The SFFaudio Podcast #776 – READALONG: God Save The Mark by Donald E. Westlake

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #776 – Jesse, Maissa Bessada, Evan Lampe, Will Emmons, and Cora Buhlert talk about God Save The Mark by Donald E. Westlake

Talked about on today’s show:
1967, pretty sure I haven’t read this before, just assumed, “nephew novels”, explicitly a nephew, second great uncle nephew, saying things in contradiction of the rules, the quiz for you: where does the title come from?, from Shakespeare, a marks as pointed out, a conman wants to con, the nurse in Romeo and Juliet, what she is saying, please forgive me, I hesitate to say, the death of Tybalt, he’s got a hole in him now, during a midwifery session, a “birthmark”, birthmarks are defects, it needs to be bless so as to avoid cursing the child, subtle things here and there, incapable of resisting talking about literary stuff, research for work, a lot of jokes that are not obvious, well over half a century later, what does he do for fun?, makes crossword puzzles, particularly proud of, the answer is frost, Robert Frost, Oliver Wyman’s great narration, the great, wait a second, dropping these things all the time, red herrings, a murder mystery, some of them are just for fun, a joy ride, a lot of fun, a theory 3 hours in, possibly wrong but possibly right, a question, what was in the oven other than naugahyde, the bible!, a vital clue, just another scam, a madcap movie from the 60s (or 1979), a great cartoon, a likeable narrator, like a breeze eating it, a weird mixed metaphor, a humour to it that is delightful, shouldn’t we be frustrated with him, how hapless he was, a crime novel, Mickey Spillane, this cac thing, you’re not going to end the book this way, Jesse was conned, too cynical to believe in CAC, CAC is shit, very cynical about government, the one Donald Westlake thing, Jesse will go down in history for, insurance, complete coverage, the character stand-in, independent research, crime and cons, South America, one with Lawrence Block, sex book, where they end up going, like a badman, from the New York Times, a pot-belly, he’s the character, Maissa’s theory about this whole book, on the phone with Wilkins and Grant, ok, he can’t be this, this whole book is a con, this guy is a conman, he didn’t, but then at the very end, he gets together with Gertie, Westlake is the conman, it’s his con now, on Discord, 2010, a chameleon, his main hapless guy voice, sounded familiar, screen time, the murderer, the elevator operator, it was Christopher Walken, a black man, train conductor, very funny stuff, Karen and Gertie, great characters, the doctor, slight of hand over and over and over, very cartoonish, Wile E. Coyote, we’re kinda lucky, the main character was gonna be played by Bill Cosby, Cora never liked him, how wholesome does it look now?, comedy chops, creepy actors, Woody Allen, very New York, the right stature, Hugh Grant, too handsome, it coudn’t be set in London, New York of the sixties, relistening to the beginning, a signature Westlakism: the hands, a fun prop, the shrimp on the folk, who put this shrimp on my fork?, the ink-stained wretch, such a Paul book, the book is hilarious, with airpower, he utterly conquered the Gauls with airpower, Fred thinking maybe I should give him the money, self publishing to start up, the vanity was another scam, everybody was scamming everybody, scammed her bunko squad boyfriend, he’s never going to divorce his wife, you know what they say about the staff of life, a sex book, Gertie: the body secular, the Artillery Club, she’s a bombshell, you haven’t tried her mayonnaise yet, the Edgar is the Nebula for crime writers, an Ira Levin book, Rosemary’s Baby, once you’re in the club you’re in the club, which is a better book, they’re so different, this is a comedy book that’s a crime murder mystery conartist book, the formula for Burglars Can’t Be Choosers, a winning recipe, our hero, he stole that bicycle, the bicycle chase, back pedal brakes, the bicycle stopped on a dime and gave 4 cents change, he’s got such good control over the reader, there isn’t a misstep, his agenda is there but so subtle, such people are everywhere and what can you do?, do you’re best, probably won’t, 100%, you’ve inherited money, email, casting a much wider net, Clifford, COD roommate, a responsibility, once they’re in the hallway, not answer the door, not have cash on hand, this is fuckin terrible, there are people in need, to scam you, it’s called The Red Cross, Haiti Relief, that’s the Red Cross, massive giant agencies are there to scam, a homeless person on the street, it’s really everywhere, you can’t imagine doing that yourself, con little old ladies out of money, you think of them as marks, it’s not like you’re hurting them, very different from mugging, kidnapping, he’s hit a real target, con operations, making a valuable point, everybody’s a scammer, half-con-man himself, a big bushy black mustache, he’d be a criminal if he wasn’t a cop, confess, the homicide duo, we are manipulating into thinking they are corrupt, caricatures characters, confidence man, “grifter” on twitter, a superhero, WILDCATS, based on the Jim Thompson novel, The Grifters, a hard movie, Angelica Huston is John Cusak’s mom, you wanna go where you’ve been, Annette Bening, Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), J.T. Walsh, beat’s Angelica Houston with a bag of oranges, this is a cozy, Agatha Christie but funny, flip it, brutal horrible, incest but mean, in smut novels, he goes into a smut shop, three guys standing around a table in the back room, anatomically improbably photos, a movie rather than a