magic – SFFaudio

The SFFaudio Podcast #720 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Sky Is Falling by Lester del Rey

The SFFaudio Podcast #720 – The Sky Is Falling by Lester del Rey – read by Karen Savage. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the novel (3 hours 13 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Tony de Simone.

Talked about on today’s show:
LibriVox, Karen Savage, she’s good, she’s got good taste, how to pronounce phlogiston, doer vs. dour, any book with phlogiston in it is going to be a good book, a good reading, a good narrator, a pretty good book, this weird book, resonanted, get your feels out and examine how you feels about this book, better in the vein, good is what I’m hearing, world beating vs. world saving, if you want to spoil, sky saving, entertaining, relatively short, van Vogt, old fashioned, universe shattering, the planet was about to come apart, pretty weird, Philip Jose Farmer, more sexually driven, normal for him, time had passed on Earth, animal tribes, the early to mid-60s, 1963, Beyond Fantasy, Galaxy Magazine, MAGABOOK double from Galaxy Press, 1973 publication, No More Stars, Beyond Fantasy, July 1954, 18,327 words vs. 34,493 words, an interesting fact, not all Lester del Rey, Charles Satterfield was Frederik Pohl and Lester del Rey, Pohl diluted, comparing the texts, re-ordering if not new scenes, a frequent collaborator, it doesn’t scream Frederik Pohl, cats and gardens and tomatoes, the opening of No More Stars, northern Saskatchewan, all he knew was that he was, the man with the knife, the masked man, Death to Dave Hansen!, avenging Moses, strangled them where they stood, the when of his reawakening, astrological mumbo jumbo, by the power of the True Name, sucking at him, aware of being alive, one of the dead, there should be no quickening of breath within him, noxious odor of sulfur, a good sign!, only a true being can sneeze, the salamander worked, high frequency radiation, the pre-psyche, a tamed succubus, who killed Foxy Loxy?, boomp in the night, delirious, bull-pusher, bull-dosser, the language wasn’t englais, Canadian French, no word for bull-dozer, the same setup but longer, different people in the room, an expansion, the format, there’s no audiobook of No More Stars, Jesse has to do everybody’s homework, re-read Life Of Pi again, they teach it wrong, character arcs, rising action, getting you excited about orreries, what is phlogiston?, that which what we would call oxygen if we didn’t know what oxygen was, you know of elements in your world?, we have all four here, when trying to expand your elements, metals, how do we get from phlogiston to oxygen, bell jars, air is full of this liquid called phlogiston, dephlogisticated air, from the alchemical days, vocabulary based history, a hard fantasy book, not a portal fantasy, taken from another world, not through a door, a portal fantasy without the portal, his body doesn’t go through a door, materials are drawn from another universe, a mandrake root man vs. made out of human stuff, a certified wife, some many rich things, caring about virginity, they don’t have birth control, our world in the future?, Jack Vance’s Dying Earth, Michael Moorcock, The Magic Goes Away (The Magic Will Come), Matthew Hughes, Gene Wolfe, The Book Of the New Sun, hoqw to get rid of him afterward, The Marching Morons, the C.M. Kornbluth on Frederik Pohl, Idiocracy (2006), you need to fix reality, this is not a complaint, it’s not a comedy, unintentionally imply eugenics, we are in that situation, it’s not genetics, laziness and background, I don’t know any of my friends phone numbers, we won’t even know where we live, take us home, take us to work, reciting all of Homer, all of Beowulf, carrying around the paperback, they had more time, we’ve never had more time, playing computer game, people playing computer games all day long, a peasant or a slave, modern slaves do not have a lot of extra spare time, a lot of holy days, the magic society in this book, they became so dependent on their magic, a very thought provoking book, postulating, Rumplestiltskin, etc., the folk tales that were magical to us when we were young, hinting at science fiction, no ultimate scientific explanation for what was going on, the last couple lines, overexplaining can be a problem, very different axioms, I can do magic here, sympathetic magic, a rigorous sort of world?, how rigorous is our understanding of our reality?, the subatomic and the macrocosmic, there was a big bang, the origin of their universe, how their universe works, we have this nice theory of gravity, what makes the sky literally fall, why do they have to have the orrery model, they don’t need gravity, why?, falling through the holes, falling in all directions?, flat earthers views, if you have a flat earth, the movement of the heavenly bodies, some weird explanation for it, the dome, examining a world in a hard SF way, assumptions we have in background, subsquently influenced, Giants Of Eternity by Manly Bannister, a planetary disaster requiring unique services, what the Martians from The War Of The Worlds do, Marie Curie, Sir Isaac Newton, using some means, you’re our task force, Einstein, Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld, Louis Pasteur, Charles Darwin, Thomas Alva Edison, like the Avengers of Science, bring back to life and put them to work, competence fantasy, brilliant geniuses from history, he can speak Canadian French, they got the wrong guy, touched on a couple of times, his uncle with the same name, your average science fiction reader, destined to do it, the prophecy works out, he has control of the universe in his pocket, he’s literally god, stop the movement of the sun in the sky, dawn in reverse, you can trust him, Solution Unsatisfactory, trust Colossus, under Colossus’ benign dictatorship, a scary sequel, your original Rumplestiltskin, get somebody else from earth, a specialist in folk tales, what type of being?, a wizard drags him into another dimension, I’d rather stay here, L. Sprague de Camp-ish, Joe Johnson, normal sounding names, fun pulpy style, a very short story, Remarkable Story Of Chicken Little, Hen Pen, a gentleman’s garden, how do you know it, Duck Luck, Goose Loose, Turkey Lurkey, how can I help knowing it?, Fox Lox, make haste, bit off her head, cut of her