The SFFaudio Podcast #490 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Human Is by Philip K. Dick
The SFFaudio Podcast #490 – Human Is by Philip K. Dick, read by Julia Morgan (this audiobook comes to us courtesy of Morgan Scorpion). This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (33 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa VU, Evan Lampe, and Julia Morgan
Talked about on today’s show:
Startling Stories, Winter 1954, what is human?, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, empathy, Lester is a horrible person, Lester wants to kill human beings, the alien is too good to be true, getting Lester back, a kid and a kitten, the illustration, I know how this story was created, at his typewriter, shut up I’m typing!, PKD is Lester, poking fun at his own obessiveness, the nagging wives, the annoying wives, this time he’s the guy who’s the dick, Evan’s notes, the four stories: Out In The Garden, Beyond The Door, Of Withered Apples, neglected wife and aloof husband, an affair with a non-human entity, what was he going through?, The Father-Thing, the Husband Thing becomes human, what you think of the title, questioning the meaning of the title, “handsome is as handsome does”, don’t judge by the looks, it always applies, you’re looking very handsome, great language, Lester Herrick came back from Rexor 4 a different man, robant, Jill gaped, you’re looking lovely, do I smell a delicious repast warming on the hearth?, he’s always playing a game of whose telling the story, the narrator can change sides, watch out for my tiger!, the tiger did this, it’s just an alley cat, human is as human does, a Devonshire lady, stupid is as stupid does, Forrest Gump (1994), the lurking background sexual motivation missing from the adaptation, Beyond The Door, a child comes into the story, “a friend”, a rival for the wife’s affections, the brother, human beings are more complicated than just sex, underneath all that technology and gender roles, sexual jealousy, Julia doesn’t see it, Marissa doesn’t see it, Paul can see a longing, a longing for a child, Out In The Garden, a kid and a garden, a god or an animal, Leda And The Swan by W.B. Yates, the old college friend, Jesse thinks this really happened, PKD got jealous, you have to make allowances after all he’s a scientist, wife leaving her husband, your still classed as sexually adequate aren’t you?, handing the boy over to the government when they’re old enough, communal spartan living, Progeny, an autistic kid in the family, you think a lot of children, Gus loves to go visit you, I’ve had fun, almost the opposite, this isn’t about sex but he’s waiting it equally, Helen O’Loy by Lester Del Rey is a porn addiction story, when women complain about men watching porn, romance fiction, what these aliens do, the odd diction, an ideal abstraction, books mostly, romantic novels, 19th century Jane Austen, another PKD story, astronauts who died in space and return and are arrested, a poor copy, aliens invading as door-to-door salesman, aliens trying to mimic humans, Impostor, Spencer Olham, he passes her test, this is not a story about empathy, Dick is wrong again (about his own stories), programmed automaton, acting kind, being kind without empathy, not faking, differentiating the real without an internal narrative, Jesse’s snobbyness, reviews of the Human Is episode, she chose her own personal preference to allow the invasion of the Earth, her false testimony, infiltrating Earth, the Rexorian Lester is wonderful, super creepy, she’s got his love, this is exactly how women get into bad relationships, at best it will be like Helen O’Loy, the TV version ups the stakes, the missing child, the substitute child, the little Gussy needing to come over there, how the brother is, he’s distancing himself from his sister, his job as a lawyer, the otter slide, an annuzlement, he’s going to live with them, the jealously flipped over, defensive of the original Lester, you think a lot of children, there’s no question whether he is or isn’t the alien, super-wise advice, yeah he has a big nose but look how good he is with kids, how cold blooded is that?, beautiful on the inside, Centauran parasitic life, merely an opinion, another robot, robants everywhere, a robot who becomes malicious, where’s Gussy’s mom, what does the mom think about that?, what happens to Jill after this?, you can divorce people, Philip K. Dick’s life story, the five wives of PKD, just a bad day?, you’re a monster, too many amphetamines, he makes poisons, he’s just the worst, a scientist who makes toxins, military role, a weird profession, designed to make us hate him, less believable, straight up adaptation, now clear out of here, the reports are stories, his cheeks flushed his eyes sparkled, the