serial, an animated version, too far, the soundscape, boings, wheeep, full of sound effects, bedsprings, he’s so good, the ending, fixing it, not getting together with Karen, getting together with Gertie, an interesting funny and silly promising ending, gullible, she get’s the romance of the situation, she doesn’t need a husband if she doesn’t want one, Greenwich Village, bongo player, Brownstone houses, if the two incidents of street groups of kids together, indeterminate gender, all talking about different things, a comment and a commentary, the judgement is minimal, the homosexuals, I knew what gender they were but they didn’t know, altered books for much less, altered German children’s books, deleted a book from the series, WWI, changed the setting, Eastern Prussia or Silesia, Russia, Poland, Hanover instead of Leipzig, we’re safe, Aunt Gisela, early 20th century language, really really offensive term, not so bad N word, Pippi Longstocking, he was the king of the negros, a South Seas king, Ian Fleming, Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, sexually harassing our hero, drag queens or something, high school kids, the price of sandwiches, 67, pre-Watergate, birth control pill, the sexual revolution, a time capsule, not just an entertaining book, it doesn’t make any sense to change, reading it in 2023, this other quality, a really fun book, in a sense riding, he’s a little smarter than Jesse, his life, through the narrator’s mind, everyone is a con-artist except for him, Times Square, largely commercial, red light district, Amsterdam, in the middle of the city center, Antwerp, a good sense of it, Westlake and Block, what it is like to walk through these street, weird beards, Samuel Delany’s book about Times Square, turned it into Disneyland, corporatized, a rainbow sidewalk crossing, a congregation place for weirdos, a lot of gays, weird poets, Reichstag, rainbow and Ukrainian flags, irritating, the New York Post, a political reason for it, off topic, Murray Bookchin, Liptick Traces, 60s groups and The Sex Pistols, the dominance of capital in cities, cities less and less livable, that’s people’s jobs, the mafia was people’s jobs, do people feel bad, take their shower and get on the phones, horrible things at their jobs, non-violent, taking money that the people don’t need, books about con-games, very interesting, the tools that they have, words, to convince people to give people freely something, The Sting (1973), Robert Redford, Better Call Saul, the fifty was a real and the 100 was a fake, a Rolex, a lawyer too, behind the psychology of it, Saul is childless, the family, he says he’s doing it for his family, being prideful and being a man, he’s smart and they’re dumb, it’s fun to do this scam, she loves it, it’s too addictive, it does hurt people, so cool to have that much power, ads for Ukraine on B.C. Ferries, what the fuck are were doing?, all the politicians are wearing Insane Clown Posse makeup, Insane Clown President [by Matt Taibbi] a bottom up group, Detroit guys, drinking pop, religious beliefs, tattoos, singing, they like their girlfriends, guys dressed in business suits with the face makeup, Lord Buckethead, Anarchist Pogo Party, “work is shit”, a serious critique vs. seriously running to win, Rhinoceros Party, Reaganomics, Republican in name only, stepped out of a time machine from 1967, it would look as stark, LBJ wore a suit, these guys wore a suit, the politics in here, the senator who was a real senator, not offending anybody, step lightly with the politics, everyone agrees that senators are corrupt, the Senator from Coca-Cola, campaign contributions, buy my son’s paintings, taking the frame on this, is this a political book?, he does do politics in his books, no solution other than being aware of it, politicians are products of their material conditions, Gertie’s political stance, cynicism, no idea of collective action, if Jesse was Will, terrible politicians, Germany’s chancellor, War Measures Act, we gotta stop authoritarianism, literal bombs going off and foreign ministers being kidnapped, we got it bad up here, there’s this guy in the mountains of Arkansas who can teach me some skills, healthcare, barring collective action that’s going to work, infiltrated, to not feel so horrible all the time, We Own This City, David Simon, gun task-force, the institution is so corrupt, a pessimistic cynical look, straight up robbing people, top to bottom corruption, plainclothes units, we gotta stop crime, every David Simon story is the same one, this is really rough what can you do, The Wire, drug enforcement free zone, reduced deaths, we’re not as completely corrupt here (in Canada), universal programs, if you’re as cynical as Donald E. Westlake, people can equate cynicism with being depressed or blackpilled, stoicism, expect pain, how do you deal with that pain, maintenance of your individuality, not a call to action, not a whole confection, political observations, challenging, a very Westlakian point of view to have, a very American take, and church leaders, Tommy Douglas, weird Christians in the prairies, Christian values, the Catholic church, kill the priests, Central America, in the DNA of this kind of crime fiction, The Continental Op, essentially a Pinkerton, Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald, the solution is to drink, no call to action, have enough grifts happen to you in the course of five minutes, when you’re in the Black Iron Prison, don’t you remember promising me that letter in camp, a way to get money, it could be really sad, conning me out of my shoelaces, I waited, finally I’ve decided, I’ve got an uncle who is a