head, same by her, eat her all up, all this from the foolish fright of chicken little, 1840, the more graphic version, the santized version, the repeated lines: how do you know it?, why we have to know about phlogiston theory, authority says so, Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, still eating, all the imagery is GOD, it’s God’s garden, Farmer McGregor looks like god, when constructing your world, base assumptions, we’re like that, characters in the universe, I can do no wrong, we make mistakes, very unsatisfying for most people, you can’t bring your old assumptions with you, real ideas, a fun interesting read, The Enchanted Bunny by David Drake, The Velveteen Rabbit, a Lovecraftian werewolf novel, 5500 kelvin, photography is one of Paul’s hobbies, the science of Dianetics, general semantics, about conjuration, the borderlands of philohophy and natural philosophy, understand reality better, mnake true statements, natural deductive logic, you idiots, you think that’s going to work?, Gulf by Robert A. Heinlein, conflating the actors with the character, Burt Reynolds punches the guy and gets in the car and drive off, Burt Reynolds, sometimes it works the other way, a Batman movie, Burt Reynolds as Batman, he does have a car thing, Smokey And The Bandit (1977), The Good Place, a slightly less good, I’m watching a Ryan Reynolds movie, does it ruin the movie experience?, no, true names tell us something more, and we have more control, it works for cops, exposed as the Gribsnobler, my podcast powers have depleted, Satoshi Nakamura is an AI from the future, legal heat, pronoun shaming AIs from the future, two different AIs from the future?, only under a legal authority, Thunderbolt And Lightfoot (1974), a pair of highwaymen, Clint Eastwood and the Dude from the Dude movie, he likes Jeff Daniels vs. Jeff Bridges, Lloyd and Harry, one of the bad prequel/sequels, there’s lot of good prequels, The Thing is a prequel to The Thing, Rogue One is fine, padded and flabby, don’t bother, The Temple Of Doom, neurodivergence, heavy on the action, hold my focus, the end of any Marvel movie, punchy, use the jewel, Ant-Man, I’m melting, why we don’t need a sequel, how diverting it was, everything is connected, we need more, you don’t need more ice cream, characters, Dave Hansen, the avatar for the reader, Beyond Fantasy Fiction, H.L. Gold, a fantasy fiction magazine, the science fiction market was hot, Galaxy was a massive hit, the literary, a pure fantasy magazine, it kinda flopped, Science Fiction Age, a glossy slick, Realms Of Fantasy, an ebb and flow in interests in interests, a fantasy story with a hard SF premise, hard fantasy, most fantasy stories, the scale is smaller, Upon The Dull Earth by Philip K. Dick, a horror story, Heat (1986), genre, character, length, something they had to read in school, TV series, the average person doesn’t read books, look at the books available, other podcasters, short stories are very unpopular, we don’t know, things do change, technology, YouTube, streamers, technology explaining, how VCRs vs. Laserdiscs, renting movies, flow of technology, why radio was popular, the decline of radio, the decline of television, into their homes, forces of technology changing human behaviors, nothing ever completely dies (it becomes unpopular), Time Out Of Joint by Philip K. Dick, haircutting salons, cars still come with [FM] radios, revealing of our true character, our true interest, our true nature, to literally destroy the world, we don’t need the sequel because we have the implication, really good on ideas, bad on polish, he’s framer, To Serve Man by Damon Knight, as famous as short stories can be Helen O’Loy, robots and people, Weird Science (1985), fixated on Robert Downey, Jr., overcoming social awkwardness, the older brother Chet (Bill Paxton), Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989), playing Battleship with Death, The Seventh Seal, good jokes, even though it has literary precurors, Frankenstein movies, references to movies, Kelly LeBrock, Go Ahead Make Your Day?, the movie audience is unaware, the famous novel by Mary Shelley?, because his head has a crack in it?, how way leads on to way, Shakespeare, understanding humanity, the rising action, the train fight, Black Panther, Shang Chi has a train fight, a certain type of fight, Speed (1994), an elevator fight, a bus fight, a train fight, this character represents sadness, Badge Of Infamy, Slums of Mars, powerful union lobbies, the medical lobby, a pandemic, Daniel Feldman, pariah, more topical, topical vs. epistemological, trust the machinery, the flare bloomed, unbuckling herself, emergency bottles of oxygen, book it now, Midsommar (2019), Stefan Rudnicki, the man who discovered your greatest science: Dianetics, tongue in cheek, set in a fantasy world where all that stuff works, Dianetics only works in a fantasy world, plausible deniability, people didn’t have their feelings hurt that easily back then, more of an immediacy, people are very breakable now, they were much tougher, feed back for the original Star Trek and The Next Generation, same kind of complaints, the new Star Trek sucks, we can’t be friends anymore now, a crossover episode, ridiculous, juvenile, a thing to do, Mariner, the main character, BoJack Horseman, Mr. Peanutbutter, Judy Lynne del Rey was a dwarf, editor for Ballantine, Del Rey Books, her wikipedia entry, best editor nomination, paperback book collection, the biggest publisher in Jesse’s collection, Best Of books, Book Of books, DAW books, the 1970s and 1980s, the popularity of science fiction and fantasy, ACE books is the 1960s 1970s, keeping books in print, New English Library, the British version of Del Rey Books, gatekeepers vs. promoters, reprints, bringing back older fantasy titles, the way publishers influence writers, Otto Penzler, Mysterious Books, Donald E. Westlake, Comfort Station, the disaster movie, a parody, Viking Press, fuck these guys, Otto Penzler gets me, he had to publish with everybody, Seanan McGuire, the big two?, bad for authors, an effect on readers, the Audible Exclusives, sell straight to Audible, self-produced audiobooks, important to recognize, because of the format, ten years goes buy, a bulk up, ’54 – ’63 – ’73, the market isn’t healthy, LibriVox published it, coming out in ’23, seven months from now.

