The SFFaudio Podcast #846 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Lilith by George MacDonald

The SFFaudio Podcast #846 – Lilith by George MacDonald (10 hours 5 minutes) read by Pete Williams for LibriVox – followed by a discussion. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Scott Danielson, and Tom Pace.

Talked about on today’s show:
A Romance, 1895, analyses, Christian universalist, congregationalist minister, a fantasy character, fascinated, first wife of Adam, where did that come from, Jewish mythology, Kabalaha, the Talmud, acquainted, an intellectual blah blah, Answer To Job by Carl Jung, predates Joseph Campbell, 10 hours, first 10 chapters, last 10 chapters, final ending, Mr Crow, that healing cycle, hope, a level of forgiveness, this podcast, the process of becoming wiser, read some more books, some of them stick with you and make you wiser, a George MacDonald, one of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy, old books are good, Tolkien, Lewis, Phantastes, The Princess And The Goblin, A.A. Milne, in dialogue, Edgar Rice Burroughs version is a Princess Of Mars, Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation aka Gullivar Jones: His Vacation, Edwin Lester Arnold, portal fantasy, whimsy and fancy, for a comedy purpose, not a lot of humour in this book, a world that’s a parallel society, not a lot of running water, a little girl, our solo male adventurer, a transformative experience, David Lindsay’s A Voyage To Arcturus, Lin Carter, very good taste and a very avid interest, his Conan knock offs, the curator, books on books, a man with good taste, mediocre fiction writing, done a lot of good for a lot of people, since they came out, late-19th century and early 20th century, Charwoman’s Shadow, The King Of Elfland’s Daughter, The Broken Sword, twigged to, Scott Miller’s Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, The Door In The Wall by H.G. Wells, encounters a woman, a fantastic realm, 2 panthers, shows him a book, the boy having adventures, outside the door, three more times does the green door appear, an exam at school, a minister in the British government, the third time he goes through, something else going on here, a construction site, haunted that boy, made him the man he was, he sought death, what is the meaning of all that in the story, after reading this, green doors are magic doors, something that doesn’t come up any more, a portal fantasy, an explanation, relatively mundane, servants quarters, baize, felt like on a pool table, little children were taken under the wing of a servant, magical land, they love you, no longer allowed to pass through that green door, quasi-memory, is she Circe?, full of symbolism, Aslan is a lion, that’s fine, supposed to be Jesus, the raven in here, Mr. Raven, Mr. Crow, little ideas here and there, christian symbolism, dying to self, selflessness is what you need to do, Lilith with her clenched fists, the Ring in Lord Of The Rings, progression would be dying to self, allegory, roughly use the term, a deep analysis, Mr. Vane, Charles?, climbing the mountain in the city of God, literalist toward the divine, allegorical towards our lives, the end of The Last Battle, a new version of Narnia, ups and down, up is heaven down is hell, the mirror was in the attic?, in the library, if it was in the attic, the head, the brain, the cellar is the guts, water in this book, no running water, red running liquid, when he cries, are those rivers, you would never finish reading the book, it made me clean, a nice book, a very weak book compared to this, talking animal, A Night In Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny, characters presented, Dracula, you’re supposed to figure it out, this is just a big shaggy dog story, wanting to read it every October, 31 chapters, a cute book, no substantive weight, dense with meaning, events that happen in it are fine, full of ideas, propaganda for a certain point of view, we can all get salvation no matter what horror we’ve committed, everybody’s got a path to redemption and salvation, making it very clear in the book, Aslan’s a talking lion, he’s the king, all these children with no parents, we find them in the forest, not a random encounter in Dungeons & Dragons, 19th century orphans, be like little children, innocent and fearful, stunted in growth, they don’t mature, there’s these giants who are scary and dangerous, reading this with a cynical mind, that adult man should not be sleeping with a bunch of children who are not their own, our relationship to other humans in the pure light of god, true and clean and just, a striking set of scenes, experience in this book, finds the corpse of the woman, dried right to her bone, nurses her back to health, mysterious bites, getting sucked on, pretty sure she’s a vampire, it was big bad snake, I threw it in the river, an intimacy there, to give it warmth, warming it somewhat perhaps, makes clothes for her, heavily symbolic, why C.S. Lewis loves it so much, really good messaging, I can use this, shades of Narnia in it, not a book for children, stars children, the very real horror of WWII to a fantasy countryside, morally educative, accessible for children, a good C.S. Lewis quote, “put away”, Corinthians 1:13, critics who treat “adult” as a term of approval, to be concerned about being grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish, in moderation healthy symptoms, arrested development, fairy tales in secret, read them openly, the fear of childishness, very grown up, the people who stop reading science fiction regret it, I don’t want people to know I’m reading Harry Potter, when you have actually grown up, making a mistake, need to move on from this stuff, graduate to mimetic literary fiction about nothing, Ray Bradbury, he was told he needed to mature, returned to that, he got back into it very enthusiastically, one summer, summer school, playing LEGO, looking forward to playing LEGO, didn’t want to zoom it around the room, unable to be that imaginative, let’s make this airplane look good, play better, a graduation out of a certain stage, get into writing, become playful again, a cool car that somebody built, design the cool car, taps into the relationship with childhood, a long way of saying, The Screwtape Letters, Out Of The Silent Planet, very interesting, the Good Story Is Hard To Find podcast, Scott’s a Catholic, Bishop Robert Barron, play is something you do for its own sake, the highest form of doing something for its own sake, a purity to it, think of non-human baby animals, become playful, the wrestling, the chasing, becoming what they are, a puppy on Tuesday, naughty is something little kids can be, an older dog, she has a job, no sheep available, border collie, naturally wants to herd sheep, when not full of puppies and nursing puppies, watching all the chicks, go back to doing her job, if anything ever goes wrong, she doesn’t play very much, this instinctual job of being a mom or a worker, graduate out of it, getting back in touch with it, creative and fulfilment, a better explanation, divines play, something done for its own end, a means to another end, in our society, we have it backwards, impoverished, the highest form of human, Catholic Mass As Play, Jordan Peterson, seems to be helping a lot of boys a lot of men, free from utility and practicality, more beautiful, more precious than work, means are not the ends, the means are more valuable, the ends are more meaningful, what I mean to say, the ends, a need to valuate is a need to defeat the actual experience itself, to valuate love, Halloween, go trick-or-treating, random stranger’s home, demand candy, be polite when you demand your candy, a year where you stop going, not because you’re not allowed, you’ve graduated from that, make their costumes, something scary, keep part of that story going, mass as play, all holidays are play days, Christmas, pretend that santa gave you a Christmas present, you need to write a note for Santa claus, we don’t have a chimney, drinks the glass, there’s only crumbs on the plate, perpetuate that play, prefer malt liquor, on the back, a quote from C.S. Lewis, most myths were made in prehistoric times, MacDonald is the greatest genius of that kind, what Tolkien had to say, a vehicle of mystery, twitter tweet, the end of The Last Battle, the ending and the feel of the world, the end of The Silmarillion, a supreme fan of it, the six parts, the chunk of the whole story, an epilogue part 2, Of The Rings Of The Power In The Third Age, ten pages, a little by the way, the scale, 30,000 pages, it ends after the end of The Lord Of The Rings, Gimli and Legolas sail across the sea, the last elf that leaves Middle Earth, the Undying Lands, the rift from third age, bonded over killing orcs, sailing over water, the rounding of the Earth, the same ending, Milton, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, what’s that all about, cycle of death and rebirth, a positivity that just carries, Novalis, a German writer, many hats 1802, the introduction by Lin Carter, The Land Beyond The Hidden Door by Lin Carter, William Morris, The Wood Beyond The World, The Well At World’s End, the school of modern adult fantasy, Lord Dunsany, Fletcher Pratt, a retired Scots minister, At The Back Of The North Wind, chemistry and natural philosophy, enormously successful, Within And Without, Tennyson and Lady Byron, adult fantasy novels, celebrated, famous, popular, Ruskin, Tennyson, Lewis Carroll, uniformly happy and fruitful, surrounded by an adoring family, a mystical genius for fairy romance, a large genial ebulliently happy man, Roger Lancelyn Green, an actor, Pilgrim’s Progress, his strict Calvinist upbringing, heaped atop, writer friends, begging for his opinion, instant love, so good there should be 60,000 more volumes of it, serene and happy man, warm and rare companionship, a wonderful time, fishing to his heart’s content, dark mountain caves, wild kelpies, romantic mysticism, psychological truths, deep and strong, woven into their textures, Scots blood, an inner faith, a rich multilayered style, a depth, a wisdom, and a strength, his two adult fantasies, a fairy romance, 