Lawrence Block – SFFaudio

The SFFaudio Podcast #779 – READALONG: The Colorado Kid by Stephen King

Jesse, Evan Lampe, Cora Buhlert, and Terence Blake talk about The Colorado Kid by Stephen King

Talked about on today’s show:
Terence without a story, no story here, short novel from Hard Case Crime, pretty slight, the narrator, this fake Maine accent, a little hard to understand things here and there, you get used to it, the name of the owner of the restaurant, some of the beginning, Jack Ruby vs. Jack Moody, JFK is in here, a theme, a throughline between the stealing of the money and the keeping of the article, it’s our story, it’s not for the people from away, including the US government, everybody does it, not nationalistic, localistic, a political point, what these islanders are like, such places, lonely and weird, late 1990s, drive up from Boston to the Canadian border, Acadia national park, a rental car, an ice cream parlour, a cinema, and a gas station, we don’t like strangers here, local teenagers were hanging out, staring at us, talking German, the two strange women, priceless looks, an old A-Team episode, when you read Stephen King, exaggerates this aspect of it, condensed, a love letter to Maine, Pet Semetary, Derry, know the town’s secrets, talking to each other and playing cards, in the Lovecraftian sense, you gotta remember it, the illustrated version came out in 2019, the disc break, when it first came out, a really big deal, used to sell Hard Case Crime, no. 13, the biggest living author up to that point, when Stephen King hit, drew attention, Cora retweeted an article, a paid advertisement, affiliate links, Holly, whatever that means, in terms of sales, Charles Ardai, Joyland, Crichton ones, crossover appeal, Later, a thematic sequel to The Body, on a publicity tour, host of a TV show, NPR, hardboiled, noir, crime encrusted filthy books, Ardai bent the rules, an introduction to the 2019 publication, The Birth And Rebirth Of The Colorado Kid by Charles Ardai, revive pulp fiction, gorgeous dames in torn negligee, grab you by the throat, someone lay bleeding in the gutter, about the same as a movie ticket, bookstore, drugstore, a quixotic plan, half a century earlier, there was drinking involved, David Dodge, Day Keene, Wade Miller, maybe there’s a well known writer out there, write us a blurb, gone on record, John D. MacDonald, Lawrence Block, Richard Stark, the great Donald E. Westlake, I understand completely, I tried to sound cool, it would contain a mystery, a boxing story, a western, it presents a hard case, the mystery of the unanswerable, the classical mystery tradition, Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, Flitcraft, vanished like a fist when you open your hand, if that’s not a noir story…, a pretty weirdest book, an experiment, a thought experiment, a philosophical parable, metafiction, trynna make some points, teased, this is a fantasy book, continue their legacy, if she doesn’t go on to the New York Times, I’d like this to be true, small towns have newspapers, county paper, the Tri-Cities, the last issue of the last newspaper went online, its owned by a corporation, required by law ads, not doing news anymore, before the internet killed off these smaller newspapers, The Province (newspaper), The Vancouver Sun, a corporation asking for donations, this is a fantasy world, he has a fantasy setup about how things will work, there’s no Walmart here, wherever Mooselick is now, King Soopers, things have changed, corporate control, corporate extraction, the earlier setting in the 80s, he’s almost a regional writer, he’s been to California, what percentage are outside of Maine?, he’s not a city guy either, Deer Isle, Maine, other island stories, Dolores Claibourne, a zombie apocalypse, strangers experience, the island on the show called Wings [Nantucket], you’re gonna make it Stephie, passing the torch, making a story out of nothing, the story is there’s no story here, to make it a story, story construction, a central mystery, one of the two interchangeable, more than a single gunner, that’s Stephen King for you, can’t even separate them from each other or King, the girl is pretty well done, a fantasy, she’s from Away, write about hayrides, we’re gonna last years, a little fastforward, the really old one, skip to 2023, she sold the paper to a corporation has kids and lives in Ohio, is Jesse being too cynical here?, school is in, not supposed to be solvable by the reader, Jean Paul Sartre’s Nausea, waves don’t form a story, a thing without a story, an event without a story, a philosophical education, resistant to paradigms you bring to bear, even if you fail all the time, all the stories published in the newspaper are lies, a beginning a middle and an end, the meta-level, an inversion of values, the insular mentality, closed minds, they don’t like strangers, big city people, Heidegger used to say, even if he was a Nazi, in closer contact with Being, the real people in touch with what life is, inculcating existential philosophy, independently constructed a theory of story, the school of problems, is this deliberate?, what Evan said, what makes a book memorable, this story about story, mysterious lights, a story about how stories are told, real life events are turned into a story (or not), the other cases, weird lights, UFOs, church picnic poisoning, dead boat, a likely story, some kind of weird crime that was never solved, an unsolved murder, 22 years, Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975), the art in the book, the last image of the story, Stephie looking out of the view, there needs to be a sexy lady, a newspaper folded over the rail, Vinceteague, Chincoteague, wild horses, the story goes, a Spanish shipwreck, annual capture of the herd, sold to rich people, Cora’s experience, intruding on their local haunts, a defensive look, you’re a tourist, curiosity, you’ve just walked into their living room, boxes full of board games, a community center, we can’t blame them for the weird feelings, take your money and monetize, a generous tip, need two old guys who know the score, like they see it go round like it’s in a dryer, he’s gonna give em a book, bringing a book to our lowly new publication, Lawrence Block is a really great writer, nobody cares, everybody knows the name, everybody can act like him, that’s the fantasy, supporting local causes all over Maine, patriotism on a local level, Walter Gibson, he didn’t move away, he’s made it a virtue too, this is how one ought to be, 31,000 people, a Lovecraft idea, you can write from anywhere, I don’t fit in New York, August Derleth, those regional things your writing about Wisconsin, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Cross Plains, [City Of The Singing Flame], set on a hike, it’s for you, you’re local now, that’s the story, why didn’t they give him a story, they just take his money, right Evan?, I guess, it’s a response to the idea that stories must progress to a point, to critics, why is that there?, why is IT 1,000 pages long, meditating on that, letting the story breathe and be what it is, that’s the change, bring everyone to the parlour, why they kept it secret, Nero Wolfe isn’t going to show up, Jesse’s week theory: it was suicide, why would he do it in Maine?, the geographical solution, people running away, the physical limit of the border of the country, maybe his wallet was stolen, just like the food out of his hand, insure you choke to death and have a brain hemorrhage, old guy detectives, the money gets to the right hands, Stephen King likes moms, trying to help moms out, a less important gender for child raising, like an old gay couple, help out as best they can, published in all the papers in Colorado, desperate old men all over the United States, Hancock Lumber, a pay paper?, free weekly, no longer, two on Sunday, newspapers called out, New York Times, Boston Globe, Bangor Daily News, if done in realtime, restaurant to the seaside newspaper department, giant printing machine, go get a muffin, a pee, some coke, pee break, retro flashback to the future, he died six months later, obituary for the really old guy, 1915-2005?, she’s still there, smelling the seaweed and the fish, front page obituary, small town newspapers, editorial content, usually on the front page, local journalists running around, small arts events, festivals, local sport, shooting competition, report about Hugo winners, desperate for content, dine out on your story, a young woman, a man in his forties, the Russian coin, the red herring, a Russian sleeper agent, The Americans, told to come to Maine, a commercial flight, a very good theory, why do you carry evidence you’re a Russian around?, 10 ruble coins, a plot point or not, a sleeper agent from an alternate earth, he’s from another dimension, supernatural elements, he can’t help it, why not?, the lights, the author said it was extraterrestrials, Rendezvous With Rama sequels, Mary Celeste, the Doctor Who version: The Horror At Fang Rock, aliens landed in the ocean, Telefon (1977), the Soviet Union objected to the movie, the premise is that there’s been a purge going on in Soviet Russia, hardliners, trying to start WWIII, a detente, a Robert Frost poem, fugue state, suicide mission, Charles Bronson is a KGB agent with a perfect memory, when they die, this guy died in 1922, these are fake people, the birth certificate of a dead kid, the suicide theory, how to fit all the pieces together, the gun in the hand pointing at the head, assassinated, a calling card, maybe he found it on the beach, perfectly constructed, because it’s a fiction story, some newspaper stories are completely fiction anyway, without having the tweet thread, a bad idea of what actually happened, Sherlock Holmes, getting the quotes wrong, a well constructed meta-story, characterization is immaculate, backstories of various people, the widow eating her meal and looking great, this island and its people, a mystery that can’t be solved, no obvious solution, the church picnic, The Shining, Stephen King’s explanation, telepathic powers, ghosts come to life, the story is terrific, his way of solving, psychic powers, so good at telling the story, a problem of