judge, this stuff actually happens, kids can’t make promises, this is all silly, a philanderer of the greatest kind, you can’t enforce a contract on a child, an expiry date on these letters, high school reunion, when Cora was 13, former fiances, are they millionaires now?, oh yeah, I have leverage now, lottery winners, the lottery is a scam, a tax on the stupid, quite poor, thousand marks, save the money a little bit, conpeople prey on old people, grandmothers scammed, this is your grandson, I’m in jail, twice, in the past five years, grandchild scam, court translations, a lot of money, somewhere in Africa, the really horrible thing, the Nigerian Prince scam, as soon as email became a thing, used to do with letters, because it’s free, there is a scammer who sells scam kits to people desperate for money, lower themselves, take money from grandmothers, sold a list of people to call, a bad list, the scammers scam themselves, buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo, long cons, short con, the phonecall from the lawyer wasn’t a con, long cons are relatively rare, House Of Games, a David Mamet movies, The Spanish Prisoner (1997), Steve Martin, Rebecca Pidgeon, FTX, bitcoin investing company, biggest donor to the Democratic party, they can’t arrest him, in reality long cons are everywhere, they’re not elaborately planned, how long can we keep these balls in the air?, develop into actual countries, how the Hudson’s Bay Company?, Queen: how much do I get?, an investor group, the profits are so big, spanning a continent, the relationship between long cons and history, the most famous one would be the Netherlands Tulip frenzy, Beanie Babies, Magic the Gathering cards, people don’t want to know who gets hurt by their Wall Street investments, by not looking into it, Bernie Madoff, William H. Macy and his wife were put on trial for a university scam, you have to not see how the game is played, scammed too many people, as soon as you start researching it, am I gonna outsource my trust to these people, constantly question is the only way, such dire situation, their critical faculties, and they have savings, lack social contact, loneliness, a friend wants me to invest in his business, total scammer, I hate this guy, traumatic for Cora, trying to sink a ship he was supposed to sell, an old friend, sign on for a six month contract to do all Westlake in future, this book was a long con in and of itself, the murder of the uncle, we all got conned, happy to have gone for the ride, Evan’s dad outsmarted a con-artist recently, the gift card thing, they gave up, super common, Chinese, what the scam is, you’re Chinese there’s a problem, a tenuous situation somehow, as an immigrant who doesn’t speak English, elderly Chinese woman at home, house sitting, solve this using this credit card, all automated, why email is so broken, since calling, Skype sexy ones (maybe not a scam?), catfished, automated spam calls, very profitable, so persistent a problem, Will’s scammy world, Kentuckyian scams, strange text messages, Rhode Island, selling property, have you sold your house yet?, strange sexy Whats App texts, emojis were racy, heart emojis, sad story, people want to be loved, lived in public housing, this woman in the Philippines, is it a scam if providing emotional comfort over the internet, both people can sell it on both ends that way, after he died, online girlfriends, older people who are vulnerable, directly addressing Will with a name that is not his own, grifter, that guy is just a grifter, this guy wrote a book, crowdfunded the book, didn’t write the book, didn’t sell the book, Spare, why do I even care about this idiot, people who care about royals, curious, the Barbie thing, it’s pretty good, you can fake that interest, flexing and exerting power, extract publisher by being a legislator, merger, when he’s sitting down to fake write the book, I killed 29 guys in Afghanistan, the ghost writer, Taliban killed themselves out of despair, 25 enemy fighters, during 2 tours in Helmand, you can hear the ghost writer in the room, that’s a scam, buying an actual book they actually receive, drugstores, oh my sad life, rags to riches, he sold his book at his drugstores, shoved into your face, H.P. Lovecraft, birthday today, 7 months now when people are listening to it, scammed by August Derleth, he’s not a liar, shade the truth, opposite of a scammer, desperate for money, starts a business with Frank Belknap Long, Adolphe De Castro, offended, Weird Tales wasn’t paying, slowly, not on time, later, half, if you’re the editor of Weird Tales, Hugo Gernsback, the company doesn’t have the money, a compromised person, didn’t want to move to Chicago, you kind of have to be a scammer to work through this horrible capitalist system we have, a nobleness in the way Westlake handles this stuff, I didn’t lie to people, gave them some entertainment, his son Paul is working hard on his website, the son, he’s the only one who was doing something for the estate, the next six months of Westlake, the Donald Westlake podcast, every week twice a week, chronologically, too fun to read, not enough meaty material, when you read Heinlein, this formula works, doesn’t make for dense meaty material, a grand unified theory of Westlake?, after Evan unmutes himself, numbered episodes, book club, about Robert E. Howard too, Lovecraft, Stephen King at 100 pages at a time, so thick, other American science fiction writers, Asimov isn’t very American, Philip K. Dick is a weirdo and also an American, Joe Haldeman is American but not very American, he’s a good writer, Cora held the door open for him, Evan’s prejudice for America is wrong, Evan