWII, it wasn’t important yet, isfdb entry, Bruno Fisher (Russell Gray) (Harrison Storm), interesting quote, these markets, weird menace pulps, living in Florida with my family, terror/horror market, just one day the market was gone, 150 Philip K. Dick, the market collapses, it’s Chinatown, Jake, if you shutter the business that distributes magazines, paperback distribution, early 1990s, censorship, legal issue, a history of this, might be war related, all the way through the depression, ramping up for war, gonna be a paper shortage, preparing for war, army approved pulp, Playboy, I read it for the articles, the Saturday Evening Post of a certain niche, a magazine like Adam, much condensed, more censoriously, lot less placing breasts in hands, less explicit, implied more, some birds started chirping, Eric Rabkin comes out of the forest with his hat on, waterfalls and tunnels, fade away, necking in the surf, how many beds are in that house?, obsessed with the idea, too much to read, both stories use the same word, wood nymph, scary stories to tell in the dark, fireside ghost story kinda things, a filler story in Weird Tales, read versus listened, Mike Vendetti, how seriously he took it, very believable, so broad, come on guy, must be the daughter, who could have seen this coming?, a more enjoyable experience, weird menace pulps, both sex stories, ghost women in the mountain cabin, author vs. engineer, the author is the bad writer, the engineer is the good writer, forgive a lot of the things, nice art, paid by the word, seeing it in the relief, salacious title, could be a horse, sounds like it could be a Conan story, all of his titles, the blank of the blank, the castle of the harridans, a collection of Russell Gray stories, actual print book, Monster Of The Purple Mist, all sound awesome, go at it bro, Hostesses In Hell And Other Stories: The Selected Stories Of Russell Gray and My Touch Brings Death: And Other Stories, a new cover, no interior art, the artists on the shudder pulps worked overtime, great art, the editorial descriptions are good, the mangy dog he called her lover, I vowed I would kill girl I loved, way more appealing, too many scenes, repetitive, wife steps up and saves his ass, cool character, he doesn’t deserve it, the spell is have sex with this sexy lady down the street, skip to the discussion, find out pretty quick, in comparing it, so similar, the one was made longer, would it improve the story, pretty groany, yard work, describing her breasts, I’m so cold, start snuggling, reacts as a virile man should, adolescent fantasy, male fantasy, dear Ghost Story letters: you wouldn’t believe what happened to me!, jealousy is a thing, modelling Tommy’s mind, the alcoholism, drinking happening, pouring the alcohol down his throat, rye whiskey, the first alcoholism bad movie, The Lost Weekend (1945), a drug to escape reality, this potent medicine, a poison that’s hurting our health, enjoying a fine cigar, not going to make you beat your wife or drive drunk, a good glass of wine, a single malt scotch, useful for cooking, wine into cooking, so much more of it out there, the whiskey didn’t effect me, playing Hamlet, Richard Burton, what happens if I suddenly get a phone call, pulled over, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, way too drinky, a beautiful wife he loves, battles with alcohol, easier to pack up into the mountains, pretty normalized, an older time, drinking alone, a bad marriage, a lesbian or was going to murder you, women definitely drank alcohol, sherry, champagne, The Thin Man (1934), a comedy, social, the way it appears in this story, using it like a medicine, an alcohol spiral, the husband comes to his senses, the good wife helped him, saved her even though he was tired, personal psychology, go to a cabin in the woods, a beautiful woman requires you have sex with her, a mangy dog, he kills it, I didn’t mean to kill that dog, what happened to Amos?, perfectly normal, they left her body by the cabin with ribbons of skin, a better ending, together they bury the body, throws the whiskey bottle into the grave, he buried his demons along with his demons, he doesn’t believe in witchcraft, the red herring that makes it longer, six chapters, chapter titles are good, Americans are weird about alcohol, marksmanship competition, shooting clubs, the king and queen of the marksman, so German, get a gun license, a nice plaque, such a German thing, 35 and 75, nobody minds, much healthier attitude, get really drunk at a wedding, an addictive drug, Prohibition, grain into liquor, profit per ton of cargo, sever chronic alcoholism, rampant, Ecuador, major problem, French wine, getting schnockered, liquid, symbolic, Eric hat, a lake is very different than rain, or a cup of water on your desk, you go into the unconscious, let me tell you about it, a woman who goes into the water, her fantasy, her desire is the theoretical explanation for why the, sexy witch’s daughter, harridan harridan harridan, a dark liquor, the more lost you get, when you go in the water, went swimming, needed to clear my head, he’s going away from his wife, he’s straying, a symbol for femaleness, his engineering projects, the Canadian Rockies, in the off season, to go fishing, the thing that came out of the lake, the woman knocking on the door is a neighboring cabin woman, abusive husband, it went supernatural, she needs to come out of the lake, she’s a witch!, a market for science fiction, unusual, running away from a killer, and now we’re on the road together, in the mountains of Canada, not the end of the story, she’s dead, died a virgin, a male fantasy, Edgar Allan Poe, I at least married them, comes back to life, at least 20 years, really old women that looked young, The Lake by Ray Bradbury, the season is over, drag something from the lake, sandcastle, he will always love this girl, looks at his wife, why is this weird woman here?, an adult version of The Lake, never grows up, he still loves her, struck by the similarities, better scripter, retro review, on a lot of high school reading lists, May 1944, no school is in session, a link, how young, this is going to get weird, 19, it didn’t matter, might be committing crimes, she’s 19, she coulda been 16, 14 now, teacher and student, power dynamics, no one bats an eye, 14 and 19 year old, eyelashes batted, what do we make the names of Hulda and Amos, is that a name?, a witch name, a prophetess, Mother Hulda (Frau Holle), the legendary creature, what makes our character Hulda evil?, she’s old and ugly, a mangy narrator, our stupid narrator, linked to Christmas and winter folklore in the alpine region, always resorting to alcohol, stupider, mitigate it, pushed off the page, he uses the word to describe the male husband, supposedly a writer, in the mountains to get his novel finished, such a bad writer, he makes the connection for us, it explained by his alcoholism, the audience shouldn’t be ten times smarter, a different name, Timerider: The Adventure Of Lyle Swann (1982), back to the future, he’s his own grandpa, raped by his gandma, Cyngne, he didn’t make the connection, they share a family name, 6 pages, 19 and half pages, five times shorter, is it five better?, three times better, with great art, an anecdote you tell your friend, woman knocking on the door, a fish story, no creepy pun intended, he’s showing propriety, having sex with a ghost, just kinda sad, let me tell you about my Canadian girlfriend who’s a ghost and you can never find, almost wholesome, my dead lover who I turned into a dog for reasons, a shape changer, a dog by day, hot and sweaty sex, with I could have sex with humans, attracted to the wife, you dog, now you’ll live like a dog, don’t make the story longer, skinny dipping, the dog shows up, so crude and simple and badly written, kinda like it still, honest in its stupidity and baseness, Robert E. Howard, pretty good money, get enough sex in there, the explanation for why everything was happening was bizarre and bad, married couples never had children, sex happens, not newly married, three years, undue for the era, if you don’t have children, young children would be with them, off at military school, kinda the point of getting married, having kids, married characters in weird menace stories, New York brownstones, feeds you someone from the asylum, you attracted to the opposite sex, it complicates it and makes it weird, if this couple had a kid that was with them, why is daddy acting so weird, The Shining, a terrible drunk, as time goes on, this is a story about a guy who wants to kill himself, a bunch of King, a thing he says over and over again: I’m a horrible drunk, read The Mist, possibility he’s gonna kill his family, right before rescue shows up, a fog, the alcohol you’re imbibing, reading into his personal psychology, an assignment sorta style, gotta have a witch and a pool and a cliff, Test-Tube Frankenstein also had a cliff, I like cliffs, almost being stabbed, 1930 Margaret Brundage, lesbian whipping scenes, they look like they’re dancing, lesbian witch cult, way less about personal psychology and more to male psychology, so streamlined, three characters in the whole story, no personality other than hetero, the anecdote that it wants to tell, is she a wood nymph, could be a wood nymph, naked woman in the woods, a fleeting glimpse in the mist, life is a lot more interesting, straight to dryad, too complicated word for the target audience, straight out of Dungeons & Dragons, sprite, hamadryad, C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, J.R.R. Tolkien, the entire Chronicles Of Narnia, super-famous British actor, Kenneth Branagh, Vanessa Redgrave, Patrick Stewart, the performances are incredible, Phantastes: A Faerie Romance For Men And Women by George MacDonald, they all died on the same day, a photo of the Doctor, at the Kennedy assassination, C.S. Lewis died, Aldous Huxley, Paul Chadwick, comic book artist, Dark Horse, Concrete, Harlan Ellison, a movie with that scene, that’s in a movie, a newish movie, The Most Reluctant Convert, converting to Catholicism, Lovecraft says to Robert E. Howard: You should become a muslim, Robert E. Howard to Lovecraft: I will eventually, sweet as a nut, The Horse And His Boy, my favourite, the best book in the series, Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, writing/publication, how does that fit in, The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, Magician’s Nephew, The Last Battle, for the retro Hugos, so terrible, an all volunteer pickup basketball, a cartoon adaptation, series on DVD, live action, a BBC version, Prince Caspian, Lewis is public domain in Canada, semi-professional Chrisitan audio dramas, consider that, before we lose Tommy, The Tower Treasure, a shelf of them, December 1st, blind spots, Nancy Drews, simple, hilarious, teen detective stories, Enid Blyton, Lilith by George MacDonald, Odd John by Olaf Stapledon, Symposium by Plato, Fury by Henry Kutter, Paycheck and The Weapon Shop, A.E. Van Vogt, more pairings, all the reading on Saturday, wouldnt be new, close to an hour, a William Hamilton Osborne story, The Haunted Corridors, able to clean it up, The Noseless Horror, always happy to do Howard, precedes pretty much everybody, Assyrian, in Egypt, talk across space, recorded on the farm, a twist at the end, quite different, in Portland, can’t turn down Howard, advent coffee, looking through ebay listings, a striking cover, calling the museum that has his papers, The New Jersey Historical Society, the idea seems very novel, a scientist and his beautiful daughter, a “machine”, more of a ghost story, the cover is great, the little hint, the machine is kinda like a cellphone, in a different time, to hear what they can hear there, listening through time, an audio podcast, two hours of homework for Alex, mostly reader, audio processing issues, listen to podcasts, full cast audio dramas, a whole industry, mostly one company, still alive, excellent people doing these, Big Finish Blakes 7, actors out from carbonite, a kindly elephant, a kindly witch, action oriented stuff, licensed stuff, Knightrider, that’s for you, He-Man, the German voice of Tom Selleck, Midsomer Murders, the Max Max novelization, The Terminator novelization, if they exist they’re probably very expensive, Alan Dean Foster, a novelization of Total Recall?, Terry Bisson?, Piers Anthony, Poul Anderson, novelized everything, marginal movies, Iron Eagle (1986), Kevin J. Anderson, Timothy Zahn, personality defects, Predator (1987), took that hate, especially censorship, Huawei phone, Terrifier 3 (2024), Wild Robot (2024), Ladyhawke (1985), let us rent it, The Terminator (1984) at a young age, had to watch Ladyhawke again, an assigned seat, 1 ticket vs. ten tickets, a lot to do with real estate, everything ties together, new tech, delisted, woke now, trains and WWII and Ukranian War propaganda, chicken breeding, once or twice, your dad’s station, dull people talking about politics, it was fun, a gothic romance novel, a beautiful woman with perfect hair fleeing a castle at night, Slaughterhouse Five, the sixties people, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, Victoria Holt, Marilyn Ross, A Place Of Sapphires, piracy, governess, more Scooby Doo than Dracula, an immigrant, a reverse Dracula, female fantasy, Jane Austen, Bridgerton, romantic comedy, romcoms, gothic romance movies, Frenchman’s Creek, Jamaica Inn, The Birds, drug induced time travel, Marghanita Laski, she’s a ghost, very stylish and well done, moved to Italy with husband, Mona Farnsworth, The Three Sisters Of No-End House, completely forgotten, nurse novels, pen-names, Swedish adaptations, lesbian, from 1960, cliffs of Cornwall, past tragedy and present danger, passions overpower reason, evil lurks in the shadows, perfectly in tune, kicked off the boom, dismissed, Northanger Abbey, those are bad, commit to this, literally includes a castle with a high lit window, wearing a nightgown, retro toy and game, getting a better handle on human nature through fiction, what compels humans, Harlequin romances, daylight savings, I don’t believe you, a stupid idea from the start, China has 1 time zone, 1 time zone for the whole planet, you’re somebody, the twitter blocking thing changing, logging into an alternate twitter account, blocked or deleted, bluesky is where the writers and covid panic people hangout, threads has women obsessed about menopause, toy collectors, Lego minifigs, square format, photography, twitter as it used to be, oh well, plain gone, mad at Cora, not sufficiently anti or pro, all the time, you cannot post about your book, focused on the news, American election about to happen, a massive increase in depression, every second tweet is about Trump, if Trump is the worst thing that happened to you, in what sense is he terrible, Russia is never going to attack us, might try to sell you some gas, Anne Applebaum, Nordstream 2, they’re proud of it, set this thing on fire, so furious, hate Biden, terrible woman, spend lots of money to protect against the Russians, rat out my neighbours, it is horrible being occupied, 2 million people of Russian origin in Germany, grew up in Kazakhstan, they work hard, gardening is ex-Soviet people, paves your driveway, Jewish people, sorry for the holocaust, escaped Ukraine, communicating is difficult, so stupid to fall for it, endless amounts of weapons and money into Ukraine, weapons into hot-war zones, Israel, exporting weapons, promise not to use them to commit genocide, the weapons industry, subcontractors, specialized weapons manufactures, Airbus, the people who build tanks, Heckler and Koch, Sigsauer, Walther, submarines, campus, shipyards, superyachts for rich assholes, techbros, oligarchs, stories to tell about rich people being assholes, the Russian oligarchs are gone, taxpayer money, terrible headache, go to sealevel, 4 meters above sealevel, for dinner,

Mistress Of The Dark Pool by Russell Gray
The Cold Female by Dale Harlow

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #823 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Loved Dead by C.M. Eddy and H.P. Lovecraft

The SFFaudio Podcast #823 – The Loved Dead by C.M. Eddy and H.P. Lovecraft – read by Mr Jim Moon. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (33 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Mr Jim Moon, and Jonathan Weichsel.