No More Stars - BEYOND, July 1954

MAGABOOK - The Sky Is Falling AND Badge Of Infamy by Lester del Rey

The Sky Is Falling by Lester del Rey - 1973 Ace Double cover art

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Reading, Short And Deep #342 – The Tinder-Box by Hans Christian Andersen

Reading, Short And Deep #342

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Tinder-Box by Hans Christian Andersen

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

The Tinder-Box was first published in Fairy Tales Told For Children, 1835.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #340 – The Dogs Of Salem by David H. Keller

Reading, Short And Deep #340

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Dogs Of Salem by David H. Keller

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

The Dogs Of Salem was first published in Weird Tales, September 1928.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #338 – The Green Door by A.A. Milne

Reading, Short And Deep #338

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Green Door by A.A. Milne

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

The Green Door was first published in Ladies’ Home Journal, December 1925.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #687 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The People Of The Black Circle by Robert E. Howard

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #687 – People Of The Black Circle by Robert E. Howard; read by Mark Nelson

This unabridged reading of the story (3 hours 34 minutes) is followed by a discussion of it.

Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Evan Lampe, Trish E. Matson, Alex, and Connor Kaye.

Talked about on today’s show:
when “the”, Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde, Savage Sword Of Conan adaptation, 116 page adaptation, feeling that text raw, the 1982 Conan movie is a really good movie, lifting a lot from this, it is all of the Howard stories, our counter hero is done with you now, spear through his gut, Thulsa Doom, come to me my child, the magic system, the snake transformation, The Frost Giant’s Daughter, Robert E. Howard’s Greatest Conan Story, what you like about Conan, political wheeling and dealing, how to make your writing better, the three ways of viewing movies, the auteur theory, the star theory, the genre theory, Poe copy, looking for Conan, Kull and Solomon Kane, more paid by the word than usual, rushing through it, broad strokes and hinting, Conan The Buccaneer by Lin Carter and Fritz Leiber, cool intrigue, when the Devi, really good chess movement, Planet Of Iron Shadows?, Iron Shadows In The Moon, pirates, how the story actually works, three adaptations, Ablaze’s French translation, Dark Horse, Marvel’s full SSOC adaptation, gorgeous, atmospheric, action panels, covered in veils and things, trades clothes with the hill woman, smoky mystic, half naked before and half naked again, Alfredo Alcala’s inks are unfinished, John Buscema’s pencil’s, rocks are beautiful, scales and turbans and clouds of dust, the decline in comics, what happened to comics, Ablaze is muddy looking, sorta manga style, when they get angry people go manga, his proportions are wrong, he looks like a mutant, a cartoon aesthetic, not enough nudity, butt and sideboob, her regression scene, one of the best scenes in all of Conan, Skull-Face, “I’ve kissed ladies from Hell”, so good, the shell of the story, the Devi is on a revenge quest, Conan is trying to be a leader, admitting responsibility towards his men, the mark of a leader, Queen Of The Black Coast is run by Belit, Yezdigerd, why all of this plot is happening, agents, Thoth Amon, the King of Turan, gaining the kingship not administering the kingdom, betraying and intriguing, the names, servants of the seers, a little carelessness, action, Conan is very Conan, stupid magic belt, Yasmina, Evan shares a lot of Trish’s views, political factions and relations, who is loyal to who, that really long climax, the transformation into the bird, the forces of sorcery, decadent empire and barbarism, the class element, Gitara, what is Gitara’s motivation to convert Green Turban, does she really love him?, I’ll make you king, outside of her powers, you’re a powerful man, he could have challenged me, both baddies, they’re both slaves, Howard is ambivalent about a lot of things Evan isn’t, smashing elites, the individual within a corrupt society, forge an empire of our own, you’re powerful and I’m tricky, an underdetermined character, a Great Game story, Iraqis, pre-Iraq, Afghulis, Iranistanis, what’s missing is he doesn’t get to fight a tiger, giant snakes, giant eagle, Conan is never really in India, Kull fights tigers, a wizard dressed up as a tiger, a book of essays about Robert E. Howard, real geography, Himalayas, the Zaibar Pass is the Khyber Pass, Afghanistan, an El Borak story with Conan, is Turan Persia or Turkey?, the Vilyaet Sea, the Aral Sea not the Black Sea, Iron Shadows In The Moon, mid northern asia border with Europe-ish, Buddhist evil priests, The Nine Billion Names Of God by Arthur C. Clarke, they’re from the Mysterious East, out of The Shadow, anti-Buddhists, a Fu Manchu style Buddhists, red dust and blue dusts, prayer wheels, a perfectly calm, Buddhist sash thing on his head, he’s a lich, a lecherous lich, catch the Devi, the genre vs. the medium, it feels like a serial but it isn’t a serial, Flash Gordon serials, lets make this longer, feeling the drag, Vale Of Lost Women cooks, the ending is pristine, I’ve still got men, the dog attacking a guy is there to fill pages, a bunch of challenges, a boss fight, that’s how you get paid, a D&D module, the belt of magical resistance, Conan doesn’t have a magic sword or a loyal horse, its wielded