has to wrestle with this country he’s not in, a flux, a change, class awareness, the nature of the class, more static in British lit, race and slavery, women’s lib by Americans is great, those groups, Clark Ashton Smith is too literary, serious political thought, Howard can be super-political, a great adventure story, stylist, very rich, The Black Diamonds is very easy to read, get behind some sex book, just the Westlake Smut podcast, fun and funny, vintage sex books, John Lange’s The Venom Business, the sex makes it worse not better, funny silly sex books, a serious book, Harold Robbins, Peyton Place, gossip, nobody reads it anymore these days, weirdos interested in old books, finding out what books were shit, go to Abebooks, the most famous book of 1970, an obscure book, all over every used bookstore, Swedish family saga, no one can even read this stuff these days, romance novels lose their value instantaneously, 2 for $1, disposable in the same way a pulp used to be, hardcovers, 8 hours felt like 4, he’s gonna run out of space, a perfectly executed thing for what it is, it’s perfect, spot on, a mater professional writer, not clouded, just pure, so distinctive with the hands, that’s pure Westlake right there, their hands, their voice, so good, sold on Westlake, putting my money on Westlake, Bothers Keepers, monks trying to save their monastery, Call Me A Cab, thrift shop Hard Case Crime, asleep yesterday, infinite amount of time to read, Christa Faust’s book, in a year or so, the Norton Anthology of American Literature, deep dive into literature in the historical and material context of that period, 1770-1780, The Turn Of The Screw, The Great Gatsby, N.K. Jemisin and Ursula K. Le Guin, Hawthorne vs. Edgar Allan Poe, Young Goodman Brown, The Minister’s Black Veil, The House Of The Seven Gables, drill down on The Gold Bug, The Black Cat is super-American, bogged down, something more scripted, Henry David Thoreau, feed Cora’s father, material realities of America, big picture, scripted, a leftist a Marxist, Caleb Maupin, got in trouble for spanking, an American nationalist, a Christian communist, borderline MAGA communist (whatever that’s supposed to be), a video about Michael Crichton, State Of Fear, when books are taboo it makes Jesse want to read them, global warming is going to destroy us all, work hard play hard regular liberalism, something we need to degrowth with, never means closing military bases, you gotta not have babies, you gotta eat these bugs, Naomi Klein, do a survey, do your carpets need cleaning?, reducing our greenhouse emissions, rebuild, dismantling the military, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate, the democrats are not on the left, that guy’s Right, ok whatever, she say’s shes a socialist, so is Bernie Sanders, a co-person, he reads books, he’s a tankie, sounds like a slur, a well deserved slur, what defines somebody as a fuckface?, leftist circles, expressing support for one party communist regimes, fascism, Nazi, although Zelenskyy has Nazis all over and around him, he doesn’t have the sonnenrad around his face, doing the sieg heil, “white power” on the backs of her legs, doing the salute, the standard anarchist position, a tension, some North Korean Instagram girl’s account is deleted, this is wrong, not all starving to death all the time, humanizing them, should North Korean model be embraced, Jesse doesn’t believe in Canada, the western powers never left, China’s doing its best to make the world more Chinese, talk to local conditions, arguments are in the canon, to talk about socialism, mmmm Jack London, friends with the @ sign of library of America, Sam Glanzman, The Law Of Life by Jack London, he bought story ideas from people, he’s doing Jack London, North-West Romances, Jack London is writing literature, ok there’s a prospector, western civilization, what it is to be indigenous, LibriVox, Louis L’amour, what it means to be American, class struggle, cattle baron vs. small proprietors, Swag, The Big Bounce, swag bag full of cash, that was a punch and I didn’t see that coming, 3:10 To Yuma, late in the Western game, people in the middle, Max Brand, they’re the Heinlein and Clarke and Asimov of American Westerns, Markie Post, Glitz, lady falling from a high window in her underwear, Justified, 85 novel, serial rapist, Jimmy Smitts, psycho-mama-boy, beautiful Peurto Rican hooker, A.C. dazzle, random Elmore Leonard plot with a movie, Out Of Sight, never done an Elmore Leonard, don’t read Tishomingo Blues, Pronto, Ezra Pound stories, retiring to Italy, Peter Falk, Riding The Rap, Jennifer Lopez and the E.R. guy who lives on Lake Como, Out Of Sight (1998), mutual attraction, kinda or really sexy, Luis Guzman, Don Cheadle, Albert Brooks, Teddy Roosevelt, the Cuba war, George Guidall narration, The Moonshine War, The Sopranos, hilarious, David Simon back to back, The Plot Against America, the Philip Roth novel, Charles Lindberg becomes president, that 1940-42 period, the Jewish community, a selling feature?, the response of the Jewish community would have had, generational stuff, Ed Burns, out of the HBO loop, All The Way, Lyndon Johnson, Bryan Cranston, shitting on the toilet scene, jumbo didn’t make an appearance, got a lot of tail, more killed than JFK, he didn’t get Marilyn, presidents were way hornier, FDR, she was gay, open marriage, very modern, religious stuff, Reagan, Nancy, maybe not even her, Jeb, The Revengers (1972), we’re talking Hollywood mainstream film, Tarantino movies, Jackie Brown (1997), Pam Grier movies, Sheba Baby (1975), Coffy (1973), the ketchup and mustard and thing, Jesse’s seen all the big westerns, William