madness, a psychic command to go to Maine, much more elaborate, a central character who ends up dead, goes to quite a length to justify a death to alleviate a problem, drinking himself, fucking around with his boss, hurting his kid, trying to do right, go live with the magical blackman in Florida, Murder She Wrote, Jessica Fletcher, Cabot Cove at Universal Studios, giving school, the coziness of the town, the judge, another graduate student, a CSI guy, local time colour, CSI being a good show, grounding it in the period of time, peak of its popularity, so many spinoffs, it’s realistic, super unrealistic, weird tiny clue, the reality is Mark Furman plants the glove at OJ’s house, the theory of the case, fuck it he’s guilty, told not to look in the bag, the underlying theme: it’s okay to cheat, that’s just a Stephen King move, desperately wants to be Stephen King, a descent attempt, one aspect, kids, boyscouts, body horror, The Troop, Dreamcatcher, a central ideology, lensing all his writing through, this is what I believe, the NPR series: This I Believe, Heinlein’s, we all cheat a little bit, it’s good to like our locals, the definitive Terence thing, when you’re an old many running a newspaper in Nice, fuck off and sell your paper, a smaller town, an island off the coast of Spain, Glory Road, nude island off the coast of France, nude island, the whole island is news, Île du Levant, naturist resort, gonna have to get into nudism, inside on an offset typewriter, wear big hats, prove that you’re not wearing a wire, East German nudism, lingering nudism, Wreck Beach, sunbathing garden, close to exhausting this very slim book, 3.5 hours, padded out reprint, 2005 afterword not in the audiobook, a real case of a woman in Maine who died and was never identified, unsolved and unsolvable, the phenomenon, people hate mysteries, the reason the police are there to solve crime, a collective will, find somebody to blame, who the victim is, teenage drug dealers, not a story, cold cases, years after, calls after all these years, crimes no one really cares about, some kind of theory, one of the big fictions, it’s the drug cartel, they’re so horrible, court cases, drug dealers are so bloody stupid, they’re amateurs, that’s not their business, unsolved without a story, two boys [Sebastian Burns and Atif Rafay], murder, awaiting extradition, France off the coast, upper peninsula of Michigan, the Point Roberts anomaly, [turns out Jesse is conflating two cases from the same period, the Sebastian Burns Atif Rafay case and Frederick Gilliland (who was tricked into Point Roberts), Jack The Ripper, still trying to solve, supernatural solutions, time travel, space alien from Star Trek, 150 year old, the Zodiac Killer, annoying people, the police were not fully corrupted, lazy bastards, pressuring people into confessing, Homicide: Life On The Streets, a bunch of people to kidnap the governor of Michigan, money, retarded, lonely, not reporting on stuff, unsolved cases in Germany, equivalent of a state governor, Switzerland, a famous hotel where other people have died, a famous press photograph, late 1980s, dressed in the bathtub, someone important, Mossad, the Iranians, a shitty terrible person, the official verdict was suicide, Seth Rich murder, no story here, perpetrator unknown, no one would do that, Salvador Dali would have killed himself like that, constantly screaming, this is of course locked, July 10, 2016, 4:20 am, a victim of attempted robbery, with lots of citations, leaked DNC emails in 2016, hacking the email accounts, quotation marks around that, Hillary Clinton had broken the rules, Donna Brazile, thumb drive, how fast can u download?, no good evidence, it’s always Russia, Mossad is pretty fucking active, if you talk about Seth Rich on youtube, we’re nit going to have this be a story, shot in the back, some political reason, die on a beach, the thing that’s being addressed here, making a connection between or fear of random seeming deaths and how being unsettled by death is, The Body, the point of that story, hit by a train, dead crow on the sidewalk, who did this?!, it only matters when it’s people, maybe it died of old age, I don’t need a story to make me feel better about it, hit by a car, our response to the fear of death, what he’s going for, the the dead kid on the beach is Stephen King, he’s 42, hit by a van, 1999, mentioned at the end of the audiobook, a little biography, making a story out of the story, now I feel satisfied, satisfied there was no explanation, not knowing the others, always broken up, bathroom or muffin, we can’t experience it as a framed story, jump back in time, circle back to the table, a TV show, Haven, an FBI agent, relationships, she has a relationship in this book, somewhere in Ohio, leaning up against a garbage can, a little essay by Brian Aldiss, what sticks in your memory from science fiction stories, inspire you later, the example of a mad robot on the Moon firing into the void, not a powerful enough image, he’s a blank slate, emotion, empathy, whatever, before they knew the story from the widow, in 20 years, a vague impression, sounds familiar, short, bought the book at an airport, these old guys, a young woman, sitting on the beach looking out at sea, the new cover has that, looking at the corpse, a girl with the tape recorder, Glen Orbik, nothing to do with the book, really, Holly, simply written, for the Hollywood Reporter, a familiar King protagonist, September 9, 2023, Stephen Colbert, latest book, quickly shot to number one, 2014’s Mr. Mercedes, If It Bleeds, Finders Keepers, $30, just $19 right now, on audiobook, narrated by King, The Gunslinger, online for free!, lit window, silhouetted windows, by today’s standards, an improvement over that, in the 1990s, 80s are great, Scribener’s reissuing, The Institute, Rolling Stone, I like her so much, go on with, what she was up to, supposed to be a walk on character, stole my heart, the supernatural realm, dealing with covid, covid-denier mom, eventually succumbing to the disease, wear a mask, get your vaccination that doesn’t work, mom, a time capsule, devour, emdash, all the familiar trappings, covid books, I’m not going to read that, unimaginably deprived, the book’s description, summon all her formidable, professors, the shopping section, to bookmark it, crime fiction roundup, I’m reading a Stephen King now, of course he’s up to this, very well written, King likes Gibney, 15 hours, Evan is looking forward to it, Fairy Tale was illustrated throughout, Gabriel Ba, yeah, yelling at Evan, how can you stand this shitlib?!, build up a whole narrative, fully embrace how awesome, as a thinker, his essays, his fiction writing, not extraordinary, Lester Del Rey hits the buttons, build a robot lady in their basement, what happens if humans uplift dogs and monkeys, character constructor, limited ideas, stepping on his dick, the lone gunman theory, he’s a good boy, he has to, the sex scenes for Cora, Vaush is gonna misinterpret, free publicity by denouncing it, why does Cora read The Guardian so much?, triggered, the news is so fuckin shitty, translate them, nothing Jesse needs to know about, a few episodes, didn’t need to think about it at all, license Stephen King something, like Foundation, getting sued by King, how many ongoing TV series, Castle Rock, the good one, not the quality, the sheer number, Netflix tv shows and Netflix movies never have sex scenes, foreign language, an American company, Jessica Jones had sex scenes, boobs?, Oppenheimer, HBO, Cinemax, in the 1990s, slightly less than pornography, sex in them just to have sex in it, titillation while watching a murder mystery, random sex scenes rammed in, Outlander, Foundation sex scene, dirty limericks, well shot, unAsimovian, how would Asimov take it?, Janet Asimov, Terminus is destroyed, ruined it for her, a symbol of the whole series, we’re destroying Asimov, taking Asimov back from Asimov, the format, interesting idea, you don’t have to watch it, Cora has made herself into a fan writer of this sort of shit, Terence is a glutton, Terence hates himself, Wheel Of Time is better, lowest common denominator, bad crime dramas, some SFF stuff, Star Trek, The X-Files, 30th anniversary, nothing to watch, interestingly quaint, corrupt but not in the way it really is, aliens, skeptical of the government, the official policy is aliens exist now, when are you gonna release the videos, space force, Time For My Stories (Chapo Trap House), peak of the American Empire, anxiety of decline, The Sopranos, plagued, watch old movies, watch Mission: Impossible original TV series, CIA competence niceness, overthrow their elections, not actual agents, very good competent, actor, strongman, electronics experts, model, patriotism, out to help people, works, well made, the music, the editing, cliffhanger stuff, they don’t get what Mission Impossible is, Miracle Mile (1988), Trombone nerd, WWIII, Los Angeles, Tangerine Dream cinematic universe, westerns, Jesse gives Terence too much homework, The Last Run (1971), car chase, working class detective, weird today, still really good, dutch without subtitles, Tangerine Dream, striking, online somewhere, William Friedkin died, in with the news, The Exorcist (1973), Sorcerer (1977), The Wages Of Fear (1953), bluesky invite, Sopranos memes, no use for it yet, good meme, 1977, releasing his movie against Star Wars, we’re gonna wipe the floor with that shit, I was still right, The Mandalorian, trapped in South America, stuck in the jungle with no money, the dynamite has gone by, very very slowly, fuckin Amazing, almost wordless, the name of the truck, don’t the French love Friedkin?, a French film star, a huge hit in Cannes?, be your boyfriend from highschool, jungle vs. desert, very international, Steve McQueen, Roy Scheider Ally McGraw, Dominican Republic, popular holiday destination, not very American at all, Austrian actor, really really good, science fiction, fantasy, not a wink of fantasy, we’re done, put the book in the mail, Ill Met In Lankhmar, Evan is going to send the audio, in the original French, Arabic through Greek, own private language, what we all do, whatever language we are tweeting about, good discussion.