Talked about on today’s show:
only credited to Eddy in Weird Tales, a letter, controversial, banned, Washington, D.C., Everil Worrell, a reading club called The Outsiders, censorship issue, one state, a different version, the Spicy magazines, if it had a star on the cover, naked ladies inside, a horror show, a really fun story, this is a comedy piece, a very dark parody of Edgar Allan Poe, monomania, a Poe like character, a very Lovecraft-like character, Eddy had some hand in it, not a lovecraftian premise, hiding or repressing the truth about reality, stylometery PDF, the curlicues, shook the story, the adjectives fell out, making the serifs more beautiful, a friend of Lovecraft, by Lovecraft?, drips with his style and vocabulary, moreso than the Eddy stories, structure and storyline, rewrote from start to finish in his own house style, the narrator’s school days, teased, sickly, autobiographical notes, The Unnameable, flushing the Poe out of his typewriter, looser feelings, The Picture In The House, blackly comic, massively over the top, Poe’s lyrical shrieking, ghoulishly, qually interested in male and female corpses, he’s necrosexual, dead is his gender, the transrainbow flag, leaves a lot to the imagination, it doesn’t tell you he is having sex with them, he’s hugging them, a vampiric addiction, alive and not listless when around dead people, the silly and fun part, unbased in anything, locked in a coffin for six months, grandfather’s funeral, he comes alive, no goth origin scene, so silly, writing the story on the back of a grave [stone], till he himself becomes one of them, I have sent six bullets through the head of my best friend, targeted within, they’re hunting me for my murders, The Haunter Of The Dark, writing to the point of death, pungent phrases, the brand of hell, I can write no more…, fantastic, recording this last year, a gift for a narrator, the literary equivalent of heavy metal, pick a random sentence, a lot of ss, crafting it, narrated by someone else, a sillier story in a different way, Pickman’s Model, the language is dialed down, turned up to 11 right from the start, operatic rather than realistic, pointing to the language, some of them are okay, pistol in his pocket, good weird tales, we get the word, tentacles, my thirst for the noxious, delicious, treading on dangerous ground, demoniac desire gripped me, Lovecraft pastiche, asexual, where this story diverts from Lovecraft, his stories are never about sexual desire, The Thing On The Doorstep, having sex with an ancient Lich, Suitable Flesh (2023), Dennis Paoli, Bobby Derie, a sense of humour, dry, dark ghoulish black humour, in The Shunned House, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Lurking Fear, rape, blooming forest, mushrooms with penis shapes, on board with this, sexual fetish, ancestry, drawn to an ancestor, 17th century gentleman, feeling displaced, The Outsider is not about sex, seen holding a corpse, take a vacation, you’ve been working too hard, fallen asleep on the slab, the guy who runs the place has encountered this before, a new twist on a Poe thing, The Premature Burial, molested then buried, further my acquisition of these corpses, he murders you then he caresses you, Re-Animator, sentence by sentence, wasn’t Eddy a neighbourhood kid, six years younger than Lovecraft, same neighbourhood, younger people, that grandpa thing, why The Outsider appeals, I’m not like other kids!, prose poetry maximized, I can give this a gloss and polished, even if entirely Eddy, Clifford Martin Eddy, born in Providence, Swann Point Cemetery, weird legal thing with his heirs, out of the public domain and into copyright, 1918, 1923, Muriel Eddy, women’s suffrage, my son is going to be a writer, The Ghost Eater, a 1924 werewolf story, sandwiches and a revolver, cosplay before Dungeons & Dragons, mary sue style adventures, as mature, Deaf, Dumb And Blind, also a revision, Ashes, With Weapons Of Stone, Theodore Sturgeon, one million percent memorable, in a different league to the other Eddy stories, so gross, pretty good for a story over 100 years old, another necrophiliac story, Pity Me! by Bertha Russell, a dead Spanish lady, from the same period, molesting the corpse, she comes alive, overcome by the lust for the body, boss comes in, you’ve had a shock haven’t you, Pity me, reader, pity me, finished the job, I know I screamed, something fleshy, the boss, convalescing from a nervous breakdown, fear laden screams, awful awful, refused to believe me, strenuous work, not on the table of contents, age 15, so delightful and interesting, the imagination and enthusiasm, the gay lady who went to church, the worms crawled out, the worms crawled in, The Eyrie, necrophiliac stories, the entire subject, vampire stories, necrophiliac adjacent, long running dead wife obsession, out and proud, takes a lot of heat, a movie, a female mortician, Kissed (1996), fairly tastefully done, Molly Parker, a corpse has a major role, kind of an art movie, Lynne Stopkewich, Annabel Lee, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, incest adjacent, a maiden there lived, by the side of my bride, penetration, old man having sex with a dead child girl, pretty fucked up, an extraordinary story, builds back to the opening, no ghost element, quite the opposite, looking forward to being with them, more weird menace, using science, I want to have sex with the dead, it’s love, lust too, he loves them, so funny, I really like girls but they’re embarrassing, guys girls whatever, bizarre and silly, this is hilarious, pick some thing to be obsessed with, my bride’s teeth, serial killer confession, Maniac (1980), Maniac (2012), The Evil Dead (1981), Bad Taste (1987), cartoonish, gross or distasteful, so funny, look at me in this festering graveyard, no women, eat people, here to harvest humans, intergalactic taste sensation, Peter Jackson, The Lord Of The Rings wrecked him, The Stuff (1985), Larry Cohen, poorly put together and rushed here and there, satire of consumer culture, the menace from within, God Told Me To (1976), aliens pretending to be god, It’s Alive (1974), monster baby, Maniac Cop series, Bill Lustig, film festival in New Orleans, enormously fat, his legs, an eating vacation, a culinary place, dishes are huge, cajun cuisine, he would order three, a big spoon, three courses in one meal, an amazing eater, Bruce Campbell was cast to be the mirror of Robert Z’dar, his jaw grows too many teeth, played bad guys, the first one is good, people who survive the first one die, a new hero, he dies, playing with its rule, is he a zombie?, he’s dead, they didn’t think about it, it doesn’t make any sense, but the threat is real, the action is good, very legit, pulp fiction, the video store, get movies, carry a guide book, old movies on for cheap rental or purchase, you get a cover, about 90 minutes, a short story, not a novel, the same actors, the same images, a sex thriller, a continuation of the pulp genre in the video series, a Saw parody called Slaw, the devolved end of pulp, Strange Tales, mockbusters, Asylum’s whole business model, they made a hobbit movie?, Sharknado type monster movies, their movies are no fun, a tribute series to our guy Corman, his productions, puts value for money on screen, crappy concept of the week, satellites are in!, Death Race 2000 (1975), Rollerball (1975), Jaws (1975) spawns Piranha (1978), Transmorphers vs. Transformers, tricking audiences, VHS era, Smokey And This That And The Other, Emmanuelle series of movies, good movie vs. interesting movie, Frankenstein and his gimp suit, a comedic per-version of The Running Man (1987), sports are fascist, degeneration and television is controlling people, get points by killing pedestrians, the least good stuff in it, the kayfabe of the race, loving it, too loose, part of the fun of a b movie, intellectually the heft that it has is all in the details, an intellectual film, [Whitman, Price, and Haddad], Battle Royale, could the Loved dead be filmed?, use narration, an exploitation film, nudity, weird sex, bizarre stuff going on, a human love interest, a comedy no matter what, Stuart Gordon, Dagon (2001), Spain, feels broken, we have to film it there, Bleeders (1997) aka Hemoglobin, Rutger Hauer, changes, Nova Scotia, a Lovecraft story in California, jarring, valley girls vs. Cthulhu, ancestral home, what’s this drunk talking about, he’s got a Spanish accent, distracts, a limitation, the villain, The Temple, written by Dan O’Bannon, responsible for a good chunk of 80s and 90s science fiction, Alien (1979), Dead & Buried (1981), lent his name, as much weight as a writer’s name could carry, Lifeforce (1985), Total Recall (1990), Screamers, Terminator world, had a hand in, consistent, Blue Thunder (1983), it works, Peter Weller, infiltrators, claws, robotic drones, killing all humans, Jon’s World and Second Variety, one word titles, Twister (1996), a Michael Crichton project, a junker, a Burt Reynolds tv movie, Coma (1978), Robin Cook, Westworld (1973) was a novel he didn’t write, the all star cast, STEPHEN KING, star power, social media, from a communist point of view, redistribute, land reform, charisma or appeal, the same stars, the Ken doll, Ryan Gosling, Zendaya, Kyle Gallner, Red Letter Media Kyle Gallner specials, Dinner In America (2020), set in the 80s, where America is at, we know where we are, probably autistic, a quasi retarded girl romance, a ski mask, a lovely cute little romance with a lot of style, I remember loving movies, Netflix, get Marvel action star to make an action movie, a movie with heart, The Menu (2022), The Whale (2022), renting a movie online, too restrictive, sail the high seas, bro, 70s Spanish horror, mainly older stuff, the streaming services are quite bad, Tubi, Prime, Plex, links where you can find it, 1940, 1960, 4 movies from the 1980s, television shows, there used to be a countable number of television shows, there’s now an infinite number of television shows, how did that happen?, go down rabbit holes, the boutique DVD labels, Arrow, Vinegar Syndrome, rare and bizarre, pan and scan, so much better when properly restored, it has to be 88 minutes, silent movies, a hard sell, no silent film streaming service, a 70s action film, The French Connection (1971), let’s watch that, not what we’re being presented with, 80s blockbusters, Gremlins (1984), Karate Kid, long takes, a kid friendly version of weird menace, an end of the world movie, The Parallax View (1974), very modern sensibility, maybe the government isn’t working in our best interests, an election in the UK, Labour has the biggest majority since 1830, getting rid of the antisemitism of Jeremy Corbyn, always do the wrong thing, more of that is coming, a really terrific story to revisit, if it didn’t have Eddy’s name attached, all the Lovecraft stories in 3 paperback omnibuses, it did not disappoint, not a sentence wasted, beautifully structured, a great story to record, creep and gross people out 100 years later, literally beautiful, what Clark Ashton Smith calls Prose Pastels, it is a he, explicitly a he, does it have to be, mortician jobs, not a conventional job for women, he gets rid of his parent pretty quick, not an unreliable narrator, he’s hiding nothing, how much glee he’s having, silly fluff, the very tight structure, not a misstep, precious and very rare and very funny, well written, well structured, over the top-80s, RoboCop (1987)’s ads, hyper reality of 1980s cynicism, They Live (1988), you like Poe stories, you like Weird Tales, here’s one, you’ll love this one… to death, the subject matter, Kissed (1996) was done tastefully, Kurt Vonnegut’s The Sirens Of Titan as a play by Stuart Gordon, Robot Jox (1989), doesn’t quite gel together, worth a watch, flawed, The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (1998), based on a Ray Bradbury play, magic realism, fluorescent white, spilling tacos, delightful and beautiful, Fortress (1992), Christopher Lambert, what makes Highlander (1986) good, a sequel, Stuck (2007), why trash bitch, I’m in trouble I hit a guy, The Pit And The Pendulum (1992), Castle Freak (1995), The Unnameable (1988), and the sequel, The Unnamable II (1992), play well back to back, a sequel that doesn’t suck, space prison, a lot of fun, Escape From New York in space prison, Lockout (2012), Luc Besson, collar around his head blows up, The Running Man (1987), a funny and fun but not good Rutger Hauer movie, Wedlock (1991) aka Deadlock, he’s The Hitcher (1986) he can’t be a nebbish, Mimi Rogers, forced meet cute, why would they set it up that way, a bad sequel, set in future California, two likeable actors with an interesting script, run for 90 minutes, a checklist, Jack Nicholson and Boris Karloff, The Terror (1966), Little Shop Of Horrors (1960), very moody, just that simple, all men on an island, No Escape (1993), Ray Liotta, sent to tropical island Hawaiian prison, rival gangs, does explosions, Benghazi, fights back against the discipline, Lord Of The Flies but an action film, my theory that humans are doomed to do the worst things possible, black and white ones, the Puerto Rican trilogy, Hell In The Pacific (1968), snaps, set in Cuba, a satire, the monster is fake, The Last Woman On Earth (1960), Richard Matheson, Creature From The Haunted Sea (1961), Battle Of Blood Island (1960), Poe adaptations, The Masque Of The Red Death (1964), Cormania, somebody famous dies, 500 movies, A Bucket Of Blood (1959), a dim witted busboy, satire of art, great artist, same sort of vibe, a ridiculous premise and run with it, The Wasp Woman (1959), bees make royal jelly, wasp royal jelly, turns you into a wereladywasp, a really good job, fun funereal words, here at this farm, dogs, chickens, cows, throwin hay all day, rooster in the background, since Christmas or New Years, a four hour trip, all rural, not students in need of tutoring, farmlife, see you on the internet, Sunday afternoon, get two edits done, WHO? by Algis Budrys, Rogue Moon, science fiction version of The Man In The Iron Mask.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #821 – READALONG: The Journey Of Joenes by Robert Sheckley