most explicit version of the wife as a child, Upon The Dull Earth, Jill’s heart was like lead, sit in the garden, bring your tiger, Vidsender is Skype, nobody speak, he gets a letter from Donald A. Wollheim, off to the shack in the back yard to write a novel, the portrayal of these child wives, the wives of the 1960s,Clans Of The Alphane Moon, Now Wait For Last Year, 1959, Cleo and Anne, a 1950s wife with no child and no responsibilities, finding pleasure and life elsewhere, we know what she wants, she wants a family, the proxy child is available, how I keep the family whole, those toxic little stories you write, it feels like journal entries turned into science fiction, such a sensitive guy, overwhelmed with guilty, February 2, 1953, the 1955 FBI visit, Eye In The Sky, in keeping with, driving lessons, something Paul would say, individuals amongst them are doing good work, not pertinent, Terry Carr, The Ganymede Takeover, you fellas at Ace, I’m embarrassed by this story, they didn’t hand out the best stories, a future season?, radical fixing, maybe, I have not really changed my views, the quality of kindness, rocks and sticks and metal, always talking about empathy, William James pragmatism, what’s on the surface, telling over time, not enough time with new Lester, anything you wish whatever will make you happy, conmen say that, worried about Jill, just run you don’t need another man right now, especially an alien man, her only refuge, lush and green, smells good, compared to where he comes from, they’re out in the garden, Frank is very honest, mushroom sauce and steak stored under the house, the second interview with the brother, I did notice he was getting fatter, the coffee and the rolls and the ice-cream, how Lester and the stove get up to all sorts of things, he’s cheating on his wife with the stove now, that was a sex line, and now he’s romantic, you’re eyes are like virgin pools, the sex scenes in the TV adaptation, Paul liked it, ok, preposterous, due process, a military court, she tricks them with a sixth grade logic puzzle, courtroom fell for it, they set up a straw man to knock down, a good excuse for a softcore porn movie, the sets and the costumes, stupid high heeled shoes, an option for the uniform, not a good adaptation, not a good show, why does that happen?, why is she on the treadmill all the time?, to show she’s not moving with her relationship, sexual liaisons with costumed strangers, lesbianism, the explanation not an excuse, lets invert everything but not the most important thing, why is the director the wife now?, set in 2520, our present cultural values, women should be empowered and have loving husbands, everybody in the military, what’s missing in the story, ever gender is flipped, militaristic, law and order for the rich, flipping the genders of the husband and the wife, the set design, I’d like to have that apartment, a gorgeous closet, a home gym, the Maze, fancy clothying and stabbing each other, am I insane or is this terrible?, adding the big stakes, what you want out of a spouse, missing the heart of the story, if they hadn’t added everything they added, no softcore scenes in The Twilight Zone, how many lesbian episodes, audience expect filler and gender balanced, Black Mirror doesn’t, cheap sex and war, Bryan Cranston’s soulful eyes, uniformly good acting, the start with the shittiest script imaginable, he loves these metaphors, he retains all the memories and yet his emotions are changed, in the story he retains none of the memories, Hugh Jackman as a time traveler in Kate And Lepold (2001), a romance fantasy, Outlander, why did they change the guy’s first name, changes for changes sake, following the slipstream, in Charlie Brooker’s shadow, Ronald D. Moore, getting the most bang for their buck, our turn now girl power, Bryan Cranston as the wife, problematic, swapping everything, switching the emotions, if you’re gonna mess with the structure then change everything, from warm to cold, the story fall apart, the story that Philip K. Dick wrote was so good, ideal visions of themselves, what’s the ideal man supposed to be like?, so many perfect women stories, if you just flip everything the story becomes pointless, that whole sequence in the underground, the missing element from the story is the child, non of the stories in the adaptations (so far) have dealt with children, a Stephen King story written by Philip K. Dick, like It, Robert A. Heinlein, weird kids, the system or the older people are repressing opportunity, impenetrable for adults, Crack In Space is the novel for the millennials, the brown people, Martian Time-Slip, Galactic Pot-Healer, Nick And The Glimmung, autistic boy, adult bullies and jerks, problematic humans, what’s best for the kid, how to raise and