by Robert E. Howard, the “Atlantean sword” shit, Conan fights a giant magnet, Conan fighting a polar bear, Conan has to fight magic because its Weird Tales, the power of evil wizards moving the plot, you’re to stupid to know what it is: $250 vs. $50, four parallel characters, Yasmina’s vs. Gitara’s third eye (her Bindi), the loss of vocabulary is palpable, “lambent”, pages of no dialogue and no text, great, good, bad, and terrible all on one page, three shadows and a nightstand, elf-style ears and facial piercings, its a reveal he’s a lich, no I’m just a man but I command demons, the psychological torture of living through reincarnation cycles, she’s humbled, household drudgery, back beyond the dimmest dawn, skin clad, looms, dragged, the bite of the lash, the bloody block, Alfredo Alcala, Big John Buscema, are doing it without reference materials, two words for throw, he hurl throwed, Savage Sword was the Golden Age, Roy Thomas, Ernie Chan (Chua), a decline and a decline and a decline, we think it is the character that we like, hard to sell an El Borak story?, some bias against going to places and learning things, Thomas Jane, handsome actor, a local sidekick, demons and armies and the , The Fire Of Ashurbanipal, Steve Clarny, Swords Of Schaharazar, Hawks Of The Hills, The Lost Valley Of Iskander, lost valley trope, The Lost Valley, Temple Of Doom doesn’t exist without this story, guy has his heart ripped out, modeled on the movies, some ladies in the jungle, snake footage, magic items in the bible, an excuse to go to India and China, visiting a place but not as tourists, the gross out scenes, presented with food that you can’t eat, Stephen Spielberg’s ex-wife is the kid character, Short Round is our viewpoint Mary Sue, the stupid and the smart the cool and the uncool, pairing Conan up with a bunch of regulars, Crom is a repeating character, why Evan is having trouble finding something to say, Howard’s philosophy is not intellectual as it is honorable, when confronted with the problem of her clothes are on, a man should kill a woman if she’s too dangerous, slaps her on the butt and she accepts it as a complicated, doing the monkey dance, how do I as an individual interact with the world, why Yasmina is such a good character, the Conan Destroyer princess, human beings acting in the world, when Green Turban refuses to die, you get him for me, ate his salt, Solomon Kane is insane and there are no demons (but he’s doing his best), I guess I have to use this magic staff, why these weird plots happen, doomed hirelings, they’re fucked and they know it, coming away with a philosophy of what his ideas are, how to live in the world in the moment, his feminist moment, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as to Yasmina, a classist person, not thrilled to be slapped on the butt, an appreciation not a denigration, not a fan of royalty, The Hour Of The Dragon, Xaltotun is the best villain, plans, give me your horse and I’ll save you, we can’t get married, chief of the guard, there are customs, we’ll work it out, I have a very nice harem you can be a part of, she literally kills him, horrible childbirths in her retrogression, silly putty, she knew the agonizes of childbirth, Solitude Of Self, individual struggle with nature that women experience but men don’t, Russian roulette, Robert E. Howard is not wedded to Conan the way we are, the last set of stories were Conan tales, had he lived, classifying his stories by character, that poem is really hot (or rough), Delenda Est by Robert E. Howard, the star is the important thing, the new Dune half movie, a bunch of models, Dark Horse, people standing in scenic locations, no text scrawl, no banquet scene, the beats of the action, it doesn’t capture what is the story, the monster beats, Robert e. Howard philosophy infodumps, the descriptions, C.L.A.I.M.: Character Language Allusion Imagery Message, what is the message of the new Dune movie, Sardukar complaining about things, explaining the weirding way in a film, transmuting poison in your body, showing buffed up people, who wants to do a Conan story vs. who wants to do a Robert E. Howard story, thinking of the setting and the setup, marketing purposes, scenes, ideas, and philosophy too, a princess who has been captured by a cult, Thulsa Doom’s cult, Red Nails, Valeria, mostly Belit, The Tower Of The Elephant, Oliver Stone and John Milius, to string the plot together, the weirding modules in the first Dune (1984) movie, Conan isn’t a character in the stories as much as they are stories with Conan in them, a backstory, an unhappy brooding king, By This Axe I Rule, tidbit of philosophy, listen to the philosophers, he kills the judge, trying to connect all the stories together, they don’t really understand, it isn’t just swords and giant snakes, an individual with an unhelpful god, treat it like an auteur rather than a star, Quentin Tarantino movies in different genres, telling yarns, the fun action adventure stuff, an idea somewhere in it, how to relate to women, he likes hot women, rape and threats of rape, how to relate to the weaker sex, be a man about it, the barbarian from outside, the savage vs. the barbarian, his own code, the distinction Lovecraft didn’t get, he’s the Jordan Peterson of Weird Tales, a moral code, a set of attitudes, what is, a magic system, hypnotism, a set of tricks that they work, an illusion?, a lock of hair, autosuggestion, he’s not as afraid of them, magic works on success, D&D rolling a 1, illusionists, the dog outside of the temple eating the offal, he is defeatable, becoming an eagle, we needed a tiger, fingernails, how witches work in the real world, my penis doesn’t work anymore, somebody’s balls swelled up, superstition makes you more superstitious, people are