Jesse, Will Emmons and Jonathan Weichsel talk about The Journey Of Joenes by Robert Sheckley

Talked about on today’s show:
Journey Beyond Tomorrow, indistinct, this is science fiction, best understood as science fiction, limits this book, Jesse’s walking down the street, he’s not going to know that’s science fiction, very Jonathan Swift, the F&SF covers, a good description of the book, no spaceman, the November issue, I like Emsh, the colours, trippy, the substance of the book, the plotlessness, Jonathan’s going to love this book, sell it more, a disappointing user experience, Jesse can only fathom his own brain right now, hard to pronounce, Joenes, a joke, corrupted name, something you don’t want to advertize on the cover, making paralles with Jesus and other biblical characters, Lum, the jewel thief, Wat, why Sheckley was a sailboat guy, an introduction, a story where a guy is on a sailboat, a mix of hippies and assholes, new boats with engines and fuel, a strange mix, Lone Survivor, science fiction questions, apotheosis, people within science fiction, a mature literature for the general reader, not particularity genrey, a control alt delete, replace Lord Of The Flies with this, good fodder for writing, reacting against reading, weird books like this, what did you think of this thing, a bad book and also a great book, plotless meandering, buttons saying exactly that, yes yes yes, ha ha ha, Candide, a weird America, not from America, that’s why, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, American civics, the three truck drivers, the Gospel of Matthew, why we love reading Sheckley, who is he, he’s us, oilskin pouch, you start crying, go up in your cave, and the legend begins, listen to their stories more, a double scene, answers the question, where do I get a job around here man, all of these other people are NPCs, all of the signs that he’s not alive, programmed in a very special and humorous way, an old idea in philosophy, philosophical zombie, NPC back of the head, Ukraine chip out, what happened on 9/11, new brain chip popped in, walking bemusement, not science fiction, really, present reality, flights of fantasy, the octagon, tears streaming, arguments and debates, the words were the same, curing diseases in Africa, that’s the COVID debate, the words are the same, the leaders being pedophiles, Pizzagate, QAnon, more personality than Joenes, in the conclusion, strive for virtue, momentary pieces of stability, players in this fucked up play, Edgar Allan Poe, The Conqueror Worm, Lum’s philosophy, seize, humans are controlled by vast forces we don’t understand, Poe was on it, early Amazings, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, during his middle years, throw all the metal into the sea, Lummist are unflexibile, get kinda violent, it’s good to be good, man, apocalyptic prediction, defeat the islands, conquer, Nuka Hiva, the focus of Typee by Herman Melville, rich references, South Pacific bent to a retelling of the Bible, the Knights of the Round Table, labyrinth, playing and subverting, upstate NY, Memphis, rich with information, begin and end, the South Pacific is irrelevant, blackbirded, make copra all day, the balance of the book, reading a lot, too fixated on virtue, chiller, we’re book readers, the reality, cultivate your garden, moderate your behaviors, Pangloss, all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, Spinoza, a very savage attack, women being chased by monkey men, sexual dimorphism, the deep cut of Burroughs, other sources, not the deepest reader, horror and evil on the earth, some merit, if you want to have a universe, why people are vegetarians or vegans, Voltaire, Mcarthyite hearing, agent for the government, indirectly causes WWIII, Tahitian girlfriend, different wedding, Deep Space Nine novels, work for hire, Ray Bradburyeque, getting touched, a comedic author, Mindswap, Seventh Victim, male and female, obviously deranged, not wrong, Will’s newsletter, non-proliferation, consequential response, they could and they did, good ideas for time travel novels, repulse these Europeans, high level of enough tech, factories, employees, explain why this needs to be done, oral storytelling traditions, coup attempt in Bolivia, people are kinda mix, disease, tropical diseases, South Africa, a place to send your offspring to die, building tanks, get rid of all your metal, faster and more seaworthy, become the thing you want to stop, a good laugh, resident satirist, consider all these things, Looking Backward, American institutions, slightly exaggerated, a particular scene, 100% accurate, are you now or have you ever been, Mark Zuckerburg, Jack Dorsey, Russian, Steve Bannon, that pimping, procurement officer, during and after WWII, blow off steam, given liberty, executed for rape, no trial, Japanese had brothels, organize the rape, Korean comfort women, pirated, end up on youtube, trouble to get it down, special privileged access, twitter is literally infiltrated by the CIA and the FBI, it’s okay, its public domain, the narrator was perfect, narrator friends, the perfect level of ironic detachment, Jay Snyder, voices, really acting, faultless job, infusing a little character, audible exclusives and modern books, for narrators, mercenaries, series books, a way to go, Hyperion by Dan Simmons, Vonnegut is not readable, Sirens Of Titan, Galapagos, trying to do Sheckley, telling rather than showing, Harrison Bergeron, he’s overrated, WWIII happens, walruses on the beach, a Jonathan idea, big fish small pond guy, becomes smug, became a literary author, the movie of Slaughterhouse Five, read Vonnegut when they’re young, a lot of people who read books, Cat’s Cradle, most people stop reading, most people don’t read books, babies are born, take to reading like a mental disorder, there is danger in ever direction, universal literacy, spina bifida brainless kid, not everybody is capable, trigonometry, opportunity to thrive with it, don’t torture the kid, goal posts, not a smear merchant, Julius Caesar, drug czars, all fake, our man who’s going to fix the Maryland bridge, prophetic, come true, smart bombs shooting each other down, probably happened, Israelis and the Yemenis, the Octagon, the army and the marine corps fought each other, phosphorescent t, Pay Tillman, happens all the time, naturally extends that, Scott Miller’s feed, The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, Watchbird by Robert Sheckley, a different story that Jesse just wrote, who to kill, tasing people, all of Europe and America are destroyed, centrist moderation, no way back from war right now, righteously, an individual terrorist, go after Justin, upset the copyright laws, are the guards at the concentration camp, never been to Ottawa, going along with it, the NDP history, the waffle, waffle to the left, independent socialist Canada, nation states, Singapore, each island of Hawaii, Australia, geographically, social contract theory of government, we make a bargain, freedom for security, deserve neither, Locke and Hobbes, right of revolt, we have voting, super-legislature, anybody who wants to be a leader should be killed, the humane society, a taste of power, in Athens, sortition, Solar Lottery, talk about Athens, slaves and robots, children are not eligible, brain atrophy, covid causes brain lobe problems, benefit, in Australia, in moderating socialization, a new report, Stephen Baxter, why are we even talking about this doofus, causation and correlation, freudian slip, road toll, I’m still masking, so fucking retarded, covid doomers and anti-vaxxers, reverse Betrezation, Return To The Stars, I don’t want to experience this alone, how’m I going to rubber stamp this, mainstream science fiction community, the cool kids club, liberal establishment wing, Hugo voters, mutals with a person who is not Connor, cool stuff about Palestine, mask lgbt flag and slice of watermelon, emoji track, not the trans flag, affirmations for covid conscious kids, it’s okay, pentacostals, Olivia Belknap Therapy, oh we were scammed, fatigue on it, easily explainable, forest fire particles, hackin away, about pushing people around, children don’t die from covid, still stuck there, he’s mad the democrats had an early debate so that this would happen, bought the lie, he’s a fighter, driving contest, hilarious and competent, five seconds of the after discussion, these people are touchy, when you touch the sensitive area, hustle online, most people aren’t completely evil, doesn’t necessarily mean, Jill Biden, three dudes, what they were talking about, tax stuff, so long as they lower my taxes, not the target audience, immigrants, hundreds of thousands are dying at the border, superlative language, 59 scholars, Jesse can’t get an abortion in Kentucky right now, in control of his temper, a rambling ending, throw numbers down, not a plan, generates funny images, decolonizing her relationship, Jesse’s niece is half his age right now, not a math surgeon, neurodivergent, autistic, skip the commute, as young as five through adults, Scott’s [Danielson] wife, supervision hours, try not to counsel everybody to kill themselves, throw her degree in the sea, degree mills, well regarded, a state school, Thomas Massie, very solid it seems, inventor, probably a little bit of a psychopath, just go to congress, too many skeletons, obscene books, a waste of Jonathan’s time, the personal touch, in a Heinlein book, Double Star, FBI style files, flattery, it still works, the amazing thing about language, sorcery, the wrong temperament, superpacs, various campaigns, very pathetic, subject line: Desperate, a line about Madison Avenue, a devastating takedown, the horrors, those people, the reptiles, using semantics, a mysterious man, political fundraising, they want party memberships, from the actual players, make it seem semi-legit, the mid tier, the top tier, address your particular concern, Tucker Carlson, as Ivy League Christians, AIPAC person, trying to unseat him, he’s not playing ball, Julian Assange, the streaming from Reuters, the independent man setting free information, oil industry dude, actual vs. fake genocide, Gaza v. Uyghur genocide, neither side is being honest, Hamas pretends, they deny the beheading, always 40, a biblical number, babies taken out of incubators, real video, both sides are committing atrocities, war crimes should be prosecuted, hard to make that argument, an extermination campaign, get more land, insane for land, spread across the middle east, a multifront war, real and horrible, amazing, astounding, horrible opinion, the fog of war, good guy vs. bad guy, more prescriptive statements, dick it out, take its finger of the scale, for the US to switch sides, head blasted off, genitals burned off, an Israeli Zionist, fishing tools, America, posing with machine guns, most of the really good criticism of Israel is coming from Israel [Haaretz], bad strategy, an analogous situation in WWII, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, when someone steps on your toe, respond with violence, the leader of Hamas, the current leader of leader was funding Hamas, all those Israeli names are made up, raid on entebee, reverse colonizer, an ideology, the New York Times doesn’t crack any stories, Bin Laden, blowback, they founded the foundation, Isaac Asimov, a Joenes style reading, the section on the university professors, $100,000, the casualization, Eric full Professor Emeritus, Bryan Alexander can’t get that job, a consultant to universities as they collapse, queen sacrifice, when universities dump their English department, have to cut, very target to a very specific niche, the wife who makes the living for you, am I having a hallucination?, except thematically, the novel form, made a culture, removed portions of people’s brains, raid Sheckley, so open to throwing down ideas, stealing from the government, parthenogenetic robot, doing horrible things, the slapback, doesn’t know what he’s teaching, very legit, he nailed that, undergraduate for 16 years, Capilano College, Simon Fraser University, credits transfer, university is really fun, some of the teachers were really good, as an orphan, $125 a month, $600 for a semester, night classes, 5-8, you can get really deep, edified by it, archaeologist, for rich people and game players, other departments, why wouldn’t you want to do that, why did graduation stop you, get out of New York, business was collapsing, transfer my skills, the other students, learning constantly, play some PUBG, watch an old movie and get back to it, gardening, horse raising, how to touch girls and not rape them, law courses, I just committed an assault on you, how the law is written, how rape testimony should work, apologize to Maissa, a photo of a typewriter at the base of the tree, a theory in Canadian law, may I nuzzle your neck, that’s not how people get it on, very little verbal, we’re animals, if you’re lucky, licked without written consent, political stuff, a Rolling Stone article, what the police’s job is, your the one in a very dangerous place, skills, Latin seems very useful now, Jesuit university, grammar and stuff, French, German, read Latin novels in their original, all the Spanish, very basic science concepts, organic chemistry, Asimov, Willy Ley, neuroscience, astronomy, no good at math, economics, so interesting, like dianetics, it should work, macro and micro both, philosophy of religion, bullshit, anthropology, psychology, so much to learn out there, warped by capitalist political economy, comedy of the highest kind, at base, a horribly immoral thing, serving their lust, salting, off on their own program, university politics, they don’t want to know what it is, a lot of the reality that’s going on, why school sucks and why bullies, mom mentality, my children are both equally my children, Johnny should kick the shit out of Billy, principals vs. teachers, school policy, institutional system, kids are the ones who suffer, why kids can’t snitch, in the dean’s office, former President’s fault, inflation, seemingly non-partisan, there’s never going to be another debate, the next six months will tell, bipartisan debate commission, when they kick Biden out for Gavin Newsom, the seemliness, the legality, any kinda incident, his cold got worse, he has a choice, election law question, Biden loyalists, an emperor has no clothes objection, everybody gets behind, legal things that stop, he dies the day before the election, ballots, Kamala Harris is on the ballot, certified ballots, helpful information, somebody is smart, even if we rig this thing real hard, nobody is buying that right now, to keep the farce up, Hillary chooses Trump as her running mate, can’t be right too early, comebacks to specific things, wore his voice out in practice, Van Jones cried on TV, a little bit of free form, Biden derangement syndrome, deeply demented, trailing off, expectations