educate children, the Jovians are sending board games to earth, War Game, obsessed with children, Isaac Asimov, full of children, they don’t get what he’s about, a pecuniary decision, not a good introduction to Philip K. Dick at all, if this is your introduction to Philip K. Dick you’d think PKD was obsessed with soft-core sex scenes, psychic sex, a man interested in women, borrowing from other stories, resources, empire, the TV adaptation picked out the word “metaphor” and now the aliens are metamorphs, this story is a metaphor for a husband-wife relationship, they won’t even talk about children, you be you, what does that have to do with, Jesse can’t tell what the TV adaptation’s metaphor, The Father-Thing vs The Father Thing, Foster You’re Dead, The Hanging Stranger, all of that stuff is not in the story, top half, irritated by everything they added to it, why not just do this thing and set it in the 1950s future, 1950s weirdness, computers but not in the house, robants that run on punchcards, the aesthetic of the Fallout games, all the TVs are cathode ray, the Philip K. Dick rehtorizer, getting up to all sorts of no-good with the oven, your’e cooking now, I’ve got a bun in the oven, coffee for the rhetorizer, Lester was so indifferent to pleasure he wants his food intravenously, Paul’s re-litigation, he wasn’t bad enough, working harder at making him odious, Major Dad, sirloin steak medium, Counter-Clock World, he has trouble with his pipe, a great comedy piece, it’s funny on the page, a suburban regular girl, perfect alien comedy, perfect comedy, My Favorite Martian, sucking all the humour out of these, Crazy Diamond was supposed to be funny, you can’t have sexy time and comedy?, Sales Pitch was easily a comedy, crapsack earthworld, The Outer Limits, Inconstant Moon by Larry Niven, The Human Operators by Harlan Ellison and A.E. Van Vogt, mean robots, they don’t care about science fiction, military stuff is not even his thing, the material they’re going to use to fix the atmosphere, oil?, being imperialistic, fascistic human government, amping up the sympathy for the Rexorian, the morality of empire, not even sex just dress-up, random strangers, the secretary/assistant, underwritten, the scene that was cut, she’s genetically matched up with him and they have no children, this report on Betelgeuse XI, Fomalhautan fossils, a lawyer for ICE or the Border Patrol, outside of Earth you got to Gitmo, laziness or terrible supervision, shot in black in white in a fallout future 1950s, an episode of The Twilight Zone that never happened, framing devices, make this story live.
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #490 - AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Human Is by Philip K. Dick [ 2:09:06 | 73.77 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadThe SFFaudio Podcast #475 – READALONG: Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward
The SFFaudio Podcast #475 – Jesse, Paul Weimer and Maissa Bessada talk about Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward
Talked about on today’s show:
1980, hard science fiction, Mission Of Gravity by Hal Clement, first contact, the surface of a neutron star, moving the idea Forward, 2016, Tantor Media, this is a terrific book, a Jesse book, big ideas, the human characters, the ideas of this book, how do you do biology on a neutron star, a civilization running much faster, the writing brought it down, the TV Tropes page, minor details like plot and character, very heavily written, really different aliens, a culture, a society, an arc of civilization, from the Stone Age to the Space Age, the religious subplot, forgive them they know not what they do, the Wikipedia entry, this isn’t a metaphor for us, I’m doing a little thing here, the sex scenes are hilariously interesting, all of my egg sacs, body-stiffening, touching all the sensitive parts, under their eyes, I haven’t drooled that way since I was an eggling, made of neutronium, the opposite of Star Trek, The Orville, Star Trek: Voyager, they surpass us, the way the cheela deal with the humans, a slow robot for fast humans, early culture and early problems, visiting H.G. Wells’ writing career, the hominids, cave man society, cave cheela, inventing math, seeing how you can get from there to here, agrarian farming, the tasting plates, knots, the 2001: A Space Odyssey moment, Thus Spake Zarathustra, putting on a book like a new pair of pants, in the constellation of Draco, 30au, more poignant now, giving up on the space program, set in 2020-2050, the Soviet Union, neither government is willing to spend the money, a spacefaring civilization, an old relic of a book, a big dumb object, how the cheela perceive reality, this is amazing!, magnetic lines, the hard direction, bootstrapping