The Colorado Kid - ILLUSTRATED by Glen Orbik

The Colorado Kid by Stephen King

The Colorado Kid - ILLUSTRATED

The Colorado Kid - ILLUSTRATED edition

The Colorado Kid - ILLUSTRATED

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #422 – Frozen Stiff by Lawrence Block

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #422

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Frozen Stiff by Lawrence Block

Here’s a link to a |PDF|.

Frozen Stiff was first published in Manhunt, June 1962.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #761 – READALONG: Downward To The Earth by Robert Silverberg

The SFFaudio Podcast #761 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Terence Blake, and Jonathan Manfred Weichsel talk about Downward To The Earth by Robert Silverberg

Talked about on today’s show:
downward dog, the sad story, a biblical quote, Nightwings, lots of short stories, 200 short stories?, sensing a pattern, The Book Of Skulls, Up The Line, Thorns, Dying Inside, similar tones, 1970, 1972, serialy in Galaxy, awesomely similar, Sundance, maybe having a mental breakdown, Tom Tworibbons, first nations native, setup the colonization, exterminating a possibly sentient pest, Colonel Kurtz, favourite writers, Lovecraft has Poe and Dunsany, Silverberg’s is Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer, Conrad is not really sciencefictional, rather elderly, a whole basement full, the comic book, its very French, one of the guys looks like Silverberg, aware of the adaptation, why did they make me that guy, Philippe Thirault and Laura Zuccheri, same bear same hair same face, messed around with the plot, so internal, such a novel novel, as opposed to Harry Potter, in his head, try to make a Dying Inside movie, cloud forests, getting into his racist head, voice over narration, look at the original Dune movie, that’s the book, the Villeneuve, why Jessica has to cry all the time, a superwoman who must cry in every scene, being upset all the time, more evil or less ready for their rebirth?, a different part of Gunderman, dialogs struggling with his internal self, the tour guy dude, Kurtz, externalize all of the that, cut them down and synthesize them into the basic idea, decide what each character represented, Avatar 2, a 3 hour movie, my unconscious is smarter than I am, a one hour on a similar theme, The Crunch, a tv movie by Nigel Kneale, most of the good stuff out of the UK is just Nigel Kneale, former island nation colony, takes place in realtime, natural resources, we’re all friends now aren’t we?, now pay us back what you stole from us, kinda like science fiction, resentment, African or North American or South American or island colonies, The Mouse That Roared (1959), drops you into it, similar to what we have in this book, the colonization of a planet, back for more, they thing that they wanted to get: unobtainium, a piss take, Cameron was a science fiction reader, moving off Earth, financing the whole trip, capitalists from Earth, makes you immortal, killing all these sentient whales, the relationships between the na’vi and the whales, the two alien species we have in this book, to see that pattern, interconnected, they literally link together, commune with each other, let’s do colonialism, let’s pull back from colonialism, Stephen Lang, he’s a Colonel Kurtz, twisted and evil, seeing the ending coming, foreshadowed from the beginning, quiet about things they shouldn’t be quiet about, meat-eater vs. omnivore, peaceful aliens, peaceful vs. pacifist, our main elephant we’re riding, him, permission from the human to kill the human, taking it as an order, whales are not allowed to fight, one of the whale characters, bad whale, excluded from the group, being violent to another sentient being, we warhawks here on earth, yeah getem!, power armour, a meditation on African colonialism, the Humanoids comic book company, I went to Kenya in 1968, I’d always liked Conrad, his mode at this time, he’s really into this stuff, Philip K. Dick drug-trippy, transcendence, interior life, immortality, relationships gone bad, Majipoor, a big series, strange dream and psychedelic stuff, wandering, getting into adventures, less interior, more Vancian, a new wave book?, painfully new wave, I like this book, what new wave proves, complaining about navel gazing, navel gazing is good, meditative, Sundance blew Jesse out of the water, alien baby factor, disturbing, they left that out, why?, amped up the sexuality and the nakedness, a French move, what scenes parallel what scenes, that snake pumping station, the three witches?, maybe, what they’re doing is horrible but we don’t know why, giving hallucinogens to horses, that’s the horror, cultural appropriation, species appropriation, terrible behavior, a native secret ceremony, how do these taboos develop, no photography, connected to the people, the taboo is there in part because we don’t have the physical transformation, a healing ceremony, an activity done by people who know what they’re doing it, solve some community problems, not scientifically proven, backlashes with the insects, everybody’s friends, some of the alien lifeforms are not you friends, eaten by some moss, you can commune with everything with your pony-tail, your horse, your sky-horse, your whale friend, cougar behind that tree, the bear will not meditate with you, the coyote will take your kid, the quasi-cultural appropriation, the tounge thing from Maori, the tree people bear their teeth and hiss, we’re all going on a spiritual journey, we can’t talk about it, respect our cultural practices, more Silverberg than Conrad, an initiation into the shadow side of things, Marlowe, sitting on a boat waiting for the tide to change, experiences in the Congo, a framed device, I went up the river, heard about this Kurtz guy, doing genocide, the slaughter of the elephants vs. the cutting off of hands, this book can’t exist without Conrad’s book, after colonialism, Kurtz is going back for forgiveness, it’s its own story, tourism as some element of every Silverberg, he’s writing what he knows, immortality but not in a way anyone would want, regrows limbs and heals damage, the rebirth ceremony, makes your sins go away or turns you into a puddle, on a symbolic level, the original X-Men movie, Magneto can turn people into mutants, forcibly mutantized, interior nature and interior sin, reflecting the inner life, none of the robots get to have a rebirth ceremony, patient AI, wall decoration, not a threat, the physical animals, fucking around the meaning in the comic, more Avatar earth mother, the planet is alive, the mother of souls tree, waking up the life of the planet, do the revolution, the plateau where transformation happens, a poor substitute for rebirth, go downward like beasts, gaining psychic powers, starchild in 2001, he becomes space Jesus, Paradise Lost by John Milton, the better the angel the more he can fall, Ecclesiastes, maybe animals and humans are or aren’t the same, if we’re special and they’re not, creatures without souls, munching the weeds, they are beasts, their leaden spirits go downward, sapient spirits go upward to the mists, the boom boom boom, he thought it was drums, they don’t have hands, a very pretty comic, huge hardcover, Paul should’ve loved that, not recognizing what a map, communicate with my dog, the frisbee section, the knowledge game, what a map means, not recognizing a picture, visual representation of an object, so many questions, what he’s doing in this books, spent some time, starts off the main character as a racist, that was me in the past, the other elephant guys are telling him, a new wave thing, engagement with the ideas, the sweat lodge, they need to, a cultural practice, we got to get your head on straight, a dance ceremony as medicine, dance therapy, bandages and drugs, a real solid engagement with non-western medicine, Badge Of Infamy is a medicine book, the baccy weed is gonna solve all our problems, the drug has