suggestible, your milk goes sour, they can kill the king with a lock of his hair (when the stars are right), his cortisol levels are high, fleeing the village, Khemsha, stampeded by Conan’s horse, his magic doesn’t matter, stepped on by a horse, a knife is a hardy incantation, hey Gitara how do you like that ride on our air horse?, cloud things, whirling dervishes, Paul got his 3rd shot, Gibraltar has 130% vaccination and full of COVID, like a magic charm, if we are to believe the science, sympathetic magic, why things happen as they do, really ugly, an earthquake in Haiti is punishment from God, magical thinking vs. Jack Vance style spells, propaganda techniques, the Lisan al Gaib, fighting the unbelievable, his muscles are bigger, beginner’s luck, confidence in the steel, the riddle of steel, the hand that wields the steel, only this you can trust, surrogate dad (James Earl Jones), so deluded, the real magic, women going through the streets of England putting white feathers on men during WWI, an attitude as well as knowledge, be an empiricist vs. be a rationalist, spinning up bullshit, Plato, the gold blooded and the silver and the bronze, this person is a natural slave, a natural leader, what makes the Devi divine is that her dad was the Rajah, Yasmina Devi, Genghis Khan, a backwards translation, through myth and 10,000 years she’s a goddess now, revenge is her god, the audiobook is a bit hard to follow, what all the factions were and what they wanted, a slow story, the middle section, people reading this in the 1930s knew what lambent is, H. Rider Haggard, we’ve become illiterate, the minimalist and conversational style, for a low class culture, mass market, people loved it, Savage Sword has awesome vocab on every page, we know she’s sad and worried about her son because she’s crying, we need big chunks of text, narration in movies is good, trying to explain a complex, know then it is the year 10,191, plans within plans wheels within wheels, just read the book, the ornithopters are better, they should have been birds not dragonflies, the ornithopter looked like a hawk, so forgettable, the fur diaper, neat and not tattered, he brushed his fur diaper that day, not in league with the devil, Kevin Sorbo’s Kull movie, Red Sonja (1985), supposed to be a comedy, fantastic bad, that scene is in here, Evan’s podcast, the Robert E. Howard Lovecraft letters, Pigeons From Hell was adapted for Thriller, stars two white guys, a black legend (folk tale), sleeping in an old plantation house, interesting revenge (symbolically), more pathos to that story, Hansel And Gretel has a sense, people were acting badly, Almuric, one big chunk, restricted zone, some time next year, Klim’s Journey Under The Ground, in the 18th century twice, Caleb Williams by William Godwin, The Goddess Of Atvatabar, The Midwich Cuckoos, The Pre-Persons by Philip K. Dick, Robert A. Heinlein’s boy scouts gone wrong in space, revelry, The Doom That Came To Sarnath, Connor doesn’t live on twitter, deep and rich, lemmee give you this magic belt made from Stygian lady’s hair, Alex’s ancestor was convicted of witchcraft in New France, cursed her womb by cutting a piece of her hair off, convicted and exiled, killed by Indians, 12 more kids, 11 kids, he might have actually been a witch, Alex’s last name is “Lich”, in the family archives, a convicted witch, Joan Of Arc, what a jerk, villains in Alex’s family, When Time Turned by Ethel Watts Mumford, like Back To The Future without a Delorean, The Clock That Went Backwards by Edward Page Mitchell, Reading, Short And Deep, set in the Netherlands, written disposably, half of Wisconsin, really well written, a historical siege scene, all the tropes (from 1881), Neal Stephenson’s The Baroque Cycle, The Ganymede Takeover, Benjamin Franklin, The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester, WWII and boxing journalism, Henry James, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary, trying to make it hard for you to understand, An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge, the Civil War, Stephen Crane, Walt Whitman, make bank, Jack London, Herman Melville, lunchtime upside down, Solomon’s Gold, overwhelmed with work, a month on Egypt, classroom management, the students disrespect Evan, dig into their computer, insane coworkers, Evan can’t out himself as a freak (yet), Ancient Egypt, bad textbook, Kufu was a cruel pharaoh, the poor didn’t need mummification because they were buried in shallow graves, its not a work of love, Works Progress Administration, I’ve been told that Biden is the new FDR, Walker Evans taking photographs of people working in Walmart and living in the vans, New Deal money putting artists and musicians to work, all the bridges were built in the 1930s, interviewing former slaves, giving money to rich people, the vaccine mandate is exactly that, government research money, an NFT game, blockchain, “we got funded”, it sounds like a scam, web 2.0 was a scam, Pets.com, why Elon Musk is so rich, Bezos sells servers to the US government, planting the seeds, omicron variant, Foster, You’re Dead by Philip K. Dick, booster shots in perpetuity, fear moves money better than anything else, you can’t mandate, a healthy response, the weird nanny state in Taiwan, the pet industry, pet nannies, licensing pet nannies, I’m an unlicensed pet nanny, you need the barbarians to sweep in, wipe away (some) of the old, clean up your own room (style of thinking) vs. communism will solve all our problems, these emerging men, you need to get your house in order, stupid when off topic smart when on topic, trad dads, interpreting the bible, funny Bible stories, a book of fairy tales, Howard is highly influenced by the Bible, The Song Of Solomon, three volumes with big print.