that, seeds, full of idea science fiction, what I want from my science fiction, slowing down, let it wash over you, hard to understand, carrying a slide-rule around while you listen, problems that need solving, trusting Forward’s math, getting the gist, loving science, not about bullshitting, why they would visit the neutron star, mechanically putting the plot together, delivering the ideas, “a textbook on neutron star physics disguised as a novel”, monopole technology, a theoretical concept, handy for Larry Niven novels, Infocom’s Starcross, mining monopoles, what are monopoles?, regular matter, 80s novels, generating monopoles from monopoles, nuclear fusion, if we had a hammer…, a bonanza of hard science fiction and medium soft medium hard sf boiling around in the 1980s, space opera, napoleonic war in space, technologies, math is a kind of technology, James Burke’s Connections, the creation and invention of tools, how the airplane got made, streamline the parts, a made up rhyming history of our technology, dismissing new tech that is unuseful now (is a mistake), blockchain technology, valuable properties, cryptocurrency, inventing or discovering an element or a property, wait 50 years, when you’re zipping through time, million times faster, turns, a guy with a sword, Maissa got knocked out, knocky, no leftover sexism, predominantly female, failed tyrant queen, immortality by vegetation, barracks emperors, megalomaniac, kill all the scientists if they fail, eating their dead, they’re not humans, Soother separating her eggs from the others, Pink Eyes, a religious conversion, out in the desert for 40 turns, laugh out loud moments, the antics of these tiny cute weird creatures, nobody’s getting married, their culture is based on their biology, their biology is based on their chemistry, their chemistry is based on their physics, minimal ecosystem, Flatland: A Roamance Of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbot, afraid of math, written by A Square, invasion, straight lines are females, invasion literature, a Cosmos episode, The Orville, our world is shaped like an egg, having a ball, real worldbuilding, long rectangular lines, big and sticky, Eric Rabkin, thousand, why is the world named mescaline?, a math book, what beings would have to be like at the surface level, a thousand times faster, slow as in stupid, turning up the speed, 1.5 times speed, gear up (with a lot of coffee) operating at a higher speed, certain countries, the day seems to go longer, we are able to operate at a higher speed, Luke Burrage’s Science Fiction Book Review Podcast, getting certain things done, running around naked, crystalline vegetable matter, they don’t have oral communication at all, tremor sense, marching up the hill, give your peace cry, don’t get punctured by a woman, how would this work?, no wheels, a game of Civilization, many barbarians to conquer, sad news, curing breast cancer, flood her with x-rays, Robert L. Forward died of cancer, you don’t need a sequel, we didn’t need that, planting little clues, “here read this!”, no Prime Directive, Machiavelli, Napoleon, just a phase, Larry Niven, Lucifer’s Hammer, Lester Del Rey, Isaac Asimov, Charles Sheffield, John Campbell would have loved it, Frank Herbert, more interested in ideas than anything else, let’s go on another adventure with the serial numbers filed off, the same but different, psychological thrillers, the fan of real science will love a book like this, narrator Todd McClaren, funny and hilarious, very sexy grains of sand that want to be sandwiched, Downpour.com, I really like Dragon’s Egg, take a book and pass it to your friend and they like it, the joys of an author and their work, I need more rubles for computer time, a good mix of people, pretty cute tuckerizing, more messed up, if a neutron star entered the solar system, robot space probes, no Hoffmann transfer orbits, all Greek?, anecdotal scenes, superconductivity, this is a vacuum, aerospace physicists, extracting electrical energy from the vacuum by cohesion of charged foliated conductors, Hendrik Casimir, the Casimir effect, quantum vacuum fluctuations, getting energy from nothing, free energy from reality, as we go…, spending money, dropping more dumb bombs, never look forward, seeing more clearly when you look backwards, why were we so obsessed with that thing at that time, what’s this like?, kind of silly, energy levels, regenerating, wish fulfillment, seeing changes in its society, Olaf Stapledon, blowing along through geologic time, struggling against, they’re vegetables?!, god hand-wavy world creation, how to get the kind of brains we have, advancing when going in the hard direction, we have overcome to advance, I’m not getting this, cuneiform accounting a brilliant book.