actual effects, as used as a medicine, get Tolkien smoking pipes, changes your brain state, we’re not using it properly, the wafer on my tongue, transubstantiation, a dream state, I’m going to break into the rectory and get me some crackers and wine, special penance ceremony, kill things, pretty brutal, go down to earth temporarily, a healing ceremony to prep for transcendence, I am the emissary, I am the light of the world, love one another, he’s space Jesus, milking snakes, a funny phallic scenes, what stays in Vegas, masturbation contests, help all the other humans go through rebirth, galactic faith, an ecstatic state, this is that thing, impose the elephant people’s stuff on the humans, already in a state of grace, The Word For World Is Forest by UKL, Vietnam War, a pugnacious book, in the afterword of the colonization, a quiver full of kids, his blue children, an adopted white (human) kid, the sky people are back, Apocalypse Now (1979), the other way to go, after, goddamn those horrible fat cow people, maybe I’m not right, the same debates, relinquishment, 20 years in Afghanistan, they’ll just not let girls get educated, Eye Of The Monster by Andre Norton, playing a conservative author, a more nuanced view, a more liberal view, in science fiction in general, healing vs. drug abuse, fried up on drugs, A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick, psilocybin, body horror, a liberation for our disabled main protagonist, a joy, a different attitude towards the concept, very palatable, wanna live in Avatar, a fantasy, living in a VR meta, his brain transfer, thinking you can be immortal, downloading your memories, that’s not how it works, Think Like A Dinosaur by James Patrick Kelly, way more engaged with a reality, puddle Kurtz, a thing on the wall feeding you black liquid, much more Alien (1979), only if they have to pee, people are alienated from their own bodies right now, they’re not comfortable in their own skin, the mind-body connection, ceremony connecting, body and mind and spirit, separate vs. connected, Silverberg vs. Cameron, where the horror is, the inside manifesting itself physically, a very solid book, grandmaster award, what is his standout work?, Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, short stories, little things that he’s done, a huge long career, is there any such thing for Silverberg, Born With The Dead, pretends his dead, why they don’t care anymore, sounds great, due to Audible and their evilness, brilliant, he can be amazing, Up The Line, Thorns, a picaresque comic novel, time tourism, a slacker flunky, a time courier, a tour guide for time travelers, have sex with their ancestors and drink a lot, causing a serious paradox, motifs, helix parlours, future drugs, weird connections, light/fun read, also light, Project Pendulum, a lot of fun, futuristic humans, bamboozle them, the quintessential Silverberg: Nightwings, graphic novel, the mouth, Roman Holiday (1953), some audiobook narrator, The Asteroid Stealers, Vampires From Outer Space, Thorns, really good, really dark, really depressing, a psychic vampire, reality tv shows, what authors do too, the short story guy, pretentious, new wave = pretentious, Avatar is just dumb, went on the journey, compared to Andre Norton…, the lack of a map is a feature not a bug, the dreamlike nature of this book, he gets lost, the elephant guys, a theory about the alien’s name, Borgazor, the most beautiful words in the English language: cellar door, that Anglo Saxon, Celtic, less Germanic, a logic to the language to the nameing of the things, an Elf tribe in Tolkien, old guy traveling a landscape of his youthful adventures, This Immortal, Call Me Conrad, [Damnation Alley], now they’re all old, rekindle alliances or hostilities, you see this in so many authors, back to the scene of old battles, the plot of a lot of new wave fiction, just because Jonathan’s old and has had battles, a new new wave writer, attracted to things and not do them themselves, I love Star Wars…, that’s sad, probably never gonna write a westerns, I can like westerns and not make westerns, we can enjoy a whole lot, late 1960s early 1970s, playing on the old pulp stories, less naive and more cynical, relitigate, redefine, Humanoids questions, how did you get into comics, Planet Comics during WWII, how did you get into paperbacks, then I found science fiction fandom, that was a long time ago, since 1969 to now, he thought he was getting old then, I’m an old man now I’m fifty, its taking this time, he exists and he loves the internet, gives the occasional speech he gets yelled at about, Heavy Metal, come out of retirement, famous fantasy novel, Lord Valentine’s Castle, I have more to say, keeping up with all the new books, 90s collabs, regular editorial, had to apologize for offending somebody, the big three magazines, out of retirement so many times, 2015/2016, Lawrence Block has retired several times, here’s an old book I wrote, a habit that’s built in, people like it still, I got this need to write it, it makes me feel something, wasn’t Marion Zimmer Bradley a grandmaster?, so many movies, Isaac Asimov, fixture on late night television, what do you think about speculative fiction, a rational and sand and excellent writer, I never heard of that, hundreds of works, his reputation, series are generally popular, what’s crazy about Silverberg, manic depressive thing, a ton of novels, fallow seasons, he turned down a nomination, compete with one another, Tower Of Glass, he was writing that many books, pretty darned good, Hawksbill Station, very prolific, A Time Of Changes, a J.G. Ballard vibe?, the guy who died of crystal infection, in reflection, the stuck couple, the brooding pit, a Drowned World sort of horror, feels less new wave?, Terence loved all of it, not a very visual person, descriptive passages are less interesting, the audiobook voice, Bronson Pinchot, bad experiences, a pleasure to read, Sailing To Byzantium, Grover Gardner, like and dislike, forced to tone down the performance, they only have gestures, by looking at their eyebrows, sardonic or whatever, a performance that can overwhelm a book, reading Tim Powers, the other kind of narrator, a straight narrator, getting the pauses perfectly, better audiobook taste, from the sitcom, The Bronson Pinchot Project, a weird hobby, 1985, Sixth Column by Robert A. Heinlein, prepare your racists selves, language changed for the book publication (vs. the serialization), City Of Singing Flame by Clark Ashton Smith, Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, two dudes, Shakespeare’s Planet by Clifford D. Simak, Invitation To The Game, The Charwoman’s Shadow by Lord Dunsany, A Midsummer’s Tempest by Poul Anderson, the Canadian less shitty Andre Norton, Michael Crichton, Stephen King, Peter Straub, Progeny by Philip K. Dick, A Meeting With Medusa, just a blah book, his pre-post war stuff, 6 hours, do you have a Heinlein problem, sir?, as one should, you’re angry with the man, Farnham’s Freehold, most people are afraid, a special ranting booth, oh my god, this is getting creaky, The Number Of The Beast, the original illustrated version, next Heinlein, everybody wants to be on Starship Troopers, let’s do all the racist ones, winnow the podcast, a completely different interpretation, A Voyage To Sfanomoë, how he got his vocab, he read the dictionary, completely self-taught, one week in the United States, Boy Genius!, George Sterling, no you cannot do that!, his mentor guy, okay father figure, Lovecraft became his Sterling, revering, the opposite of August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, a tie, his terrificness, his ideas are weaker, beauty, Charles Baudelaire is a freak, Les Fleurs Du Mal, Terence put his hand in the mouth and is still two handed, put something in there, we need to talk about your audio quality, plug in some headphones, earbuds are not comfortable for two hours, more active noise cancellation, iPhone is pretty darned good.

