Tag: Mark Twain

The SFFaudio Podcast #897 – READALONG: The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim

The SFFaudio Podcast #897 –Jesse and Alex (Pulpcovers) talk about The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim

Talked about on today’s show:
family names, English people are weird, disappointing, what year this book came out, a prolific writer, the reader’s digest version, it’s really cool, no one else has read it, post WWI, it has to be 1920, there’s a movie in 1921, a weird and good book, the ending obviously, four different things going on, the 39 steps meets The Prisoner Of Zenda, a lot more swordfighting, talk about previous swordfights, he fell on my sword, came away with a broken arm, it skips all the fun in a certain sense, subdues Robert Urthank, smokin, alcohol, a lot of guns on birds, like it a lot, the only way it could be constructed, a new student, choose your own adventure book, if you do this turn to page 18, death, premature imprisonment in a skull mountain, the best ending, rewrite this as a Choose Your Own Adventure, do you drink the whiskey?, at some point in the narrative, the author tricks us, a possibility, really suspicious, my fake wristwatch that I don’t have, that’s a slip-up if…, the main character is called by his proper name by the narrator of the book, the twist is he’s not lying, it comes out of nowhere, a clever book, oooh!, The Sixth Sense, sitting around in rooms with a little kid, a good twist, missed the twist, the revelation which was kinda cool, massively improved, do you go on another hunt?, do you go in the black wood?, is this a little Hound Of The Baskervilles thing too, her brother who’s mentally deficient, we don’t have the butler, we’re supposed to be in on it, very cool, how can you do this to me?, I was not your buddy Leopold, does the book play fair?, misses something he should have known, I’ve been gone for so long, he also was gone for a long time, a teenager, a trick for us, in on the secret, the German guy, we will expand!, we need breathing room, use this for inspiration!, take my papers, hold them for me, two documents that are opposite, Germans are nice fellows, evil conquerors, in combination with the black wood, haunted place from the past, a body buried there, Baron Ragstein, his own demon in his backstory, his real demon?, fought a man and was exiled, mirroring, at Oxford, both at the same school, one is charged with the other’s bills at school, a nice little touch, a very good condensation of scenes in the book, other Universal Horror movies, a werewolf story, the calling in the night, a fakeout, clearing the black wood, the resolution of the valance, which is he?, the spy or the counter spy, he’s the hero, we never see him meeting with the British, the white linen, what happened in Africa, Africa changes a man, the cousin, Africa, India, all the same, the women are black and there’s lots of beasts, he took the Baron’s money, and followed the Baron’s plan, quite striking, guys gone to seed, the first of his name not to waste all his money, degenerate, regenerate, the family line always degenerates, a Lovecraftian family, in the basement eating your friend, I’m paying off the family debts, his skin looks better, standing a little straighter, like you’ve been a military uniform, a great surprise as a possibility, the author knew what he was doing the whole time, turning old novels into Choose Your Own Adventures, poor student, every poor kid, The Great Gatsby, a rich guy observed by an acquaintance/friend, the very first Hard Case Crime book, Grifter’s Game, conmen, a supersolid horrible noir awesome ending, the lobby was air conditioned, his tone apologetic, every stinking dive, palm up, he liked to receive it, a great opening, the girl is tied to the chair, making her a heroin addict, the great dissipation, you don’t want to have him for a boyfriend, great writing carries you from page to page, overly long, the lack of action, The Thirty Nine Steps is a bad book in a certain sense, written during the war, a spy book, a chase sequence, Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household, at the Eagle’s Nest, some SS guards discover him, he goes to ground on the run the whole book, it never says Adolph Hitler, a WWI book with the knowledge of WWII, awesome pace, what’s going to happen next, Hitchcock movies, this is a spy book, is it though?, you’ve got a secret mission, what’s the special mission?, elected maybe?, an English nobleman that’s secretly a German spy, spend all this money, we will back you to the hilt, the meeting with the Kaiser, a cameo, Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Kaiser Wilhelm, over muscled Kaiser, we’re going to win World War One, a fluff piece of fun, a really good twist, not as tight or compelling as Lawrence Block, pre-war English dialogue, not well remembered, The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson, his poetry for children, Treasure Island, how often have you thought about Kidnapped, Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde, it has been spoiled, it is very possible…, the way the book was written, bad writing?, the Englishman was seen in Africa and was not dead, he’s in the room with us right now!, the rumor is true?, the way the book handles this is to never give a definitive reaction from our viewpoint character, too long for what the idea does, Dr. Jekyll is Mr. Hyde, a cool idea, Two-Face, a man who is both men, it works better as a film, never being inside somebody’s head, the camera goes to their pov, or over narration, doing the original star wars with old Luke, narrating the events of the original star wars, I didn’t know at the time, now I’m a blue milk addict, you can do things with viewpoint, on a desert island, Chagos, Prisoner Of Zenda everytime, on every page level, piled up coincidence, sparky and fluffy, almost a play, drinking and meetings, a little romance, the romance storylines, falling in love with Lady Domini, she’ll find you out, she’s a very nice kid, Hungarian princess, unrolls the scroll, their both in exile in Africa, killed a guy, disgraced and can’t come home, a collision in Africa, the way I’m going to kill him, very very salty, passive aggressive way of killing somebody, fighting to the death off-screen, the flashback to that fight at the end, make the whole movie filled with lots of flashbacks, Memento (2000), tell the story backwards, nice awesome noir reveal, have meaning in his life, the only thing that matters is me, companion books, now let’s see it from the other guy’s point of view, which universe you’re in, a burning desire to live, that setup at the beginning, that contrast at the beginning, beaten down and thin, the shakes from the alcoholism, erect Prussian, definitely the German guy, turned his entire life around, that’s the mental work we have to do, if you’re not second guessing the book review already, a goodreads review, 1 star, is that guy lying to me, you used to have curly hair?, can you grow out of curly hair?, a very girl book, lack of outdoor action, The Count Of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, a swordfighty action movie, no a brooding plotter, clockwork vengeance machine, swordfights with people, work em in there, it would make sense for either persona, on the riverbank, the most interesting character, madman, the schoolteacher, a nice period piece, rowing, the fencing team, a big smite on his face, a secret scar, why he can’t get undressed with his wife, new scars, a birthmark, arm break, not a short book for what it is doing, that big a disparity, Timeline by Michael Crichton, condensation, the movie just zips along, a few too many filler scenes, repetition, adapt this well into a film, fun movie stuff, the definite film version of this is yet to be made, Trading Places (1983), The Prince And The Pauper by Mark Twain, Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein, inherit the kingdom, they’re both barons or a baronet, a woman back home who’s mad/in love with him, injuries and deaths on both sides, the balancing act for the mirror, William Wilson by Edgar Allan Poe, for the present, a call me Ishmael situation, making a joke about the publication, this other kid, degenerate gambler, reflected badly on the narrator, a long short story, stabbed in a swordfight, split personality, a split self, which one am I, The Prestige, a very good book, an estate in it, a weird dark land, a confection, a bon bon, very delicious, greatly declined, the Star that was E. Phillips Oppenheim, lost authors, no champion, Mr. Grex Of Monte Carlo, 2 books a year for years and years, the concept binds him in certain ways, the secret he wants to reveal, knife’s edge, a certain distancing effect upon the reader, imagine this as a Hard Case Crime book, the first 16 cover proofs, what Charles Ardai was doing, he took a Sherlock Holmes story and published it as by A.C. Doyle, a screaming lady in a nightgown, contractually obligated, I wanna tell stories about the KKK, the mormons, playfulness of an author in his element, a good place to be for a reader, in contrast, some people on the internet are either biobots or dumb, a photograph of some books at the drugstore, food deserts, book deserts, you have to walk into a driver, the newsstand, the spinner rack, the gas station, stumble across things, more and more unusual, the oasis of the library, free books on the internet, you have to go find them, confronted by things that attract your eye, a bbq place with great smells, thousands of views, silly comments, too many James Patterson and Bill Clinton, who wrote this book?, a Stephen King, new paperbacks out now, a wasteland, the same thing is happening with movies, kids these days are not watching movies, never watches movies, old movies, so many rereleases of classic movies, not the reboot, make another couple million bucks, once the culture of film becomes so backward looking, breaks that cultural transmission, theatre, the stuff they put out is limited, an apartment near Broadway, some variety, elitist, ballet, new operas, performing the Nutcracker a dozen times a year, a high culture low culture, horse racing and dog racing, just degenerate gamblers, just dog food, if you thought that it had value, subsidization is another scam, lots of scams going on, the point of the movie The Producers was, something special about the book one, the codex as we don’t often call it, the paperback, the publicity materials, they did the thing, “pulp revival”, Pulpcovers.com, noir and hardboiled, fantasy, high fantasy, low fantasy, dragon on a big pile of gold, little invisible guy, The Black Arrow, N.C. Wyeth, anything N.C. Wyeth draws you in, Men Of Iron by Howard Pyle, a movie, 1891, a student of Howard Pyle, impulsive rash, hard knocks, carefully watched and guided, a key player, too many possibles, early boy’s adventure, middle school, a big tournament, barely stand, lifted by a crane, that’s not how armour worked, maybe Crichton read that, responding to it, no one could possibly move in this armour, much tougher guys, speaking with authority, using other sources to make this claim, ignore the weird Victorian ideas about how armour worked, betrayal the Prince of Wales, who’s responsible, Sir Walter Scott is responsible for all of this stuff?, Ivanhoe, 1819, the other Waverly books, more influenced by Waverly and Ivanhoe than any other cultural phenomenon, plays and books, other than music, less about story, patriotism, Charles Dickens, an industry unto himself, now we’re James Patterson, a crest to this wave, John Buchan is not the beginning of the wave, books start coming into their height?, as soon as you get paperbacks, cheap entertainment, mass market, that attraction of the cover, grab the workman on his way to the cover, a scantily clad screaming lady on the cover, with a brass bra and a leg cling, beware of the 3 volume novel, Oscar Wilde’s, if not him, the cheapest thing is ticktock, reconstruct his life, wait until sleep comes, they’re watching youtube shorts and tiktok shorts, it’s right there in your hand, riding a bike while looking at his phone, everybody is looking at his phone, listening to my phone, consuming video, playing a video, this is the new phenomenon, a very heavy hardcover from school, the death of…, did the book industry do it to themselves, Hollywood definitely did it to themselves, easier lower common denominator, cheap and easy, trying to relax, mass market entertainment, Doritos taste better than celery sticks, project right into my eyeballs, old tv, a lot of writers from books, a lot of plays, adaptations of stuff, regular broadcast tv, unbelievable, 9-1-1, everybody on the show is retarded, a fire in space episode, I can’t believe this got produced, the thing that used to produce Star Trek and The Twilight Zone, even easier, free, the most addictive possible content, plugged directly into your brain, the Larry Niven, a tasp, just pure pleasure, the way you get interested in the theatre, essentially dead as the major media, a skinsuit of was the most popular medium at one time, Lincoln was shot in a theatre, shot by an actor too, the music hall, if you want to see this play played out, the best actors, the perfect version of it, why would you go to the theatre, further down that path, it was always low-brow, the friction was the point, as things get easier they become worse, computer games, super compelling, home computer, school computer, that’s where the money is, a little more interesting, guys in their 50s, I wish my kid would just play a game, watching livestreams of other people playing games, games teach stuff, stuff about geography, almost every time it’s some singer or a video game, the literary people can’t get work in literary places, independent, a guy in Finland making Lovecraft games, popular culture, this legacy of older stuff, not born into the pulp or paperback industry, are we the weird outliers?, it’s awesome, we can find an old book and appreciate it, lost treasure, enjoy it, appreciate it for what it was doing at the time, a level of appreciation, whoe’ver’s listening to this, 80s and 90s kids watching movies from the 50s and 60s, Lawrence Of Arabia, I heard it is really good, short attention span, the Jake Paul of authors, a modern sequel of The Cannonball Run, Camille Paglia and Slavoj Zizek, slop videos, I’ll do anything for attention, the personalities have changed, the rat pack guys, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, pretending to be priests, a couple of hot girls in a Lamborghini, guy who thinks he’s a superhero, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), already old, middle aged people in the audience, Buster Keaton, Spencer Tracey, Don Notts shows up, that pool of people who fit that mold, Jack Chan was introduced to the world, Jamie Farr, Roger Moore’s biggest fan, facial surgery to look like Roger Moore, that meta-stuff, weird reality, what’s the mcguffin?, just the pleasure of having done the race, bragging rights, trace it all down, the blame on lack of land reform, 1958?, the newsstand corporation, the kid who inherited or whatever, distributing books and magazines, in 1953, in 1958, down to 10?, back to 4, no distribution means no eyes on magazines, tv from the 1950s, shifting tastes, a lot of it went to paperbacks, a whole different channels, comic book stores, even that’s not doing well, vhs was a new distribution system, laserdisc and all that stuff, early access, you don’t understand it, it may have gone terribly, Gilbert and Sullivan, expensive, don’t live in England in the 19th century, some new medium before the tasp, vr stuff happen, the theory there, get all that exercise, watch someone else streaming, the rise of livestreaming videogames, so passive, mostly scams, massive amounts of scams, corporate subsidies to political ones, look at the chat, almost not even words, strings of emojis, people alone looking at a guy playing a game, not particularly interesting or smart, a lot of euphemism, bizarre and pathetic, complaining about pulp magazines being badly written, are they James Patterson bad, incompetent filler, the editors did a pretty decent job of rejecting stuff, professional editors, next month’s issue, this was a lot of fun, good stuff now?, hype for things of the present vs. hype for things of the past, it is happening, a new John Lange novel, the drawer book, A Murder In Hollywood by Michael Crichton, not co-authored, a Tom Clancy in that picture too, an Agatha Christie, you can’t trust it, there’s an estate there, fucked with her whole career, And Then There Was One, out of copyright, less likely to have bad books out there, rewrote The Cats Of Ulthar as a cute story for children, baby’s first Cthuhlu, Dr. Seuss versions of Lovecraft, pre-ai, The Tomb, print editions probably still being made, cheap public domain classics, in one volume, faux leather, slap the gutenberg text in there, new introduction if you’re lucky, all about the money, not about the ideology, an honest mercenary, Ian Fleming, the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Guy, all Canadian public domain, through and past, Jurassic Park, a month out, “so so”, that’s fair, so okay it’s average, the book has merit, hauled into its saddle and can’t fight on its own, see you on twitter.