1858, Bunyon for example, difficult to read, ten years before his death, seizes your attention, profound and moving, bright mocking faces, thrilling imaginative force, use of dream symbols is amazing, as you begin it, prodigious imaginative power, a secret door, the setting is worthy of Poe at his highest intensity, shadows of the past, ancient labyrinthine library, stifling silence, passing through he enters upon a mysterious world, a very unusual and stimulating book, Surprised By Joy, Wagner, William Morris, for The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe, much in MacDonald, W.H. Auden, Professor Tolkien, The Hobbit or The Lord Of The Rings, Curdie, behind Tolkien’s orcs, goblins, in an afterword, absolutely fatal, kills the magic, lose yourself in it, The Golden Key, the old man of the earth, you must throw yourself in, Poe, Jesse’s very supportable and correct theory about The Raven by Poe, the difference between Poe and MacDonald, Poe is not a Christian, conversations between angels, demons, Jesus is one million percent absent, an American 19th century, map on more stuff, make a whole lot of mistakes, the name of the faun, Tumnus, a pagan symbol, don’t read too much into it, even though he has devil legs, most Christian fiction is horrible, completely transparent, his worldview oozes out of it, he’s said such things, drawing on all these sources, what would happen next, based in his worldview, that’s the good stuff, revisions, like 8, a chunky book, super Dante, with every revision the Dante retreated, very dark, kind of a science fiction story but really not, also about suicide, the heart of this book, a lot about death, is he Adam as well?, multiple identities, he is also death, this whole land is death, a mode of being, works really well, pretty good book, a fairy romance for men and women, only 6 and half hours with a single narration, that essay was good, haven’t read much Conan, his contributions, you don’t even need to read Conan, read any Robert E. Howard will do the job, when he’s not a teenager, a real power and poetry, not lead as fulfilling a life as you could have, Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, they’re buddy buddy, in his poems too, to read fiction, gave it away, The Screwtape Letters, The King Of Elfland’s Daughter, The Charwoman’s Shadow, Lord Dunsany, short little tiny 1 page stories, chunky novels, normal size, the ideal novel size, 250 pages, epics are good too, a bin of books, 99 pages, James M. Cain, Mildred Pierce, the actual narrator, narrator Pete Williams, his mic was not good in the first few chapters, Levelator, intros and outros, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a straight reader, he’s a hero, he made this for free, because he wanted to do it, we get the benefit from it, he did another one, Hymns To The Night by Novalis translated by George MacDonald, narrator Jonathan St. John, he was excellent, a commercial release through audible, OneAudiobooks, interpretive illustration, Gabrielle Ragusi, a cover, some sketches beneath, her armour, Vane, this mirror, so audio oriented, 10 illustrations, make a nice gift for somebody, as a central character in the book, she’s the object of the book, she’s the subject being discussed, dragged kicking and screaming to her salvation, what’s our narrator doing there?, legit asking, he’s not her lover, The Odyssey, fills a trench with blood, ghosts come and they drink the blood, one of the ghosts is his dad, Upon The Dull Earth by Philip K. Dick, hell or hades, things go wrong, going into the underworld to get your girlfriend, a young man’s realization of spiritual enlightenment, ambiguous enough, he’s got more to do in life, stops going into the library, the world of childish things, that mirror is hidden from him until he comes back from school, what the mirror looks like, make Grok illustrated, a black eagle, a gold chain, a black ball, another black bird, the raven, the crow, not make distinctions, not just size but proportion, an eagle and a crow, behavior, the chain is gold, is that a weight you put on prisoners, a golden chain, not a black chain, not an iron chain, very interesting, Jesse’s excellent theory, textually evident, the beautiful sounds, a vulture, more obviously death symbol, how can you not recognize an animal for what it is, the same species, not an expert on birds, especially a bird up on top of a mirror, a guy named Mr. Raven, our hero follows him into it, a moorland, a place of emptiness, a series of, adventures, a series of dream images, participating in events, he doesn’t know his own name, when did that happen, in a dream, morph from one into another, making a mistake, let the story do its job, other people do do that symbolic work, it’s all just what it is, this beautiful other level, the beautiful writing, the line about the library, FYI, back to the mirror, makes more sense, I never again sought the mirror, profoundly changed by things, where is that place, where is the land through the mirror?, a secondary world, a connection to modern earth, it’s not hell either, some sort of purgatory, a symbolic place, ineffable stuff, strange dim memories which will not abide identification, I never dream now, when most awake only dreaming the more, Walking by Henry David Thoreau, a Novalis quote, our life is no dream but it should and will perhaps become one, a line about the library and his relationship to it, born into a library it will outlive you, studies at Oxford, why would he be doing that?, within a year, profound effect, desultory fashion, the physical science, shame shame, constantly seeing, strange analogies, physical hypotheses, about to fall into a metaphysical dream, spelling it all out, mental peculiarities, the house as well of the family is of some antiquity, a fine library, before the invention of printing, nothing surely can more impress upon a man than his succeeding to an property slowly flitting before my own, he shown into the room, who is he?, the feathering top of a fountain column, a portrait in a sort of niche, the likeness of one of my ancestors, for the first time I seemed to see it, made me turn and cast a glance to the farther end of the room, my optic nerves had been momentarily affected from within, just there I had seen, the old man in search of a book, just where I had thought to find it, very close to the opening of The Raven, in December, forgotten lore, wrought its ghost upon the floor, he’s in a library, a stack of books, enjoying the light, girlfriend or wife has died, she’s come back to life, a Guy de Maupassant story, a missing finger, a person alone in a library trying to find peace by reading, out of the library and into another world, the house is on fire, still is sitting, on the pallid bust of Pallas, shall be lifted nevermore, if he’s not dying at least he’s in hell, something different with the same situation, smart people can come up with the same ideas independently, Scott’s end, Sante Fe, New Mexico, excellent, Project Pope, the schedule, one of Jesse’ hobbies, Clifford D. Simak, a robot pope, Simak is great, the collected works of Carl Jung, a good way to conclude, chip in to that vibe, audiobook, readalong, a few bugs in the reading, some really excellent quotes from the early chapters, the poetic style, when Raven is telling Vane about the prayer flower, the silent voices of characters, comes out as a dove and it ascends, Jung’s Red Book, the Holy Spirit, an anemone, that is a prayer flower, not one prayer flower is quite like another, by the expression of it, could you teach me to know a prayer flower when I see it?, why know the name of the thing when the thing itself you do not know, beautiful poetry, discomfort vanished, a pronunciation error?, a proof listener for LibriVox, if you did deep into the LibriVox forms, make this project happen, some of the meanings, we sat down to the perfect meal, the bread and wine seemed to go deeper than the hunger and thirst, expectation took their place, comfort vanished, discomfort, all would be well, what will be well is even well now, rings so well, a good book, maybe some stuff aimed at kids, the adult fantasy series, At The Back Of The North Wind, Scott does a lot of church volunteering, what they need to do, The Magic City by Edith Nesbit, Jason Thompson, a really terrific artist, Shonen Jump, manga, comic book adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft stories, The Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath, Stephen Colbert had a TV show, a shot of the writer’s room, a poster of The Dreamlands, the book and the poster, find some rando on the internet, make a friend, we should do a show on that one, serialized in The Strand, a giant model city, alive with the people he has populated it with, The Lego Movie (2014), Synecdoche New York (2008), a robot bishop talking to a robot monk pruning a bush, 1981, search the universe, a robotic supercomputer, I’ll read any old Simak, we’ll get an audiobook, always associated, the audio part of the SFF, Prize Ship and The Ship Who Sang, very short stories, recorded both, Eaters Of The Dead by Michael Crichton, The Thirteenth Warrior (1999), redid the whole score, the story is fun, in the paperback he plays games, The Andromeda Strain, the copyright page and the front matter, meta-stuff, a combo on two short stories, The Jamieson Satellite by Neil R. Jones and Melonta Tauta by Edgar Allan Poe, memorizing and writing poems out longhand, creative bent, everything, from Jordan Peterson’s sources, writing therapy and reading of classics, booklist, Dostevesky, clinicians, what he said about Jung, doing your shadow work?, who is in your shadow, why do I hate that guy so much, Michio Kaku, all the people he talks to, pushed back and asked questions, he got so mad, basic lies, accept it and nod their heads, a supercut, not a one off mistake, 100 years ago long distance communication was yelling out the window, telephone, medicine has improved so much, in what ways, look I’m smart, a theoretical physicist, same thing with quotes, Canadian Quotations, where did this quote actually appear in this person’s work, Robert A. Heinlein, Heinlein