Humanoids - Downward To The Earth

Posted by Jesse Willis Become a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #394 – Hard Sell by Lawrence Block

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #394

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Hard Sell by Lawrence Block

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

Hard Sell was published in Ed McBain’s Mystery Book, No. 1, 1960 (ghost written for Craig Rice).

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #748 – READALONG: Passport To Peril by Lawrence Block

The SFFaudio Podcast
Jesse, Maissa Bessada, and Will Emmons talk about Passport To Peril by Lawrence Block

Talked about on today’s show:
Anne Campbell Clark, 1967, internal stuff, guess what year this photo was taken, asking about JFK like he was still alive, Teddy Kennedy, the Irish connection, proud of him being president, very few people have read this, a book worthy of reading, noped out, pretty horrific, too sunk into it, a cocoon of singing and countryside, a lovely little book, not going anywhere and not upset about it, almost plotless, not all books need to have plots, spending time with Hobbits in Hobbiton, an old lady who likes to bicycle, red herrings, Will’s first Lawrence Block, the trip to the countryside, all of the lovely singing, I never shall marry as long as I live, really liked this book, who is the audience, Helen MacInnes readers, neither had Lawrence Block, spies with a little romance, romance with a little bit of spies, how smooth did this go down, easy drinking all the way through, it was a formula, the bad guy came around, there he is, why does that priest want her passport, maybe I’ve misjudged him, he’s back, women protagonists, usually a male, page by page, line by line, a little bit much, intoxicated, a 24 year old in 1967, the height of the sexual revolution, chaste for a folk-singer, they get snug and snuggle, she hides her nudity, not so folksy as one might imagine in real life, the scene with the IRA, pastiche-ish, that part never happened when Lawrence Block went to Ireland, a massive amount of violence, let’s go have a party, one of them gets shot and they keep having a party, movie-like, none of the dialogue felt clunky, what kind of folk-singing, Airplane!, lady with a guitar, inspirational songs vs. historical events, WWII essay, WWI, WWI’s influence on Ireland, the Irish Rising, home-rule in 1922, according to Star Trek [The Next Generation] and Mr. Data they’re going to reunite next year, all of us under the British rule, the overlords in Egypt, real bastards, it doesn’t translate across generations as well, gearing up, the ultimate McGuffin, because of the title, back to the passport, easy listening, P.J. Morgan, a lot of singing, male voices too, accents, a really good job, if I was P.J. Morgan and I had finished this book I would be superhappy with myself, a recipe, 191 pages, 5 hours 38 minutes, a short novel, a young lady who goes on a trip, chased across the countryside, a monster, a hero, delivering what women want, nice and smooth, the historical research, enthusiastic about Irish history, great fun, a double checkmark, creepy and scary quite late, when’s it gonna turn, grusome, burned to death, legs blown off, shoots somebody’s brains out, starts with a horrible murder, really violent, a nice guy from Philadelphia to leg cling to, a nice old lady who gets strangled off screen, the German guy with a family, what happened to the kids?, the casting room, spy training school, the woman with the red hair, in the ring?, a nice Londoner, leaving cards together, he’s playing a great great game, I need to tip my hand, when Ellen gets into the car with the priest, you’re just ahead of her, ahead of Jesse, I wish I knew my Irish history better, a really good promoter of stuff on his blog, the afterword, the blog post about Passport To Peril