Weird Tales The People Of The Black Circle

Ken Kelly - People Of The Black Circle

SSOC #16 - People Of The Black Circle

SSOC #16 - John Buscema and Alfredo Alcala - People Of The Black Circle

SSOC #17 - People Of The Black Circle

ABLAZE (Ejikure cover) People Of The Black Circle

DARK HORSE - People Of The Black Circle

People Of The Black Circle FRENCH

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The SFFaudio Podcast #676 – READALONG: The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #676 – Jesse, Scott Danielson, Will Emmons and Trish E. Matson talk about The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Talked about on today’s show:
not Willy Shakes, first performed on Hallowmass, 1611, a Royal Wedding, the day of the dead, November 1st, his last play?, spoken by Prospero, the conventional thing, ready to give up magic, now my charms are all o’erthrown, sent to Naples, with the help of your good hands, my ending is despair, never Shakespeare, a table reading, Broadway musicals, light comedies, Pride And Prejudice, a Southern Utah Shakespeare festival, a replica of The Globe, Julius Caesar, I’ve been bad but you should forgive me because you’ve been bad too, Prospero is a bad man, accomplished everything, made people acknowledge their faults, what got him into trouble in the first place, good but oblivious, an unreliable narrator, he’s a slaver, multiple slaves, penance for attempted rape, indentured servitude, Shakespeare by Mark Van Doren (1939), the wildest interpretation, it will not yield its secret easily, open to so many interpretations and restagings, five versions of The Tempest, Trish never got bored, The Tempest (2010) with Helen Mirren as Prospera, a stage production at Stratford, Ontario, Or What You Will by Jo Walton, As You Like It, a good reason to read a book, a late 9th century play that became very famous, a spark for every fire, let me not, bare island, your good hands, a Disney movie and a cartoon, audience participation, a device for engaging the audience, Tinkerbell will die unless you start clapping, Prospero is Shakespeare, Ariel is the stage director, a metaphor for being a writer, a BBC version from 1980, you will be free, he’s also talking to the audience, all in realtime, how many hours have passed, we have to get this all done by six, Ariel puts people to sleep to get to the next scene, every adaptation misses the comedy, the technical term “comedy”, the infodump scene at the beginning, they interpret the lines wrong or they cut them, how they got there, mostly Prospero talking, 12 years since thy father was the duke of Milan and a Prince of Power, thy mother was a piece of virtue, I don’t think my wife would have lied to me, do you mark me, sir your speech would relieve deafness, she keeps saying ya ya ya, getting bored, he’s asking the audience, she should be falling asleep, dost thou hear?, he keeps coming back are you paying attention, she retains none of it, its only for the audience, all the preceding twelve years, a different dynamic, dost thous pay attention, yeah I’m getting bored too, Shakespeare is attentive to infodumps being boring, bring your audience up to speed, Alonzo vs. Antonio, a master of craftsmanship, structure, high drama and low comedy, interleaving, assassination plots, a love story, Miranada and her father and Miranda and Ferdinand, costumes help, a tendency to focus on Ariel, Caliban is the greatest character (perhaps), stock characters, Caliban’s resentment, a rebellious slave, worshiping a false master, he’s Gollum, he had something taken from him, the culture, his gabardine, fart and drinking jokes, you want the meatiest role, Trunculo, stage presence, he’s reformed, a weakness in the play, is this play weak?, who is Caliban, he’s a native person, an Indian, bring him back and show him off at home, a native person we can display for money, Caliban is the character to obsess over, find somebody else to be slavish to, he’s too trusting, why people vibe with Caliban, the story is not friendly to Caliban, a 1960 movie with Richard Burton with Caliban, Roddy McDowell, Lee Remick, Prospero telling his slaves to do things, repeating his culture or making a commentary?, The Merchant Of Venice, Shylock, kind (at first), taught him language, tried to rape Miranda, white womanhood, what do we say about people we enslave and how they treat women, the colonized person, a justification for harsh treatment, savage people who need the kindly elevating structure of the colonists, Shakespeare is only interested in politics in what they can do to induce drama, a mini-utopia in it, how to improve Milan, Dido and the wedding, I think monarchy is a bad idea, organize things differently, the drama of the situation can deliver, perhaps the weakness is not there, suckered by Prospero, water with berries in it, and pets him, teaches him language, all the great things on the island, when Caliban wants to make more Calibans, an offense, getting above his station, he’s a pet, manipulate this prince of , not that way sirrah, Miranda is subject to his spells as well, The Taming Of The Shrew, women need to be slapped around, its a horror story, liberated women need to know there place, the third time, Stephano, I will feed your other mouth and the lesser legs, a Three Stooges