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #475 – READALONG: Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward [ 1:09:32 | 40.04 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadThe SFFaudio Podcast #462 – READALONG: Sandkings by George R.R. Martin
The SFFaudio Podcast #462 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Scott talk about Sandkings by George R.R. Martin
Talked about on today’s show:
1979, out of the ether, one of Scott’s favourite stories, excellent short fiction, what does that say about Scott?, it hits you differently, playing out, horror and science fiction, the 1995 The Outer Limits adaptation, Beauty And The Beast, tuf voyaging series, the thousands worlds, Jack Vance-y, the magic shop trope, Wo and Shade, The Reel Stuff, short stories and novelettes turned into movies and TV shows, trading one shope for another, military, Melinda Snodgrass, a very different beast, a family of Bridges, who Shade is, Wo vs. woe, Salem’s Lot, Gremlins (1984), piranhas, goldfish, Simon Kress, Martian soil, a story of obsession vs. comeuppance, one of the best endings, it breathed, the others, orange children, all of them had his face, hitting the horror note, this isn’t the Frankenstein story, let there be light, playing god, being worshiped, when can I turn on the hologram, Microcosmic God by Theodore Sturgeon, a cruel god, neoterics, patents, a “business man”, rakes in money, exotic pets, the poor shambler, leaving his pets, his “friends”, gambling, cruelty, Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask Of Amontillado and The Masque Of The Red Death, George R.R. Martin grew up poor, New Jersey, every G.I. Joe that’s ever been made, how can people live in such luxury, “spoiling” children, JUSTICE, a horror, where’s Wo?, “We got another one.”, an open thread, good advice, no malice, Wo is very polite, the Wo family, some Maw, Baldur, the reflection of the workers (the mobiles), you can live in harmony with these creatures, all on the surface, Jesse’s mind goes crazy, totally science fiction without much science, horror in a science fictional setting, a horror story set on a Vancian planet, it won all the awards, Nightflyers, the weakest?, The Way Of Cross And Dragon, The Ice Dragon, Harlan Ellison, Grail, I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, everywhere, Nancy Kress?, The Shambler From The Stars by Robert Bloch, H.P. Lovecraft, J.R.R. Tolkien, Stephen King, the clarity, “he wasn’t interested in that”, “Insects.”, hmmmm, eating up GRRM’s text, A Song For Lya, Robin Of Sherwood, space punk, goth punk?, dark humour, always hard to swallow, easily digestible pieces, Poe-like, the comic book adaptation, faithful, DC Comics Science Fiction Graphic Novel 7, 1987, Wo is female, incredibly faithful, emptying the refrigerator and the freezer, calling his friends, Fitcher’s Bird, Bluebeard, dilettantes, collective punishment, working on the level of a folk tale, the macabre, staring into the abyss and liking what you see, are they just animals?, psionics, seeing his soul, Populous, For I Am A Jealous People! by Lester Del Rey, Sim City, Civilization, victory conditions, the goal of the game, perversity in Jesse’s (and everybody’s) nature, a delight in smashing your own sandcastles, we resonate with it, wanting to see destruction, a house of cards, The Conqueror Worm, the sound of the cosmos, “invisible wo”, the mimes are humans, the children have his face, by a crowd that seize it not, in human gore imbued, almost a science fiction story, there’s no one answer, Hellboy, BPRD, a relatively shallow story, the experience is the experience of it, the Dreamsongs Volumes I, II, and III audiobooks, the name of the monster, maw gives pap, the Pit of Sarlacc, back to his doom, not an easy trick to pull off, super affective, the sword stabbing scene, then to a restaurant, contamination, bribery, a personal disaster, flee the planet, a sprawling manor house, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, an indictment of the pet ownership process, don’t leave your baby in the car (or your German Shepherd), Lloyd Bridges handing a boy a puppy, how badly aged the show is, I saw him in the window and couldn’t resist, Cowboy, a lovely father-son dynamic, where does he go wrong exactly?, where does Frankenstein go wrong?, to stop death, rampage, a lack of love and care and attention, the carrion hawk, what happened to the original cowboy?, very iconic, dealing with something real, horror stories only work when they’re dealing with something real, we’re operating on that level, mimesis, a genuine feeling, yes! of course!,
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #462 – READALONG: Sandkings by George R.R. Martin [ 1:05:09 | 38.92 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadThe SFFaudio Podcast #437 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Turning Wheel by Philip K. Dick
The SFFaudio Podcast #437 – The Turning Wheel by Philip K. Dick, read by Mike Vendetti (this audiobook comes to us courtesy of Mike Vendetti). This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (52 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Mr Jim Moon, Marissa, and Mirko Stauch.