Holden, The Seventh Dawn, quite quite good, Malaysian war of independence against the evil British, reverse surprise, symmetry, a rip-off, The Wild Bunch (1969), The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Dirty Dozen (1967), you like what they do, a revenge movie, it’s simple, he’s got principles, the criminals don’t, Jesse likes westerns, The Shootist (1976), the end of the West, the greatest gunslinger ever is now dying of cancer, set in 1901, electricity, The Grey Fox (1982), Ron Howard, Scatman Crothers, reserving judgement, an upcoming hurdle, if the cancer just takes its course, Woody Strode, a football player he became a movie star, super-teacher of the year, does it come with money?, a certificate, no promotion, headcanon, not incompetent enough to be promoted, not lackey enough, spewing all over AI, interesting, gonna fuck up a lot of people’s businesses, a book emote, as in read a fuckin book, Evan move, enhancing the library, awesome social studies library, bought em all, endless budget, a decent library, the key to the library, just read some books, the whole point, the whole system has been gamified, the whole reason is because they have to, read a little bit, how’m I gonna get my kid into this school?, things students can and can’t use AI for, we have to prepare them for the future, teach them how to write prompts, he’s trying to help the kids cheat, you’re trying to help the kids learn, pirouette around it, guilty until proven innocent, here’s how we can improve your teaching, how to use AI, embarrassing to read, email, using chatGPT as an educator, a whole paragraph prompt, a mini assessment, submit, could you guide me with a prompt?, he thinks he’s being helpful, he’s trying to do his job, how to cheat through their classes, everybody’s in on this scam and you’re refuse, we’re here to make money of the requirement by law, get with the program, that’s your job, you wanna play baseball because you love the game, runs batted in business, now everyone can moneyball, [Moneyball (2011)] the worst team in baseball, it can’t be stopped, sabermetrics, is the baseball bat the saber?, SABR, this dude who was a doorman, Bill James, kept stats, we’re making choices about players wrong, Wayne Gretzky, stadium, rink, new stats, dieting, Zero Cool, Houston, Houston, Do You Read?, Colorado Kid, he’s a congressional medal honor winner from the Civil War, any senator can nominate, son seems fine, goes out for some reason, massacred his dog, evil comancheros, buys six slaves, tie em up, outfitted, they all turn on him, they get to talking, he’s his dad, he has blue eyes, the cavalry, one young officer, Mexican kid, claims William Holden is his dad, structural things, really well written, makes a big difference, High Plains Drifter (1973), a Clint Eastwood one, out of Spaghetti Westerns, December death hoax, yet another example of fake news, still alive, took his money and started making his own movies, Malpaso, mayor of Carmel, California, two spouses and three domestic partners, at least 8 children, great film actor, good film director, great on screen, not all westerns, Cry Macho (2021), they didn’t de-age him, action scenes, a boy and his rooster, the pirate area, too much Mission: Impossible, always trying to overthrow governments in Mexicos or Easters Blocks, romanticizing, minimizing harms, different from the movies where it’s some vague internal threat, commercial for the planet, rogue Russian nukes, trying to release in China, The Peacemaker, John Cena and Jackie Chan, plays Splinter, in Iraq?, John Cena lives there, mercenaries from China?, white guy living in a small village in Iraq, vague badguys, John Cena’s brother involved with other mercenaries, tryna not offend anybody, buses full of people, if you increase the number of people in danger you make the , two bums fighting over $10, nobody can empathize with $10, big stakes, structure, it’s fun, writing exercise, made it part of Jesse’s job, be like Jonathan and get paid by wealthy old ladies who worked in Hollywood, a ghost writer, prurient, Sunset Boulevard (1950), 36 years and not have seen…, William Holden!, dude!, dude!, Billy Wilder, The Major And The Minor (1942), Five Graves To Cairo (1943), woke shame, film shame, Double Indemnity (1942), Raymond Chandler, Barbara Stanwyck in a wig, Edward G. Robinson, oh my gods!, Soylent Green (1973), I haven’t seen Soylent Green!, I don’t even see how ironic this is!, while scraping you off the pavement, alcoholic movie, a black comedy, real life old time silent film movie guy, that trope, ghost writer, a retainer, fun, you only have to please the one customer, worried about perception, being a ghost writer, under an NDA, talk about everything, Jesse envies Will, watch some good movies because it spoils you for bad movies, better and better caffeine, a tolerance for heroin, searching for a higher high, any old shit that has animation, appreciate genre stuff, I heard about this Russian movie called Come And See (1985), I can see why they said that about this, Spaghetti Western, weird euro-trash with sweaty Spaniards and Frenchmen and the occasional American, Lee Van Cleef, great eyebrows and then he’s balding, actors like Lee Van Cleef, a karate movie with Bruce Lee, kun fu movies, John Saxon, you’ve seen his face, man with eyebrows, then he goes bald, sad story, even when he was bald, John Woo movies, he was so hot in Hong Kong, cheesy shit, when he does it in Hong Kong, pure shit, Chow Yun Fat is Humphrey Bogart but Chinese, too ohs, Face/Off, Mission Impossible 2, The Killer (1989), Chinese laserdiscs, corny and bad, so handsome of screen, reinvents techniques, churches