The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #878 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain

The SFFaudio Podcast #878 – A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain (15 hours 33 minutes) read by John Greenman for LibriVox, followed by a discussion. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Scott Danielson and Cora Buhlert.

talked about on today’s show:
1880, western Europe?, France, Switzerland, mostly Germany, 6 travel books, the semi-official sequel, Innocents Abroad, 1869?, the answer is none, Paul [Weimer] and Trish [E. Matson] and David J. West, a really good book, tipped hand, the audiobook, washed over, some gaps, non-fiction, pick it up again wherever, not so much a cohesive story as a series of coorespondences, Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck, very first cruise ship, the start of modern tourism, 9 years later, in full swing, pilgrimage, requisite Grand Tour, 1878, Switzerland, the hotels, makes fun of the German language, difficult to learn, pitfalls, he’s Twain now, much more interesting, Baden Baden, from the South, exaggerations not lies, student swordfights, fraternity, young men, suspicious, still have swordfights, the swordfighting section, Otto Skorzeny, Hitler’s commando, non women at the time, all men, the elites, dueling scars, what killed off these fraternities, post-WWII education reform, people from different areas, left wing liberal, 1848, pro-limited democracy, conservative, 1960s-1980s, own events, steal the caps, a bounty for every cap stolen, much diminished, 2024, just boys being boys, 1933, epee, goggles, nose protection, went into the brain, old universities, student prisons, they still exist, German-Polish border, graffiti the students left behind, that scene is illustrated, smites, very proud of it, so you could see it, that’s why they’re doing it, showing off their manliness, Bismark in prison, writing on the wall, RACHE, means vengeance/revenge, A Study In Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle, a carving in blood or red paint, the police are baffled, Rachel, a red herring, Conan Doyle was an avid reader, where he’s stealing stuff from, stealing from Poe, how dare you compare me to C. August Dupin, very interested in foreign affairs, things outside of London, the KKK, the Mormons, A Scandal In Bohemia, guy from India, rip stories from the headlines, to Reichenbach Falls, Easter Germany, Czechoslovakia, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, this specific, the Bond movie, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), George Lazenby, San Fransisco Chronicle, daily correspondence, people tuned into the newspaper everyday, what is this funny guy doing, very sequential, everything is incidents, a travelogue, a diary, bluejays for 3 chapters, whatever strikes him, local legends, the Lorelei, no nymph, no statue, the way the best understood, hilarious exaggerations, close studies, highly accurate, plays it for fun sometimes, an immensely close recreation, the next chapter he’s in France playing the second of a duel, the funniest thing you’ve ever read, the contrast between the two, a journalist, he’s playing it for comedy, choose your weapons, Gatling guns at 15 yards, attendees, apologize and hug each other, some grain of truth at the bottom, climbing Mount Blanc, all the things they bring, tobacco and beds, 138 umbrellas, mountaineering, reason to climb, outlaws fleeing the law, pay a yodeller, endlessly entertaining, stumbling around in his bedroom, a whole chapter, this is what people are paying to read, what’s so striking about it, through movies, he’s Hamburg, Germany gets its sense of identity by what Julius Caesar said about the Germans, this is us, only a united nation for 7 years, small kingdoms, dukedoms, so clean and so nice and so new, in about 2000 years, describe Switzerland to the Swiss, a foreigner coming in, everything that he writes in this book, unimpeachably true, a guy named Harris, in really fun and good American literature, Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, a travel book, there’s no way to have that experience and be able to write about it, the aftermath of a party in a room, how it looks, what must have happened, these soap bars, journalists, cars haven’t been invented yet, the train, rafting, very Twain, a steamboat guy, Twain was a civil war officer for the South, they’re best friends, John Jakes’ North And South, anti-slavery, his unit disbanded promptly, went off to Nevada, San Fransisco, Travels by Michael Crichton, very different people, romp, tramp, a good genre, pilgrimage to Spain, the medieval pilgrimage, Anthony Bourdain’s show, quality of the narration, the street food, a vacation through the stomach, Michael Palin, Jeremy Clarkson, infamous, popular, what they have in common, the populace likes them, with airs about it, the finest restaurants, the kitchen, German coffee, chicory, a giant vat of boiling water, here’s your coffee sir, real coffee, fake coffee, malted grain, has to be imported, Heidelberg, the coffee ports, Bremen, they have to carry it by donkey, trains, a real guy, Goethe wrote a play about him, the iron hand, fight with an archbishop, he may lick my ass, this book in mind, a radio show, brief in the book, the Lion of Lucerne, carved into this cliff, this is something to see, there it is across the water, a wound in it, dying or dead, in memory of some event, to see it, a tourist destination, a kind of a secular version of pilgrimage, recreating Byron’s life, that book is inspiring, an activity, Antarctica, At The Mountains Of Madness, you hate cruises, literature, how powerful it is, there are countries created out of fantasy, Israel, Germany, the second German empire, what to include, why Austria is separate, the Prussian king, keep Austria out, weird south east European places, into modern Russia, minorities, a book set in Antarctica, Edgar Allan Poe, the act of imagination, William Dean Howells, A Traveler From Altruria, a commune, the secret is that books are incredibly powerful, I would like to go to Europe, Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Karl Mai, an early cosplayer, read for generation, hike the mountains, Kurdistan, why the obsession, why do you go to Baker Street?, a museum, destroyed in WWII, answers letters to Sherlock Holmes, humans are monkeys, monkey see monkey do, tictock dances, I wanna be a cowboy/astronaut, you’ve found your identity, Foundation by Isaac Asimov, archaeology, sociology, a chemist, Paul Krugman, Newt Gingrich, Osama Bin Laden, one of those books, it will wreck you at the right age, travel agencies and cruise operating, free copies of At The Mountains Of Madness, a few other things that are striking, the American who has the same conversation with everyone he meets, what ship did you come over on?, is this your sister?, that personality, you meet people like this, a character sketch, in the previous one, he went into a church, gave a blind woman a gold coin, steals it from her hand, that incident, visiting again, the Acropolis, broke in, climbing over fences, chasing after them, if you’re an animal, see food you eat it, read another of his books, so personable, so relatable, whatever he’s thinking, not crass, what was actually happening there, is this a prostitute?, very young girls, he doesn’t take advantage, Dorothy Quick is great, encouraged her to write, her friendship, they were friends, a really good incident, looking at a woman, how old is she?, are you 18, I’m so glad you came over, how is this person, what did you name him?, not admitting the truth at the beginning, delightful and breezy and easy, still tremendously enjoyable, laughed out loud several times, the essay on the German language, I attack them, so funny, convincing one of the guides to jump off the cliff with the umbrella, let someone else do it, a giant extended joke, how credulous can you be?, he is funny, an appendix on portiers, extinct by now, the American way, giving everybody tips, concierge, high end luxury hotels, the Ritz, Singapore, such a weird thing, still has these, New Orleans, Arthur Hailey’s Hotel, the courier, in chapter 32, courier du bois, the tradesman, this job has disappeared, find some natives, load up with furs, come back to the fort, how Canadian history works, eventual shipment to Europe for hats, not for furs, something else, chocolate coloured, still it was worth it to inquire, ask for the price, above all not to reveal, it’s a hundred francs too much, broken German, a pleasant surprise, please do not let your courier know that you’ve bought it, I do not have to pay you a percentage, 100 francs, twice or thrice, both get a percentage, getting ripped off, travel without a guide is completely horrible, the guides get lost, Philip K. Dick, the assumptions, pulling the rug out from under us, never a maliciousness, not even mean, what he’s doing, it works everytime, met the pope, there was a guide, exactly what to do, get close to the aisle, had bad seats, extremely helpful, knows all the rope, tour guides, a different name now, on the Neckar river, barge, travel within the United States, the air b&b route, a neighbourhood, living