In 1966 I was living at 16 Stratford Place, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. I’d spent a year in Wisconsin as an editor in the coin supply division of Western Printing, and just when it looked as though I might have a future in the corporate world, I realized it was the last thing I wanted. I’d been writing books all along, and I moved east and resumed writing full-time.

My agent, Henry Morrison, came to me with an assignment. Lancer Books, for whom I’d written a few books during Larry T. Shaw’s editorship, wanted to publish a romantic-espionage thriller in the tradition of Helen MacInnes. I hadn’t read anything by Ms. MacInnes, though I knew the byline; her books were published in hardcover, and frequently wound up on bestseller lists. Mine would be published as a paperback original, and bestseller status would be not even a fleeting dream.

I don’t know if I actually read any of the books which were to be my model. I probably skimmed a couple. I knew what was required—a clean sweet likable American girl as the heroine, a reasonably exotic foreign locale, and a couple of people who were not what they appeared to be, including an evident villain who turned out to be the unlikely hero and love interest, and a dashingly attractive good guy who turned out to be an absolute rotter.

I could do that.

And I knew just where to set it. Ireland. Where else?

I’d actually been to Ireland, which gave it a leg up on the rest of the world. In the fall of 1964, a few months after the move to Racine, my wife and I flew to Limerick and spent the better part of two weeks driving around Ireland. We had a day in Edinburgh and a few days in England, but Ireland got the bulk of our business.

Aside from brief forays into Canada and Mexico, this was my first time out of the States, and if it felt like an adventure, it felt even more like a homecoming. It’s clear to me that I spent at least one past life in Ireland. Among my earliest memories are ones of listening to Irish songs on the radio. (There was a girl who sang “Toora-loora-loora” on a local amateur show, and I’m pleased to report that she was the winner three weeks running.) I had a set of the Book of Knowledge, and from it I learned all the lyrics to Wearin’ o’ the Green.

When I had begun selling short fiction and was casting about for a book to write, I decided a novel of the Irish rebellion and civil war might be a good choice. But what did I know about it? I amassed an extensive library of English and Irish history, and read a surprising amount of it. And, around the time that my interest in numismatics was steering me toward the job in Wisconsin, I began collecting Irish coins and tokens and medals.
No question, then. I’d set the book in Ireland.

Ever since the trip, I’d been picking up records of Irish folk music. The Clancy Brothers, of course, but also a slew of Folkways albums on which various singers, some more gifted than others, collected songs of the 1798 Rising and other blighted periods in the land’s sad history. As G.K. Chesterton wrote:

For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.

Well, why not make my heroine a folksinger? Why not send her to Ireland to collect songs? There, of course, she could meet the wolf in sheep’s clothing, and the sheep in wolf’s clothing, and things would look decidedly dark for a while, but eventually the sun would burst through. I mean, it would have to, sooner or later. As far as we could make out, it was always either raining or about to rain in Ireland, but maybe I could cheat and have a little sunshine toward the end.

I went to New York to write the book. Don Westlake had sublet a studio apartment on West 24th Street in Chelsea; he’d lived there briefly, during a marital rough spot, and kept it as a sometimes office until the lease was up. I moved in, and brought home Passport to Peril ten days later. I don’t know if the title was mine, though I rather think it was. I know the pen name was mine, and I know that forty-five years later nobody else on earth knew it.

Henry knew back then, but I’m sure he’s long since forgotten. My first wife would have known, but I don’t think she ever read the book, and would be surprised if she recalls anything about it. Irwin Stein at Lancer would have known, but would have had no reason to remember. Among the book-collecting fraternity, no one had a clue. This book, and Fidel Castro Assassinated!, are the two works of mine that somehow escaped detection. The latter, written under the name Lee Duncan, was recently reprinted as Killing Castro by Hard Case Crime, and has since become available as an OpenRoad eBook. Passport to Peril now makes its first post-Lancer appearance as an e-book, and I can only hope you’ve enjoyed it.

I read it myself recently to ready it for publication, and I was surprised to find that I liked it. Remember what Yeats wrote?

Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave. . .

True too of the Ireland of the 1960s. It was a curious pleasure to revisit the time and place, if in my own work.