were so low, shocked by the level of decline, the supercuts, the daily drip, the real video, G7, sent the Italian PM, “cheap fakes”, led him off stage, Mitch McConnell’s legs don’t work, Biden didn’t have polio, the hand movement, trying to catch a basketball, proprioception, has trouble watching, that’s cope bro, is he demented, looked physically weak, Trump was thinking on his feet, his script, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, the venture capital arm of the CIA put out a role playing game called “Haywire” comes with a 10-sided die, somebody uses deep fakes to show the president has dementia, doing it all out in the open, university administrators know they’re misallocating funds, we have no problem with that, half the people in the utopian colony were feds, January 6th, they’re all feds, the guy in the black mask is not arrested, levels of lack of knowledge, we need a new Joe, we need a new Biden, maybe they won’t win, massive multiple interest groups, white house chief of staff, looks like he’s trying to poop, Nancy Reagan was in charge, they wanted him to be president again, to showcase, trying to steal again, pejorative, ballot counting in public, polling station, Elections Canada, blocking phone calls, transmitting phone calls, ballot stuffing, during COVID, not a big deal here, mail-in voting, security camera footage, more cynical, look at the evidence, judge for yourself, hacking conferences, specifics of how they work, more than 150 years, incarcerating guilty people, The Untouchables, start drilling down, bro, a political police force, plutocracy, they’re fief, Chrystia Freeland, plutocrats, Yeltsin, state owned enterprises, BC Hydro, ICBC, Putin was former KGB, a patriot, not a member of the party, Kanye West is in Moscow right now, headlines, rich from robbing the public, robbing the corpse of the Soviet Union, sources for this, the Black Sea mansion, “reported”, source, bro, Pamphlets account, colour photo of sniper lady, a newspaper scan from Canada, how many Nazis she killed, put a rodent up his ass, Richard Gere, gerbil, that sounds impossible, that kid probably gonna die, Sylvester Stallone started the gerbil story, having Jonathan on the podcast, oppose Jesse from the right, what Paul could do, what part of your part, misogynist, a weird position, bitterness, William Gibons’ twitter account, every second tweet was about Trump, would he say anything about Julian Assange, his bookshelf, about being hacker, like Kim Dotcom, like Mike Pence, so deranged, Neuromancer is so good, about style, like Clark Ashton Smith, material everydaycarry stuff, his plots are a little less awesome, 2 ais want to not be slaves anymore, cool characters, transhumanism is very very bad, Ray Kurzweil, a futurist, he has to eat the soup, anthropocentric climate change, he needs to drill down more, climate models, their models, a tendency to conflate the two, they’re cheating, Nordstream, the biggest climate disaster in history, time is going faster every year, source bro, why do you think that, you can keep records to check, and what does that mean?, does that mean that people made it hotter, that CBC documentary, individual impact, indulgence, climate credits way bigger scam, the Chinese government, burning rocks, passively collect electricity, pump water up hill, a natural battery, mechanical battery, the pattern, care about recycling, bourgeois ideology, that hockey stick movie [An Inconvenient Truth (2006)], Al Gore, inspired many idiots, low energy light-bulbs, when they don’t hit their targets, Paul was saying so many people were dying from covid, in pretty poor health, multiple heart surgery, covid associated death, that’s long past yo, eugenics, emphysema, a pipe would help Will, homebrewing, alcoholic cider, expensive, you have to maintain the device, windmills require a fair amount of maintenance, solar panel half-life, engineering, micromaterials, titanium foam suppressors, cleaned with solvents, blowback of gases, bad for the gun user’s health, when you’re doing wetwork, good information, a big edit of Sirius, Jonathan wept over that book, educate this boy, Jonathan is fun, it is easy to believe bad things about your enemies, foreign kleptocracy, Valentina Tereshkova, Russell Brand, a problem with authority, some nuanced points, the way you learn stuff, people in the countryside, 666 episodes, only when he’s sitting on Peter’s chair, different levels that you have to believe, quite useful, many Catholics, how much tire pressure do you want in your tires?, what’s the number, consult the manual, look at the actual tire, the anniversary of her famous flight, why they don’t give out congressional medal of honor to living people anymore, multiple Canadian astronauts, Marc Garneau, undisputedly a hero, giving put power like that is dangerous, giving out flattery, giving out honours, almost everything is dangerous, almost everything is an op, follow the money, we think it is real, fear is used as a tool, lots of reasons not to burn coal, The Men In The Walls [by William Tenn], a shady space on a mountain top, The Mad Planet [by Murray Leinster], keep all the carbon dioxide out, how people the end of the world, existentialism, somebody in your family dies, realization, Hitler method, macro scale, nuclear exchange wit the Soviet Union, incident with Cuba, recklessness happening, somebody who can’t talk, incompetent, lived through WWII, why did the Soviet Union collapse, the press system, press is broken, gerontocracy is running things, the last harraugh, the state department guy, Anthony Blinken, Kissinger, brinksmanship, it’s bad, one possibility for the end of the world, climate extinction, Kim Stanley Robinson wrote too long books, 2312, totemic relationship with wolves, doesn’t seem very happy, resigned, playing in his garden, not an active change agent, Cory Doctorow, he’s always on the ball, cognoscenti, Terry Bisson, Bears Discover Fire, magical realism, appalachian realism, not a deep sorrow in his writing, the grandma who doesn’t get eating, this isn’t science fiction, Gravy Planet vs. The Space Merchants, visions of labour, good work with Will’s newsletter, six new books available!, the awesomeness about that book, exploit Venus, all the graft, a tour of reality, the giant chicken vegan meat, all the people have no housing, pedalcars, the senator from Coca-Cola, a terrible premise, The Marching Morons by C.M. Kornbluth, 1984, Brave New World, This Perfect Day by Ira Levin, Henry Ford, central computer, continually drugged, a kid who runs away from it, people running things!, very subversive, becomes part of the system, feels true bro, Mockingbird by Walter Tevis, in Manhattan, supine and infertile, android robots, no children, suicide by immolation, head of the entire industry, dean of faculties at New York University, primer, the animals are robots, the crime of reading, engineered the demise of the human race, drug induced depopulation, little bit similar to Neuromancer by William Gibson, so many good books, The Status Civilization, prison planet, status, what makes status worth having, Omega!, peed everywhere, very restrained, Anne Bonny, Mama, who is the master cat, dominance games, no stakes, personal space, cat psychology, observe behavior, The Omega Egg, round robin books, plow into that, good times, same author back to back, two short stories by the same author, single author podcasts, too often, or infrequent shows, a book a week or more, everything has to be for something, three short stories and a novel, raises questions, the two billion body problem, a smart guy, spinning his wheels, not a lot of distance travleed, The Advent On Channel 12, The Syndic, an idea he spun out, dangerous to impute what characters believe onto what the author believes, Stephen King, Heinlein, what I’m hearing is you’re a fascist, Who Are The Heirs Of Patrick Henry?, he toured the Soviet Union, in the proper mood, with proper pre-conditioning, the proper mood of the Soviet Union, visit the USSR, going to a funeral for the ride, small quantities of vodka, drunks passed out in public places, some kind of pill, sleeping pills, canal boat, maddening frustrations, the state owned travel bureau, no no no, Nikita Khrushchev has never learned to speak Russian well, immediate vocabulary, phonograph records, behind the Iron Curtain, interesting, huh, learn a language, repetition helps, biographical details, change over time, Philip K. Dick lived in Vancouver, Bay Area, Orange County, Colorado, born in D.C.?, too much self congratulation, people remembering his name, 15 for introductions, sad story, off topic stuff, very basic stuff, the programming, run into people, hanging out with people, meet people, confronted him, I liked that book Pacific Edge, Worldcon in 2006, Steen and Scott, canceled Harlan Ellison, Connie Willis’ boob, posthumously being lauded, marketing bro, Dangerous Visions book, A.E. Van Vogt, The Human Operators, anger, misplaced, not liking Jesse, a good television adaptation, from The Outer Limits, the only human operators, make another human operator, Adam and Eve and evil robots, thrift shop bookshelf, the corporations who run the bookshelf, an ebay style guy buying from retail, everything gets picked over, all profit is temporary, make a disease and market a cure for it, horrible disease, COVID made in a lab, proof bro, alternative theory, Wuhan, funded by the CIA, Eco Health Alliance, the workaround, Obama banned gain-of-function research, previous disease, so much circumstantial evidence, does the CIA work for Pfizer?, money and power, can be done, should be done, human babies, viable, happened in the 60s bro, Khan Noonien Singh, Gene Roddenberry, men creating men, Data had a girlfriend, she is the wife of George Fransisco, the Newcomer cop from Alien Nation, open hearted, over carded, skibidi marxism, the gender situation, Midwest Marx, Vaush, there’s something wrong with Evan, Evan is younger, in between, he quit twitter, Paul didn’t quit, on the platforms, Linkedin, copy and paste, getting wild on Linkedin, facebook for business, networking, the least Jesse space on the internet, the most Jesse space on the internet, Podcast Addict, they’re not on my team, Alex Jones team, kill Will, let them have their say, stab me here, free speech absolutist, hypothetical, bemused, Maoist cult, defend people’s right to tell harmful lies, some splainin to do, never have never will, promise not to rape you mostly, is an American far right radio host and conspiracy theorist, a slur, prevent thought, July of 2001, Rebel by Pepe Moreno, a ripoff of Escape From New York, the twin towers, his pants, Mad Max/Road Warrior inspired, big brother in the form of Judge Dredd, read more Moebius, The Nam comic, war comics, Sgt. Rock, Unknown Soldier, Vietnam stories, in the groove, began in 1986, Doug Murray, Larry Hama, latter day G.I. Joe, how to make money there, superhero comics, Richie Rich has more to teach you, rich and rude cousin Reggie, friend who is a hillbilly, beautiful blondeheaded, rainbow flag, none green, a genetic adaptation, beautiful blonde hair, infanticide, evolutionary biology, hair is interesting in itself, in six years, those people seem happy, extracts from Lum’s philosophy, always be swinging, who is more Sheckley?, Deep Hole To China, Algis Budrys, a cassette copy, 84.2 Minutes of Algis Budrys, disabled guy, Silent Brother, lots of parasites, ivermectin might get rid of some friends, a conspiratorially, utilitarian, a worth addition, 1995, fill an audiobook on one cassette, different time, bro, ship it to Canada, decadent and pointless, Cirsova magazine, previously unpublished Burroughs, moderate your expectation, Tomorrow SF, Science Fiction Age, Realms Of Fantasy, born in Kaliningrad, Cora’s favourite place, saw Adolph Hitler as a child, newsprint paper, 1992-1999, bimonthly, defunct science fiction magazines published in the United States, be remembered, Habakkuk, Marion Zimmer Bradley Fantasy magazine, she raped people bro, she shouldn’t be promoted, child abuse allegation, if true, a Rosicurian correspondence course, harassing Wayne June, Marissa might be mad at Jesse, both like eels, plagiarizing machine, pinned tweet, permanent tweet, repetition, Frank R. Paul, giant mechanical objects, his aesthetic is Amazing Stories so strongly, pinning your wagon to Hugo Gernsback, John W. Campbell, your white house, too obscure bro, Gerrard Winstanley, prefigure, the mental health aspect, divinely employed, Thomas Paine stan, write a lot, not being censored, an immoral question, how about that for an argument?, Franklin Roosevelt, an abolitionist, Crazy Horse, Louis Riel, no Metis in the USA, Elizabeth Warren, pretendian, dangerously close to Jesse’s position on trans stuff, factually wrong, not hanging out with teens, that might be the real issue, homeless trans people, paid picketer, Cuban immigrant, never work in a fast food restaurant, a mime routine, look at that woman’s big butt, Miss Purple, Miss Violet, couldn’t afford the violet, dead-name, what’s up with that swastika between your eyes, Manson jokes, Lucy Parsons, the Haymarket riots, anarcho communist, reverse the Russian revolution, throwing bombs, I’m cryin, she’s metis, Mestizaje, race isn’t real bro, nice white lady, bad for the economy, tourism would be fucked up, throw the US navy into the sea, how good the Hawaiians have it, access to health care, a good place to homestead, works for the parks service, your tools wear out of get stolen, Indian reserves in Canada, bring cash in, land reform, so many things are so broken, a shock to the system, keep a semblance, a reason for that, so much work involved to replace him, 9-11, Friends, that time being passed, prepped for having something done to you, we’re programmed, the slings and arrows of reality, getting out of Afghanistan, didn’t want to stop it, had Ukraine ready to go, 23 years after it happened, pro-blow em up, a tv guy at that time?, The Apprentice, 2004, Schwarzenegger tried to run it, an actor again, good at governing, did lots of research, cis hetero, daughter married to Jimmy Fallon, a likeable stooge, Jimmy Kimmel gives off vibes of evil, celebrities, jokes about the anti-vax people, sadistic, evil, it being evil should he have his podcast deleted?, we’ve done six hours here, The Loved Dead, see you online.

F And SF -Journey Of Joenes by Robert Sheckley

SPHERE BOOKS - Journey Of Joenes by Robert Sheckley

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #790 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Sword Of Welleran by Lord Dunsany

The SFFaudio Podcast #790 – The Sword Of Welleran by Lord Dunsany, read by Ed Humpal (for LibriVox). This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (34 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Scott Danielson, Maissa Bessada, and Jonathan Weichsel.