like the people who live there live, how to do the research?, people to meet, local guides, a seminar conference, looked up online, see this, see that, an uber, extremely easy, there was a book, Let’s Go Europe, Let’s Go Mexico, Ford Prefect, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, gets a percentage, canny, a travel agent, cheap the whole way, the cheapest whatever, when the museum is free, largely replaced with online stuff, a paper map of the city, a painting in a museum, on the Rome trip, St. Peter’s, a guided thing, they hired somebody, a historian, spent the whole day there, get around, if you live in a place for a couple of weeks, vs. passing through, the ideal way of doing it, commenting on all sorts of different experiences, schoolboys fighting, get involved, white hats, how many boys fight per day, French honour, very present to whatever it presented to him, take him on a certain ride, disappointed by something, becomes very memorable, the squalor and poverty of the people, the animals, starving to death, very old, a hotel like that, it was a grand hotel, pay the full freight, it doesn’t come across as mean spirited, Edgar Allan Poe tried to start a magazine, she was rich, his hobby of a magazine, died right before the wedding, just wait, 15-20 years later, Mark Twain becomes wealthy because of the popularity of his books, being honest, a savage critic, he would scalp you, he would let you know, the guy who hated him Rufus Griswold, puffed everybody, no matter what you write you get puffed, this crypto-bro scheme of becoming writers, selling on Amazon, 20booksto50k, if you don’t play the game, to not offend anybody, completely non-offensive, the recipe for success, thoroughly entertain everybody, they thought it was bad, kept investing in things, what a great writer, his major stuff, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Joan Of Arc, a funny book for him to write, The Prince And The Pauper, Poe mostly wrote short stories and a lot of criticism, as a journalist, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, Cannibalism In The Cars, senators eating each other, the sense of humour, the reverence for experience and life, why do you want to go on a trip to Europe?, experiencing these things, that is what he is seeking, that delight, just the pictures, half the men are smoking, weird old-fashioned pipes, something we pass over now, the same software, there’s no electricity, there’s no electric anything, impressed by the gaslight, what happened to the hotel, entranced, the discourse on Wagner, nobody likes Wagner, you get to like it, the longer the better, serialized chapters, comes at you in waves, go out and pick specific things?, wouldn’t you pay?, they stopped hiring Mark Twain, on tv sort of, Netflix, the personality of the deliverer, also dead, Herman Goutmann, a slightly different personality, an abrasive personality, a witticism for everything, Hermann Gutmann, Dave Barry, The Ultimate Melody by Arthur C. Clarke, every wedding, Lohengrin, pyromania, opera house, sweaty, Angela Merkel enjoyed it, sweatspots, stuffy, talk about Twain for a minute, never fell anything by him that fell flat, whatever he does is super-reliable, the guy you can always turn to, there is a Mark Twain I haven’t read, every book has worked, how he came to do it, very episodic, it’s not the coherence that matters, A True Story by Mark Twain, laughing on the front porch, servant/cook/maid, there is no funniness in it at all, making fun of the maid, she’s making fun of them, that man is alive in that text, a man who’s still with us, this is a living man, Shakespeare, very excited about maybe Shakespeare isn’t Shakespeare, as Borges points out, he’s thinking about how people are actors, players, wherever Mark Twain goes he’s right there, she’s illiterate, all he does is transcribe what she said, it’s not a fossil it’s alive, reading good books, kept comparing, what it looked like in the 19th century, German and American education system, very accurate, university is very specialized, listen to lectures, more school-like today, go in line with, somewhat like this, a lot of freedom, you could not attend a lecture, it’s different now, school-track school-system, gymnasium, academic track, very well educated, more than a U.S. high-school diploma, college in the U.S., the kind he describes, ancient Greek and Latin, 1970s brutalist school, still require Latin, take Latin at school, a year from now?, Following The Equator (More Tramps Abroad), The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, a reason to keep reading, good book, learned a lot, reduced to Huckleberry Finn man, mean true things about the German language, more John Irving and Anne Tyler, if not the greatest, Westlake, sad story, Two Much next sunday, Simak the week after, Phantasties, Travels With A Donkey.

A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #522 – A True Story by Mark Twain

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #522

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss A True Story by Mark Twain

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

A True Story was published in Atlantic Monthly, November 1874

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #512 – The Inn Of The Two Adventurers by Lord Dunsany

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #512

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The Inn Of The Two Adventurers by Lord Dunsany

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

The Inn Of The Two Adventurers was first published in Maclean’s, March 2, 1957.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #862 – READALONG: Project: Earth by Philip K. Dick

The SFFaudio Podcast #862 – Jesse and Will Emmons talk about Project: Earth by Philip K. Dick

Talked about on today’s show:
Imagination, December 1953, copyright renewed, pirate your way, other stories, Rog Philips, Evan Hunter, Hal Annas, Salvatore Albert Lombino, The Last Spin by Ed McBain, initiation ritual, default, for Philip K. Dick, strong relationship with, rewarding, most adult relationship, Robert E. Howard fanboy, Conan fanboy, colour your relationship, a grown man’s passion, Robert E. Howard’s prose, unfiltered, infinitely rewarding, science and fantasy, which is it?, a trick question, a story of imagination, reasons for thinking it’s fantasy, references the bible, not a good criteria, what’s so funny about it, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, no implanted memories, who is Edward Billings?, intentional ambiguous, the agency for whom Edward Billings works, could be right, The Rapture (1991), David Duchovyn and Mimi Rogers, the rapture happens, being swingers, the rapture is real, hard to explain, not science fiction probably, the way Philip K. Dick did it here, Christian adjacent, evangelicalism, millinerian thing, popular in the 90s, weird Christian novels, some kind of subgenre here, fantastic, involve the supernatural, god’s agency in the world, peices of media, in an earnest way, a Dickian way, bristle, they ought, The Builder, building something in his garage, the guy’s two sons, build that thing, sickmyduck.narod.ru, a great person in Russia, 1954

“What makes it run, then? I don’t see any sails. What kind of motor is in it? Steam?”

Elwood bit his lip. Strangely, he had never thought of that part. There was no motor in it, no motor at all. There were no sails, no boiler. He had put no engine into it, no turbines, no fuel. Nothing. It was a wood hull, an immense box, and that was all. He had never thought of what would make it go, never in all the time he and Toddy had worked on it.

Suddenly a torrent of despair descended over him. There was no engine, nothing. It was not a boat, it was only a great mass of wood and tar and nails. It would never go, never never leave the yard. Liz was right: he was like some animal going out into the yard at night, to fight and kill in the darkness, to struggle dimly, without sight or understanding, equally blind, equally pathetic.

What had he built it for? He did not know. Where was it going? He did not know that either. What would make it run? How would he get it out of the yard? What was it all for, to build without understanding, darkly, like a creature in the night?

Toddy had worked alongside him, the whole time. Why had he worked? Did he know? Did the boy know what the boat was for, why they were building? Toddy had never asked because he trusted his father to know.

But he did not know. He, the father, he did not know either, and soon it would be done, finished, ready. And then what? Soon Toddy would lay down his paint brush, cover the last can of paint, put away the nails, the scraps of wood, hang the saw and hammer up in the garage again. And then he would ask, ask the question he had never asked before but which must come finally.

And he could not answer him.

Elwood stood, staring up at it, the great hulk they had built, struggling to understand. Why had he worked? What was it all for? When would he know? Would he ever know? For an endless time he stood there, staring up.

It was not until the first great black drops of rain began to splash about him that he understood.