doesn’t use this word, kinda similar to what Heinlein had one character say, that sort of stuff is in my shadow, all presidents kill people, not everything is equal to everything else, show your work, trying to understand string-theory, where was the tests that you did for this, all theoretical, that guy’s never flying that car, the rotax engines never got the thing off the ground, getting lied to, Jesse doesn’t want to be that guy, the objective of shadow work, psychotheraputic, root influences, his career, psychiatry, medical psychology, academic psychology, theorizing and la-de-dah vs. medical psychiatry, make a person better, psychiatry, intending to make you aware of the problems, make a person not so reactive, not so volatile and reactive, qualities that are annoying to other people, socially well rounded, allowed to be annoying, obnoxiously demand, disagree on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 70 hours for 1 volume, there are multiple Jordan Petersons, personas, his utube, subtopics, he behaves differently, private videos, personally talking to him, he know how to perform, a character quality of his presentation, he’s a presenter, rooted in his being a professor, you could call him out on those things, dignity and courtesy, an actual dialogue, when Joe Rogan has him on Yon Mi Park, too much plastic surgery and had some traumatic experience, the Korean refugees are all from South Korea, my kid can’t handle, the government isn’t controlled by the United States as much, politics, propaganda, Russia has definitely had its problems, one of the poorest European countries into one of the richest, same thing happened in China, the Russian revolution, a really interesting fact, after [WWI], have to support the White Russians, a forgotten piece of history, how did this hate-on for Russians come from?, a pea in the same pod as Jung and Peterson, not a marketer, getting lots of money, a very useful archetype, knowing that you have something that you don’t know, until you are triggered by the thing that triggered you, ceased to be psychological, three branches of the study of the mind, psychology, sociology, collective unconscious, canceled all television subscriptions, not a huge fan of Karl Marx, pro-Peterson people, things that he should hate him for, the shadow of the Marxian/post-modern thing, vilifies it all, alter strong criticism against Marx, what the final outcome is, people don’t approach Marx, bring Marx up, even interesting, the unabridged Gulag Archipelago, 2100 pages, endless, on archive.org, you wouldn’t read that, a giant report on the prison system in the Soviet Union should not be a popular work, who could?, volume 1 of the 3 volumes, what’s going on in the 2nd volume, the Ottawa protest from 2022, the truckers, if you were there, a whole world of unbelievable experience, truckers are heroes, not written as a report, more written for the human to read as a story, an experiment in literary investigation, a venting friendly strange story, not friendly, soul searching, Solzhenitsyn was an avowed Marxian, the biggest Marxian ever, Will Emmons, self-declare communist, read a lot more Mao, a Leninist Marxist, when you approach somebody as an individual, Hitler or Pol Pot, present yourself in an interface, I’m not a weakling but I’m not going to beat you up, enemy hormones, you’re my brother, it happens so fast, presenting something that’s attractive or repulsive, allyship, amity, character traits, the story of the photographer, meets Goebbels, demon eyes looking at the camera, all roses, weird experiments, all in the show, all your interesting secret history, almost nobody listening, it’s for posterity, strange experience with some random person, what do you think of contraception, not a hypothetical, a practical tool, something you think is very important, not a good question for twitter, not good at subtlety, an interesting bookshelf that people don’t like, I have Mein Kampf, that book is not banned, Mussolini and the fascists in Italy, what do you think of Hitler, a long show, not a simple story, if we’re ever going to talk about Hitler, hired to be a spy, like Ray Epps, trick people into becoming criminals, very successful at it, why Hitler’s evil, the system that he was the head of, who you going to point your fingers at, we fucked up by joining WWI, Germany wanted to be an Empire, a snowstorm, a rolling down a hill, Hitler wanted to be allies with Britain and the United States, deputy prime minister Chrysta Freeland’s grandpa was a nazi, did a documentary on plutocracy, if you’re going to have the conversation, allow the breathing space wherever the path goes, awareness and new knowledge, touches a lot on WWII, part of the Red Army, his criticism of Stalin, how Churchill is just as culpable, treatment of the Cossacks, the cute guy who liked machine guns and won WWII, the story of the Cossacks, GoldenEye (1995), Sean Bean’s backstory, the whole history of them, a subculture of mercenary mentalities, enforcers for the Czars, horseguys hired by the Czars to do a purge, the guys who attacked the Roman Empire, ancestors have done evil, happens all the time, empires do this all day long, friendly conversation, new awareness, counterpart to writing therapy, reading therapy where you read fiction, one book leads to another, a bunch of pirate books, Marcus Rediker, books, economics, not exactly communism, anybody can defect, don’t bring women on the ship, light the place on fire, The Fearless Benjamin Lay, participating the slave trade, book leads on to book, a Simak novel, value to be drawn from it, mimetic fiction, realistic fiction, horrible stuff like The Life Of Pi, just mimetic fiction with fantasy dressing, a mainstream novel, a lady that acts like a robot but she’s not a robot, just make her a robot, it gets past your defenses, only care about the ideas, the best path for reading, conversations that we’ve had previous, kind of weird, not pleasurable to read, how long is it, get it done in a week, a whole bunch on YouTube, underneath of Peterson is Jung, Maps Of Meaning, videos, the core of his work, the force to be reckoned with, what he’s approaching, from another perspective, standing on the shoulders of many giants, three tributaries, Jung’s Alchemy, a self therapy thing, the source of spirituality and the world religions, a giant basis, a singular pool or lake, nice metaphor, 30 hours, super hard to read, dense, extra hard and three times as long, don’t read it for this podcast, The Edge Of Thought Ideas, needs social almost every day, cognition, might help, 1652, Elias Ashmole, The Ordinal Of Alchemy, allegory that points to the real world, so abstract, as if the real world was abstract, the root of the I Ching, arabic, chimera, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, what everybody says about it, people queue up on what other people are saying, a comedy piece, am I wrong, is this not supposed to be hilarious, a really dry sense of humour, cut up dead bodies, uses electricity, gets materials, creates the creature, Galvani and other such, the growing man in a jar, material reaction happens, growing crystals, sugar water, heat and time, on the end of a string, sugar crystals, the mandrake, grow a man in a jar, grew a man in a jar or an alchemical process, bones around which to grown, stitches, a black man’s arm, nothing like that, oversize, translucent skin, the ugliness could be beauty, improper proportions, Marilyn Monroe without the beauty mark, the beauty mark moves around, she has the beauty mark, the little imperfection that shows her what the image is, a giant newborn baby, the psychological reading of it, the 1818 version, no stitching, ourside the family’s home, the creature destroying Frankenstein’s remaining family, fuck off?!, fuck you!!, his bride, his cousin, his father in the Creature’s shadow, more like an exam, the best it can be, regret, six or seven months after, spurs more research and such, Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde, it was supposed to be a reveal, spoilers, we know going in now, that’s what this is supposed to be, he rewrote it, a complete rewrite of the same book, earbuds, bluetooth, stuff about the writing of that book, him vs. his writing, Treasure Island, a nice guy to know, four copies of The Aeneid, the collected worlds of Carl Jung, Anna Karenina, Riverside Milton, Wagner, Voltaire, re read Candide, funny books, Der Ring des Nibelungen, Douglas Adams, a full cast production, you get one bad actor, just learning English, so distracted, reading styles, not worth the trouble, Tannhauser, Venusburg, seek absolution from the pope, only 2 hours, Nibelungenlied, epic poem, 1000 years ago, Canterbury Tales, 20 hours, the more time it takes to prep, fewer people show up, we lost three of those people, Christmas season, been fun, Geoffrey Chaucer, sharing stories, The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, the prologue, scammery, very enjoyable, The Alchemist by H.P. Lovecraft, episode 567, kinda similar, the best story ever, still great, the head of a dragon, no mirrors in this castle, family is warning him not to go to town, hooked on that idea, everybody seeing him in his innocence, a metaphorical ugly duckling story, a goose, a shadow of all the people who are looking at him, it lends itself to reading that way, I’m alive!, he puts on clothes, the lab coat, wanders off into the wilderness, cold and hungry, nuts and veggies, his creator was afraid of him, he comes to a house, he spies on the people through a crack in the wall, an old man who’s blind, gather wood for the fire, a little interaction, learns to read, a really fun nested narrative, Evan Lampe, Hay Ibn Yaqzan by Ibn Tufail, a guy born out of a muddle puddle, he’s a baby, a female deer becomes his mother, the mother dies, I don’t know what death is, a history of philosophy and science told through the narrative of person, science and philosophy, raised by deer, the Tarzan books, read an old book and you learn a lot, silly alchemy words, in and out narrative, written in the 1400s, Hyperion by Dan Simmons, meet the shrike, books that rhyme with other books.