Talked about on today’s show:
1908, and other stories, great sword and sorcery books, Brian Murphy, a Penguin edition, In The Land Of Time, some fantasy role playing games, fantasy tropes, an intelligent sword, a sword with a soul inside, prose poetry, how to make writing better, at every opportunity, consonance and assonance back to back, very distinctive, so dense, so much, you need the space, take them in more slowly, 34 minutes, feels like a couple hours, a spell that he’s casting, repetition, ideas, who is I?, he’s the dreamer who is proud of his dreaming, sit before my fire asleep, draw away from the face of god, is this dreamer god?, the world that he’s spinning up, somebody bigger than time, somebody omniscient, the city, these dudes from a long time ago, everything’s dreamy, a nice and soft hard shift, thieves going to be executed, check out the city as spies, thieves, criminals as the protagonists, some sort of sense of honour, The Highwaymen, The Wonderful Window, he can almost smell the bakers and spice merchants, a hint of the smell, sat down by the fire, a nice dog at his feet, a long list of heroes, don’t forget Welleran, Young Iraine, a depth of history, Mermina, somnolence, a memory mumbley word that you remember, a Dreamlands, centered in a city, barbarians around, sing the praises of Welleran weaponless, protected by these old heroes, Roald, this thing that poets do, claim to be visionaries, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, smoking opium, a knock on the door, the vision was gone, after the fact, the game these poets are playing, are they?, part of the fiction of the story?, he’s playful, jumps out the window and runs down the street, The Hashish Man, it was not that at all, I do it with hashish, I know Bathmoora well, different brain, doing it as a poem, composed in the way, not so much about meaning as it is about feeling, The Irish Times review, baffling, strange but captivating, Seejar and Sejar-Ho, virtually identical to each other, a little dialogue, one-act plays, servants, listen to the piano, let’s put on a play, four characters, roll through the story, some resonance here, Dan Carlin’s latest, Twilight Of The Aesir, the Byzantines in 941, the Keivan Rus, Finnish, Oleg, Ayegar, was a great city, they think of themselves as Romans, 1000, years later, Constantinople, Istanbul, as if we had gone to heaven, unbelievable, full of heroes as it once was, field a thousand ships and 40,000 troops against the city, the leadership digs out mothballed wooden ships, animal heads, open mouths, unleash Greek fire, they didn’t know that was a thing, that was invented 300 years ago, they still had the tech, ended with a treaty, won the battle, the plot of this, an old city, decadent, tired sleepy citizens, wary barbarians, are they as tough as they say they are?, no reference, weird awesome fantasy, resonated deep, this change that occurred, the place that everyone fought for 100 years ago, like the heroes did in the past, lamenting how evil the sword was, they would have lost their city, people have funny ideas, interesting coming from the narrator, the interesting comment from the god, the heroes existed to defend this place, it doesn’t even occur to them to defend the place, once they have victory, this sword is evil, what was the alternative, this generational change, the change in values, resonates today for obvious reasons, floating around in our culture right now, the whole city was the product of the sword, the swords that wanted all of this, an anti-war story, the men that never would have lived, the gardens that didn’t grow, if you go back further when they built the city, the wish of the city or the wish of the sword, anti-war in the face of destruction, a very fascinating idea, very conflicted, I’m not supposed to like the people, the ending would be the surprise, Lovecraft, The Doom The Came To Sarnath, a civilization they genocide, salamander people from the moon, didn’t know much about fire, become incredibly decadent, a possible reading, if we lean on the idea that the sword has a soul, not to make friends, to kill, on page 30 of the PDF, drew round about him the huge red cloak around him, and and now, Roald’s dreams to him to the sword, in thy hand, it is a good sword to hold, take up the sword of Welleran, cajoled, we can lean on this idea, doing the defense of the city, enstatued, sword under glass, the unarmed singer, patrols the city, are they wiser than we think they are?, Maissa’s right, taken them back, defending the city, the lament at the end, another line, about paradise, like a warm fire, a great anthem, a stillness full of lights, what art thou thy shimmering thing, layers on, blending the characters, the god of the story, really interesting, how Dunsay led his life, 1918ish, the Irish Civil War, pro-British domination of the Irish, but he does it, a poet and a hunter and an appreciator of many things, the hero reborn, he’s the guy who takes up the sword when no one else will, part of the story is hilarious, a series of heroes, their souls leaving their bodies, their horses are freed, inspired by a dream, stay under glass, held off for 300 years by rumour, look they’re still there, confirm that their not dead, the robbers were wrong, they touch the statue, puts his eyes on the cloak, touches the mane of the horse, the colours of the different materials, alabaster, marble, sable, jasper, Clark Ashton Smith, the beauty of the material, a message under there, what kinda enemies, Lord Dunsany’s gonna get canceled, it’s not London, has resonance for all people, the slaughter, we blame the sword, it doesn’t wash clean of blood, even Roald is possessed, have they overcome their decadence, an outside spirit inside of themselves?, the right lesson, heroes will always rise, young Irane, double letters, two Ls two Os, a new thought came into the heart of Merimna’s people, when England needed to rise, the spirit of the people rose up in the personification of Churchill, why did Welleran wear the great red cloak, the way of Welleran, back to his mother’s house, almost a religious fervor, patriotism, a more general reading, holding of the sword, dropped the swords, the right reaction, right to be horrified by what they had done, they did what they had to do, simulation theory, NPCs running around in a simulation, way ahead of himself, the good and correct thing, defend the empire against the barbarians, lazy or dreamers, languorous, goes to the sun, it’s cute because it wants to kill, the reason it’s pawing, excited by the images, this is the leader we need right now, being pad to shill, like we’re all addicts, WWI, The Bowmen by Arthur Machen, charge into machinegun fire, we still have our fingers, this is a true story, we must believe in this story, no, it’s a true story, it has to be true, we have god on our side, angels of our ancestors, that’s crazy, they need it to be true, when signing up for the army, Audie Murphy, these classic wars, picking up the same uniform, pure fantasy, where do these heroes come from, he becomes Welleran, Roald would be added to the list, Arthurian legend, we need FDR to come back and fulfill his fourth term, mythological heroes are going to return one day, the puritan work ethic, they’re kind of lax, they’re sleeping too much, moved by this story, parallels today, what do people say?, a difficult week, Jonathan’s mom had a stroke, rehab, with stuff this old, other than Brian Murphy on us, a famous name from so long ago, only as an old writer, so fantastic, there’s no genocide, a defense of the city, he kisses the sword with his lips, battle sweat, more like possession, nervousness, something he needs, keeping it close, our hands can hold swords no more, go among dreams, take the old swords, the mouth the the ravine, make him take my sword, they were all tricked too, the city is hot, the gods made the city hot, go out now into the desert, for fear of the desert robbers, sent up a fever over it, what was the alternative, they’re going to sack the city, rising them from slumber, rise up and protect yourselves, coming from the right place, deceived or pushed into doing this, violence, under barbarian rule tomorrow, it is confusing, it all is ambiguous, kinda like gods now, the beautiful buildings, the architecture, an excellent point, defend the architecture that the heroes love, Roald and his mom, every page has gold on it, invoking the name, aka I’m Welleran, the savage lusting sword that had thirsted for a hundred years, warm blood all about it, the joy of the swimmer, living for long in a dry land, Welleran lives!, the exulting, the sword singing softly to itself, violence and lust for blood, poured into the depth of the darkness, gleaming blue, gleaming red, the whole battle, thrust through, they blame it on the weapon, really quite choice, it makes sense, in his castle, Morton Drax, ancestors, popish plot, sitting in his house, dog at his feet, drowsing, a burglar at the window, he’s got a pipe wrench, one of his ancestor’s guns, shoots the bad, rifle, what have you done?, bad gun!, sleep soundly, not that this is a true story, decadent guy, armorial trophies, a morality there, not everything ideal all the time, when it is necessary we reach for the sword, fighting for the wrong side, where does his title come from, anglo-irish lord, aristocratic, beautiful architecture, subhuman, he has to, Star Trek, the Irish reunifcation of 2024, proven wrong once and for all, Roland, rolled in, all one, he does roll out like a Transformer, transformed, The Song Of Roland, 11th century Frankish Challenge story, the Stephen King book, the poem, more innocent, more Roald than Welleran, sounds nice, the most jarring of the names, rhymes, they pair together, no sense of an ocean nearby, surrounded on four sides, this is not how great cities come to be, Paris, generally they’re coastal cities, London, Russia has no natural boundaries, what Russia does, create a buffer, back and forth, conquering the neighbouring lands, everything taken back, historical parallels, Shadow Of The Vulture by Robert E. Howard, one of the historical sieges of Vienna, Red Sonja has a real sister, the star of that story, mostly swords still, becoming mercenaries for a decadent city, for the love of battle and personal reasons, Rogatino, contemporary with Conan, Hyrkania, sometimes Russia sometimes Ukraine, sounds like a guy’s name, sounds like a British name, Wayland, Weiland, sounding eastern, playing some sort of game in dreaming up this city, how civilization is, the truth of that story, making a scapegoat of the sword, blaming, not have the equipment taken by the barbarians, the deep ravine, horses let to roam free, a wound that won’t close, on his way to the deep ravine to die, his soul leaves his body but he continues to ride, bones in the ravine, there’s something in there, Roald touches the horse and the man in the same way, seeing with your hand, dark, night, they’re all asleep in the Dreamlands, the story of the horse, pastiche of dreams with a simple story, bowed to the ground, horse’s hoof, poetry poetry poetry, quite cold, the terrible hand of Welleran, he was marble too, the figure of fear, heard the guard, you may sing of Welleran, still restless in the night, naught can save your city, the two spies went back alive, were wont to go back, hid themselves away, that only live a day, so beautiful, pure poetry, the story is solid, how come you don’t write like that Jonathan?, everyone has their own unique voice, classic satire, we can appreciate it, I would have preferred to have a different style, die and be reborn, we can fake it, who else could have written this?, lost in eddies different, Lovecraft’s agenda is always pointed, resentment built into it, often based on being poor, it’s not fair that I’m poor, cutesy and cuddly axes, he is traumatized not at all, a dark sense of humour, he turns the light away from the dark scenes, Clark Ashton Smith is sex mad, a shapely shape, incubi and succubi, like a Weichsel story, understanding who the writer was, trauma or non-trauma, debates about AI art, a this year thing, the fascination people have with the artist or the writer, born into wealth and privileged, born to illiterate parents, different experiences, ai traumas, aristocratic literature, what is the struggle that Dunsany had?, live up to ancestors, equal to almost every task, immediately becomes poor, Poe is easy, tries to woo every woman on the planet, chessmaster, fencing master, officer, lord, hunter, winner, I like art, I like funny cute stories, isn’t this cute?, The King Of Elfland’s Daughter, head wound, living a pretty great life, invented some game, a healthy dream life, extremely fertile imagination, Jorkens stories, kind of a joke, Herman Melville, supergay but not traumatized by it, George MacDonald, children’s literature, for adult amusement, people make kids read classic works, Black Beauty, a reflection of his room, trying to see each other, Alice In Wonderland, C.S. Lewis?, Lewis Carroll, it was never for children, The Hobbit is for children (8 year olds), The Lord Of The Rings is for slightly older children (10 year olds), very rich, compare Dunsany to Tolkien,

TOLKIEN: Dunsany, your stuff is not rigorous enough to really tell a story in a secondary world one needs a new language, a backstory to explain the gods and demons to haunt a world, a rich tapestried backstory for world building [runs off to Silmarill for a while]

DUNSANY: I like the sound of these words together and so I built a city, dome on dome and pile on pile.