Nanny, do you understand, as a child, prized possesion, Hannah Barbara time travel bible story cartoon, archeologist on Noah’s ark, child culture, fun animals, the time that god killed everyone, a rainbow, how primitive culture stories are similar to each other, the stories of the vikings, natives in north america, Raven plays a role in both, spirits that run things, Eric S. Rabkin, a dragon, a hero has to slay, making his bed for 10 years, the saga of the Volsungs, particular spin, specific spot, shave away the descriptors, the kinds of stories, people are the same all over, tapped into this stuff that no one else is, no one else is like him, what is this story about?, about the Fall and how it happens, the inevitability of the Fall, who is Edward Billings, a mandate from God, an alien?, he is God, people he needs to report to, he knows everything he’s got a book, the CIA World Fact Book, how big the army is, how much literacy there is, briefing people, the good purpose, a crisis over there, eat the kool-aid, quite useful, square km of wheat in the Ukraine, the proximate creator of this set of little people, Tommy and everyone else on the Earth, Earth B is us, Earth C is gonna be the fairy people, squeaks and stuff, A is the angels, some of them got away, they did things, so funny, so silly in so many respects, back up this theory, what kind of genre it is, Edward Billing’s space, kids spying on a man in their house, the upstairs rented, kid from the neighbourhood, sneak in, to get some dirt, the garden, his eye to the crack, the moment of creation in Genesis, shapes forms, beyond the wall, an immense old fashioned desk, it’s been 7 days, his vest pocket, the great watch, naked and bleak, elderly bird, then he put his glasses on again, expert fingers, reared up before him, the typewriter, the ominous booming, insistent beat, him typing, the sound echoed hollowly, Prominent Author, dark and littered, in heaps, charts, charps!, astronomy, signs of the zodiac, chemical bottles, a stuffed bird, grey and drooping, greek and hebrew dictionaries, a bone letter opener, a wizard’s lair, laboratory, very alchemist room, flypaper, gas heater, a magic lantern, able to identify that, heaps, an image from his youth, The Father Thing, Scott Miller narrated recently, a horror story about a father being replaced by an alien, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, a place of importance, a pool of sticky water, dried butterflies, the huge old man, gosh!, working on his report, if it is all metaphor, it has to be, Philip K. Dick rationalizing the events of the bible and extrapolating on them, putting them in their proper context, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, the radio drama, the Earth is destroyed, the mice were the laboratory technicians, the dolphins, So Long And Thanks For All The Fish, a series of rug pulling outs, ok now what?, let’s go to The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, hanging out with cave people on the new Earth, Sunday school, could this all be the explanation, we’re never going to know, the questions we have are wrong, two bad words to describe what is going on here, an Ark in his garage, that rain’s going to continue, only he got the message from God to build that Ark, a little bad boy, does this amazing thing, you can’t just take them from me, I have free will, race C, the little people, a very Philip K. Dick thing too, marbles, that was how it was, he’s accessed this memory, kinda like pool, you win, he wins completely, he has the spark of god in his thumb, what we would call God, we’ve made a mistake, we think of him as that guy, so powerful in our lives, the Garden he’s making on his deck, office/laboratory/room, bucket full of dirt, spark glass into red hot fragments, he’s tired, Tommy carries the bucket, these little people, their new earth, our Earth is their Earth, just the garden in the Garden of Eden, just that it be there, a myth symbol, making out his report, they had escaped, they had gone, his repetition, that’s what happened, they enjoyed playing games with this kid, he taught them, he prepared them for this, going back to Heaven, dazed from the shock, Project C was already, beyond control, the contamination had spread to C, immobile, silent, thoughtful, happened before twice before, each project would carry the discontent to the end, the evasion of the plan, slowly he opened it, they would all be equal, equal failures, they had clothes on, little suits of clothing, the same trick, he’s trying to solve these questions, what if this is true?, turn it into a cycle, resolving the mystery, religious visions, a guy who could have used that for evil and start a cult, he uses it to explore, how could this be?, is that a science fiction story?, not really, is it a fantasy story?, maybe, just for conversation, genre conversation, a set of rules or something, what stories do, useful to talk about, this doesn’t fit the criteria, there’s not consequences of technology, chemical, words, the questions that the boy asks of the man, where are they?, yes and also not, god is everywhere, you can’t find him under the table, is he down by the corner store?, three kids are bored, curious about this old man rooming in their house, is he a communist?, doesn’t have a beard so he can’t be a spy, the parents, you won’t have any dinner, a snake?, in the garden, Theodore Sturgeon’s Microcosmic God, much more explicitly a science fiction story, whatever institution he is a representative of, looks like a bird, a bird in the Noah story, is God a bird?, does that make Tommy the Devil, talking snake, the fairy people, isn’t Tommy also Prometheus?, he’s a thief, for a good purpose, he’s freeing these people, did he also save us?, an implanted memory, he once had a healing rod, the aliens who gave it to him, you saved our spaceship, be the hero of mankind, superpowers, project my mind out into the solar system, the messiah complex, Damien G. Walter, I am the prophet, let me tell you about the Mythos, the fate the Angels had happen to them, fairies out in the world, like Conan Doyle, cigar box, is this a great story?, interesting, a nice little retelling of the fall with a little extrapolation, the character work, they’re his, a very boy thing, the guppies that you found, you’ve read great stories, definitely likeable, at least as high as The Builder, more exiting things here and there, delighted by Philip K. Dick, terrific, better than Prominent Author, a joke, a meditation, page 105, that?, what’s in there?, they?, the things, the bugs, the netting, if you’re interested, a weird man, right before this, has to be able to run in case the old man is like a molester or something, twisted the netting loose, eyes wide, you can see what they are, whistled softly, “I thought maybe they were.”, little tiny men, not exactly, his rickety chair, a pipe, not exactly men, gaze down into the frame, tiny huts, they gazed up at him, tiny pink creatures, naked, that’s why they were pink, look at their heads, go get the glass from the desk, the technology, now tell me what you see, arms, legs, some were women, their heads., what’s the matter, a philip k dickism, they’re queer, they’re not queer, there’s nothing wrong with them, deep in silent thought, did you make them, squiggle missing word, they were lent to me, the trial group, very new, sell one of them, they were not quite men, ending in knobs, similar to men, except for the antennae, Mars, Venus, a hard question to answer, the question has no meaning, that is awesome, what’s the report for?, the thing you’re doing, how long?, that can’t be answered either, your questions are wrong, kid, getting near the end, he’s 11, what are you going to do with it, my superiors, are they here in town, yes and now, maybe someday you’ll…, by writing a fiction story?, it’s about us, I looked at it, about the Earth, you’re not from here are you, outside, the solar system, I can tell I have ways, what is it for?, Billings considered a long time, that depends on those, how Project C works, each project is planned carefully, “factors”, these guys are ents, new arrangement of the cognitive faculties, greater flexibility, lose in libido energy, individual experience, less stereotype thinking, a recipe for what’s wrong with humans, almost no dependence on innate drives, more adaptable, we don’t love as much or hate as much, they don’t breed like rabbits, they’re more Vulcany than us, Philip K. Dick being an autodidact, suspicious of the herd, situation control, Tommy was lost?, dim in my mind, wings, too much self dependence, pride and honour, atomized antagonistic factions, finished smoking, our first attempt at high level organisms, certain of success, group orientation process, the critique of this story that’s coming out, people are too herdy, subject to group learning rather than individual experience, greater supervision, what did the second kind look like?, this bird like man, associated with the wings, looking at God is a mistake, harrowing, you don’t want to look at me, cmon’ God, can I?, Moses gets a gander, the face of God, fractured away, self determined groups, instrumental in influencing, should have the exterminated, you’re Project B, final disposition, out of jurisdiction, the Vogons, no longer functional, 9 little people, not an Adam and Even, numerology, a reason for the 9, not just 2, a breeding population, suffer genetic damage, not equal male and female, they’re queer, can swap, a plan was dawning, rigid, rigidity, Roog, the garbage men are aliens, or a dog getting upset at a garbage truck, going?, I have to go, goodbye, you will, why does the old man want to see him again?, doesn’t seemed to have hoped, ruminate for himself, lonely?, to describe God as lonely is funny, why did humans create robots, they’re lonely, paperbag full of bottlecaps, bright yellow, pennants, groupthink, a team of people you don’t know, hockey jerseys, Evan likes baseball, playing baseball, a distinguishment, shirts and skins, which guy to check, on you team, uniforms for that, make it your team, stolen valour, reasons, William Faulkner really wanted to be in the airforce, Canadian Air Force, added a u to his name, wear his Canadian Air Force uniform around town, the main reason, cowards who wanted to have the benefits, a Lebron James jersey, cosplay, seeing yourself as, distinguish themselves, Marines are first in last out, esprit de corps, middle class energy, what the pennants are, Philip K. Dick is not a normal boy, the big dresser and mirror, brush and comb, they wanted to break off a tine, pictures of baseball players, a paperbag of bottlecaps, why he stole the people, the small radio with it’s cracked plastic cabinet, the broken magic lantern, his dad’s cigars, Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, I’ll trade ya, Titus Groan, teen girl, leaves and rocks, annoys her maid, a fantasy but not really, most popular blogpost ever, a big chonky thing, 21 hours, very easy to be a Tolkien fan, hard to be a Titus Groan fan, feel seen, understand it, Tolkien explainers, cite their sources, media related, a movie, bizarre choice, true of Dune, therefore crying, a castle, one swordfight, a guy climbing the side of a castle, 2nd most popular blogpost, audience captured, small audience, narrowcasting, reviewing magazines that nobody wants to hear about, the typical paragraph thread, what was funny about it, how to search for it, tweetable, etexts, some of them are really hard, Chuck Wendig one, locked down, about that ip thing, archive.org sharing content, pro ip activist, bumped to a landing, stubby trucks, scoops, what the hell is a jitney, something to do with the nickel, unlicensed taxis, Lovecraft’s goes on for 5 tweets, The Alchemist, Robert E. Howard, from his perch, caught his sworddbelt, grinned his thanks back to her, Edgar Allan Poe, replenished my goblet, story about a guy who drinks himself into a pile of bottles talking to him, the Jack London one, Kipling, Sitka Charley, ye have again forgotten, the poor devil’s bliss, so awesome, he has the Indians speaking in King James, like Thor, effete, carry this woman into the Yukon, happy are gonna die, haven’t taken on the white man’s morality yet, typical John Scalzi paragraph, peanut butter toast, a peanuty smear, Hera, friggin, the mission critical world of parking garages, William Gibson paragraph, high sharp cheekbones, slavic faces, the reek, swaying train, a frozen park, a different kinda writing, Elmore Leonard, wee wee, the doggies not the ladies, he likes that, colloquial, stylized, Voltaire paragraph, Zadig answered, quite right replied the eunuch, you have seen her then, Herman Melville, Turkey, Nippers, other respects, a temperate young man, his vintner, brandylike disposition, potations, as if the table were a perverse, superfluous, Bartleby The Scrivener, Ursula K. Le Guin, until shot off, Chevek thought, assuming the latter, a pleasant tickling blast of warm air, small blue spots, Uras?, so groomed, ready for a contrast, typical Chuck Wendig paragraph, finding a toilet seat warm, he might find it pleasant, posteriors, seat of pleasure, worshipped by pink lips and tongue, salad, sandwiches, calypgian, rumination, like a mime wiping away expression, typical Robert Sheckley, reptilian race out near the center of the galaxy, Ian Fleming, a lot of combs today, you’re a good girl goodnight, must look my best on the scaffold, Ernest Hemingway, now things were done, he had made his camp, a good place to camp, now he was hungry, Papa Hemingway, a good place, same style of writing, there’s art to it, repeating in a way, not thinking about licking women’s asses, the last one, Donald E. Westlake, in a vocational high school?, air conditioning repair, The Axe, all those people are writers, in the same language, around the same era, the past is always with us, am I crazier or is the writing getting shittier?, maybe Ted Chiang will come back from his retirement, this concern that chat gpt will take over people’s writing, John De La Roz thread, pretend that Paul is a bad person, ai everything, time spent reading ai text is very long, need an ai to read the ai books, indie author guys, part of their hustle, being a crypto bro, political position, selling twitter or whatever, they can be wrong, delete would be better than what we have now, people who don’t make any ip want no ip, the regulations inhibit, under copyright, his children are elderly, copyright office, post office, patent office, least worst, everyone has access to whatever they want, illegal, hypocrites, audible.com, hard to extract yourself once you’re in, an Amazon ebook guy, ebooking compared to audiobooking, hard to know, used to be the case, doesn’t give your time back, not his best, for what it is doing it is excellent, good story, Donald Westlake, interested in the post, you can pick up any random pulp novel, you have to learn these things, digest vs. pulp, bedsheet, slick, early issues are huge, digest size at the end, more pulp size, hardboiled and noir, dieselpunk and steampunk, not cyber, solar panels on his hat, speaking from the position of any random author, Richard Prather, Gold Medal books, paperbacks, Westlake’s published in there, not a random author, a Jesse biased list, biased negatively, bias against, sequels after sequels, essential reading, throw on a Margaret St. Clair?, two topics of conversation, the only science fiction they’ll read, excited about an author, tend not to read the short stories, poetry, Shirley Jackson, her novel and her short story, 2 novels, unfinished, Dick it’s always novels, more people to be his champion, during his lifetime, rediscover Robert Sheckley, a Deep Space 9 novel written by Sheckley, tie-in novels, 12 hours, a commitment, 2 things in its favour, read by the author, apparently he really wrote it, if a man like that actor had success in life it was Garak, spoon on his forehead, Garak being gay, outside of Julian Bashir, he’s a spy, with a female, half-cardassian half-bajoran, tailor is kinda gay?, well groomed, at least 10 years ago, about the new shows, Maissa as a suggestion, written in the form of a letter to Bashir, after the show is over, inquiring about my health, a 12 hour letter, quite fun, high hopes, stretch out from the conventional stuff, can’t do Philip K. Dick every week, a good character on the show, a Worf novel, got the jist, his son’s return, a son from TNG, I don’t like you, he’s a man now, kind of a geek, he’s from Earth, making fun of him on the spaceship, Worf’s arc, the writer saying we didn’t really think this through, get rid of him, you’re a disappointment, fuck you, dad!, telling stories about the ship’s mascot, the swordbearer, he’s the flower girl, Evan got it right, the Klingons can be best explained as cosplayers, be more like goats and hit each other, where they explain it, virus or something, Memory Beta, Memory Alpha, Enterprise is not good, their culture is made up, a product of their history and what they choose to believe, it’s not genetically built in, get a jumpsuit, armour, spine armour, batleth, Batman’s sword, batleth?, Khaless’ batleth, student is here, time for coffee, on the twitter.