the exact same thing, good at remembering how things happened in the 60s, very Lawrence Blocky, passionate about foreign revolutions, a CIA plot to kill Castro, a cheque to the farmer with the dead sheep, what ever revolution is happning in that country, the Evan Tanner series, comedic and silly, almost perfect for what its doing, broader, like James Bond, cartoonish, fun but silly, a Korean war veteran, shrapnel in his head gives him a superpower, The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep, why readers would like a book like this, I become a supergenius, whatever republic that wants freedom from colonialism, participating in their revolutions, joke book, The Canceled Czech, light and fluffy, Tanner On Ice, literally frozen, a participant in the ideas the book he is producing, numismatics, a book on racewalking, walk faster than other people, the Hit Man/Hit List series, cozy, there’s a guy in Mexico who needs to be shot, I like Mexico, observations in a restaurant, really into stamp collecting, an action scene, whatever subject he turns his attention to becomes a very very readable book, can you write a book about assassinating Castro?, technically required to do this, Will material?, not-enough enthusiasm, emphasis and underlining and exclamation marks, Classic Crime Library number 15, how quiet it has been resting, Lawrence Block took control of his publishing, he’s the one, making you buy his stuff, around an participating in his estate, incredible, he’s so good, Westlake through Block, turns out its a real book, Westlake’s highs are higher but Block’s more consistent, a lady on vacation, why that guy slipped, an excuse to have her in peril, an excuse to have a lady chased by spies, maybe she will marry, he was trying to be caught, no one knew, there’s a tip off, out of genre for most of the people who read Lawrence Block, she goes to a movie, something drums, “A Sound Of Distant Drums”, a calling card, or a signature, somebody coming out of a movie theater, that’s cool, his Burglar series, The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart, The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian, topic books, exploring some little niche, standup comedians bits they connect together, researching and polishing ideas, Burglars Can’t Be Choosers, the girlfriend is the murderer, settles into a formula, really really fun, passes the time, go have a sandwich, oh yeah one of these, that paperback book industry is where he really lives, take a paperback and enjoy the weekend, a song saved her life, why I like folksinging now, Kumbaya, historical information, how to be, in America 2, here 12, makes you want to drink stout, listen to folk music, the festival circuit, the premise of this book, the state department in real life is evil, spread American culture, money spent on evil not on good, cultural activities, Eastern block, throw money at a problem, Lawrence Block needed to have an excuse, her family’s all killed off, one and done, they’re happy and their Irish now, both green, 2 cigarettes, more cigarettes, they stopped to buy more cigarettes, the new taste, so much smoking, they don’t need food they’re thin and young, dates the book, you could write this book, their sten guns would be something else, Berlin, Ukraine or something, delightful little book, make you say “I’d like some stout.”, Guinness, a wish fulfillment fantasy romance, read the back cover, little tipsy here and there, poignant moments, the songs, the stories, a Brothers Grimm thing, went out to all the pubs, music and stories are the same, all personal histories, probably wrong, music that’s close to the people, in the process of collecting these folk songs there’s some exploitation, selling a record, who’s going to see the proceeds of that record, what is the purpose of this?, to commoditization it?, spread it?, share it?, Stan Rogers, Barrett’s Privateers, east coast Nova Scotia Irish kitchen, a fun song, it has swearing a letter of marque, Sherbrooke, god damn them all, Halifax, the staggers and jags, such a good singer, sea shanty folk song, Montego Bay, sailing terms, incapable of catching a slow moving ship, smashed like a bowl of eggs, both me legs, in my 23rd year, six whole years, War of 1812, while you’re paying attention, similar to The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, a homeless beggar on a pier, the big Coleridge poem, the same story as Annabelle Lee, grateful and thankful, what has Will been doing?, back into politics, a tenant union, a communist caucus in the DSA, COVID last months, 2 and a half weeks, testing positive, not very sick, flu-like symptoms, paxlovid, our medicines don’t protect us or help us, that’s crazy, a lot of cat action happening, a core group of nine cats, stranger cats, a high number of a cats, all feral, the boys that aren’t fixed are both named Brandon, one darker than the other, let’s go Brandon, telling the Brandons apart, laser eyes, that’s the dark Brandon, smaller feet, chipmunk feet, Brooklyn Dad Defiant, a very 90s name that’s a 2020s name, Owen with Gs, beg to come inside, Tobias, to bite toes, a bias towards toes, a negotiation, mother and grandmother of them all, a mean old cat, a sour disposition, the dog will let her, irritable, you can just come and rub up on my dog, mean old girls, on the roof some, Maissa’s fascinating life, editing Ace Galaksi, social media stuff, blogs and newsletters, let’s do an internal podcast, a link on the dl, what is Maissa’s job?, lots of divisions, pr, edit videos, write and produce pr things, listen to the podcast, if I need to know, 15 minutes at most, once a month, reediting a novel for 20 years, middle school, rewrite a billion time, I got out my library card…, regarding that game [chronophoto], everybody’s wearing fucking masks, anytime after 1950, AOC, 2018, an I voted sticker, eerily obvious what year it is, figure out what year that was, talking about Kennedy being president but not talking about Kennedy being assassinated, in county Cork, is the book dated?, no, it’s a period piece, au courant, everybody’s playing with their iPhone 6, bullying each other, only play with a group, a couple repeats, playing PUBG, a faster version of the game, early January, online vs. in person, got rid of some old computers, that to lean on, Scott does the editing for Reading, Short And Deep, 4-6 hours per day, 8 hour days are horrible, and the show’s over, 10 hours per day, send me a secret signal, Burn Notice, a comiccon, Battlestar Galactica, Archer, a throwback, Pulpcovers/Alex, the last of an earlier era of television, problem of the week, and a weak overriding plot every season, he used to be spy, just a premise for the show, exotic locale, it has a car, 80s, A-Team van, Kitt from Knight Rider, Dukes Of Hazzard, the car is the star of the show, an actor based show, Gabrielle Anwar, an IRA terrorist, Jeffrey Donovan, Bruce Campbell is the sidekick, the Evil Dead series, Sharon Gless, Cagney & Lacey, flip phones, 2005-2011 show, a fine show, a comic book, a sidekick on Xena, western shows, The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr., short lived Fox shows, Zorro style, Jack Of All Trades, what you can do while you’re at work, a half hour syndicated action comedy, 1801, East Indies, a swordfighting, masks, Napoleon Bonaparte is character, Mr. Charismatic on screen, bicker in fun ways, a good fun show, Spider-Man villains, Bubba Ho-Tep (2002), Elvis and JFK, it should be an amazing movie, a little long in the tooth, the cylon lady, Lucy Lawless, you see those people together, the Spartacus tv series, Blood And Sand, 300 (2006), the acting and the dynamics, a slave morality show, diaries?, slave folk heroes, Kirk Douglas, what would it mean to be a slave, having sex with the slaves, a great villainess, New Zealanders, Evan agrees, a slave rebellion, the servile war, amazing history, super-compelling on-screen performances, green screen, practical sets, thinking of it as a play, a tool to get stuff done, laidoff, Vikings was a better show, blood eagle, why you don’t want piss the vikings off, doesn’t overstay its welcome, a maori gladiator, sticking to the facts is fascinating, what is it like to be a celebrity slave, I am Spartacus, a consciousness raising movie, also very sexy, they’re sexy