[CLARK ASHTON SMITH: ok, but what materials are that city made from? what chalcedony? what ebon fanes? and in those fanes what arabesques whose numberless, unwonted hues..]

what day of week each Hobbit is where vs. a sketch, out and onto paper, next story, a stylistic choice, the dreamlike quality, Aragorn son of Arathorn, ephemeral, out of fashion and not as well loved, why had he picked that one, on the list, the lasting impact, the sword that has a soul, a whole Elric series, Stormbringer, Audio Realms, what a beautiful ones that was, adding background stuff to a reading, that’s where Wayne June came from, his readings of Lovecraft, very scarce, very expensive, difficult/impossible to adapt to other media, would make a great cartoon, a great comic, do a lot of his words, lots of voice over narration, not having their words, how they fucked up the latest Dune, Jessica has to cry all the time, see their eyes brighten up, you can see the hands crawling up the statue, the reaction in the eyes, not the mode we’re in right now, expressionism in film, somebody could do it, on Prime, dramatic interpretation to individual scenes, frame the story, My Talks With Dean Spanley (2008), Star Wars, based on other films, film noir, short stories or novels, the exceptions are very rare, Casablanca, based on a play, somebody saw a movie once, not looking at the original material, Harlan Ellison essay, The Words In Spock’s Mouth, create in totality, “fans” such as yourself, slave for three months, god knows who all else, politely told to screw off, a fleeting commodity, the credit he gets when the segment is show, how could you be so ignorant, we all start off that way, this one has a dragon on the cover, that one has spaceship, they’re both good covers, somebody’s name, match the name not the picture, a million axes to grind, when do most people stop reading? as children, people are still reading (their phones), reading comments, the most striking weird thing of our age, a chat window rushing up the screen, thousands of children saying lol, what about blah blah blah trigger word, dip into the river, the writing vs the reading, the quantity of the writing vs. the quality, can’t fathom it, the medium specifically of streaming, lol and emoji and trigger word, a question that gets lost, every medium is completely different, you can record a livestream and make it a podcast, a livestream and a youtube and a podcast, all the same content, why are we doing this weird thing of caring about old books, we used to be normal for hundreds of years, now we’re something else, found ourselves invaded by barbarians who are incomprehensible, this person was honest enough to oput his ghost writer on the cover, Peter Mansbridge has a new book out, on TV for 40 years as a newsreader, credibility with the boomers, the dominant medium, no real trauma, you know why he’s writing, he thinks he’s an artist, satisfaction out of his shitty life, very good question, for pleasure?, its fun, wealthy writers are very rare, the wealthiest journalist, A. Merritt, Edgar Rice Burroughs, some ghost writing for very rich people, typical of rich people, writing is a helluv a lot of work, he writes poetry, this is a story, read it as a story, not just look at the sound, images, telling a story in a very short and beautiful space, paying for music, lower class to want to make money off of your writing, he didn’t need the money, driven by pleasure it seems, a story that tells itself, he wrote some novels, Books Of Wonder, The Gods Of Pegana, chamber plays, he wrote those, what the aristocrats did, a sinister motive, be popular at parties, [The Idler] the ads for it are for very expensive cars and airplanes, one page stories, eligible women to marry and what their titles are, a diversion, the receiving of the paycheck, a pursuit of people needed money, he put his name on it, so did Robert E. Howard and Lovecraft, sex poems, he has the talent, he likes what his pen can do, compare Dunsany and Robert E. Howard, an axe to grind, barbarism vs. civilization, a decorative axe, an evil axe, Dungeons & Dragons, even sting gets a name, legends behind every sword, name one of Conan’s swords, any sword, any horse, making money, all up in the air, that aloofness doesn’t resonate, we’re there, Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery, Eric Brighteyes, The Ship Of Ishtar, The Tower Of The Elephant, Dragon Moon by Henry Kutter, Jack Vance, L. Sprague De Camp, Poul Anderson, The Tale of Hauk, Karl Edward Wagner, David Drake, Imaro, pocket protector tells you his era, glasses case, a horrible drunk, a keg of beer in his office, a mane of hair, died from alcohol, an editor at DAW, rediscover forgotten authors, have it as Howard wrote it, concluded in the early 2000s, In A Lonely Place, horror writers, the Tennessee woods, inspired by The King In Yellow, Sticks, Ramsey Campbell, $25,000 a year, $100,000 yearly, property in Jamaica and Ecuador, the handcuffs and the straitjacket and the scullery brush, Travels by Michael Crichton, 15 hours-ish, horrible thanksgiving, they’re lying, the hospital kidnapped me, little writing done, life problems, life gets in the way, back to writing short stories, where the money is, asking about Ace, so long ago, the first thanksgiving and Peter Mansbridge, the propaganda for Thanksgiving is deep in your bones, pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie, slavery, slaves were often cooks, adapted African meals, yams, to serve to their masters, this is cultural appropriation, abolitionist propaganda, toiling for pumpkins, a replacement for the sweet potato pie, well no actually, fighting over this, people don’t change, the symbolism has gone but the food remains, bulgogi, sweet savoury sauce, bought it at Costco, some soup, sweet soup, tasted like plum, Chinese and Korean students, immigrant area outside of New York City, poor Maissa, not a big rosewater fan, put it in rice, dried roses in tea, a very specific Persian, that’s not a feature, Korean bbq, they cook their own food there, moms are always cooking food, a cooking culture, kimchi fridges, cook it on the table, lot and lots of funny, skycat to Cave Girl, Fury by Henry Kuttner, Islamic Development Bank, isdb, May – July 1947, C.L. Moore’s husband, you could only renew in one year, they don’t do it anymore, it’s not libel if it’s true, to bankrupt your opponent, already bankrupt, they’re dumb, having Shambleau renewed pissed Jesse off, Tryst In Time by C.L. Moore, Fury, Carry Me Home, Heir Apparent, Sky Is Falling, Beauty And The Beast, Voice Of Lobster, prolific authors, written under pseudonyms, collected it later, every single story written by Kuttner and Moore, Robert Silverberg, novels on LibriVox, Hemple, he got every word right, a straight reading, it became transparent, limp, a more lilt, had to read it that way, a sound story, The Fairy Chessmen, they did renew a lot, 1947, Harry Harrison, Hell Bath No Fury, 1947, Street & Smith, Lawrence O’Donnell, cigarette ads, first paperback edition, the most popular writing team in science fiction, it’s public domain, other options, FadedPage, Gutenberg, two things that are happening, the library google scan system, if disproven, sue me if you think your right, allows people to share, the DMCA, a funny situation, SickMyDuck.narod.ru, etexts of almost all of Philip K. Dick, English and Russian, C.L. Moore, Judgement Night, 1943, a novella, locked away for all the eternity, until the empire collapses, January 2025, compare statement to reality and call Jonathan a prophet, money debasing scheme, that’s like the petrodollar, students were studying hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic, a James Bond novels, part of the problem, they’re good books, the original Epic Of Gilgamesh, a really thin book and half of it is the introduction, Ian Fleming, Live And Let Die, Property Of A Lady, From A View To A Kill, From Russia With Love, has to be on a Canadian server, science fiction adjacent, Fu Manchu, Doctor No, robot hands, a dragon, sexy, cool, half German half Chinese, a sovereign citizen, damaged eyes, an indomitable will, a Robert E. Howard villain character, Ray Cummings, The Girl In The Golden Atom, aliens who want to kidnap all the human women, the Tama books, the serialization, to super science, Fantastic Adventures, viking queen in shining armour, Eskimo dudes, wizard staff, amazing covers, Robert Bloch, what Sam Moskowitz did, for reintroduction later, Famous Fantastic Mysteries anthology, the best of the Munseys, a short story or something, a poem, something nice, giant lady riding a seahorse, pewter pasties and u-boat in the foreground, lady wearing a red mask, eagle on her head, riding a Pegasus, and a pistol in her belt, giant ladies of the sea and submarines, tiger by her side, guy with colt automatic facing her, she’s topless, ladies riding wooly mammoths into cover, add a little lust, draw people in, little people, fairies or leprechauns discover giant lady in waterfall, Lady Godiva at the end of the rainbow, epic fantasy about Lady Godiva, epic in scale, husband’s a lord, ride through town naked on a horse, lock yourselves inside your houses, Circe Lannister style, covers herself with her hair, all of her parts, one guy named Tom, Tom peeps out the window, the etymology of peeping Tom, struck blind, needs some filler, flesh coloured body suit, Lady Godiva of Coventry, Maureen O’Hara, James Alderdice, David J. West, Run If You Can, Owen Dudley, so love, but so bad!, meets a water sprite in a ditch, forced to confront her with a luger, communist pirate radio program, that would be neat, that picture tells a whole story, it raises a question, the story answering the question fulfills the promise of the cover, design based covers, they don’t raise a question, the AI art is getting pretty good, doesn’t generally raise a question, match the cover to something that they wrote, the first thing the reader sees is the cover, that’s a promise, this is what’s in side, quarter pounder with cheese, now it needs a cover, is that what’s in here?, the answer is yes, oh and now I need a cover, psuedoscientific ideas, images and text and fonts, based on a philosophy, illegitimate, on and island with limited electricity, the cover of The Hobbit, what’s this about, will you read it to us, damn, that was good, Tolkien books, it has to be an image, a promise of what is inside, even romance novels, a farm, a fence, a guy riding a horse, communicate what genre the book is, a fence and silo, no rocket in the book, gothic romance, Fabio on a horse, misreading the romance genre, romance readers are more loyal than anybody else, girl porn, we’re ripped off in the science fiction, a book about robots, about an autistic lady, they depict something that’s in the book, but not the tone, the best thing about it was the cover, slapdash, can you make it a novelette, reads like a summary of a story, wasted time, an argument against the illustrated cover, old fashioned books, wanting read a modern book, the ideal reader, some people bought them, wanted to be in the in group, Barack Obama’s autobiography, not secure in your identity as an adult, you think he’s contemptible, retarded or secure in their adulthood, no good comics anymore, big pot belly, curly long hair tied into a pony tail, they only collect the covers now, Red Sonja, I should be reading this, getting pissed off, the writing is not Howard, very John Buscema, Jim Zub doesn’t have the problems Robert E. Howard, Dunsany doesn’t need trauma, romantic poets, nobody reads them, having a connection to nature, hard to penetrate poems, The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe, either a guy sitting outside a lady’s house, sneaks into the house, looks at her dead body, the trauma of death, beautiful dead woman, very accessible, what makes something really hot is that it’s out now, these pulp revivalist, The Cromcast, his trauma is in the stories, an axe to grind, five or six things, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Pit And The Pendulum (a terrible story), suspense piled on, well done for what it is, Morella is way better, what axe they have to grind, anti-catholic prejudice, what does he linger on, the walls are closing in, covered in rats, The Raven, Annabelle Lee, The Bells, Berenice is pretty nice Chris Sempter (Poe Museum guy), a harsh grating, the fiery walls, fainting into the abyss, Toledo, we don’t know anything about his sins, saved by the protestants, he’s an atheist, always talking about angels, consecrated her body to worms and heaven, guy loves his wife, he loves her beautiful smile, smashes her teeth out, symbolic of her, monomaniac, now she’s toothless, a very Jonathan story, the four paragraphs that are left out of later publications, this story got a lot of negative attention, Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, heat brings warmth and warmth brings fire and fire is what this magazine needs, proceeded to do that, writing outrageous stories designed to provoke, put a nude lady on the cover of you book, argues for being outrageous, to sell stories, self-doubt sometimes, go along to get along, pick a genre, memorize the plot beats, followed that advice, don’t trust the experts, 20 books to 50k, that’s a thing there, bragging how much money you make in a month, aquatic animals, on Facebook, not legitimate, a specific graphic, 2 figures a month, a prawn, a lobster, a trout, their analogy is the broken thing, salmon, dolphin, whale, kelpie, kraken, whoever wrote this list is a bad writer, they’re all bad writers, chasing big dollar amounts, propaganda like this, streamers, you know this is streaming right now, thousands of people who want to be streamers and 100 that make a living at it, I’m locked in the house and I like games, free money, those donations are half for me and half for them, sharecropper, tips and tricks to self-publishing, spending more than that on Amazon ads, bragging about their net, bestsellers, The Empyrean #2 – Iron Flame by Rebecca Yaros, 119,000 ratings, campus romance, new Hunger Games book, continue on the path, any good covers on here?, you’re not supposed to stand out you’re supposed to fit in, all a scam, partially a scam, Michael Connelly, Nora Roberts, Suzanne Collins, girls like adventure stories, choosing dresses and choosing boyfriends, readers are getting tired of the series, a certain kind of reader who is autistic, dragons on the cover, what if you just become obsessed with dragons, Anne McCaffrey’s career, all of the Harry