Project: Earth by Philip K. Dick

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #861 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Recalled To Life by Robert Silverberg

The SFFaudio Podcast #861 – Recalled To Life by Robert Silverberg, (5 hours 3 minutes) read by Mark Nelson for LibriVox, followed by a discussion of both. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Will Emmons, and Tommy Patrick Ryan

Talked about on today’s show:
Philip K. Dick, June and August 1958, 1962, rewritten around 1972, big problem with this book, Robert Silverberg, pay closer attention, who was right [it was Tommy], the worst Robert Silverberg piece Jesse has ever read, not good, some stuff, terrible at points, the timeframe, a switchboard, voice-only set, telephone set, the tech, published 1958, oh dear god, this novel is a total snoozefest, there’s no interest in it, twig this subject can be fun and interesting, a really terrific short story by Jack London, A Thousand Deaths, 1899, whisked off to the south pacific, back to life, he suffers a thousand deaths, the captain is his father, the son recognizes the father, a really solid and interesting story, Herbert West, oh yeah this can be great, Herbert West: Re-Animator, fun and funny story, how come this book is so bad, Double Star, bureaucratic politics, trouble management, the U.S. party system, a weak technology story, the first way he dies is through drowning, a heart lung machine, then he poisons him, electrocutes him, dies of a heart attack, a fundamental misunderstanding of death, careful to not spend too much time on the details, injury of cessation, visible damage can’t be too extreme, phaser damage, phasers only do as much damage as the plot needs them to do, controlling the settings, what mechanism death is, the innovation, a disintegration ray, zaps his dad, a revenge story, artificial resuscitation, watch the movie, read the story, an image of H.P. Lovecraft Reanimator’s makeup kit, corpseless head in a dish, the whole joke of that story, the body is never fresh enough, killing and killing and killing, they get their revenge, a comedy of science, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, reanimation vs. immortality, he is Prometheus, creating a race of creatures that won’t age, possibly more beautiful, an assemblage of parts, what is this thing?, this book, I’m a lawyer, used to the a governor, PR man, insane powers, head of this non-profit, kidnap a man and kill him, Bryant, getting reanimated, why didn’t it go that way?, made the choice to make it worse, perspective, a cautionary tale, so many guesses about prices, $9000, predicted the future, inflation, not meant to stand the test of time, a lesser science fiction magazine, the channel selector, his last client, let’s firm up your will, an elevator operator, set in 2033, analog tv channel changing, why the senator might vote with the conservatives, no guarantee against senility, assumptions being made, a good or a bad idea, in the way of progress, moral ramifications, the narrator seemed like the author, given motivation, his daughter’s death, before the book starts, other children, about a whole bunch of things, let’s imagine that it was, Herbert West is not Bell Labs, Beller Labs, such a huge institution, the wikipedia entry for Bell Labs, dozens and dozens of laboratories, thousands of employees, Alexander Graham Bell won a prize in 1880, a prize in France, is responsible for patenting and developing lost of technologies, scandals, where a lot of tech comes from, government labs, arpa darpa, wacky scientists, Benjamin Franklin, an extraordinary talent, make himself enlightened, Herbert West doesn’t have a lab, steals other people’s labs, steals a cat, steals the dean, a response done up straight, familiar with Lovecraft, a Lovecraft rip-off, not Lovecraftian at all, Dreams In The Witch-House, he’s not a lawyer, he does no legal work, some advice, he’s a lobbyist, who they hire and fire, the CEO all of a sudden, a king, Gilgamesh, Enkidu’s buddy, some of the things that are happening rhyme with reality, boring and stupid reality, what this book is really about, how is new technology accepted by the public, propagandized right, makes it more acceptable, Tommy is older, test tube babies, cloning, moral scares about it, birth control, the pill, around 1962, that process, how do we break it to the public, whatever this thing is, invent the telephone, technology and pricing, all tech, the media, newspapers are still a huge thing in this, sat down at the dinner table, the thick New York Times, as thick as your fist, not that thick anymore, media landscape, other technologies, even if you’re Albania or North Korea, pretty incoherent, a little undercooked in the book, save lives like his daughters, needs something to do, that is not a good science fiction book, agree with all of that, the undercooked nature of it, liberals and conservatives, why there aren’t Democrats and Republicans anymore, a political realignment, almost right, or changing their names, our friend Jonathan [Weichsel], why do we have party realignments?, slavery, segregation, what’s the name of this elderly liberal senator against reanimation, Strom Thurman, suspicious names, more Roman-A-Clef than we realize, Harker, not Johnathan, elderly democratic senator, tweeted about this, the Grok thing on it, fishing, it can recognize this picture is 3 people, a huge funny interesting story, the 2020 kidnapping plot of Gretchen Whitmer, everybody in the van except for 2 people were FBI informants, a kidnapping and a governor, P. Schuyler Miller review from Analog, before isbns, 75 cents, a spinner rack at the grocery store, introductory blurb, greatest novel, Infinity in 1958, deserves the Hugo nomination, mechanico-chemical means, how this power is to be administers, passive language, the handling is what makes the book different, James Harker, of New York, trying to carry out his campaign promises, kind of true, not the focus of the book, who he is, second chance, felt forced, hired as an attorney, probe the political and religious aspects, hand is forced, a premature announcement, less than practical scientists, reanimation fails, calms down the melodrama, makes the book realistic, could have been governor, an accessory to murder, what it would have been competing with, Who? by Algris Burdrys, A Case Of Conscience by James Blish, better than this book, fairly comparable, trynna sell it, seemingly random things, the kidnapping, realistic, bring out the new iphone and there’s a leak, hurt sales, lord it over Samsung, don’t care, banal, convince him by giving him the experience, the old man who lives in the elevator operator apartment, greedy children, didn’t go to space like he did, millionaire astronaut, Neil Armstrong, a private person, Yuri Gagarin, Buzz Aldrin, in a Transformers movie, John Glenn, in Canada too, name recognition, managing the public’s perception of a tech that comes in, should be interesting and important, circling around the tech, weird science fiction fetish, why does he like it, what he wrote, The Space Merchants by Fredrik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, freneticism and meandering, Madison Avenue, Mad Men, reverse psychology, more K-Street, where the lobbyists control what’s going on in the senate, K-Street, a synonym for what it is, what we want is money, another seemingly random action or choice, random scientists, spring the trap, Martin Raymond, reasonable, I’m the one who signs your cheques, tip the public, a court case, wrangling back and forth, a congressional hearing, not even under oath, testify to congress, no HIPPAA, two As, 1996, a therapist, that name, convenient and on purpose, how to get what you want, he kills himself to demonstrate it, another fucking lie, while he’s in recovery, manages to wing it, an analogy for winging it for writing a book, Donald Westlake, generally entertained, Lawrence Block, writing a novel a weekend, little room somewhere near Greenwich Village, start typing away, a natural ability, you don’t need to worry, just need to get tapping, amazing, okay, how good is the idea behind the book, when the idea is excellent, well thought through ideas, how will this technology impact society, how people would react, neat idea, well executed for what it is, where the world really is, fewer issues, assumption, religious concern, makes himself Jesus at the end, human nature, the rich are going to take this over and live forever, the lich problem, a frozen go to the future book, very limiting, neurodegenerative disease, if you happened to be drowned, luckily we have somebody to fix you, you can bring old people back to life after they have a heart attack, Terry Schivo, heart lung machine, a baby in the womb, the person who you loved is dead, opinions about it, the topic of the day, how everybody dies now, decide it’s time, make it look less messy, we have this tech now, it doesn’t bring you back, corpuscles full of oxygen, lean into the lich thing, it isn’t about that astronaut, ungrateful children, have him live forever, a conclusion more morally interesting, a k-street ex politician gets involved in a cover up for a murder, why is this the book that we have, if you want to be Herbert West, not bad because of any technical mistake, told this story in an interesting way, where did he go wrong?, repetitive, missed opportunities, that’s the reality, he isn’t cool, feel bad for him that his daughter died, sure that he isn’t, damage control, I’m in on it too, part of the cover-up, saw her for the first time, swept to the side, terrible terrible, not a good guy, Gilgamesh is not a good guy, Herbert West is not a good guy, sit behind a desk, do damage control, paragraph on page 30, a doodle pad, the religious part of this book, what will the big forces of Catholicism think about this, papism in power, what the pope said was “vote for the lesser of two evils”, Vatican II, something happened, John F. Kennedy, the first and the last, Biden, how is it an insult, the influence of the Pope, in this book vs. 2025, prominent people with collars giving their opinions, archbishops, teaching chess, these two bishops, only has power if you’re in a cult, cancel you harder than anybody, divine right as kings, democracy, the power of the church was immense, political powers, consults the church, keeps it in confidence, a reversal, the church is gonna be in favour of it, random plotting shit, realistic, what kind of person do you have to be to function, not sympathetic, goes along with the murder, seems wrong, Double Star [by Robert A. Heinlein], high politics, Dave (1993) or Moon Over Parador (1988), The Prince And The