and doves, Hard Target (1993) with Jean-Claude Van Dame, Christianity, doves are very deep, this is what a handsome man does on screen, you just fall in love with him and melt on the floor, shoot guns at each other, drive cars around Hong Kong, archive.org, how good for how low trash, A Better Tomorrow (1986), subs are the way to go, dubbing is not the way to go, just so charismatic on screen, it was a huge deal before the changeover, hardcoded English subs, cast media with chromecast, in the TV buying business, the ideal is you get a dumb tv, Nvidia Shield, google is better right now, Fire TV is the second best, Roku is eating everybody’s lunch, ability to do anything, a thumbdrive hole (a USB hole), a file explorer program, VLC, hook a laptop up, more wires, Playstation 3, Nintendo Switch, from ’99, a nostalgia thing for Meg, Final Fantasy, SquareEnix, zaniness, gunsword, computer games were more forgiving for poor people, computer games were cheaper, a 3DO, 1993, Road Rash for 3DO, a Wii, competitive Tetris, so ignorant, not enough time, Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto on horses, shooting people while on the stagecoach, shooting is the default, RPGs, isometric, when Doom hit, everything turned into a first person shooter, can see the appeal, go over to somebody and ask them about their day, criminals over there, a life simulator, a quest where you have to stop a stampede, westerns are fun, pretty dedicated to PUBG, guy in Senegal, a good chat about being colonized, the French are fuckers, a lot of Americans, generally sad and smoking weed all the time, such is the state of the situation, large part a lot of people are opting out, playing games all the time, not a random sampling, Chinese guys, weird ideas, strategy, how dumb people are, all very safe, they’re not going to ask you for money, the strategy of the game, chunks, there’s no natural way to get off of Red Dead Redemption, more self-discipline, Paul plays a lot of games like Age Of Wonders, Civilization, Civ is like crack, why are you doing it again?, rule a fantasy realm of your own design, a tabletop RPG about being a cowboy, Cowboys and Cattlebarons, Cowpokes, then you get girls, Blades In The Dark, a weird west mod, sorcerers in my Ranch Romances, Indians and iron horses, some big medicine from the Piute, the module is the big eastern white faces say they’re going to give our land to their settlers, how many scalps are we gonna collect?, turn them against their evil government, Mormon Utah, Dogs In The Vineyard, DMd for students, kinda weird as adults, kinda immature, I’m an elf, you’re a guy who works at the video rental store, it was fun tho, that’s really sad, autistic or what, they got the problems Jesse doesn’t need more of in his life, a module of Edgar Allan Poe Dungeons And Dragons, they do their best, they don’t know it’s a dungeon hack, you have a phone with a flashlight, a troll, owls, ghouls, a house with a big crack in it, everybody should make their own rules, d20, damage points and rolling up stats, you forgot your glasses, not a normal roleplaying game, I get in the boat, roll D20, sorry you drowned, a big outlet, cool ideas, Paul’s life is a lot of that, a good hobby, staying out of the casino and not doing too many cracks, filling time before you die, giving away your money you don’t think you earned, baccarat, you buy the shoe, James Bond, he’s not pulling the lever on the one armed bandit, the saddest movie ever, a sexy lady across the one armed bandit from him, betting against the bad guy, a collection of cards, like blackjack, there is no dealer, they win all ties, a bidding round, there is a minimal amount of skill involved in 21 or blackjack, poker, playing against a particular player acting like the house, sad and pathetic, quickly lost $75, there’s no person you’re giving your money to, socializing, roulette, craps, luck involved, sad kinda socialness, happiness from them, it made a lot of noise, a lonely person less unhappy for a moment, something to do with your friends who don’t read books, evil because of what it does, smoke dope all day while playing games all day to escape their terrible life, Jesse has killed Will, accidentally muted himself, try to DM a role playing game in a western setting, make up a shopping list of things for people to buy with their coins, pick a movie you like, you’re family has been slaughtered, in order to get your revenge, you are a convicted criminal of rape of 17 women all over the age of sixty, and yet you’re not gay, that’s a heavy backstory, you want redemption, gets shot, gets redemption, redeemed in the end, ranch romances, a bordello instead of a tavern, a cathouse, Klondike goldrush, claim jumpers, lots of opportunities to freeze to death, You Are A Wolf, not enough about being a deerchild, about philosophy, how weird people were a long time ago, Hoboes & Harlots, pulp style painting, everbone is knocking about, converted burlap sack full of, used garters suitable for sniffin, a fake award, achievement in gaming, what modules will be like, tutoring 2 days a week, 1 class a week, 4 classes a week, 3 hours is fine, Jesse loves his job, would still do it if not being paid, showin up, I’m in, stone soup, a snip of parsnip, looking for sex and food, run that for your students, 7 to 18, a broad range of South Koreans, east and west and north Koreans, Dok Do Koreans, PyongYang Koreans, a very interesting history, the United States is very very bad, the Soviets and the Chinese, not set up a country there, very bad in Asia?, yes, maybe the Japanese were worse, numbers matter, did you steal?, did you lie?, how many did you