Talked about on today’s show:
clearness be with me, novelette, Science Fiction Stories, issue 2, 1954, the far future of The Faith Of Our Fathers, an ambush ending, Brian Aldiss, I wish he wasn’t on speed, adrenaline or heroin hit, really funny, the most hilarious thing ever, walking around Hollywood, cruel glee, Sigma 2 Foxtrot, full of ideas, building a world step by step, small hints, not Dick’s best story, The Philip K. Dick Fans page, baffled by, pointing to something, the plot, what are we supposed to make of the ending, another turn of the wheel, penicillin, a return to reality, false beliefs, the next world, the tinkerists, a parade, a secular meeting, taken on too much, a racist and anti-racist story, awkwardness in his own body, PKD was a cauc, an interest in the numinous, a repairman, ambivalence, crapsack future, post apocalyptic dystopia, a Yellow Peril story, Indians ascendant, the lowly caucs, rotations of karma, circles within circles, humour, the PKD stand-in character, “my mind is still impure”, denial of education, entertainment, food, bardley class, some sort of satire, Scientology, Dianetics, A.E. van Vogt, John W. Campbell, there’s not much science in it, self-helpy, therapy replacement, psychotherapy for the afflicted, did Dick ever go to a Scientology meeting, Lawrence Sutin, phhh, Elron Hu (Bard), pretty crazy, in the center, e-meters, Aleister Crowley, apocryphal stories, Lester del Rey, founding a religion, Michael Shermer, the Robert A. Heinlein anecdote, the Harlan Ellison anecdote, what is religion for?, The Man In The High Castle, even the caucs of Detroit, the colonial governor, what is the purpose of religion?, how strange a man, a born liar, a similar mentality to Trump, a serious mental illness, a system, persuasion, the appeal of any religion, offering answers, tradition, social structure, what do they say?, they look with their blank stares, creepy, free test, no eye contact, Sung Wu, this is what the real world’s like, so much fear, it will jangle you, deprogrammed, the medicine, bad days, mental crisis, free floating anxiety, existential angst, this electronic device is not going to hurt you, free (at first), haters, every cult, the Westboro Baptists, Cults!, rusty and unoiled, a jammed disposal slot, any stable society is menaced by cults, are we stable society, teetering on the brink, blind to the rot, rationalize, this is fine, do not repair, do not fix, shooting bullets with a rusty gun, deterministic nature of their faith, predetermined, divine will, a cheap argument, the lowest class, off to Spain, a silent messenger, the basic catechisms, busy mixing, a hairy cauc sweating and galumphing around like a neanderthal, one of PKD’s wives must have called him an neanderthal, Mary And The Giant, technos, pale and unhealthy like nocturnal insects, othering the Caucasians, I’m pretty hairy myself, lascivious looks, human dimensions, incessant whining, laughing and wincing, full of hypocrisy, the robots, “clearness be with you”, welded to its waist, some tinkerist, a plow, legacy leftovers, the TV repairman part of PKD, science is good and engineering is great aspect, hoping for recycling, monorails everywhere, nuclear war, open sores, farming the ruins of Detroit, a cool image, Time Pawn, revisions, world-building, wanted more meat, nicotine or copper, insecticide, our brothers, reacting to Eastern Mythology, gnostic, I Ching, of course not, reading the Dick’s Exegesis, jangled with spirits of murders, Thetans, I wanna murder you right now, not my best self, externalize, a lascivious bastard, getting clear, on a spectrum, mental issues, so productive, maybe this will work, a marketable madness, negative thoughts, that’s the bad part, panic attacks, agoraphobia, depressions, the link between graphomania and mental depression, you wouldn’t see anything, sitting on Philip K. Dick’s shoulder, across the street with binoculars, it must be frightening, nobody has the answer, a powerful ending, a lot of reflection of our society, making animals suffer is bad, sorry spider, take it to the limit, hairy and sweaty, ultimately we’re smart and we have science and engineering, he ultimately believes that American industrialism is a good thing, penicillin is awesome, his