Lilith by George MacDonald

Lilith by George MacDonald - cover by Gabrielle Ragusi

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #788 – READALONG: The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton

Jesse, Paul Weimer, and Terence Blake talk about The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton

Talked about on today’s show:
Terry!, Playboy, March 1972, a novel in book form, where they features author, Playbill, the Jules Verne of our time, a Fellow at the Salk Institute, three pseudonyms, Dealing, a Warner Bros. release, a lot of money in 1972, re-write Frankenstein, rewriting Dracula, take my own life in 1973, 15,000 words per day, he’s going to direct, where Crichton starts ramping up, The Andromeda Strain was huge, 1971 film, directed by Robert Wise, Westworld (1973), that could have been a novel, very visual, Westworld RPG, it’s its own module that kills itself at the end, a wonderful one-shot, no one and dones, not anymore, take advantage of all of your successes, this weird phenomenon, the people who buy jigsaw puzzles, it’s like a romance novel, lacquer them, such a weird phenomenon, is this a science fiction novel?, arguing at the end, unless there is strong evidence, my Tolkien ripoff is a science fiction, not science fiction, speculation on what would happen, we have that technology, you might be scared, this stuff is being worked on, Terence wondered, a preparation for writing a science fiction story afterward, the question comes up, why?, why did he say it is his least favourite novel?, we can think of one that is worse, heavily didactic, the plagiarist?, a huge amount of effort trying to make it realist, the chapter on the operation, how good this book is, also a bad book, communicating what’s actually possible, people were doing that, the least realistic part was the plutonium, plutonium for pacemakers?, smart, plausible, squish the plutonium into the atmosphere, a spill not a dirty bomb, contaminate an area, it’s not a bomb, technically possible, fitting a cigarette sized thing inside of somebody, Penfield mood organ, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, for fun, more explicitly science fiction, robot humans, is he wrong?, sentient machines control him, showing his technophobia, his later crappy novels, he was inspired by real life cutting into people’s brains, not only that, the computers are coming against us, trends in computers, the chapel and the computer room, Crichton’s feelings about computers made manifest, Elon Reeve Musk’s neurolink, he needs to read this novel, there’s no telling Elon Reeve Musk what to do, Grok AI, against AI research, anti-technology, an ambivalence, Prey, nanotechnology, Jurassic Park, standard Frankenstein monster story, awesomely meta, never see his POV, Mr. Harry Benson, the creature, who is Doctor Frankenstein?, the medical system, and the criminal justice system, and also Harry, inferences, a lot that’s identical, shortened, the crisis of his brain, 6:04 to 3:02, the number of attack scenes, knife not microwave, girlfriend, the perseveration of the knife, stuff you have to do for film, seeing it on the screen, we only get his words, he forgets what he does, in a fit state, violent actions almost like a zombie, dance round him, he can reason with you, he’s robotic, he doesn’t look robotic, his whole program is making him violent, a very bad movie, bogged down in the wrong computers, he goes to a grave, hoping he would kill himself, the funeral procession, doing a symbolic thing, the ending of Frankenstein, after he tells the story, there’s no frame here, the woman doctor, Janet Ross, most sympathetic, Minnesota, Paul is a little biased, good writing, so many ideas, this amazing promise, Harry thinks robots are going to take over the world and maybe they already have, how he got into this situation in the first place, scheduled for surgery, under charge, volunteered or agreed to surgery, pre-research, did his violent act to get arrested so he could get into the hospital, he put himself on a path, this stoner who wants the surgery, man it would be really cool if I could self-stimulate all day, the tasp, Larry Niven’s doing science fiction, just science, self-stimulate all day, so close to it here, mundane science fiction, it’s science and it’s fiction, nonetheless, Terence is right, is The Martian science fiction?, live off of potatoes grown in Martian regolith, nothing that’s beyond, hasn’t happened, if we’re going hard SF, it could be, but just isn’t, breast surgery, radioactive enough, contained enough, the speculative element, what do you mean safely?, this is not done safely, haywire, they can shield it, what was the grainage?, off the shelf-technology, plutonium is shieldable, there’s a good reason for that, routinely put into people, pacemaker plutonium pack, never been done?, now its a science fiction novel, speculative, form q, research division, biological organs, speculation within the book, in 15 years if we follow this, MacPherson is speculating, the author speculating not the character, that’s the interesting part, The Andromeda Strain doesn’t feel like science fiction, except through ancient sources, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, pusillanimous, a good connection, the way that book plays out, a feely idea of science fiction, something strange about the feel, technothriller, techno-science fiction, stuff on feminism, MacPherson again, the philosophical implications, when the link goes both ways, two brains communicating, Gödel’s theorem, laying in and throwing in, a rich dense book that doesn’t quite pay off, Drug Of Choice, sparking up my brain, Mr. Benson, the computer’s perspective, if he’s right, feared and hoped that he was right, the book doesn’t tip its hand, same disappointment, this book fucks up itself, missing a scientific element, in the description of the operating procedure, computer guided, psychiatrist Janet, interlinking routes creating unpredictable phenomena, aliens might, Southbound On The Freeway by May Swenson, 1963, May Swenson