Pauper, you went to an alien planet, a future you don’t understand, the insider is doing insider stuff, not a good book because it is too realistic, excuses, there will be trouble if you cross me, Mark, the money man, died of a heart attack, braindead, they get away with it, 19th century cowboy, murder this guy too, the coverup is worse than the crime, that’s a Nixon thing, the reason that’s important, Nixon was setup, the CIA couped him, a Jesse opinion, books out on it now, what is the threat, it is implied, very realistic, except this tech is bullshit, how the world works, psychological realism, right after that list, senior senator, ogre of a man, not good things, his futile attempt at political independence, do what he promised, doesn’t matter, where the old man stood privately, the nat-libs, the other two seats, 20 independents, Bernie Sanders is not really independent, who would fund them, this book is very optimistic, the New York Catholic heirarchy, the red hat, a cardinal, a good Irish name, appraisal, a successful technique for resurrecting the dead, Silverberg novels, short stories by him, spent all this time, reading Faulkner, came back as a New Wave author, memsis in literature makes it bad, a Lester Del Rey Stan, we can blame the dwarf, mimesis, Sailing To Byzantium, immortality, living beyond your death, not esoteric enough, if it was birth control, people are again it, people are in favour of it, the tech as abortion, more fraught, relatively available for rich people, the letters and letters and letters that pour in, community issues, doesn’t make for a compelling read, be charitable, didn’t technically do anything wrong, it went sorta practical, strange about the people who work for Beller Labs, the dean of Herbert West’s school probably has the same feeling about his student, mashed up Double Star and Herbert West, members of the establishment, party politics, booted and taken down by the feds, a senator dad?, South Carolina, give her this book and see what she thinks, being an insider vs. being just a regular person, an insider who was excluded, just being a lawyer, taking the empty seat of the murdered guy, the moral tipping point for the story, dies of a heart attack, mob style politics, if you cross me there’ll be trouble, a vague threat, that’s how they talk, as an NDP insider, a federal election, Bonita, provincial MLA, everybody in the party is an insider, sometimes things work out in your favour, timing, messy divorce right now, feels a lot more like mimetic fiction, real life politics, you have to play the game, what should be the strength of this book, letters pouring in should be the motivation to keep going with it, COVID discussions both directions, I can’t believe you’re not masking, all a show and all a scam, who’s right?, you shouldn’t cover up murders, a duty to report, you can’t be a party any crime, sticky wicket, he’s doing something that is wrong, covering up the murder of this guy, make the tech come out, a touchscreen iphone technology, Walter White cared about his family, he cared about building his empire, a much more compelling show, he was mad, he used to be part of a bigger corporation, they became billionaires, the cost of his family, Better Call Saul is a much better show, he could have take the money from the billionaires, in theory, when he dies they’ll be provided for, deeper and deeper, kill him again, being on the fence, this is really gonna happen, he’s rewarded in the end of the book, he’s a scumbag, is our author trying to tell us he’s not a scumbag?, The Cask Of Amontillado, a deathbed confession, you who know the nature of my soul, walled up Fortunato, murdered him 50 years before, making his confession to his catholic priest, ascend to heaven, it’s delicious, he enjoys the telling of the story, the opposite of remorse, he’s a zombie, mental function, chopped him up and buried him, remaining sympathy, a good seduction, rooting for Walter, brother in law, he’s right, well off the deep end, watches someone die, the one in the basement?, Jesse’s girlfriend, what our guy does in this story, tip her on the side, Saul only has a brother, his brother is contemptuous of him, he’s going to be a successful lawyer, we should be good friends brother, the family is there to illustrate the moral horror of what he is doing, makes the wife the bad-guy, can’t you just be reasonable, a turning back and forth, good drama, not as morally interesting as a man alone, consults his wife a little bit, his job, him wanting this technology to come into existence, weighty, not very weighty, good ideas to explore, multiverse story, very troped, very common, interesting insights, bad writing, bad characterization, the dialogue, campy and terrible, bored, over the top, dull, the writing is dull, not hard to understand, making these threats, a bunch of crap, a cool idea, socially, conceits within the story, for the good of society, Jesse is more pro-death than most people, looking to make money, not a for profit corporation, we’re not going to patent this, we all agree this is a bad book, figuring out why it is a bad book, bored, perked up, global observations, the world-building, the k-street shit, crisis management, marketing materials, politicians are usually lawyers, management of the case, a lobbyist, a legal advisor, in 2025 vs 1958, The Space Merchants is must better, plot controlled, a more fun more interesting book, the execution seems like the problem, the main character feels old, 46 is really old, 23 when this was published, doubling his age, he’s the main character, Peter S. Beagle’s A Fine And Private Place, written when he was 20, a middle aged sort of book, a middle aged man, wife and family and regrets, regrets into his new job, a nice piece, his career is over, well handled, about an insider doing k-street shit and his motivation is not made explicit enough for us to sympathize with it, undo the death of his daughter, he tries not to think about it, doing these things he does, try to make the world better, self-aggrandizing, the plot does that to him, make the technology come out, the Philip K. Dick did something really bad, changing the dates in Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, set in the 1990s, make the dates later, an artifact, 1958 money, most of the tech in here, the rockets and the airplanes, the things that have not been disrupted, the money or the dialogue, elevator operator, predicted the cellphone, Heinlein did that one, Neuromancer, payphones ringing at him, a not book written for us, if this had won a hugo, less respect for hugos, too realistic, also not realistic, done much better by Lovecraft and Jack London, dull and slow, this book is boring, this book isn’t good, but not good at the same time, interesting ideas, thoughtful, time travel, neat ideas in here, executed in a way that sucks, choosing the way he told the story, sat down at the typewriter, the huge mistake that he made, a castle on a small foundation, completely collapse, on a sentence by sentence basis, never confused, almost no emotions, not thinking about it, just acting, he drinks a lot, his little son making a little martini, the kid organizing the drinks, The Jetsons, he goes to an automat, wholly uneven tech, a book about politics in the 50s, Tom Wolfe, new laser that can make photocopying easier, those books exist, a fictionalized Blackberry, corporate espionage, all the stakes of going behind the iron curtain, semi-interesting, the stakes are stupid, anti-social shit, illegal, crime fiction, there’s this amazing show, good ideas for shows, Profit, 1996, Adrian Pasdar, well ahead of its time, edgy tv melodramas, amoral Richard III, multinational conglomerate, blackmail, bribery, extortion, breaks the fourth wall, searching the internet, research and ammunition, curled up naked in the corner, the origin story for Dexter, traumatized origin story, a little bit like American Psycho (2000), he’s just like a normal person who went to the Warden school at UPenn, socialist realism, we like it a lot more based on him being a broken character, total evil, he must succeed, jokes about it, memes, parting shots, interesting ideas, no characterization, suspension of disbelief, an important story, this is his worst book, we don’t care about anybody, resurrected by Dracula’s kiss, only 5 hours long, commute, predictable ideas, things work out for him, not sympathetic, murder-coverup situation, The Man In The High Castle, we’re told, he wrote it using a randomizer, yarrow stalks, The I Ching, most fiction shouldn’t be random, somebody’s D&D adventure novel, random encounters, the structural problem of it, kinda fun, kinda works, much better and more interesting, the structure here is deliberately bad, the mode he’s going for, a mainstream book, he really downplays a lot of the tech, the main tech is stupid, it’s true like they were saying, decades and decades before, early 20th century, zombify people, straight out of Herbert West, willing to forgive this book, a 23 year old pretending to a 46 year old, hurts his reputation, hadn’t fully blossomed yet, allowed to write bad books, improved it somehow, find some time, teaching, a class full of kids, acting!, maybe it is different in Colorado, fun to go there, Denver, really wild, construction boom, niche restaurant situations, Colorado Springs, into the mountains, easier to got to Michigan, the west, just go through Ohio, poor Bryan [Alexander], commuting, perpetually disappointed by Amtrack, it used to work, Rhode Island, a labour union one summer, up to Boston, Providence to D.C., intentionally more expensive than other forms of commuting, a monopoly and they fucked it around, natural monopoly, libertarian utopia, competitors to Greyhound, level of sketchiness, Dominican part of town, maybe they would stop, Chinatown buses, weird war, The Messiah Of The Cylinder, The Beetle Horde, 1914, The Underwater Menace, raising Atlantis by blowing it in outer space, Zaroff, The Most Dangerous Game, evil high end counts fleeing Soviet Russia, science will be the faith of human kind, 2015, the illustrations of this, a guy in a copper cylinder, the PDF Page went down, Everybody’s Magazine, a normal suit, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, guys who died at the Alamo, weird leather clothes, a dude in a cylinder, frozen and surprised, hugging it, 1917 fashion, interior illustrations, swooning, the first installment, three cornered love affair, so convincingly, socially different in every way, to-day, you may disagree, whirled dizzily, we are sure you will follow this story, H.G. Wells’ The Sleeper Wakes, very vital, gripped by tyrannous socialism, over the coffee