only real giant point, its about empathy, kipple or gubble, back into organized states, old religions, a new world order, out of the ruins of the old society, deeply symbolic, they could make the same mistake, primitively wise, they suborn ’em, expiration dates on drugs, unpacking the brushed over, how do we know that it works?, a poor little fly on an alien planet, a self-deluded cult that’s taken over the world, we have no guarantees, to reboot Scientology, it would be VR, you’re jangled!, VR as a treatment for PTSD, I remember all of Blade Runner, I don’t need to watch it again, the Vangelis soundtrack, the cause of my jangles, that room, put yourself in a basket, the Mercer cult machine, no decent self-respecting woman, incredibly hairy, like apes!, ape-like, dealing with racism, a yellow man criticizing white men, a white ascendancy, a horizontal ascendancy, we’ll have to share the same outhouse, oh my Hubbard!, the black empathy box, Wilbur Mercer, an Empathy box, an E-Box, the virtual reality of Perky Pat, a regular person, you have to have so much knowledge going in, Roog, deciding to become a vegetable, what is he saying here?, did his wife say something to him?, why would anyone publish this?, no movie will be made of this (as it is), wishing it were a lot longer, Piper In The Woods, the Green Man, what’s he getting at here?, New Wave, why is that guy doing that?, is he New Wave before his time, Gonna Roll Them Bones by Fritz Leiber, things are like huh, Day Million by Frederik Pohl, pre-inoculated for the changes to come, a boy goes to prison for treason and comes out a girl (Chelsea Manning), turmoil and rage, I was thinking about this two decades ago, fifty years ago, a story aimed squarely at the heterosexual male, stick with me, still a love story, there’s something going on there, not meant for the ages, for lining your bird cage with, we’re clear, and marked as suppressive persons, vegans, what you gonna stop eating fruit, totally put off, kind of cute, The Misfits, is abstaining from alcohol a religion, not having to lie, the religious fervor has passed, 27 year old Toyota,
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #437 - AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Turning Wheel by Philip K. Dick [ 2:05:32 | 57.63 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadThe SFFaudio Podcast #198 – READALONG: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
The SFFaudio Podcast #198 – Jesse, Tamahome, Jenny, and Professor Eric S. Rabkin discuss The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury.
Talked about on today’s show:
Rock Hudson, The Martian Chronicles (TV adaption), Eric’s Coursera course (Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World), The Million Year Picnic, I, Mars, The Moon Be Still As Bright, Usher II, the hot dog stand on Mars, fix-up, The Long Years (a robot family), Night Call Collect, There Will Come Soft Rains, a book of poems, novels of recurring characters, “composite novels”, “the culminating image of the whole book”, Cortez burning his ships, “were definitely going to need the daughters” (if the daughters are willing), Joanna Russ, Picnic On Paradise, The Million Year Picnic, “tamed nature”, the publisher’s motivation, Walter Bradbury, the market change (with Ballantine Books), “Mammon rules again”, the table of contents, Way In The Middle Of The Air, a more Edenic ending, 1984, North Korea, Earth Abides, the Golden Gate Bridge, getting a sense of the author, H.P. Lovecraft, colour, repetition, word choice, Spender, The Moon Be Still As Bright, Captain Wilder, the instinct to be cruel, the instinct to minimize the horror, the instinct to shoot the tomb robbers, feeling the emotion he’s trying to give us, the physics, nostalgic, seeing it from all sides, Farewell Summer, Bradbury’s gut reactions, The Martian Chronicles as a fairy tale, Isaac Asimov’s reaction, Fantasies set in space, Usher II and censorship, “the Poe machines”, the colour of Mars’ sky (blue and pink), the Martian canals, The Green Morning, Johnny Appleseed, the epigraph, “…space travel has again made children of us all.”, Christopher Columbus, the Chicken Pox plague, Another America, telepathy, the noble savage, a symbolic America, The