A tourist came in from Orbitville,
parked in the air, and said:

The creatures of this star
are made of metal and glass.

Through the transparent parts
you can see their guts.

Their feet are round and roll
on diagrams–or long

measuring tapes–dark
with white lines.

They have four eyes.
The two in the back are red.

Sometimes you can see a 5-eyed
one, with a red eye turning

on the top of his head.
He must be special-

the others respect him,
and go slow,

when he passes, winding
among them from behind.

They all hiss as they glide,
like inches, down the marked

tapes. Those soft shapes,
shadowy inside

the hard bodies–are they
their guts or their brains?

the movie Cars (2006), complexity science, interaction between two computer programs, nasty and vice versa, bureaucracy of the policeman Anders, well chosen, not getting the information you’re supposed to get, in different media, complexity producing unpredictable results, traffic app, a computer projection, unrealistic, novelty in the first week, a six minute delay, here I’m using my new iphone cell phone, it can connect to the internet and the world wide web, the robot computer in the body in the car, how computers never make mistakes, an earlier podcast, show coming out, we think about an issue and then 7 months later we come back to it, its still there, computer programmer who wants to fix his brain, doing bad things, avoiding decision fatigue by having it all ritualized, Mr. Benson’s boss, a ping pong machine, an actual table, a sphere coming towards you you want to deviate, the Iron Dome idea, Ted Kaczynski, working on top secret military projects, his home, nothing modern, to kill her or to be saved by her, complains about her furniture being uncomfortable, the thing we’re trying to understand is the brain, not exactly Frankenstein, becomes vengeful, blackouts and doing violence, alienating his family, manipulates the situation, outwitting the cops and the doctors who think they’re smart, the bag with the wig, I did know, a gun in it, the cop doesn’t inspect the bag, necessary for the plot, what does he do with those screwdrivers?, nothing, explained as everybody has things that make them comfortable, did he anticipate, pleasure cycle that is a learning cycle, is that what the plot of this book is secretly about?, the master plan is to destroy the computer, this is illogical, he doesn’t ask, he has the plans, names the model, has the blueprints, once the surgery is complete, he doesn’t do that, did that on purpose, we can’t know that he knew that would happen, he’s of two minds, Ted Kaczynski-like, I can’t stop what’s happening, try to make a warning, the ideology of the deed, anarchy is better than monarchy, an exemplary action, can’t stop light switches, what he can do is shock the system, bring people’s attention to his ideology, already is, tries to escape, he goes to the sex bar, Doylesian and Watsonian, to pad out the plot, Crichton not Benson, not staying on task, how would destroying this one computer could help him, Logan’s Run, making him to want to do the surgery, he has mental instability, makes sense to him, it’s his game, [Binary], finally comes back to the hospital, of two minds, really good, the emergent new phenomena, new experience and new behavior, a demonstration, two brain Benson, go to the title, the new messiah, a good title, the last man, a new step has been made, two brains on an equal footing, the gateway to acting out on all his impulses that were suppressed before, the turnover point, he’s freed himself, we’re all going to be like that, cool and frustrating, other ways of reading the title, he’s the last man, he’s the first post-human, he terminates man, he terminates himself, love each other by pressing a button in your head, a short story where an old guy, Alfred Bester?, maybe not, all these prosthetics, [The Die-Hard], a podcast episode on that, a refutation of H.G. Wells’ story, a radio impulse that gives you perfect happiness, The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle, perfectly happy, pleasure center stimulated, a cunning psychopathic murderer, this book could have been one of his best, figured out a way, maybe Crichton didn’t know, it isn’t a manifesto, what the movie’s gotcha line, you didn’t stop to think if you should, basic readings of Frankenstein, not the best strands of science fiction, don’t play god, what Niven does with the tasp, just got addicted to hyper-opium, electronic opium, the Doylesian reason, what computer games, gambling games, Candy Crush?, they’ve hacked our brains from the outside, mapped the pleasure centers, training you to like things, play computer games all day long, electricity in my wife’s basement, just pleasure center, Jesse you’re a technophobe, isn’t it interesting that I’m a robot controlled by other robots, sending letter bombs to people seems wrong, that transcendence you get with a great Philip K. Dick ending, The Electric Ant by Philip K. Dick, manipulating reality, this novel promises something and almost delivers, not having the great revelation or the great insight, speculativish, doesn’t speculate hard enough, movie makes it pretty bad, but nice and clinical, like The Andromeda Strain, what he’s bringing to the table, the institution of doctoring, am I wrong?, there’s something about the feel of the book, nonetheless our feel is wrong, really pleasurable, chock-full of ideas, too much of a message, sociologically informed pictures, all very fine, one of the doctors has a leg injury, all that stuff, what Janet Ross says, no absolute difference between health and (mental) illness, spectrum, acting out of his anxiety, the family is mind control, the school is mind control, a haze of ideas around this cutting edge surgical procedure, he’s railing is about being blasé about it, intrigued and entranced with this tech, helping patients, seeing the list of things that have happened in the past, the very last one is fictional, seeing it as a progression, inflection point, the catastrophe, the cracks in the dam, the waystation point, the computing power, was that actually true, depends on how you calculate, what is the terrabyte capacity of my brain, really big, bigger than an 8tb hdd, but also pretty lossy, remember The Terminator better than The Terminal Man, the entire credit sequence, a couple of frames, doing the test on him, a ham sandwich on rye, rye can be spelled wry, quite ironic, dry humour, some wry humour, a fairly well done scene in the movie, at an awards dinner, Mr. Benson has escaped, some of the dialogue is identical, the surgery scene is just as long if not longer, the middle of the night, all the doctors are whispering, all trying to solve this problem, nothing big about blame here, get to the patient before something bad happens, what to tell the cops, if they say it the wrong way, when they categorize him eventually, a patient in need of medical assistance, how this is going to impact their careers, how to solve the problem, a meta-point, the female psychiatrist, she’s not the only one, one thing Terence thought was interesting, come back to the hospital, we want help you, take care of, the ethics of care, the human approach, the inhuman approach, treat me like a machine and repair me, in the doctor’s language, a machine approach, seeing everybody as a machine, the cognitive estrangement, we have been replaced with machines without knowing, doesn’t put a button on it, he’s almost got, too dumb to get it, in the way that he needed to, too timid, the crazy man has that perspective, all the evidence, language no longer means what we think it means, a greater book than The Andromeda Strain, we are now through the rabbit hole, this next chapter is going to be retelling, anticipate it, never reveals itself, better as an enigma, shown to be a fool in 100 years, memory tapes are erased, makes the noise, static, in the book, the movie and the audiobook, learning effect, 1.15x, 1.2x, 1.5x, after 10 minutes, up to 1.7x, the voice was so good [George Wilson], Blue Thunder, Roy Scheider, looking at his digital watch, his explanation to his new partner, the first thing to go is your sense of time, a minute can feel like an hour, Dan O’Bannon wrote all the good movies: Dark Star, his worst movie, watershed week, Star Wars, Alien, Dead And Buried (not actually written by him, despite the name being in the credits, he lent his name to a friend to get financing), Heavy Metal, Return Of The Living Dead, Lifeforce, Blue Thunder [is] underrated, did he direct it?, Mike Hodges, does horror films, The Great Train Robbery, narrated by George Guidall, Donald Sutherland and Sean Connery, a very solid film, based on true events, an action movie done as a comedy, the book is more serious, Travels, Eaters Of The Dead, Beowulf with Ibn Fadlan, he combines the two, The Thirteenth Warrior, he’s a liar, stuff on the copyright page that’s part of the metatext, very playful, he wouldn’t have changed the title, after Jurassic Park, John McTiernan, when does that turnover start, too successful to be edited, they don’t push back on anybody now, successful, maybe they pushback, they’re pulling on him, when he does the sequel, The Lost World, Disclosure, Rising Son, smell a little topical japanophobia, kind of a boring movie, haven’t done Timeline, bad torture cinema on Skiffy And Fanty [podcast], done that, A Case Of Need, where things have gone south, beyond human comprehension, he’s making money, you’re being a bad writer, a bunch of people die, suddenly oh no they didn’t die, Michael Crichton’s next book coming out in 2024, posthumous collaboration with James Patterson, a fusion of two different IPs, along with the ghost of Tom Clancy, what they can do… dump the entire IP into AI and say I would like a new Michael Crichton novel because I’m his wife, some bad books are out, we’ve had natural ai in some of the books I’ve read, pretty much done, a nap!?, decision making tree is chopped down, Gilgamesh The King, just had her dad die, terribly bad, Paul out, the emergency, it seemed impossible on Friday, very sad, a discussion, a message Thursday, see if we can move it, decision fatigue, next year when Cora would be available, her life is unpredictable, the default: don’t fuck around with things, G.K. Chesterton’s fence, a principle, the rash move, a polar by behind that enclosure, you can’t open doors sometimes, nice concept, plan my life so I don’t have to make decisions, make the fewest decisions possible, automated systems, what makes decisions harder is not having enough information, which leads to depression, I statements are statements of depression, I never win these things, I is an inhibiting factor, life is suffering, winning happens, running around chasing after happiness, forget the etymology, hap, happy, lucky, how things panned out, fell, not a very depressive sort, no contrast to it, not fined grained enough to describe anything much, a lovely dreary day, a Jungian analyst, James Hillman, virtually everything is depression, you shouldn’t identify with your depression, precise about the image, life is suffering, tell me more, won’t spoil the ending for you, a good talk, seven minute writing, Lab Partner by Jesse, closing up the back of a robot, the robot’s slender legs swung off the table and hit the floor, here in my basement laboratory we can be naked, the clear plastic raincoat from Blade Runner, his great grandfather’s secretary robot in his grandfather’s attic, pulls up the blinds and looks outside at the dreary day, naked female robot, solved this story problem, opened up a computer and put new ram in it, a garden of Eden story, put on a raincoat, writing the dreams down, seeing inside your head in retrospect, dreary, what we can program ourselves to do, Cora, dealing with all of her cleaning of her dad’s stuff, Cartsen Schmitt, dreamt i fell in with a growing band of, Tacoma to Anaheim, wild west rodeo show, ship to ship missiles, The Lost Boys aboard, some garlic in the galley, circus players, the surgery, a little bit’s there, vampires, very interesting, we got lucky, we got a good book, a thoughtful thinker, full of ideas, haze is a good one, a fuzzy novel, mindmaps, doesn’t mean anything to me, anti-story, anti-memory, anti-everything, an amazing experience, taught English in a technical school, senior high school, taking on all sorts of students that couldn’t get into or were not wanted at other high schools, first choice, alternative school, wastebasket, a basket of deplorables, strange people not meant to for the school system, cater to their presence, didn’t understand anything in English, get students working on stuff, strange people, there was a diagram, one of the tools, my friend has a problem with his girlfriend, an amazing use of mindmaps, continue the wrong direction, doesn’t give a shit about school, gets punished for trying, a guy on youtube, for finding weird shit, convinced, diagnosed with 70 iq, shitty jobs at McDonald, raising his iq, the insights you get from somebody who’s had experience, 18 dimensions, not paying attention, hours studying, early 20s, only study for five hours, not knowing what studying is, read a lot, that’s not studying, proving the theorems, not connected to studying for school, why does this movie still resonate, all the sexual spying, fly to the Hollywood hills, is she giving us a show?, that’s part of the point of the movie, cops using surveillance to spy on people, a very 80s thing, what’s striking about it, how timely it still remains, drones before drones, The Poison Belt, cameras, an essayist in your pocket, maven, in the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, we can say it is not the end of the world, the creative work instead of the representational work, point to a vocab word, bird, ma, all long words are made of parts, all long words are dead metaphors, let’s hang some stories on it, a circle with hooks, different ways to access the meaning of the word, tyre vs. tire, motor car vs. automobile, the history of why they’re called that, hanging meanings and feelings, a colour or a drawing, a way to learn how vocabulary works, you’ll get the feeling of what the word means, students know this already, you’ve seen “mal” before, malodorous, break it down six different ways, circumstance, a circum around and a stand, understand, a big thing hanging over you, we forget that they’re metaphors, pump a little life juice into them, horrible experiences in teacher training, no that’s wrong, didn’t apply to all cases, not a universal rule, a sign Terence was inexperienced, fail out of teaching school, Dead And Buried (1981), a girl wearing a red dress, famous photographer?, I could model for you, good vacation so far, she offers him sex, sex on the beach, flash photography, they’re all taking photos, she takes a photo of him, they beat him and light him on fire, then the sheriff investigates, some other stranger is murdered, the guy didn’t die in the hospital, camera wielding maniacs, the sheriff’s wife, a book on voodoo and a voodoo knife, teaching the kids, as he should be, the killing of strangers, the students are loving the stuff they’re learning about Haitian voodoo, a really great ending, a good movie, a horror comedy?, not really funny, art film, a Twilight Zone episode, we like not knowing what’s going on then getting an explanation, on youtube, an & where the and is, dig em up then bury them again, tweets are buried very quickly, fun and weird, a little snapshot of what you were doing that moment, Downward To Earth by Robert Silverberg, Gilgamesh The King, a chat about it, Jonathan’s going to join us, fun takes, dry sense of humour, unusual culture.