dynamic, I’m in the belly of the fish, these guys must be gods, 410 years on, the Indians on this island are not going to be so passive, colonization of the new world, being exploited by Prospero (with words), I learned real good, now I’m gonna give up my art, if you want to walk away you have to clap, an intermission, from The X-Men, Asimov’s Robot novels written, same letters as cannibal, Caribbean, a savage, the Bermudas, three pamphlets on a ship called the Sea Adventure, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, a great title, you haven’t seen anything yet, the vocabulary choices, strange 500 times, Milan, A most high miracle, I have cursed them without cause, compass thee about, oh wonder!, three shipwrecked sailors, sexy men, I’ve never seen them before, so many resonances, most current, The Tempest largely responsible for Star Trek, Stuart J. Byrne, Kirking computers, the definitive adaptation of The Tempest is Forbidden Planet (1956), very little in it that isn’t in Star Trek, the planet Altair, an away team, Spock, McCoy, and Bones, Robby The Robot is Ariel, what kind of scientist is it?, he’s a philologist, a lot of kissing going on, the angry force on the planet is Caliban, the newest announced Star Trek is Strange New Worlds, Requiem For Methuselah and What Are Little Girls Made Of?, the influence is undeniable, “wagon train to the stars”, guys who are making Westerns all day, Star Trek The Next Generation named after an episode of The Prisoner, Data is one of the men she sees, transfer his consciousness into Data’s body, what islands are in Science Fiction are planets, Planet Stories, beam people up to the ship to do their play, a native force with a whole backstory going on, Shakespeare is not Q in these episodes, checking up on a lost colony, other works, the opening 20 minutes of Forbidden Planet, the two pontoons of the warp nacelles, a flying saucer with pontoons sticking out, a play about a wizard from 400 years ago is largely responsible for a whole kind of Science Fiction, what percentage are we talking about 99% or 12%, it is the plot of The Tempest, all the characters are analogs, the visual elements, this is very much like an episode, The Tempest is the pilot for Star Trek, The Cage, Where No Man Has Gone Before, ESP powers, Star Trek: Continues, dealing with another form of science fiction, different islands in different states of political movements, Caliban is an alien, treated as non-human, half human, the devil, Setebos taken by Prospero, the only good thing about learning languages is to curse, cursing vs. swearing, breaking podcast rules?, exciting listening, you taught me language, the red plague rid you for learning me your language, hag seed hence, I’ll wrack these with old cramps, his art is of such power, his mom is a dam, make a vassal of him, having to fetch in wood, there’s wood enough within, penis jokes, gabardine scene, these brave spirits within, inherently cute, what makes Caliban ugly, misshapen, he wasn’t symmetrical, spotted, a stinky fish, a live fish, his arms fins, not shaped like a standard human, mixed race, objectively ugly, freckles are nice, he’s a fish man but that’s nice, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, influenced in dreams, double-thinking his concerns, invite him to a swimming party, under Devil’s reef, you’re gonna wear a crown bud, an anti-racist story, subject to interpretation, garments, Prospero’s magic robe, gabardine, the guy in The Goonies, The Shape Of Water, a sex/love object, Frankenstein, a beholder thing, a horrifying monster or too beautiful?, an abused child, a feral child story, Sycorax is a great character that’s not on stage, she taught him a language, gibbering howling noises, we don’t know how old Caliban was when his mother died, mistreated, dispossessed, the different kind of slave mentalities, re-imprisoned, always reward, how the service came to be, make a deal with a dwarf in the forest, you will be my servant, three miller’s apprentices, Doll I’ The Grass, a cat that takes a miller’s son as a servant, my anointed son, you can live with these two rotters, none of that for poor Caliban, “By this bottle which I made of the bark of a tree with my own hands since I was cast ashore.”, pathetic and funny, he swam ashore found the bark of a tree and made a drink from it, he made a bottle of a ship emptied the keg into a bottle, understanding begins to swell and begins to fill the reasonable shore, This Island Earth, “Pheobus’ steeds are foundered, night is chained below”, time time time, 32 x strange, hang cur hang, I’ll warrant him for drowning, an unstaunched wench, typical male Euro view, all the girls on stage except for Kate, many many great quotes, different interpretations, reinterpretations, This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart, Yellow Sky (1948), Miranda In Milan by Katharine Duckett, the modern version, class based relationships, the marriage in Tunis, three mentioned women, Miranda’s mother, a virtuous woman, the exile when Miranda was three, an arranged marriage, not at all eager for it, class/race/gender, sometimes they’re playing dress up, no escaping to the island of the Amazons, maids become wives or become mad and kill themselves, servants, what was Prospero’s beef with his brother, putting the