kill?, not caused by communists, caused by imperialists, make the case the soviets were expanding their empire, look at the geography of it, assisting, freedom from foreign rulership, being in the way of larger nations, very aggressively European for an Asian country, militaristic, we’re gonna do the Euro thing in Asia, what’s the United States doing there?, not geographically adjacent, foreign adventurism, what was Canada doing there?, best friend to the big bad bully, pleased with her farming, your teaching license has expired, still thinking about it, who’s going to take care of your animals when you’re away teaching, she still wants to have the paperwork, she enjoyed being a teacher, sister still teaching?, she seems to have money, something like a job, this problem with paying for things, the thing to do is to have a job, get apprenticed by an Appalachian back to the woods herbalist, limousine from the airport to the hotel, everything’s fine, what’s going on in the community, enlightening, the guy looks like a druid or a wizard, lived off grid for 50 years, Chinese gardens, tinctures of herbs, if you’re conspiracy minded, how the AMA defeated herbalists, it happened, herbalism stuff, grows his own food, orders seeds, mailing away for seeds, still work you just don’t get paid, it is a lot of work, your work is based on what you need rather than what you need money for, a job that’s not real, only things you really need, a lot of the work that’s going around, a nursing home inspector, needs to be done, a shortage of nursing home inspectors, anti-psychotics, the long and short of it, random inspections in the middle of the night when you’re awake, nursing homes are kind of unfair, how scared I should be about ending up in a nursing home, better in British Columbia than Kentucky, a guy who was trying to get out, why he shouldn’t be getting out, his body is good but his brain is bad, whereas this druid guy, 80 year old man’s body, more of a wizard’s staff, like RFK Jr., human growth hormone, Marianne Williamson, her new book’s out, good “values”, you have to know what the scam is in order to not be scammed, that’s no way to get the right answers to things, considering how fuckin dumb Trump is, goes with his gut, they’re scammers like movies, shirtless pushups go viral, 69, unflattering on purpose, Curb Your Enthusiasm wife, used to be a heroin addict, being RFK’s child, my dad was assassinated by the government, I’m a rich boy, become a lawyer like he said he did, Hunter Biden has really struggled in life, having a liar for a dad, don’t you listen to the president, listen, fat!, I write all my own speeches, speaking truth to power, interviewed on Jimmy Dore, totally unprepared, Hillary wants war, she’d get tricked into doing it, the biggest of all time?, how they sold it to him, a tiny little thing, a tiny little thing Biden making a North Korea deal, move the troops out, let the South Koreans work it out, get assassinated along the way, he likes bad ideas, nobody has done it before?, it’s unprecedented, you’re speaking my language, she says nice things, a poetess, a self-help guru more than anything, what’s her background, twang, New England private school accent, how she got on the stage at all, born in Houston, conservative Judaism, author, teacher, politician activist, theater and philosophy in California, wasted decade, lived in a geodesic dome, live in a pyramid too?, a cabaret singer, distracted by bad boys and good dope, existential despair, lost soul, A Course In Miracles, a great sweeper of things aside, torches and pitchforks, we’re gonna mediate our way to health, everybody gets free meditation, facebook live.

God Save The Mark by Donald E. Westlake

God Save The Mark by Donald E. Westlake

God Save The Mark by Donald E. Westlake

God Save The Mark by Donald E. Westlake

God Save The Mark - Cosmopolitan, May 1967

God Save The Mark by Donald E. Westlake

God Save The Mark by Donald E. Westlake - PAPERBACK

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The SFFaudio Podcast #771 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The SFFaudio Podcast

The SFFaudio Podcast #771 – Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs, read by Phil Chenevert for LibriVox. This is a complete and unabridged reading of the book (6 hours, 12 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Alex (Pulpcovers.com), and Evan Lampe

Talked about on today’s show:
Argosy in 6 parts in 1932, the scanning community, go by date, somebody didn’t renew it, sticklerish, The Mad King, The Girl From Hollywood, fantasy oriented, dedicated to the craft of pulpwriting, cranked out words, do 700 episodes, he’s really good writer, Evan was shitting all over this book on Twitter, quibbles, not his best book, let’s start with the poo, my thoughts on Pirates Of Venus, meme with Sorpanos, listen to yourself you sound demented, the attack is…, high on its own supply, its a fantasy, very fantasy, riding the line on self-parody, cutting lose and veering into self-parody, playing with the tropes, Burroughs is demented, what are your problems, strawmans socialism, the same communist revolution from The Moon Maid, wink wink to the KKK, the birdmen, the treemen, they’re simps, unless he’s being ironic, a really bad take, during the depression, escapism?, escapist, his politics, my entire reaction: “really?”, what a freak he is, four books in this series, a fifth book, the ending on this, you’re going to have to read the next book, John Carter books, wrapped up nicely, I’ve got gold here, at least 7 books in that series, signed up to write a bunch of books, see about the politics, gets his money