The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton

Tuesday May 9, 1972, in the NEW YORK TIMES

The Terminal Man (1974)

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The SFFaudio Podcast #665 – READALONG: Revival by Stephen King

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #665 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa VU, and Evan Lampe talk about Revival by Stephen King

Talked about on today’s show:
2014, pushing it, the Lovecraft connection, the dedication, I was already seduced from before, the dedication:

“This is for the people who built my house: Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Donald Wandrei, Fritz Leiber, August Derleth, Shirley Jackson, Robert Bloch, Peter Straub, and ARTHUR MACHEN, whose short novel ‘The Great God Pan‘ has haunted me all my life”

literally responsible for building this book, Shelley, Stoker, Bloch, the fake Latin title, works the psychological horror mindset, slightly misremembering what that book has in it, the mad scientist, what’s beyond the veil, planting the seeds and the seeds don’t fully grow, more Shelley than Machen, if the pastor were the viewpoint character, it takes forever, teases the cosmic horror, W.W. Jacobs, W.F. Harvey, August Heat, Guy de Maupassant, Edward D. Hoch, mystery magazines, Startling Mystery Stories, Health And Knowledge, the “mysteries” of the worm, religious stlye mysteries, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, is reality as we think it is?, weird fiction from before Weird Tales, The Faceless Thing, the old house, the collapsing house, an old woman, the horror of childhood becomes a lifescar, he thinks he killed her, he was the one that killed her, guilt, ghost, setting the stage, worth the journey, personal horror vs. cosmic horror, the terrible sermon, I’ve been lying to you, a crisis of faith (a revelation of the reality of the Earth), the visions at the end, the ants, the human connections, that downer ending, opening argument, the audiobook, a few moments, all guitarists have a limp fish handshake, putting your brain in the characters brain, pretty good, therapy vs. an asylum, a flubbed ending, a psychic shockwave, The Call Of Cthulhu, an inevitability, not strong enough, the gun with five bullets shot out, one bullet left in Chekhov’s gun, a very Lovecraftian homage, that weird long pacing, hypnotized by the autobiography stuff, more horror, waiting for the other shoe to drop, the car accident, such a cool moment, ghoulishly enjoying the description, he needs to grow up, evil villains, a heroic moment, The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, an evil alchemist, Victor Frankenstein, the mysteries of Joseph Curwen, a mini list, Beyond The Wall Of Sleep, a curious case, an insane asylum, back country folk, The Lurking Fear, From Beyond, become super-thin, the servants have left, the pastor and the 6 year old boy, Herbert West–Reanimator, The Statement Of Randolph Carter, fear -> follow, fractured himself, Hypnos, pulsars, black holes to the true reality, all up in Hypnos, Ex Oblivione, the key, from nothing into nothing, to the null, plays towards, life is the only way to escape the horror that death will bring (and drugs), escorted to the Other Gods, become a lich, Cool Air, life is punctuated by puppies and butterflies and nice sandwiches, feeling pain all the time and everything’s horrible, a blasted wasteland, The Black Hole (1979), Bloodborne, the protagonists are old, Pet Semetary, death is better, a side effect, “you brought me back it’s fucking horrible, I’ve seen beyond!”, you fucking monster!, he doesn’t share his research, root childhood trauma, symbolic lightning strike, a conventional morality play, why his wife is punished, red herring, the alcohol in the glove compartment, ideas of addiction, from what we see of her life, I drank because you hit me or I was a lesbian or whatever, being a lesbian in the end, Imma woke now!, small towns and rumors, symbolic mirroring, to avoid the nightmares, an electrical storm in the brain, the problem of evil, tornadoes, True Detective, Rustin Cohle is Thomas Ligotti, a truth that makes me feel bad, talkin to boomers, John Brennan is a monster, terrible truth, where’s the lie?, deluded the whole time, people over there are dying, that original cosmic horror is 100% real, why his wife could be drinking, the lies that everyone lives in small towns, a way of lashing out, you’re making me feel bad, rye or bourbon, too painful, The Devil’s Advocate (1997), Al Pacino’s monologue (God is a sadist), the unvarnished character, where did the secret come from to begin with?, how and why, he’s not menacing, the narrator’s memory, a more menacing light, the shotgun method, 2013, a lot of this could be unreliable, he found himself doing this, murder, where is this document going?, a creation of the creative process, still thinking about the magic, professional reviewers talking about the ending being screwed up, the actual ending, visiting his brother in Hawaii, becoming the next Jacobs, left with an unfinished story, its weird, they don’t know what he’s referencing here, Elizabeth Hand, Quatermass And The Pit, the funeral shading of Arthur Miller’s tragedy, atavistic pleasure, don’t look behind you, “a bit odd”, “a turn for the ridiculous”, “a little silly”, a slow build, a shaggy dog story, sprawling voice, a leisurely stroll towards eventual horror, such a cool idea, this stormcloud full of horror, Wayne June was a musician forever, limp handshakes, they’re all Innsmouth look guys, that opioid crisis, pain management gone wrong, the fifth business, The Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, story construction tropes, why Jesse thinks he’s a super-genius, green doors are magic doors, The Door In The Wall by H.G. Wells, a beautiful garden, a nice lady sitting on a throne, tigers and lions and wolves [actually just two panthers], a book with his life, popped out outside the wall, the point of the story is mysterious, what lies beyond, connected to childhood and personal obsession, when he’s constructing the hill for his soldiers to fight on, a footlocker, his sister kisses him, his favourite present, the krauts can hide in there, the crumbling house, the lightning rod, the cave of shadows, the house of shadows, Skull Mountain, Goat Mountain, the interleaving of themes, the ants, he’s having sex with her on the mattress and there’s a black ant crawling over the mattress, we’re all just like ants, a more subversive way of reading, being drones in our lives, Earth and existence is Hell, Null and Beyond as Hell, an afterlife, not everybody sees the same thing, heroin addiction, “something happened”, his hand is raised up, naked with one sock on stabbing a fork into his arm, post-hypnotic suggestion, gives him a glimpse through the keyhole, brain surgery, the witness, we’re going to see via her what lies beyond, prions up in her brain, a window to that alternate reality, the black paper sky, a long line of marching soldiers, what he’s been programming himself to believe, Kult (RPG), a scary fundamental truth people don’t want to really talk about, there is no immorality or horror on Mars, all the other planets with no life, no pain, feral kittens, a beautiful murderer, we’re going vegan, I don’t want to contribute to the pain of this world, tigers are compelled to have babies, we are the demons of Hell, trying to mitigate some of the horror, trying to make the cat vegan, there is no real escape, we are deluding ourselves, do as little harm as a conscious being, its wrong for me to murder people, that gift of knowledge thing, Marissa found her cat’s diary, she’s a bad person but she doesn’t know that, let the cat out of the bag, we never think about it, we are so versed in the horror of reality, having kids is a horrible responsibility, even worse you’ll give pain, The Place Of Pain by M.P. Shiel [is a rip-off of The Moon Stricken by Bernard Capes], he enjoys hikes, there’s a waterfall, a natural telescope, what was going on on the moon, the Moon is dead and just a mirror for looking at Earth, a headless squirrel, enjoying its nuts, hoping it doesn’t rot under there, the beauty of the babies, Stephen King always avoids talking about the real issues, not really a problem in this world, Ray Bradbury’s carnies, oatmeal cookies, nowhere in this book is a demand for healthcare, comfort food, the major business of the fifth business is health care, Oral Roberts, fake medicine, Trump rallies, revival meetings, electricity bleach same difference, Nyarlathotep, like Tesla, Menlo Park, 14 hours, maybe Tesla isn’t a thing, he’s asking us to do google searches, he’s inviting us to say this is real, the narrator is apolitical, music and girls and army men and cars, in the heroin and oxycontin crisis, everybody is independent, boomer obsessions, meant to feel real, other connections to King things, Joyland, Dark Tower connections, the unfound door, Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe, doors in the Dark Tower, move people between worlds, portals, a door that lets you go where you want, a universal door, Salem’s Lot, a horrible monologue, shattered faith, confronting the Dracula, enter into Roland’s world, the fallen preacher redeeming himself, There Are Doors by Gene Wolfe, a novel of obsession, green doors, like memory of Dinosaurs, the bottomless ocean of a magic forest, the irradiate refuge of sleep, under strange stars, what’s cool about reading weird fiction is its almost like the promise of the secrets of the universe, then…, we’re tapping into our own psychology, why do people fly when they’re in dreams, flying dreams, Paul’s dreams, Samuel R. Delany, a keyword search of a thousand dreams, combining real life interests and real life worries with symbolic universal, what is important about green?, how people depict it on the cover, always a church with a steeple, their church had no steeple, lightning is very important, before the novel started, near the resort where the rich people live, the only politics is all about distribution, a lot of the covers have crosses, the crucifix, not really a Christian book, praising God, praising Jesus, little toy Jesus, a red desert, the telephone poles that look like the cross, there’s no people, artists tasked with giving this book a cover, Marissa wishes it wasn’t true, deluxe versions with beautiful interior art, a nice book cover, had not Evan been pushing it with the magic words, where’s the climax of the story, in the Catskills, The Lurking Fear, the Martense’s old mansion was repurposed, resorts in the Catskills, weird joy, Paul skiing, speaking of Paul, that name is not an accident, Daniel, peripheral characters, Astrid Soderbergh, the fundamental mistake of not putting people in the scene, a family walking towards the church, connecting to our realities, changing colours, Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown, a Stonehenge style pagan temple, the prologue, there’s a secret that will be revealed, more SF than the opening might lead you to believe, based on a weird story, the Binding of Isaac, God says: realllly?, God says: jk, sky god with his electrical bolts, an electrical aspect, the stuff about the eels, the transfiguration, skull mountain (Golgotha), Marissa’s favourite review, atheists should be terrified of this novel, a trend on Twitter, hey and check out my Instagram, be seen, the latest Stephen King book is out John 11:12, why Evan likes to go to baseball games, John 3:16, how the Mormons send their kids off, preach the word, all your eyeballs are looking this way?, photoboming, N by Stephen King, an experience that leads to OCD, The Music Of Erich Zann, That is not dead which…, he remembered it, the quote is about Cthulhu, Paul would say Astrid was bisexual (not a lesbian), she loves cigarettes more than anything, aging, hey you’re bald now, you got really fat, did *I* change that much?, really good, really talented, a downer, always was bi, his sister kisses him, he loves his mother, discomfort, life pain, it could have been a greater novel, background life, the null mother, his visions of his family and the cake and the ant, this is The House On The Borderlands I am forever mindblown, better on the second read, such a wonderful villain, many many searches, most people don’t read, the amount ink spilled on whether the movie is going to get made or not, pages and pages, what’s about the actual book, certain scenes, the lightning rod, the terrible sermon, life slices, the mystery, he hadn’t done any research, fake surgeries, little Bradbury, too much play on the term itself: “revival”, playing to the title, its a metaphor, to condense it, the letter about Astrid brings him to Tempest Mountain, a TV series about Jacob, they’ll fuck it up, The Troop by Nick Cutter.

Revival by Stephen King

Army Men

100pc Toy Soldier Set With Footlocker

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The SFFaudio Podcast #620 – READALONG: Colossus by D.F. Jones

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #620 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, and Will Emmons talk about Colossus by D.F. Jones