Pedestrian, Bradbury was a strange guy, Fahrenheit 451, Edgar Rice Burroughs, the Martian high culture, the second expedition, “look up in space, we could go to the Moon!”, dinosaurs!, Mars Is Heaven, Science Fiction is supposed to have knowledge in it, imagery (sight, light, and fire), the brass band, Columbia, The Gem Of The Ocean, music, Humans are technological, Martians are emotional, the window, Beautiful Ohio, music dominates (not intellectual knowledge), Genevieve Sweet Genevieve, “fully lyrical”, the fire lay in the bed and stood in the window, the dog symbolizes the entire loss of the human race, the long monologues, getting it without filtering it, The Musicians, Rocket Summer, “it made climates”, the silences, the music as a symbol for American culture, the killing spree, The Off Season parallels with the second expedition, an inversion, Bradbury has it every way, Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus, Sam Parkhill, an epitome of perverted American ideals, Bradbury loves hot dogs, Dark Carnival, Something Wicked This Way Comes, mournful Mars, America by Ray Bradbury, the Wikipedia entry for The Martian Chronicles, The Taxpayer, the urge to improve, alas, the silhouettes on the house, Chernobyl vs Hiroshima, a grim meme, what gives this book it’s staying power?, Nightfall by Isaac Asimov, L’Anse aux Meadows and Roanoke, maybe it’s circular, “we’re the Martians now and we will be again”, Night Meeting, Stephen Hoye narrated Blackstone Audio, Bradbury’s reading, Bradbury’s first flight, Harlan Ellison, wasting time on the internet, Ylla, The Ray Bradbury Theater, Mardi by Herman Melville, making this book cohere, what part doesn’t fit?, reading it as short stories, “it’s an American book”, robots, decommissioning is murder, Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick had a shared contempt for litterers, crassness, The Electric Ant, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, I Sing The Body Electric, Walt Whitman, “it’s the music!”, there’s no switch, gingerbread and tea, Helen O’Loy by Lester Del Rey, are there stories not included in The Martian Chronicles that should have been?, Way In The Middle Of The Air, The Other Foot, different editions of The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, The Fire Balloons, Stranger In A Strange Land, Grouch Marx (Lydia the Tattooed Lady), The Penal Colony by Franz Kafka, The Veldt, The City, Rod Steiger, Dandelion Wine, The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
Posted by Jesse Willis
The SFFaudio Podcast #198 - READALONG: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury [ 1:29:35 | 82.18 MB ] Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadBadge Of Infamy by Lester Del Rey
Here’s a terrific audiobook. It’s one I hadn’t thought of for a long while, but now, looking at its plot and themes, it seems fresher than ever before. It’s about healthcare, political lobbies by powerful interest groups, ethics in a time of corruption, and the red planet, Mars.
The complete audiobook is available from LibriVox, but what’s new here is a |PDF| made from a scan of it’s original publication in Satellite Science Fiction, June 1957! And it’s beautiful!
Badge Of Infamy
By Lester del Rey; Read by Steven H. Wilson
1 |M4B|, 15 Zipped MP3 Files, or Podcast – Approx. 3 Hours 19 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: January 17, 2007
Daniel Feldman was a doctor once. He made the mistake of saving a friend’s life in violation of Medical Lobby rules. Now, he’s a pariah, shunned by all, forbidden to touch another patient. But things are more loose on Mars. There, Doc Feldman is welcomed by the colonists, even as he’s hunted by the authorities. But, when he discovers a Martian plague may soon wipe out humanity on two planets, Feldman finds himself a pivotal figure. War erupts. Earth is poised to wipe out the Mars colony utterly. A cure to the plague is the price of peace, and only Feldman can find it.
Podcast feed: http://librivox.org/bookfeeds/badge-of-infamy-by-lester-del-rey.xml
iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|
Illustrations from Satellite Science Fiction, June 1957 (artwork uncredited):
Posted by Jesse Willis
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