cups, sounds deeper than The Beetle Horde, come out Arnold, pleaded Esther, a vast mob, great illustrations, a mob pressing closely, what disconcerted me, shrewd mocking smile on each face, Joseph Clement Cole, a giant ant, the Goddess of the Temple, Bryan Fullen, seems fine, February 20th, six months from now, nice people, kind, generous, as most people would agree, I got a cold again, he’s not a faker, Vincent, fun name for a Chinese kid, Vince, evokes differently, convinced, proof of my supergenius: making a small pun, dad jokes are the best, can girls make dad jokes?, why are they called dad jokes?, a specific kind of father, not abusive drunkards, cornball nonthreatening father, an insult almost, they’re not called mom jokes, cornballism, they have to be more serious, the dad has gravitas from being a man, the way they characterize families in commercials, the woman is very competent, the man is a goofball doofus, make jokes, the butt of humour, we don’t need you but you’re there anyways, free to make whatever stupid joke, a father joke, a daddy joke, who’s your daddy?, necessarily sexual, muscle mommy joke, green muscle mommies, orc women, orc daddy, less appealing, he doesn’t need leather, take a risk, a t-shirt, a bad google predictive search history, three orc dads, my three dads, Three Men And A Baby, Bossy Orc Dad, would you rather have read, The Tissue Culture King, The Tachypomp was more fun, evil eugenicist organization, purports to teach medicine, even more in accessing what’s interesting about it, a more presentist lens, Waterspider, Poul Anderson vists the future, not bald is a problem, mattress cars, mention the existence of children, Deep Space 9, it does this turn into a 3 episode arc, a seasonal arc, solid science fiction show, passes the alien bechdel test, 2 aliens on a runabout, Quark and Odo have to climb a mountain, sell their bodies for souvenirs, carry a radio up an atmosphere, works through subspace, Odo breaks his leg, off again male romance, emergency rations, a pretty amazing thing, work on making a culture, a list of the Rules of Acquisition, only made for episodes, mentioned in episodes, there to fulfill the individual needs of the particular plot, harm your storytelling ability, the whole point of these kinds of stories is to explore ideas, consistent in lore, continuity is not the point, the opposite of memberberries, the opposite of good storytelling, the who gets a medal only matters in that particular scene, remind you of that thing you saw, the profit motive, hence the Minecraft movie, the Hungry Hungry Hippos movie, laziness, a really solid argument, what do people say when communism bad, Venezuela, iPhone, people starve, what made the iPhone good, a phone that can do that too, one less device, becoming retropopular, wifi and bluetooth, involved in your tech, not into soldering, a direct call out to Bell Labs, another way of going, call it Roosevelt institute, any sort, Edison institute, Edison is the patent troll, Benjamin Franklin, 16 brothers and sisters, 2 moms, third last, last son, a printer brother, exploded into the United States and really changed things, newspapering, politics, fire insurance, social socialism like it is now, Philadelphia, became wealthy, he didn’t create an institute, it was a Volta prize given by Napoleon III, really into science, grandpa/great uncle?, literally builds a building, making audio transmissible, metastasizes all over the United States, Nokia, thousands, a long list of things, lasers, lots of people got awards, people who faked their science to win prizes, the profit motive, I need to win this prize so I can do my science, he thought it was really cool, Poor Richard’s Almanack, the patent system, in the constitution, media mail!, article 1, patent and copyright clause, securing for limited times, one of the few things that is limited, very influential, wanted to know about it, the story of Steve Jobs is a tragedy, the biography of him, students wanted to be Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, used to give money to socialist things, an inventor, feel the vibe of what this thing was going to do, this is really cool, how could we make money from this, we can do better, really into design, a fashion guy, the aesthetic of removing buttons, more streamlined, when the apple cars it comes out it won’t have any doors, the perfect phone is a sphere, more disposable, a good salesman, a good aesthetic for it, they liked that he was successful, before COVID, fraud company, a blood test, Elizabeth Holmes, female Steve Jobs, a successful businessperson, devices and technology, Apple’s products, dishwashers, not sexy like a phone, they’re foolish, freedom and communication, that holding of it gives it the attention, one of god’s angels designing creatures for the earth, I make puppies, I make tube grubs, volcanic vents are part of god’s creation, billion dollar company, started Pixar, called him back, we don’t know what we’re doing without you, life vs. work, had a family, adopted, played some role, have it difficult, not a good model to model yourself on, Wozniak did it better, accidentally gets millionaired, a guy from high-school, just because they’re interesting, successful accidentally, fitting the right circumstance, born in Hollywood, Carrie Fisher, parents were movie stars, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Douglas and Kirk Douglas, an ugly brother, Beau Bridges, successful not happy, a good thing for people to do, find things to do because they like them, it’s cool, this is interesting, let’s get into it, Scott Miller, the name of his podcast, the term sci-fi, it includes Star Wars, The Moth by H.G. Wells, 2 guys who are competitors in categorizing and pining moths, punished, is that a science fiction story?, the science of speciation, a mimetic story with an unreliable narrator, a psychotic protagonist, Genus Novo, Pearson’s Magazine, doesn’t feel like normal science fiction, all about the competitive that is science, people trying to prove, realistic stories, four people getting on a train to cheat on their wives and husbands, the people who are doing science, fairly close to doing fantasy, Haply the entomologist, Professor Pawkins, in a padded room, hallucination, the ghost of Pawkins, The Red Room by H.G. Wells, disprove ghosts, everything is spooky, blind, that’s spooky, many people, foreboding, even though I fired my gun at the ghost, what ghost are, ghost are in your head not in the world, talking about science, technically science fiction, fiction about science, it has those two things in it, definition, wallpaper science fiction, Tommy was pointing to the wallpaper, pricing was off, media was so important in the story, what these reporters are doing, old channels of distribution of media, how does that relate, Wells doesn’t use that term, post-Gernsback, lay the responsibility on somebody’s feet, scientifiction, sci-fi eventually if we must, definitely not sci-fi, The Tell-Tale Heart, fantasy, horror, narrow it to just a few categories, thinks there’s a ghost, a story about a psychotic person, The Man Who Could Work Miracles, Wells cares about science more than anything else, maybe girls more, Amazing, a movie or something as well, what miracles are, if I could perform a miracle, an old fashioned lamp, wandering by himself, what else is impossible, makes the tree change seasons, get rid of the evidence, hits a policeman, what are you doing, I wish you were in San Fransisco, part of the story is not shown, sent back to San Fransisco, he makes the earth stop turning, thrown into destruction, the trees and the air and the oceans and the birds in the sky, momentum and friction, to not have the power to work miracles, looking at the lamp and not saying what he was going to say, it is, physical laws, break physical laws, that’s the whole point, putting to bed the idea of ghost stories, making a point, only our material reality, in Unknown, a funny story, uses scientific laws, increasingly noting, his characters are never interesting or fun, oh my, The New Accelerator, The Island Of Doctor Moreau, evil, evil too, cat girl or something, what Wells is doing, idea fiction, what science is my boy, guys trying to fuck eachother over, a short story, an interesting turn, part of the problem with this book is the way it is told, really wants to do something and we don’t get insight into it, the idea is also broken, also real, pretty limited, Ted Chiang story, Understand, terrific, he’s the opposite of shit, clinically cold, not there for the characters, pure science fiction, not-science fiction, fantasies, as science fictiony as Wells is, The Tower Of Babel, a world with different physical laws, 2019, no audio for it, keep waiting and hoping, ISFDB.org, bring my wife back to life with your science fiction, help us Ted Chaing, 6 years and feeling dry, I think there’s nothing, retired, born 1967, looks young, younger then, went to Brown University, who’s any good, depends, too young to go, didn’t graduate from high-school, computer science, documentation for programs, sad, gotta make a living, a sad reality, using his brain on that, under capitalism he should be rich, consider ideas until a story comes out of him, the money rolled in from the movie adaptation, I’m tired, which is sad, a friend of a friend, 2023 Chiang was named, in AI, The Lifecycle Of Software Objects, ai pets, that Time list, here are the 100 best stories, read the list and judge it, Lester del Rey’s Helen O’Loy, number 2 Lester del Rey’s The Faithful, raised by people, all these thoughts, very faithful, the chimps aren’t faithful, likes to wear clothes, a story about Will, a civilized chimp, more nudist, Heinlein’s ideas of nudism, that’s crazy, dm notifications, twitter is unreliable, Alex’s gonna love this, Tex Avery style wolf pajamas, luxurious, students wear pajama bottoms, technically, flannel pants, silk pajamas, wear them around the house, a theory, the Hindi word for clothes, etymology, it should be true, persian leg, urdu, 19th century, while lunging, southeastern bottom wear, nightwear, just clothing that was soft, how connected urdu and hindi are, pjs, jammies, nightsuits, allegedly very similar, aha!, be careful what you say or write, a weakness Will has, attracted to the idea of luxurious things, cloth material, Rolls Royces, a Cadillac, decided to keep it, the idea of it, luxury cars, a pond too far, the ultimate utilitarian thing, whatever it is, technologies that don’t change after a certain point, the Volkswagen beetle, a curved windshield, not a perfect example, the jerrycan, the British coveted, a container for carrying gasoline, traditional jerrycan design, 3 handles