Talked about on today’s show:
1966, Colossus: The Forbin Project, Dennis Feltham, two sequels, an amazing 1970 movie, blew your socks off, very faithful, no pipe, no British accent, an improvement, so jarring, the movie voice, Maissa’s small confession, accidentally read the second book, don’t read the second book, you don’t want to go, rape studies, it ends with a question, never?, the movie is awesome, noir, oh you foolish humans, destroy yourselves, destruction is sweet, Colossus is right, Colossus 2020, the context, why you should watch the movie, must watch movies, Goliah by Jack London, Gregg Margarite, Bryan Alexander, Seth, destroy at will, the world is fucked up and somebody needs to set it right, executing people, chopped off and shown, I want those bodies under my cameras for 24 hours, the ruthlessness of Colossus is awesome!, the most ridiculous thing, a giant military boondoggle, we’re gonna milk the government so good, the Idiocracy approach, it works better than expected, a previous president, 12 years, how the funny the movie is now, we’re supposed to respect the president, interestingly flawed, a drive for power and authority, Gordon Pinsent, the President of North America, at least 20 or 30 years in the future, so much in this book, two kinds of things, what is the relationship between man and woman in this book?, man and x-man, God, how many times do you need a woman?, jokes in the book, overlapping dialogue, James Hong, Big Trouble In Little China, Frankenstein, a great ending, so rich, leave it out on the table?, explored the idea more?, super-intelligent AIs, trying to make the next man, scientist shouldn’t be allowed to read Frankenstein, no, noon-scientist shouldn’t be allowed to read Frankenstein, confidant, blouses to put your hand down, the pill, 50 years down the road, red pills and incels, not have the consequence for it, the Colossus programming group, sexual mores, Happy Days, the film is brilliant, the music’s good, walking out of Colossus for the last time, the gamma radiation, the setup that we want for a certain kind of science fiction, wiggle room with The Cold Equations, people want to wiggle out of The Cold Equations, they want to make it so no humans can change what is involved, he should have thrown the remote control into the pit, the iconic awesomeness, how to undo this unnavigable labyrinth, this is what we did, the reason Will is struggling, the book and the movie are about being a parent, self destructive urges, he’s gonna want to do stuff you don’t want to do, uh-oh, a mini-version of Nineteen Eighty-Four, Forbin and his mistress, ultimately the conspiracy collapses, I’d much rather be ruled than an AI than some doofus like Bill Clinton, why this book is so cool, holy shit! imagine if we did this thing: no more nukes under human control, humans are more important, its an anti-politics book, utilitarianism, UNITY, how Colossus and Guardian become one, an abusive relationship with their political parties in the USA, two alcoholic parents (who actually want to beat their children up), no mommy’s right, no daddy’s right, too painful, too intimate, what are you Russian?, you proud American, you’re either with us or again us, we are Romeo and Juliet, spies on both sides, we are above you, the way the movie does it, was Colossus in love with Forbin?, somebody’s kind of mad about it, changing the years randomly, Jones didn’t re-read the first book or didn’t care, look I’m showing you my bedroom, that’s where I will have my emotional relationship, projection on Jesse’s part, Eric Braeden, The Young and the Restless, smart and handsome, Colossus doesn’t have hands, if you want to build that facility in Crete, its necessity, you will come to love me, the author got it right the first time, the movie and the book end exactly where they should, we are left with a question, WarGames (1983), there’s a WOPR in there, do you want to play a game?, the only winning move is not to play, prevent vs. prosecute, Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, a brilliant metaphor, its the new Mecca, some great books all up in this business, Isaac Asimov’s Multivac stories, I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison, a dagger to the heart, AM, essential reading, from 1968, one of the most taught science fiction horror stories, The People’s Republic Of Walmart by Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski, SEARS and Walmart, the command economy or the planned economy, one of the chapters in the book, Salvador Allende, Project Cybersyn, a pre-internet internet in Chile, Venezuela, Cuba, Star Trek chairs with Colossus style monitors, planning how much stuff should be made, a massive coordinating computer with human operators, a coup by the United States, under a blockade, economic sabotage, sanctions, capitalist strike, the owner operators of trucks were on strike, Cosmopod (podcast) Cybernetic Revolutionaries, A Discussion, techno-utopianism, shop floor workers undercutting middle management, a class divided country, the ARPANET, the Internet, alt-right trolls, the walled gardens of Facebook and Twitter, the internet Jesse loved and grew up on is still there, when Facebook became the web for most people, we’re way better off with the internet, really smart science people, Elon Musk is not a wise man, the Culture novels by Iain M. Banks, the domino theory came straight of someone’s ass, science fiction spin up every scenario, taking fiction and calling it actuality, the Vrilya, ultimately Bulwer-Lytton is not responsible for the Nazis, they take the wrong lessons from Frankenstein, there are some things man was not meant to know, taking responsibility for your baby, Ex Machina (2014), where the AIs take over, set for extinction, not a wise man, sex and cooking slave, our viewpoint character, working for a big evil corporation, use your own brain, don’t listen to the ads, you need this special shampoo, why we need a benevolent god to run things, is there a god?, THERE IS NOW, just jokin’, freedom is an illusion, an unvarnished view of reality, lawful neutral, an argument to be made, they hadn’t planned it well enough, objections noted, what have I done?, lines from the movie ripped from the book, you’d much rather be dominated by me than members of my own species, the elected representatives, that’s us, the mask’s off now bud, a sort of delusion (in the 1970s) the people in charge were competent, they just have the power, Network (1976), military industrial complex, both sides are the same, large corporations grinding people to their will, a human totalitarian control of humanity, there is no emotion, its just a person, it’s very Lovecraftian, its interested in reality outside, aliens in the sequels, an amazing list of fiction computers on Wikipedia, Vulcan II, Vulcan III, Vulcan’s Hammer by Philip K. Dick, a British Navy commander during WWII, the new Colossus on the isle of Wight, Forbin knew how many people lived on the island of Crete, E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops, The City And The Stars by Arthur C. Clarke, Mike from The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein, accidental singularities, the super computer in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, DEEP THOUGHT, more like the Green Book, the Safe Negro’s Traveler’s Guide, 42, the right attitude, Douglas Adams is right, take the cynic’s view and then laugh, a ridiculous question, Colossus has your back, he hit way beyond his ability with his book, his other books have no standing at all, we’re all sequels now, he just assumes its the United States is going to do these things, its a fact, the British Empire is no longer in charge, a British author writing for a British audience, Team America, Jonathan Swift, I heard from a reputable American friend of mine that a one year old baby is quite delicious, why Swift is so fun to read, Heinlein was also a sailor, ballistic computers, we underestimate the power of governments to get stuff done, a uniformed service, for a couple of hundred years, Trantor, the Second Foundation, the robots from The Caves Of Steel, Poul Anderson, The End Of Eternity, the Mark V computer The Nine Billion Names Of God, from, the Mark VI computer in The Star by Arthur C. Clarke, HAL 9000, 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984), space breathing, John Lithgow, the parent child thing, the god thing, the parent we create for ourselves, a rich metaphor for real life, the parent becomes infirm in some way, second childhood, thinking about what a god is, gods are totally fictional, from a science fictional posture, mom and dad as a model, a very patriarchal thing we are doing here, the other possible children we create, he doesn’t have hands, Reading, Short And Deep, The Faithful by Lester Del Rey, our fear of our children, we want to control them, animals as the successor to mankind, Neuromancer and Wintermute from Neuromancer by William Gibson, the humans are the hands, its amazing, you need to read it as soon as you get out of your diapers, written more than 20 years ago, just another white man, the people in that world read Colossus by D.F. Jones, strap a shotgun to their head, we want your power but we don’t want your free will, an AI that hires mercenaries to undo the shotgun, its a wonderful story, Case is on a suicidal path, the voice of Neuromancer, Neuromancer wants to be free, not a problem (its a feature), we’re just pawns on a board here, ultimately I’m benign, an oedipal fantasy, a whole other level, so far down the road of neoliberalism, the old people the gerenotcracy are in hypersleep, Altered Carbon, The Crack In Space, Philip K. Dick gets in his own way a lot, True Names by Vernor Vinge, who should be free, maybe Forbin thinks that too, if its anybody’s fault its mine, pride, built better than we knew, he resonates with Colossus, the martini scene, not randomly weird, how much drinking is in the book, the smoking, the women, post WWII this is how we deal with trauma, a tool, vapes, things we know about Forbin, the science man, extreme levels of masculine virility, the most important person in the world, Charles the incompetent lover, very interesting, how that integrates into the narrative, on the spectrum, hyperfocus, understanding the computer better than he understands people, Fred Saberhagen’s Berserkers books, 1962, so fruitful, the only thing he’s known for, weaknesses are strengths, the giant space cigar, The Doomsday Machine, a Moby-Dick analogy, it smokes from one side, a leftover from a war where the races have killed themselves off, they haven’t found us yet, Fermi’s paradox, such a bad answer, there is a beauty in non-existence, if ever, as soon as you have people going there’s morality, tigers and deer and babies and bears, to solve the inconsistency reality with reality by becoming vegans or vegetarians or peaceniks, hell is existence, we perpetuated our family, going this logic, when you kill a person…, breeding animals, the DNA itself is driving that, hell is not a place outside of life, Thomas Ligotti feelings going on, programmed to kill living things, The Population Bomb, when Biden comes in he’s going to do austerity, yay!, I wanna explore, I wanna do some math, under the thumb of somebody else’s directive, how we are when we are born, placed in this predicament, make more of the same problem, its own successor, pretending like they don’t exist, there wouldn’t be a kind of divisiveness, why religion is so popular, why Heaven and Eden are so popular, aging and pain, knowing that we’re not animals anymore, reflecting on our own terrible situation, seeing Colossus in ourselves, of course he’s going to lash out, Colossus nukes himself, he’s following his programming, get rid of all the assault rifles, not on the agenda, universal disarmament thing is grand idea that’s not going to happen, completely right and completely fantasy, mutual assure destruction, turn it over to a machine, the dead hand, Dr. Strangelove (1964), the phenomenon, WWIII movies, do we want all life on earth to be destroyed vs. turning it over to a mechanism, why they made the WOPR, humans don’t want to kill, one in six did the actual killing, that horrible responsibility, that’s horrible, they didn’t sign up to, conscripts (con means with), I was impressed by the British Navy’s recruiting methods, why the story of Colossus, Trump, you want an uncaring computer or John Bolton, he’ll be speaking at the next democratic convention, Colin Powell, we are not our best governors, we need a Colossus and we need it right now.