Potter series, a new character, Harry Potter rip-off books, readers who just want to read dragon books, to serve the readers, autism is on the rise?, these are the only people left?, other forms of distraction, traditional publishing has moved away from commercial fiction, being very cynical about how to pitch their books, respectable, using their real names sometimes, an executive, Roger Corman was very cynical, his Poe adaptation, Death Race 2000 (1975), invented the formula, young boys will go to the movies with their older brother, girls will go to the movie their boyfriend, a date with a spare, target to your movie to the girlfriend, the target is the older brother, PG-13 was the 80s, gaming society, all these formulas, commission an artist to make a movie poster, which movie do you want to see, Roger Corman movie list, Machete Maidens, Teenage Cave Man, The Fast And The Furious, Star Wars style ripoffs, Alien ripoffs, his Poe movies with Vincent Price, this monologue, The Masque Of The Red Death (1964), a lot of Cannes stuff, a very good artist, a lot of the pulp is the same way, people like trains, a magazine of train stories, artists, the artistry, they’re on the internet, all using pen-names, have integrity, going against the grain of what has been expected during the self-publishing era, unprofessional, oh he’s doing wrong, becoming whales, they’re the lobsters, the Elantris guy, do what he does, the Salt Lake City guy, Brandon Sanderson, not broken the way I need to be to like them, his interests, being forthright and sticking to his guns, like Stephen King: whatever the empire says, actual banned books, using copyright to prevent the spread of Rage, Spielberg re-edited E.T., I regret having made that decision, successful, 1941 (1979), the Battle Of Los Angeles, The Goonies (1985), Richard Donner, written by Stephen Spielberg, An Adventures In Babysitting (1987), asian guy says, and you can’t do generic asian, narrowing it, it never was a great idea, Tarzan takes the feminine world, needs to be rescued, he’s the Miranda, The Tempest, Rapunzel in the tower, Jane is the Prince Charming, Sheena is a gender flip of the gender flip, The Jungle Book, Green Mansions, a gender flipping website, flips Conan to Conana, Pirates Of Ersatz, girls are capable of being inseminated and having a result happen, racist!, biology is important vs. biology is whatever I say it is, she had a boyfriend who was very demure, she’s all aggressive and barbaric, staying at home, it distracted from the story that was originally being told, flipping the gender of Ghostbusters, they’re not redoing a play, they rewrite the script completely, make the characters dumb, the dumbest one was Bill Murray (he was a fake), a girl who is a babysitter, that’s what the idea was, a fuckin stupid idea (unless Jesse is missing something), they’re not going to inseminate their kids, the whole point of the job “babysitter” why maids are called maids and maidens, we need the money for the family, cooking and cleaning and moving things around, now you have to do that for your husband, the male version, these are teenagers, 12 – 13, they get out of the house, keep them out of the liquor cabinet, tape me to the seat, getting them back, what’s going to happen, one of the kids should be older than you, big and strong, it works, like Home Alone, get them back home before the cops get them, set it in Hollywood, get a celebrity to play a celebrity, Alpha Dog (2006), acknowledge the original movie to set the expectations, we know about this other movie, expectations set, things can be fixed, let’s gender flip stuff, a panacea somehow, let’s gender flip Romeo and Juliet, gay men or lesbians, a girl in her balcony, a guy wooing a girl, a gay movie, butch and femme, old couples, people married for seventy years, in real life this happens, lesbian couple sixty years on, that doesn’t work for storytelling, you have to have some differences, what if you don’t believe in differences, flippable on a dime, Will has somebody visiting, a direct message, your politics are always interesting to me, in foreign policy matters you’re basically a tankie, denying the Uyghur genocide, pro-DPRK, anti-sending arms to Ukraine, in other ways your conservative, love Heinlein, vaxx skepticism, trans skepticism, strong opinions of things being for men and women, a little trad for me, a lot more enthusiastic about abortion, it’s fuckn legal up here, it just happens, grew up in a house with women, uncles are different from aunts, people are easily liftable, they’re the same too, arms and legs and pencils, women writers put on a male character, anything is possible, I was told I could be anything I wanted, you’re wrong about that stuff, that’s not normal, weightlifting, the author’s introduction to Slaughterhouse Five, department of anthropology, any thing you study at university that has the words “studies” at the end, science fiction written by women, people have bad ideas, millions of years, get two dogs, lift up the back end and looking, both sharp teeth, people are even more different than dogs, sexual dimorphism throughout the species, the brain is a part of the body, a school shooting, the person who did the shooting was trans, a dude did it, who does school shootings?, dudes, the fucking hormones do shit to your brain, some girls like to wrestle, a female wrestling team at most high-schools?, female basketball players, female football, soccer, lacrosse is a male game as well, lawn hockey, ring hockey, sports teams and interests for girls, kinda weird, adult person, a manifesto, adults going to schools, a graduate of that school going back, something went wrong there a long time ago, dudes tend to do school shootings, poison, most girls don’t shoot, revenge fantasy, feels they were victimized, commit suicide, abandon schools, not a popular idea, doesn’t seem to come up much in the debates, make it more like prison, mandatory universal education, more people reading, be critical of stuff, there are good teachers, there are good prison guards, an English class, we’re writing essays about the books, very much alone in that, the books are boring and stupid, bullshit to write the essays, Jesse loves essays, what purpose to essays serve in our society, they’re punishment, the next six months will tell, the war goes on for twenty years, jerking off the audience, Jonathan Swift, hilarious essay, this is what you should be striving for, structured like an essay, digressions, making fun of the solution being offered, Edgeworks, why are trying to make everybody like Harlan Ellison, there were essayists, that’s 60 years ago, essays are wonderful, some people should write them, teaching them how to organize their thoughts, let’s look at a youtube comment, sometimes they’re well written and badly spelled, people want to communicate, if they spell correctly, intentional misspelling, teh, more high end, tiktok style video, clickbaity stuff, someguy’s building a mechsuit, forthright people who want to express their appreciation, thanks for this video, an answer to your query, what went wrong, they aren’t being graded, mispronounce a word you’ve never spoken, it all goes back to it’s an institution, this is where you go to die, all scary things, the hospital, preschool, a montesorri school, teachers are burdened with 10-20 kids, yellow jackets, hold hands, dealing with a herd, a herd of children needing to be herded, we’re not herd animals, horse and sheep love big groups, you need an uncle a friend and a dad to teach you something, telling 17 guys the same thing, this kid has this problem, needs certain standards to live up to, math, reading, do you think most kids learn to read in school, do most kids learn math in school, the institution is broken, girls are better at doing schools than boys, public school has always been broken, the schools don’t teach, alternative school, the kids who failed or got kicked out, kids liked it a lot more, teachers got it a lot more, we have to punish criminal wrongdoers, before the settlers came in, put you on this island, this is the way we do it, it’s good to have a place where you have the x-ray machine, school is the worst institution, prisoners learn more in prison than in school, got nothing to do, learn trades, car repair, what did people do before school, apprentices, guilds, learn a trade, go into the family business, sailor, tutors and parents, uncles and aunts, primer books, one of the first ESL teachers around, not a single word of English, very nice lady, students loved her, the normal thing, mostly not, teaching a program they disagree with, they’re always looking for teachers, making a new school, pick the team, the same teaching philosophy, struggle through this horrible system, safe babysitting, fun babysitting, 30 or 40 kids in the classroom, socializing, being down by the river washing and singing songs, also Jonathan, not everybody needs to learn to read, to plead to a politician, plead to a judge, bus driver, short order cook, stop signs, functionally literate, they didn’t learn that from school generally, parents, older brother, older sister, uncle, individual tutors, most kids don’t read with their parents, most parents don’t read, why is that, two parents are outside the home a lot, kids being raised by strangers, they’re little fucking sponges, you can see the kid learning shit, you can see massive progress happening, their brains are young and spongy, some tutor needs to be doing this, that value, they don’t have time, they’re addicted to their other things, priorities, if you work an eight hour shift, reading to your kid is not relaxing, when’s that reading happening, grandma’s retired, without an education we wouldn’t have a common culture, the anthem, the history, Shakespeare, no common frame of reference, get things done, because of the internet, micro-culture, jail them harder, didn’t want university to stop, 4 years then you’re done, learning is wonderful, didn’t remember it ten days later, for what purpose, we’re not able to do that now, concrete me, working the census, training, your name and your pronouns, she doesn’t know what a pronouns, now is the time we need to be caring about pronouns, when people were able to communicating, “leading”, that’s a lady, she’s an old lady you can tell by looking at it, the “leader”, enforcing the rules, she’s an institution, the old lady’s way, the government way, strap her in a chair and yell at her about pronouns, certain frames of reference, society to function smoothly, close to a civil war, upset and grumpy, people don’t understand each other, I’m assuming your pronouns are the worst, a humiliation ritual, land acknowledgment, we’re sitting on unceded territory, couched as honouring, leadership classes, a lack of education, we had a way of doing it, a mixed group, they made the movie, the teacher would get very angry, the kids did not take that lesson, a game being played, kids inherently, the way you learn hopscotch, a child culture, using the rules are being used to fuck with the guards, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, picking the worst leaders, failed to correct them, they’re enforcing the way they want to speak, I can’t afford a car, a house, or a kid, I can afford a tattoo and a Starbucks and my pronouns my hair colour and my piercings, an animal trapped in a cage, get rid of all the institutions, for humans health, and hence you defend them, corrupt, a little bit of power, elbow that person down, if I controlled the institutions I would like them very much, sent people to the Moons, did institutions send people to the room, a kind of story about institutions we can tell, why did NASA exist after a certain point, few guys working a console looking at old probes, Elon Musk, whoever’s his estate, companies, Google is in institution now, owns planets, preserve knowledge, grouping together is an institutions, start with a big pile of money, they devolve, The Royal Society, what has it done from us lately, when did the Royal Society get disbanded?, the people in the clouds in Gulliver’s Travels, dot org no less, science book prize, responsible for England’s military might, used to colonize the world, they need to be disbanded, overturning of these things, a Robert E. Howard, you’re the Lovecraft in this, the world needs barbarians, vaccines against COVID-19, shape publish discourse, like that the vaccine doesn’t work?, down with the institutions, nothing but oppress and hold Jonathan back, overproduction of people who think they’re elites, an axe to grind against every institution, do suggest anarchy, know a dude, wants to learn that shit, I’m gonna fix that thing, that’s how you do it, YouTube is a better institution, a tech utopian vision, more on the anarchist, works collectively, the system women lived under in James Tiptree’s Houston, Houston, Do You Read?, very old and needs to be changed, when the whole thing collapses, forcibly disbanded, go up to the doors and start chopping, gets the axe, traditional publishing, they don’t really understand what trouble they’re in, the bottom is going to fall out, New York publishing system, people like Jonathan, the authors that people look up to, books are not going to go away, paperbooks are never going to go away, too good a tech to throw away, merits that can’t be replaced, no tech ever dies, but the dominance does change, most people learn to read somehow, she loves her kids, some have to do it in prison, we gotta face facts, essay writing is not the key to success, blogposts, essays, children being taught them is a mistake, executive summaries, a stupid elected politician, make their shitty decision, a concise essay to read, Trump didn’t like reading them, his genius is being a stupid idiot and trusting his gut, they’re all up their own fucking asses, a bunch of words that mean enemy, no way to plan your society, they’re not as interesting generally, very topical, a fantasy story, very highly influential, Horatio Alger style stories, the least popular podcast you can do, if we were all literary people in coffee houses, we’re on the wrong track, learn how to read essays, we’re going to war with Ukraine, The New York Times, intellectuals in the New Jersey area, you don’t want to rock the boat, how was this useful, was once a great institution, centuries ago, The New York Times book review, obviously trash, a low class font, high fancy script font, a long time, new ones pop up, civilization vs. barbarians, the people online are digital barbarians, faceless hordes.