on the top, specific shape of lid, expansion notches in the side, passing them to be filled, an evolved design, during WWI, the 747 is very old, they look identical to the ones that came out in the 1860s, the avionics, the engines haven’t changed, the placement of the cockpit hasn’t changed, stopped iterating, shoes that are really nice, a disease, insidious, not affordable, a want, try not to have those, desire leads to suffering, a Buddha thing, a Yoda thing, have and use, alpaca wool hoodies, comfort, maroon and purple, a stag pattern in white, little buttons, not very efficient, I know what you need, long sleeves, shorts and t-shirt, what people’s logos say, it has a pocket, put some coins, a pen and a notebook, a consumer, used by technology, not a creator, a software question, Adobe InDesign, laying out a zine, all by hand, microsoft word, google docs, substack, layed out the blog, broken, the PDF Page was broken, he’s working on it, the uploading program had changed permissions, a very simple tiny little error, way more common than giant crashes, forgot to tick a box, skips a line, computers are supposed to be incapable, something will load in, surreal things, the sky is full of a giant red thing, somebody’s helmet the size of the whole sky, miscalculated, checksums, not broken files, whenever there’s a break in the internet connection, rather than just skip it, theoretically the way streaming works, you’re downloading, relatively as it happens, how reality works too, a good example, Walter Kirn and Matt Taibbi talking about The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury, Lem and Dick, positive comparisons, behind a paywall, 20 subscribers, a repeat, comments are turned off, they’re doing a livestream, your not saving the file that you’re downloading, your’re downloading it to your brain, your breaking copyright with your eyes, we’re all criminals unless you’re deaf dumb and blind and unable to use your fingers for braille, exact same path as tech, copyright, cannot be stored in an informational retrieval system, Google Books, DVDs in a DVD changer, an argument made about VCRs, a brief worry about it, kinda interesting, breaking the law, recording broadcast television, how is it allowed, we wanted the tech to be allowable generally, convenient and a good idea, an argument about it, CDs in Canada, put a levy on all recordable media, cd-rs and dvd-rs, distributed by the government, lasted for a while, lobbyists, bro, everybody wants this technology, can’t we find a way around it, a slush fund, a new power center for people, no levy on hard drives, cloud storage, not the ideal solution to it, now just basically ignore it, unless we want to do censorship, how it is connected to the book, the harsh reality, how we dealt with it before, that’s the way of the world, my boy, tie a key and tie it to a kite, fundamentally escapist, isn’t that why we don’t like it, boring, isn’t the reality of cliques and jockeying for power boring, on a sentence by sentence level, inoffensive, not interesting, interesting ideas, poorly written but interesting, competent but boring, Asimov, Cordwainer Smith, A.E. Von Vogt, a bad writer sentence, capable of writing beautiful sentences, doesn’t flow, beautiful, more traditional, backhanded complement, workmanlike, the idea shouldn’t have been explored this way, the perspective character, from the outside perspective, Heinlein’s pretty good at characters, in Silverberg’s defense, what if it is way better, audible.com, the revised version, one would think, Recalled To Life, more Robert Silverberg, Needle In A Timestack, Downward To Earth, Jesse, Paul, Terence, Jonathan, people die, people get mad, Jenny [Colvin], a comic book adaptation from France, The Golden Ass, Humanoids has a good reputation, nudity, you know they’re french, French prudes, issues and idiosyncrasies, Book Of Skulls, A Time Of Changes, Up The Line, at loose ends, a time courier, Byzantium, great great great multi great grandmother, humorous, sold on this one, sounds really good, looking into May, pretty agreeable chap, the Star Wars one, Edmond Hamilton novel, short stories by him, Margaret St. Clair said about him, some people like it, flawed stories, space opera, Weird Tales, a Campbell story, HorrorBabble, The Return Of Captain Future, his own hero pulp, a robot and a girl, why?, might also be the president, Fire Princess, Leigh Brackett, what does she see in him?, she liked the Edmond daddies, Star Patrol daddy, superhero comics, Batman and Superman, reprints, Under The Red Sun, Superman Family, backup stories or reprints, poor Edmond Hamilton, works with the president, to be the president, along with the luxury, levels of it, Roman Holiday by Arthur K. Barnes and Henry Kuttner, Mort Weisinger, Bobby Derie, the market for Weird Tales, don’t do this, a reprint, time trotter Pete Manx, two dudes in an arena, a lion bunched his muscles, scientifiction hall of fame, fantasy classics, a new permanence, a real service, devotees, all suggestions are more than welcome, whatshisname, juvenile magazine, Sam Merwin Jr., Thrilling Wonder, Oscar J. Friend, William Morrison, John D. MacDonald, bring captain future back, Analog or Asimov’s, who dis, A.E. Van Vogt, we can’t be friends, normal life, this one autism, I too like coffee, we can be friends for now, if you ever switch sides, wrong guy to be obsessed about, so good, The Weapon Shop, in the Science Fiction Hall Of Fame, this is fun, F&SF, The Hunting Of The Slan by Edgar Allan Poe, June 1849, space filler, general space filler, his column, Marginalia, the fate, gifted/accursed, very far superior, manifesting his consciousness, he can’t help but manifest, acting like he’s superior, that would be a mistake, without flaws, conscious of his superiority, coequal humans, smarter than the other, you’ll be fine, very judgeable, how to tie this knot, understands himself be superior, he can’t help it, talking about Slans, 2 sentences in, enemies at all points, widely differ, a madman, abnormal weakness on account of being abnormally string, you do and you ought, Harrison Bergeron, very generous spirit, inevitably misconceived in every direction, extremeness of intelligence, meanness in its last degree, opening a door for a lady, a kind of behavior that can be extremified, the longer your sentence the more polite it is, a three page letter, fatuity, dementia, what’s the etymology, from the French, 1548, back to our story, and so on with other virtues, extremely neat, extremely untidy, strength to weakness, virtue specific, honesty, lies are sins, we shouldn’t lie, people don’t like being told the truth, what’s your password, not a lie, dealing with it, have you ever eaten a small, depends on what you mean by small, making a joke, if not joking, lies hiding behind jokes, viewed as a liar, a deceiver, chastity, virtues of the catholic church, fortitude, faith, some meme, I don’t need it don’t need it I don’t want it, I need it, humility, take that one too far, incredibly humble, the vice of being a braggart, pride, patience, suspicious of churches, words are weapons to be used for control, get your reward in Heaven, kindness, wikipedia entry, things come out different, capital, cardinal, 7 in each, so temperate you’re a drunkard, a wanton, moderation or voluntary self restraint, be like Pan, abstinence, moderation in all things including moderation, sometimes the governor takes a vacation, very bacchanalian of you, Scrooge, very selfish, harms my family, willy nilly, puts my name on all that things, Jacob Yurovsky chair of Yale, claimed to be a philosopher, particular, Eric had one too, Walter Thurnow professor of…, basketball court or new wing of the hospital, sold the naming rights, a land acknowledgement to the lich that gave you the job, you could philosophy about counting blades of grass, sin of being a sellout, diligence, perfectionist maybe, back to the text, motives misinterpreted, a painful one indeed, for whom Mr. Poe, really sincere, not saying who, the plane of the race, traces of their existence, the good and the great, wretches who died in prison, in Bedlam or upon the gallows, Alexander the Great, is he wrong, not talking about slans, self justification, very interesting, good example, Alan Turing, his success at decrypting, tortured to death with hormone therapy, reversed, now he has been martyred, is Poe constructing an unfalsifiable theory of the incredibly intelligent, really gifted at music, the psychoward, van Gogh, Salvador Dali, why is he talking about this, The Tell-Tale Heart, a guy who thinks he is extraordinary, sharpened by the disease, not dulled by it, the gallows or Bedlam, better to get hanged, a perfect test, a careful search, The Hunting Of The Snark by Lewis Carroll, Jack London, a snarky column, The Cruise Of The Snark, LibriVox, 1876, didn’t turn out well, a great luminary, may have involved time travel, Ambrose Bierce went back in time and got, shot Lincoln then went back in time, time shock killed him, a real thing, bro., nonsense stuff, Edward Lear, make stuff up, The Owl And The Pussycat, a five pound note, oh pussy my love, what a beautiful pussy you are, too long we have tarried, the bong tree grows, his nose, dear pig, mince and slices of quince, an allusion to this, it’s meaning is derived from this poem which is nonsense, a grapefruit spoon, serrated edges, runcible restaurant, college campuses, a new theory, Ruritanaian romance, a secret subculture of Ruritanian ethnic restaurants, the principality of Runcibalia, how countries are made, why it is called that, for the meter, similar to science fiction, creates images, a really good example, he had a stone in his hand, he had a stony stone in his hand, a shape and a sharpness and a temperature, goes against it, sandy sand, stone is different than rock, what’s so cool about that, when you are constructing it is proof that there’s magic, shades of colours, bluey green, reddy blue, yellow orange, orangey yellow, only tutor ruritanaian students, very literal, poor young Jesse has to figure things out, what cats are meant to do, natural animal, lots of problems, see also, lunchcounter, meat and three, a fixed priced offering, porkchop, hush puppies, fast food item, fish restaurants, instead of fries, condiments and sides, the food your supposed to focus on, eating ketchup, this ketchup is amazing!, do you have a dish of relish for dessert, Philip K. Dick next week.

Recalled To Life by Robert Silverberg

Recalled To Life by Robert Silverberg

Recalled To Life by Robert Silverberg

Recalled To Life by Robert Silverberg

Recalled To Life by Robert Silverberg

Recalled To Life by Robert Silverberg

Posted by Jesse Willis