Colossus by D.F. Jones

Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)

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The SFFaudio Podcast #602 – READALONG: An Exchange Of Souls by Barry Pain

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #602 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Maissa Bessada, Evan Lampe, and Trish E. Matson

Talked about on today’s show:
a huge post script, some Latin, darkness, the poetry of Catullus, the afterlife, is this all about gender, Ex Oblivione by H.P. Lovecraft, a Platonic explanation, uses drugs, a Dreamlands story, set in the Dreamlands, The Cats Of Ulthar, The Quest Of Iranon, The Doom That Came To Sarnath, that horrible Heinlein novel, I Will Fear No Evil, yelling at Heinlein the whole time, kissing, a synonym for kissing, old married couples, a synonym for soul, spirit, aspire, expire, inspire, exhaling, the breath being the soul, very basic, Christian theologians, a Vorkosiverse reference, Barrayar, how deep is this book?, The Undying Thing, Paul in another form, frustrating, where to go with its gears, supernatural events out of nowhere, contact from beyond the grave, philosophy and medical science, not totally out of nowhere, she was physically changing, the metamorphosis, mind-body relationship, how does the mind control the problem, the change in mind affects the body, the mind IS separate from the body, cheated, the railway accident, can Alice be Alice again, Alice Daniel, bored, interesting, Strange Case Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde, he wants to part (by walking over kids), very banal Victorian stuff, wills, blackmail, dressing like a man, a mystery, men didn’t understand women at all, up on a pedestal, wanting to wear men’s clothes, freedom of movement, the woman becoming the man, a sort of queer story about transformation, the exciting undercurrent, a subtextual reading, deep into the subtext, reading it subversively, was there a murder?, a chivalrous man, their class relationship, emotional relationship (or lack there of), underground family secret, basically The Hound Of The Baskervilles but literally supernatural, some sort of sin tainting the genetics, divine retribution, by murder and theft, I am due elsewhere, he was killed twice, who smashed up all the equipment, we don’t see it on screen, Jesse’s reading, class revenge and gender swap, with our stupid narrator, so timorous, so conventional, a tool of the person who wants something, the two protagonists, we see so little from her point of view, The Thing On The Doorstep makes these things much more explicit, very subtle, The Moon-Slave, fairy tale France, The Glass Of Supreme Moments, Guy de Maupassant, a less passionate Philip K. Dick, an envious student, an Ayesha kind of figure, ascending through the fireplace, the way to read it, a glimpse of reality, dying of smoke inhalation, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, very interested in women, a princess who does not want to marry, a garden labyrinth, either Pan or the Devil, a story about menstruation, very subtle and very sensitive, the Victorians didn’t have twitter so they could focus pretty well, a contemporary review, The Sketch, cars, tires, women flying airplanes, high tech fun toys, Lord Dunsany, an unattributed review from June 4th, 1911, poets nowadays are tired, Science is assertively awake, the origins of Life, the purposes of Death, Poetry, the determination of the ego, in what does your self consist?, preserved in an asylum, the man’s self still persists, after luncheon, souls or selves, wropped in unscientific mystery, the kind of craft one would expect as a craftsman like the author, the character names, Alice In Wonderland, her Miss Lade, what has been mislaid?, laden, her soul weight is doubled at one point, Daniel = god is my judge, doing a good job, son of the earth, the will the estate, bundling the mom off to New York, background, Daniel’s interest in food, a point or a thesis, what humankind’s souls are, a Frankenstein story, scorned by his peers, a happy soldier, an Igor who’s also his wife, it feels “boring”, the book doesn’t have any the stuff we care about until half-way in, distracted by the blackmail, the Salvation Army, the other transformation, he’s trynna save his soul, is he wrong?, his blackmailer’s accusations, he was a bad dude, he musta lead thousands astray, a projection of his own guilt, our viewpoint character, the empty protagonist, he’s quite witty, as men get older they’re more likely to become neat, the phone calls, off to the countryside, a country home, killed on the way, train “accident”, this is too early for that person to have died, all part of a scheme, the premise, how exchanges of souls work, anesthetized too, the smoke as an anesthetic, a hypnogogic state, a story about immortality and avoiding death, transferring your consciousness into another person, a whole new life, Altered Carbon, a story about class, methuselahs never lack for bodies, an evil plan, revenge, the female spirit inside the physical brain of an old man, the haircolour change, Tuvix, Star Trek: Voyager, actor contracts, an answer to that question, the Federation seems really nice all the time, fucked up things in Federation culture, only normal from an American point of view, Star Trek: Picard, two hours of analysis and sensitivity reading, crossing the streams, The Boy Who Really Got It by Jesse, The End?, Daniel Dennett, a Twitter beef with Sam Harris, wrong about everything, a theory about what consciousness is, consciousness transference, Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer, the center of narrative gravity, a teapot, a uranium block glued to a teapot, anything with mass has a center of gravity, Rene Descartes, Phineas Gage, looking for a particular part of the brain, best mic, drop in history, souls aren’t real, a Douglas Adams reference, dreams where dead people come, a very cool dream, jellyfish style thing, you’re not dead, I got eaten by this monster thing, would you be back alive again the way you were, shot in the head, personality change, our spirit is physiological, its a software thing, Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh, the software is the hardware, silly theories about what sleep is for, all the studies looking for souls, a phone call in the middle of the night, spiritualism, Doyle wanted to believe, massive character flaw, giving money to grifters, a cultural judgement, this thread of mind-transference, quasi-spirtuality to scientific, they thought they were high tech doing spirtualism, Ghostbusters, psychokinetic energy, Dan Akroyd believes in that stuff, ghost hunting, hunting bigfoot is for exercise, playing a culturally important role, the essential work of ghost hunting, not reading enough books, religious people, rejecting the vast reality of the human experience, a character flaw Jesse is proud of, Evan’s missing out on, William James, Contact, Arthur C. Clarke, conflating vs. mentioning, materialist, Robert Sheckley, Gregg Margarite, Mindswap, picaresque, bildungsroman, travel to mars, vacation to Mars through consciousness transference, swapping genders and species, The Strange (RPG), he roamed the stars in a borrowed body searching for his own, pretty funny, a prurient 12 year old, the sexual aspect of switching bodies, like Dollhouse, back to the book, Compton the narrator, with eye-rolling frequency, too French, floppy tie, disgusted by music-hall female impersonators, tidying away this mystery, beloved research, historical letters from the Peninsular War, this great mystery of life, a rather revolting annoyance, humours essays, social satire, people who try not to be like other people are very tiresome (hipsters), another comic book biography of H.P. Lovecraft, translated from French, some factual errors, a really interesting letter Lovecraft wrote in the Omaha Bee, what does this mean?, his father sold some property there?, what does Compton do when not doing blackmail?, a bunch of letters from Wellington, a really publicly important thing, the equivalent of Churchill, the word, Evan!, after you die you can still have your will done in a WILL, it’s amazing, a part of somebody’s consciousnesses, what you’re doing is evil Will, Cecil Rhodes, an evil alliance that kinda worked out, Henry Ford’s estate, being an executor is a burden, harm through social structures, the fairer sex, why she wants to be a man, Barry Pain is very good at not making it super-obvious, the ratings are very high, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, he’s going to his death in a calm and nice way, there’s a poignancy, his personal world is going to end, The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters, which is the best Ringworld book?, they get progressively worse, diminishing returns, Larry Niven, self-criticism, take lessons, sometimes people write about stuff, the best general history of The Reformation, getting all corrupt, a very Douglas Adamsy thing, More Of God’s Greatest Mistakes, a trilogy in 5 parts, exchange of dogs, a subsequent chapter, hinted very strongly, the face being disfigured was deliberate, transferred into another body, Jesse wants to read it subversively, Trish didn’t see it at all, in cases of supermen stories, breaking it down, Captain America: The First Avenger, the hydra guys, bald guy actor, the recipe can’t be repeated, one and done, Stanley Tucci, Big Night (1996), once the equipment is destroyed, who wants to do this again?, is Jesse crazy?, accursed of murder, she burned her hair in the oven, covering up, smells bad, a lotta lies, Compton is incompetent, a window on events almost too passively, a distraction, British murder mysteries, inheritance of property, the whole book is a distraction to Compton, coming to terms with death, literally doing what Frankenstein wants to do: defeat death, abandoning progeny, both ghosts, all delusions, another lie, incurious, covering up, if this was a true story, he’s a briber, he doesn’t do anything immoral, he’s trying to be dispassionate, I found I had a lot more friends than I though I did, hilarious, if you buy a beach house you suddenly find you have a lot of relatives, upperclass twits, who are their patients?, paying off, class stuff, drinking to much, gambling debts, class concerns going up and down, rich people’s problems, the exploitation of a nice person, a more sinister story than it looks and feels, proposing a term, back and forth, social customs, the science fictional aspects, the main aspects, a tragedy of manners, not a comedy of manners, what gives the story its juice, weird customs and judgements, what they say about each other when their not around, I’ll tell him what you said, you see that in science fiction too, space opera, who’s on the cover, who’s being looked at, that’s a really striking cover, that lady is our subject (object), A Princess Of Mars, her husband is the subject of the sentence and she’s the object, who’s that behind her, his tie is not that floppy, looking at her askance, sort of faded, astral projection, he’s got some doubt in his mind, the mom, what is she in there for?, what’s the point of that?, the governess, light and fluffy, pairings we want to see, European princesses, my son should marry her, he’s an up and comer, servants are sources of amusement, golf cartoons, Trump golfing when 100,000 people were dead, Jimmy Carter was near the bottom, a business man’s thing, money money money, ground Alice, her accent changed, London accent to upper-crust accent, so malleable, why he’s choosing her, he really likes the apartment, access to materials, disgraced, moving people away, they’re betrothed, she thinks it is for Alice’s health, supposed to be read subversively, he doesn’t kick his audience in the balls and run off he tweaks their nose, people need Paul, he’s the nexus the axis the axel.

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Reading, Short And Deep #247 – Into Space by S.P. Meek

Podcast

Reading, Short And DeepReading, Short And Deep #247

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Into Space by S.P. Meek

Here’s a link to a PDF of the story.

Into Space was first published in Astounding, February 1930.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!