coronet of Milan under the crown of Naples, Milan being the female and Naples being the male, arranging her marriage to the king of Naples son, it’s ok when I do it, all the Roman gods, presumably set in the Mediterranean, in the Roman world, there’s Ariel, Prospero putting away his books, putting away magic, a Christianizing, giving up his servant, Prospero is giving up his paganism, submitting himself to God, submitting to your husband’s desires, Hell is empty and all the devils are here, Ariel recounts it, naturalistic explanation, translating it into the science fiction explanation, a weather phenomenon, ball lightning is pretty obscure, St. Elmo’s fire, to control events, extending that to politics today and the media, this creation of a tempest in a teapot, to shipwreck on the islands, marry his daughter off, to satisfy the needs that he has, control and manipulation and gaslighting, Shakespeare’s stock and trade, abhorrent in the world, does it to characters in Macbeth and Hamlet, players, a very special power to story, it bypasses all of your reason and lodges itself in your head, not logical arguments, the audience goes in with consent (without not knowing what they’ve consented to), at this time in Shakespeare’s career, don’t get jailed, bypassing their reason, in the position of a fool, Alas, poor Yorik, I’m now holding his skull of, how did Yorik die?, Facebook and Biden don’t literally arrests you yet, habeas corpus is still kinda there, famous presidential people, James I and VI, he survived to give his second best bed to his wife, willing to rock boats in other lands than England, the power of story, Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove, what if?, Prospero played by woman, why it was gender flipped, Ariel is the traditional gender flip, when you gender flip Prospero it fucks with the text, Duchess, my dukedom, resonances break, Oh the heavens, Prospero talking about his brother, good wombs have born bad sons [siblings], seeing an old woman, a witch vs. a wizard, I like my books, a soft coup, Prospero’s POV, if you’re going to run a state, a city state, New Zealand or Taiwan can lock down the way Switzerland can’t, the guy locked away in his library story, the story of Caliban being a rapist, there’s no issue of consent here, if he’s an animal, two youngsters playing doctor, I’ve but seen to men before, a lot of wood jokes, sad story for him, give meaty roles for women, saving her from an angry crowd, Richard III is Hitler, several versions of Macbeth, Michael Fassbender as Macbeth, Ian McClellan, Hellen Mirren as Lady Macbeth, being swept along by events, notices the swastika on his armband, a more charitable reading of the play, making your own moral choices, their freedom, she’s a mermaid in one story, without a backward glance or with an affectionate glance, mostly dialogue and a few stage directions, different interpretations, all the performances never recorded, the novelist vs. the playwright, Julius Caesar is dramatic, ways people play Prospero: as a dodderer, straight (not wholly arch), he should be knowing, he’s made a mistake and doesn’t want to admit it, make the sword move or not move, his/her magic wand/staff, a great temptation to ham up things that are serious, make meat of everything that you’re given, the stinky fish with lesser legs, two lesser men in the play drunkin around as a comic relief, Ariel is accompanied by other spirits, that’s not in the play, a flexible young person, a robot, Leslie Nielsen’s gun, doing Prospero’s business, Caliban is an invisble monster, a force left over, a Sycorax-like force, studying “liberal arts”, the relationship between Prospero and Sycorax, the powers that he has at his command, graduating to wizarding school, his magic was good, she was a witch, the twin thing, Caliban is mirror by Ariel, one’s good and the other is good, one has power over the air, the other over the land, he’s stolen a kingdom in the way his brother has stolen his, he was evil from the start, that’s a cross not a dagger, think of your Jesus, dagger dagger dagger, fixated on interpretations, we hear about the props, a mininmalistic interpretation has three clumps of wood, enter Mariners wet, conveniently asleep, we can mine it forever, on to As You Like It for Scott, if this were played upon a stage…, Or What You Will by Jo Walton, Among Others, what I’ve been reading, not really a novel, he has been a dragon with a boy on his back, he has been a god, set in Thalia, stop off the wheel of mortality forever, a visit to Florence, a reporatory theater of characters, Romeo And Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, every part was gender swapped, how the dynamics changed, the male people were the emotional ones, The Last Hawk by Catherine Asaro, another Star Trek episode, getting familiar with Shakespeare, tremendous, very important, still excited, Twelfth Night: or What You Will, comedies having gender swap, a romantic comedy, Viola and Sebastian, Duke Orsino, Countess Olivia, ends in a marriage, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Oberon and Galadriel, in a time when there’s birth control, its Fairyland, it can’t be translated into Science Fiction, a holodeck adventure, when Data is playing all the roles, Merchant Of Venice, Othello, other books to read.