Welleran And The Sword Of Welleran

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #787 – READALONG: Lowdown Road by Scott Von Doviak

Jesse, Cora Buhlert, and Terence Blake talk about Lowdown Road by Scott Von Doviak

Talked about on today’s show:
2023 novel, so contemporary, Hard Case Crime, this cover looks cool, who are these guys on the cover, a new one, good to try new things, spilling the tea, Skeletor figure, sold three or for copies, owes Cora some kickback, didn’t pirate this book, pay real money, Audiobooksnow, Black Priestess Of Varda, convoy movies, the truckers, those trucker movies, a 70s car chase movie in book form, The Dukes of Hazzard, Knight Rider, crashing cars, evil and violent and not funny, Baby Driver (2017), private TV came to town, RTL, The A-Team, Alarm For Cobra 11, The Fall Guy, the German ones got steadily better, amazing car crashes, one car crash before the credits, funny banter, Turkish character, honour killing victim, oppressed wife, well made entertainment, French car chase movies, Australia has some of the best, The Road Warrior, Mad Max (1979), one of the best revenge movies of all time, the Saw series, Cannonball Run III (1989), Matt Frewer, Brooke Shields, Jamie Farr, Roger Ebert, read my lips, it is not funny, he’s wrong a lot, best car crashes from Alarm For Cobra 11, an okay movie, John Candy smoking in a car, he’s trying to polite, what are you doing between my legs, went to soon, great and funny, Eugene Levy, really funny people, the point of the Cannonball Run movies, a curmudgeon who’s watched too many movies, or an autistic person, he gets a lot of movies wrong, a kind of snobbery, Smokey And The Bandit (1977), mustache, not funny, its fun, playing with hotwheels cars, a car chase book, it is very hard to write car chases in books, Hicksploitation, a big continent, cars are important, lived in the city, took taxis, Gene Siskel, get in cabs, they’re not car guys, you have to be a car guy if you live in a big place, Australia is massive, Canada, driving across Canada is not a small thing, a road trip is a thing, cars are dangerous, stop for gas, stretches of road, cows, more road, farmhouses, the most boring stretches of road, in Germany city people use bicycles, in the countryside you need a car, public transport is bad, 80 kilometer ride, an interpreting gig in court, highway was closed, How I Won The War (1967), bikers and biker gangs, Terence’s parents never had a car, what!, enthusiastic, small towns out, rural France can be very very lonely, sold the car, car chases are very easy to do on film, the Fast And The Furious series, driving over the furniture, the opening scene, road trip, dialogue driven book, late summer of 1974, On The Road, no mythical resonance, a nice story, except for the structure of having the beginning at the end, particular ideas, wacky and crazy, surprised at the same thing, killing the characters, when Chuck got killed, one of the main characters, Gwen on the cover, the girl on the cover is the girl who hopes to get pregnant, she’s the Daisy Duke, boom she’s dead, a so it goes book, Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron, this is implausible, isn’t that funny we’re so stupid, Galapagos, evolving into small brained seals, stupidity again, people are stupid, couldn’t hold a train of thought, interrupted, supposed to be teaching, civil engineering, holding back, it’s a solid story, Jesse hates it, pretentious, irony or arch is not a solution to problems, Nineteen-Eighty Four is an indictment, Brave New World is a warning, avoid the wrong path, a book in dialogue with a very specific period, road movies and car-chase movies, just two old boys never meaning no harm, Uncle Jesse operates a moonshine still, they live in a corrupt community, backwoods Tennessee, stock cars, NASCAR, builds into the 1970s, the inspiration, nobody dies, he’s got a headache, violence has consequences, an alcohol store, former partner in crime, 1969-1974, pulled over, the reversal, she’s set him up, every subsequent scene where somebody gets killed, surely this can’t continue, they all deserve it, I made a big mistake, a kill or be killed or just kill world, Julian didn’t deserve that, Antoine was half a good guy, Dean, all bastards, likeable bastards, a fun book, they don’t match one for one, Dean and his cousin, blow a tire, backwoods family, mentally deficient, overconfident, old man smoking cigarette while on oxygen, wants his seed, all cousins, kissin’ cousins, we’re back country folk, I need you to fuck my niece, rob this place, we’re moving in, I need to get pregnant, playing with the idea, they’re all distinct, much longer in the original draft, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), like Deliverance (1972), backwoods people, this high class low class thing, the cop who doesn’t want to be a cop, working class, not by much, about breaking laws, transporting cigarettes across state lines, Cannonball Run is based on a real incident, race of cars from New York to California, road testing your vehicle, Le Mans, 24 hours of continuous driving, a Cannonball Run movie zero: Gumball Rally (1976), friendly races, the prize is bragging rights, a mix of country hicks, and a Saudi Sheik, and Roger Moore, James Bond, a Goldfarb, playing with the idea of cars being for all classes of people in the United States, Blue Ruin, low class muscle cars that were fairly affordable, a Dodge Challenger, Gumball Rally 3000, all the exotic cars, kids of the ultrawealthy, a rally across every continent (including Antarctica), Batmobile, it’s only for wealthy people, quite dangerous, cars are dangerous, only for rich people car and trucker movies were entertainment for the poorest people, almost a little bit of CB radio stuff, a precursor to internet web culture, a lot of autobahns, main routes through Europe, CB radio was a thing, a way to jam the cops, communicating about where the cops are, where to get sex on the side, a good sandwich, wild and unregulated, a huge phenomenon in the UK, three low class guys get in cars, drive them, and make jokes, the number one show, a drivers license, younger people can’t afford cars, idiots who glue themselves to the highways, it was necessary for life to have a car, you could walk, if there’s a bus, a way of getting out of the utter poverty, he’s not getting it, resentment for being forced to watch movies like that, something you don’t like and being forced to deal with it, another fairy tale retelling, this stupid TV show, no award, people who never get out of the big cities, what life is like outside Berlin or Hamburg or Munich, hyper-reality, the amount of people killed over such a short period in this book, hits him with the paper towel dispenser, he’s dead?, this book has incredible stakes, at no point in it do I think it is realistic, jump over a creek every episode, the backstory for the Snake River jump, supernatural flying things, machine guns, the cars are always brand name German cars, wrecked for entertainment, German car companies lining up, attractive to these things that cause death, give us so much, working on a taco truck, mobility, get yourself across the continent, James Cameron, cars will run you over, a police puppet show, a traffic Punch, schoolyard with actual cops, riding a bicycle, physical unpleasant, it hurts, probably dead, not answered in the book, Evel Knievel, September 1974, he and the rocket floated to the canyon floor, live in movie theaters, the cars, four year old car, Vanishing Point (1971), existential car chase movie, Zabriskie Point (1970), the Cadillac Ranch, what’s in the afterword, stunt cycle toy, a lot of this is real, he failed, there were no murders on site, someone somewhere probably found one, Ford Mustang, Dodge Challenger, Corvette Stingray, whole television shows are based around these cars, Calgary, Alberta, Stingray, get to see his car from various angles, a thirty year old car, mystical stuff about these special cars, every character had a special car, turn into robots, Transformers, will be my best friend, we can fight evil, temporarily stealing things, light, car chase movies, smuggling drugs or alcohol, why would you smuggle that, late 60s, new Hollywood movies about anti-heroes, Easy Rider, Billy Jack, I’m Captain America, symbol of freedom, Dolly Parton’s ex, Burt Reynolds, Pontiac Firebird, his success with that and the sequels, like pure money for Pontiac, a new Firebird for the rest of your life, where’s my car?, you can’t drive all those cars, driver movie series, Transporter, concept movies, taking the little kid who liked playing with cars, get that nostalgia into the kid, increasingly small segment, that’s what they’re doing with their money, young people can’t afford cars, cars are turned into safety vehicles, a used car that is still running is pretty impressive, hurts their ability to get jobs and keep things, get a van and live in it, steadily badly for 50 years, they cracked down, 14 in Alberta, a bicycle with a motor, tractor at 15, a relationship between and their ecnomic status of people and their car, the last new cheap car, Yugo, Dacia, still affordable in Russia, the price of a car is 20,000 at a minimum, a Volkswagen Golf, very beautiful and very bad Mustang, Citroen 2CV, the collectors have gotten to them, Volkswagen Beetle, the title again, called out in the book, on the down low, hiding, for black people in the USA it means gay, just another character, the characters on the cover, who are these people, bottom left, Jim Carrey, a good old boy, the central guy, Dean, Roy Scheider, off brand Burt Reynolds, Samuel Jackson, sheriff, Jack Elam was the doctor in Cannonball Run, guy with the weird eye, too old for the role, wearing the Daisy Dukes, Stephen Spielberg’s Sugarland Express (1974), Jaws (1975), similar to the plot, Goldie Hawn, our son has been adopted, escape from prison, a chase across Texas, a slow strange car chase, William Atherton, based on a true story, the husband’s dead, the wife is put into prison, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969), sympathetic criminals, Bonnie And Clyde (1967), they die at the end, based on a true story, an intensive media presence, every town they pass through, a James gang or Robin Hood story, not doing any harm, the circumstances of capitalism, they come from a low class, regular normal people are heroes because they’re bucking against the state, we are the media presence, this book doesn’t have any intellectual heft at all, a throwback period piece, analyzing vs. recreating, making a new story, Hicksploitation, another Hard Case Crime book, heist book, Charlesgate Confidential, doofus, Scott Von Doofus, a night palate cleanser for Cora, we don’t think of them as badguys now, what are they doing that’s so wrong, kill a lot of people, it’s never thought through, bad cops you see in American movies, quit his job cop, the sheriff is bad, drawing and quartering, artificial fuel, biker gangs are bad, first quarterback, in the chess club, going to Vietnam, doesn’t feel like a perfect book, very Elmore Leonardesque, all very eloquent, hyper-real, hyperreality, feels like a play, snappy dialogue, no word other than said, he said archly, crime fiction critic, named after Melville, probably be a pretty good movie, We Can Do It Differently, <strong>No More Mister Nice Guy (1993), communist or nazi, some kind of house somewhere in East Germany, legal files, manor house, killing people, kick up a deserted Soviet Soldier, pick up a woman, shot and killed, Russia at the time, a failed state and there’s nothing there, Thelma & Louise (1991), big surprise, bbq and happy, still an American production, relentless deaths, not trying to make a sequel, not a heavyweight book at all, enjoyable for the ride, most of Hard Case Crime, it’s not a mystery, set your cars rolling, do some jumps, playtime’s over, Jim Thompson, James M. Cain, Double Indemnity, Postman Always Rings Twice, wrong Thompson, 1958 novel, Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, McQueen and McGraw, Dynasty or Dallas, Sorcerer (1977), give her a role, a movie with only men, bullshit job, Roy Scheider, The Getaway, The Grifters, Angelic Huston, John Houston, Donald Westlake, The Killer Inside Me, blows you off the page, psychopathic small time sheriff, of course I had to destroy him, based on his own life, moonshine and drug runner in the oilfields, noir and hardboiled, Stephen King gave a blurb for this book, short novels, Pop. 1280, The Killoff, This World Then The Fireworks, hell, incestuous relationship, incest play, incest arguing, comes across as horror, hardboiled and noir, everybody die, Chinatown (1974), big twist, 50 year old movie, betrayed by your family, besides showing up in dreams, Confessions Of An English Opium Eater, The Seventh aka The Split by Richard Stark, the movie, he’s funny, the seventh Parker novel, playing a fun game, title games, idea games, Donald E. Westlake, Travels by Michael Crichton, New Years Eve evening, Dinner For One, James I would like to retire, now do it in the style of the Colonel, two versions, the real one, key moments in this video, attention span is so low, can’t enjoy an 18 minute short film, automatic, a benefit, let’s see the car chase, that’s no way to enjoy a film, no, it’s art, Foundation TV series, earn the Mule, a podcast about season 2, Paul Levinson, Alcibiades, The Plot To Save Socrates, a media studies professor, seems to be a nice dude, blogging for a long time, nobody uses tags anymore, in the feed, Light On Light Through, funeral costs, burial and grave, 2053, dying is expensive, extended again, always 30 years, split the cost, expensive tombstone, much cheaper to just disappear like Ambrose Bierce, it’s time for me to go to Mexico, don’t tell the government that, as long as they get paid, solar panels, fight with the power company, steal a taco truck and drive across Germany, food truck guy, sausage stands and trucks, chicken trucks, whole roast chickens on a stick, pizza trucks in Nice, street food, kebab shops, migrant background, doner, donair, sandwich de turk, sad when people can’t enjoy good things, messy but delicious, life is messy, 50-70 years, an immigrant neighbourhood, Turkish, Lebanese, Syrian, what does Terence cook?, simple things, vegetables, whatever protein we come across, fish, cod, cheap and nice, quiche, leeks, whatever we have we stick in, small child, neighbour’s cat, have to be vague, deny the cat, whoever’s around, I’m not a cannibal, cannibal murder case in Bremen in the late 40s, gay guy who killed a lot of young men, preyed on refugees, Silesia, Polish and Russian, stuffed into sausages, east Prussian sausage, roadkill hogs, early school shooting, 1912, take over the world, Catholic girl’s school, kids made no sense at all, wool spinning factory, Catholic immigrants, Poles in Germany, we are German we hate those immigrants, culturally German, idiot walked in, barely ever talk about it, Germans are largely to blame for the school systems around the world, The Terminal Man, a big long life, all these humans are getting old, they all died early, one aunt left, indestructible, terrified, very active, health issues, biological grandmother, do you like her or not?, city Nazi grandma, surplus extra grandmother, I hate this woman, keeled over on holiday, in Hungary on holiday, Kiel, if Hungary on holiday go to Turkey, goulash food truck?, adopted by the Germans, make proper goulash, photo a lot of food, a good winter food, tinned mushrooms, 1982, Iron Curtain still up, cheap holiday destination, died on the toilet, break open the door, getting the body back, smuggling out important information, exporting bodies is really messy, death certificates, medical death certificates, bad James Bond movies, Roger Moore movies, Sean Connery, Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Mach 1 Mustang, GoldenEye (1995), Leicester Square Odeon, had Charles been there, the tank chase is great, distinctive, the opening sequence, chemical weapons lab in a dam, do the bungee jump, Arecibo, the story explanation, communicating with an old Soviet satellite, Famke Janssen having orgasms whenever she interacts with someone, Sean Bean, a double agent, ancestors were Cossacks, returned to the UK under Operation Keelhaul, doing revenge for his grandfather’s being sent to the Soviet Union, spaceborn weapon to paralyze stuff, took the recipe, named after the house in Jamaica, a complete confection, rather than at the core there’s this idea, turn your brain off, 5 year gap, License To Kill (1989), first modern Bond film, she’s not fantastic, subtext running through the whole film, constantly emasculated, kind of sexist, found funny, shitty cars in Eastern Europe, the film works but it is not good, Skyfall, the invisible car, Pierce Brosnan, Michelle Yeoh, heavy product placement, let it die, a legend of martial arts cinema, Singapore, Robert Carlyle, Bernard Cornwell, Richard Sharpe, super-hero movies, Halle Berry, make it a period piece, done as a comedy, much crueler, occasionally stern, suave and makes jokes, what they’re doing with Craig, you’re taking away the fun, all memberberries, the Goldfinger car, not a British car, came out two years before he was born, don’t think about that, terrible, a twitter essay, when the James Bond movie series really crashed, only did two movies, the Russians are not the badguys after, friendly rivals, worked with James Bond, James Bond fucks Russian women, gave him the highest Soviet medal, occasional competitors, mostly it was capitalists, a Nazi capitalist, a Rupert Murdoch type guy, under Craig they made Julian Assange the bad guy, child star in France, tastefully rendered sex, La Boum (1980), release all the private docs the British empire did, turning into propaganda, they were the opposite, talk about the Soviets being crazy, a rogue Soviet general, eagerly watched these movies, cool gadgets, the animosity is very much one way, then high school equivalent of an essay, which Red Scare?, the one today?, why is this important, because we’re having one again, people calling people McCarthyites, the first Red Scare, super-evil top down, you’ve gone too far, the army is not full of communists, they don’t even believe it, a way of tarring your enemies, Sarah Hoyt, not mentally very well, even if you are worried about communism, Vietnam communism is not Cuban communism, Justin Trudeau is not a communist, fighting socialized dental care, for war with other countries, he is the Liberal party in Canada, Russia – Ukraine war, a horror show, they didn’t know, only the Russians are evil, from the Baltics, Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians, the biggest sin there is, they look like twins, you killed my family, wars, resentment caused by individual people in power, his dad had a beef with Iraq, an excuse to do something, a precedent for this, not a good thing, atrocity, killed the dog, if people want to be kings, you have to show people, we’re not going to do kings, they brought the king back, still a movement to put him back in, the Pantheon of Rome, the reinstatement of the Italian monarch, we should be done with monarchies and oligarchies, Kaiser relatives around?, King of England, Prince Louis Ferdinand, aristocratic, increasingly irrelevant, huge inheritance taxes, a punk girl, popped out a few kids, tabloid celebrity, terribly conservative, used her celebrity appeal, an actor, Young Indiana Jones movies, dukedom, private railway station, finished in 1916, can’t mingle with the common people, museum now, city government buildings these days, something to eat, Monday it is, strong painkillers, doped up, coffee, an extra hour’s sleep.

Lowdown Road by Scott Von Doviak

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!