too, regretful but should be done, killing the masters, killed in the end, sexy jumping naked slaves, emotional resonance, very underrated show, 39 episodes, 2013, All In The Family, Happy Days, about as substantial, a monologue about Riverdale, too soap opera, just soap opera enough, Twin Peaks, the original, Deep Space Nine, a very resonant show, better is substantial ways, Miles got trapped in the mine for 20 years, extreme amounts of trauma, poor Miles O’Brien, his wife doesn’t love him, his kid doesn’t care about him, the writers were picking on him, Canadian?, Irish movies, the Canadian film industry, Black Summer, a Netflix show, Calgary, that explains it, the old zombie trope, you are the camera, you don’t know why, you follow that person for a while, this is our main character, nope, they’re killed, weird compared to regular television, Z Nation, an art film, the Asylum, notorious for making cheapo rip off movies, a company designed to make money, the coattails of Hollwood, Sharknado, very surprising, going back all the way, April 2019, not a show like Star Trek Discovery, storytelling techniques that have lain follow, basically praise, the endless sprawling suburbs of Calgary, Alberta, The Crazies (1973), worthy of attention, only one trick: surprise!, the trick works a lot, Stephen King’s The Shining, The Picture In The House by H.P. Lovecraft and Pigeons From Hell by Robert E. Howard, White House-style, axed by ghosts of slavery, based on a black person’s story told to him, a traditional slave folktale, pretty scary, a TV adaptation, anti-mystery box show, sparse in dialogue, what the fuck is going on and why am I so scared, The Extraordinary Attorney Woo, sweet and innocent, childlike, well packaged, young and more than middle aged, a broad range of interests, I think you want it to be great, sweet and fun, Korean film and television industry, clips of this autistic lady, The Admiral: Roaring Currents (2013), Yi Sun-Shin, Korean George Washington, defeated Japan, 12 Korean ships vs. 333 Japanese ships, a slog, historical epics, great horror movies, The Host (2006), the Americans pollute the Han river, evil tank juice, a Godzilla movie, lighter than Train To Busan (2016), kaiju, the worst Korean accent ever, A Man Called Ove (2015), enforcing block association rules, boisterous new neighbors, spends half the movie trying to kill himself, when a movie is not so good, theatering?, Avatar 2, beautiful and too long and mostly a setup for the next one, every crew has a crazyass white boy, very satisfying to see giant arrows go through people, a very clunky writer, repeated himself, Titanic (1997) has gravitas, a big weighty movie, Avatar 3 The Way Of The Rocks, the four elements, exhausted its idea, the na’vi won, Dances With Wolves in space, free of his bad body, a trans story, the transgender kid episode of The Orville, too Star Warsy, special effects heavy, the other way around, show the gender surgery working, trying to sell it on an alien, Ezri vs. Jadzia Dax, a funny situation, Macklin?, they’re both boys, hilarious, like Star Trek but funny, less funny, less good, very wrong of them, Obi-Won was horrible, Andor is not shit, Stalin robbing a bank, a heist show, Diego Luna, Star Wars: Rogue One, many boffins died for this thumbdrive, slow paced, beautifully framed, casting is pretty good, Star Wars writing has been shit, hang out with some labourers, smart but evil, political aspect, Blesson Yates, Imani Pullum [playing Topa], IMDB is getting shitty, a fill-in show, The Venom Business by Michael Crichton, Nazis on the Moon, Evan Lampe started a podcast series reading through everything Heinlein wrote, talked him into it, and maybe Mark Twain, Pirate Enlightenment, Or The Real Libertalia by David Graber, he’s been posthumous for a while, I’m posthumousing right now, autistic style take, all the same, his third posthumous book, “enlightenment, liberty, socialism all the same thing”, hey that’s us!, a radical social experiment, The Hopkins Manuscript by R.C. Sherriff, The Crawlers by Philip K. Dick, crawling abortions being run over by trucks, pretty great story, The Pre-Persons, a weird guy, an interview with Ray Faraday Nelson’s kid, David Agranoff, Philip K. Dick: babysitter, Philip K. Dick shows a 7-year old his derringer, why you have a derringer?, what are you thinking?, this is America, man, too American, we just got problem, do something different in this country, Four-Day Planet by H. Beam Piper, Poul Anderson sword and sandal, Francis Stevens is always interesting, dystopia in Philadelphia, The Heads Of Cerberus, a weird lady, what the fancy people do, Unseen-Unfeared, a few things missing, first published in 1904, Jean Veil, People’s Favorite Magazine, a low rent Italian restaurant, he sells love charms, not tempting, a review by E.F. Bleiler, guy breaks into a house, fights with best friend, a knock at the door, the safe was open, very convoluted, a phial with a stopper with the heads of Cerberus, Dante’s gate, no diamonds in here, what did you do with my cousin, alternate 2018, weird dystopia, no names, just numbers, Mr. Handsome gets a municipal job, a fascist state?, goes in the pit, head of the music department, it’s like the Hugo awards, also stirred up the ashes, seat of her pants, spinning up ideas, opposite of well put together, ideas like rockets going off, Science Fiction The Early Years, Guide To Supernatural Fiction, emdash, 729 pages, a special photographic filter, the soul of a recent suicide, only like an hour, how hard is it to do 47 minutes, we had a good chat, Evan’s been sick, isn’t Paul always at a convention?, socialize, Paul is lonely Libra, Jesse’s just a cancer on society, someplace, pulpcon, money, hassle at the borders, no excuses, lining up for celebrities, Pavel Chekov’s signature, the conversations at the panels are surficial, Pulpfest, 2016, intervening years, a long drive, pulps were more expensive, pandemic prices, Planet Stories for $20, hold it in your hand, oooh look at that ooh!, stay up all night talking to people, if Cirsova were in local stores, Jesse doesn’t want to support Amazon, good used bookstores, lesbian couples are in it for the long haul, a trope almost, they’re bookish, Little Sisters, super-prudes, super-evil, a place of prominence, rent is low somewhere, small town Alberta, a town full of Mormons, an amazing town, Cardston, Alberta, Justice League building, Fortress of Solitude, something out of Ayn Rand, it looks like a bank, cost of living, inflation, $850 for a 3 bedroom and big yard, what does that get you?, giant assessments, working online, the fever has not yet broken on covid, an excuse to fuck everybody and line pockets, definitively its a wash, almost none of the positives are with spreading the disease around, wrecked the industry for in-person tutoring, in person classrooms, kids don’t learn very well online, Paul’s masked up at his convention, the vaccines don’t work for almost any of the people getting them, let’s go back to business as usual, tele-judge, on trial with the judge not in the room, fixed camera, ai shit, a program that you run, that changes where your eyes are focused to make it look at the camera, creepy and interesting, simulated real-life but also fake, no modesty at all, Hawaiian Mormon templeing, nice people, just in this life, Brandon Sanderson, Orson Scott Card is a black name, church homophobia, he’s following his church beliefs, this is the doctrine of my church, and I contribute money to prevent people from getting married, religious objections vs. non-religious objections to abortion, Scott is quite nuanced, say things in a polite way, the same claim about the papists, pushing babies into wombs, bio-ethicists say it is okay to use brain dead women’s bodies, clickbait shit, frustrating fun game, coffee, I can still have coffee, too shaky, three cups max, a catfood shortage, egg pricing, incompetence of a cat named Brandon, personally responsible for inflation, not solving problems, price controls, stick it to the egg industry, milk control board, 59% increase in egg prices, realer food, no-corn in Canadian pop, some breads without soy, Italy has basically real food, pink slime, slight advantages to higher food prices, wrangle some cats, try to find cat food, inexpensive kibble, possums, raccoons.