from his great grandfather, soldier in India, continuing the colonial project, Will [Emmons], somehow doesn’t motivate me, why this series doesn’t get the attention that Barsoom does, the takeaway, written as a retro piece, 1912, sword and planet, closer to Leigh Brackett, Weinbaum, a sop to the older readers, Asimov is coming up here, closer to Foundation, we’re moving in that direction, deliberate throwbacks, Burroughs wrote this, no one else, Philip Jose Farmer, no one could do it like he did, these are Burroughs’ sentences, a really fun book, really interesting, there are merits to A Princess Of Mars, same plot, kidnapping dekidnapping, lots of animals and creatures, weird alien not quite monster, anybody there?, crab monster!, kind of annoying, not much happens at the end, she says I love you, there’s no more time in this episode, read the next book, flown away by a birdman, various art, pretty cool, treading water with a sword, pirate ships with no sails, powered by endurium or plutonium or handwavium, a sailing ship with masts removed, in order to recognize it, I’m vaguely familiar with this piece of tech, starts typing, his non-science fiction books, not enough pirates, not enough piracy, the third third of the book, too much trees, earthlike tech, a lot of gun-polishing, that Graeber book, paying close attention, when the revolution happens on the ship, our hero is in charge because he planned the revolution, yeah and if you don’t like it, obey me, that is never how a pirate ship, pirate ships are democracies, communist democracies, a takedown of communism, the Thorist are supposed to be communists, presented so weak, in 1930s America?, the communists were the badasses, he’s wrong not to like them, point to the mountains of skulls, the skull counting, once we start attatching names to particular skulls, 100 million counted Nazi soldiers as victims of communism, the parody of Victims Of Communisms, look at all those guys he killed, Carson Napier, Burroughs is in this story, via telepathy which he learned from a hindu, never uses his telepathy on Venus, only a mechanism to communicate the story, I got it from my uncle, you can go visit his tomb but he’s not really dead, great opening line, he’s not really again, master of illusions never pays off, framework to get it back to earth, astral projection, Spider-Man 2 (2004), Octavius is inventing nuclear fusion, AI controlled arms, a neuroinhibitor chip, build the fusion thing faster, invests 7 different groundbreaking fields of technology, I forgot the moon existed, silly, very instinctual, put the girl in, I need more girl, Sikorsky Amphibian, only left in the world, not a cheap peice of kit, became a stuntman because deathwish because his mom died?, rich and bored, built rocket cars in German, rocket spaceship, Mars is the ceiling, books and a year’s worth of food, Venus is fun, trying to see the Russian revolution, the narrative was so different back then or…, it’s not in the text, am I stupid?, socialism or communism, economic systems, violent revolution, that’s the core of it, everyone becoming equal and level, no more kings, complete leveling, giant dormitories, children will be raised by the state, strains of that, communal kitchens, the history of cooking utensils, the ideal city of the future, westerners writing about it, writing a place they’ve not, everybody eating in cafeterias, H.G. Wells, G.K. Chesterton, what drove people to socialism, socialist agitation, socialism in the 1880s, economic necessity, suffering in the streets, I don’t want to live in a tenement, the thinkers of socialism, William Morris, an idyllic and pastoral future, freed from stupid work, how pirates work, a great scene, I’m not giving up my weapon, if he’s really critiquing socialism/communism, that’s a parallel of that, prisoners aka slaves, clean guns all day, prisoners with jobs, seize the weapons, important officers, a new officer class, I’m not going to give up my gun, another guy laughs and the revolution is over, if I’m just handsome dashing main character, the NPCs fall in line, the pirate campaign, Pathfinder, the PCs: we’re gonna kill all of them, treat people as people, a lot of people operate their lives that way, some bureaucracy, denying someone a kidney, the United States is worse at than most countries, so many levels of bureaucracy, University Of Kansas, Uncle Remus magazine, these are really bad we don’t endorse these things, a 600 word essay, we hate racism, we don’t endorse racism, are you sure you want to click on this?, trigger warnings, a button on google: I feel Lucky, the whole point is they want to curate your experience of reality, a piratical revolution, the jongs and the thorists, the royal guy has a cute daughter, the extent of my thoughts, a serious critque of communism, you don’t know what you’re talking about, you can choose your master, choose me, some other boss you can work for, the surplus army of labour, Carson Napier doesn’t because he has inherited money, it’s been washed, his mom was perfect, extracting value from Indian colonialism, that’s not the way to make money, an absolute spendthrift, hire the Mexican government, rocket sled, sitting on an omnibus in the 1930s, that’s me one day, peak pulp era, when the Shadow was big, Batman, am lift, Doc Savage, independently wealthy, inherited wealth, found gold mine in South America, he owns twitter now, on the Wikipedia entry, it’s just not that, the main thing they do, separate class systems are a bad idea, each is respecting each other, when there’s somebody from the lower classes, bullshit statements, no such thing as marriage, also no infidelity, a fantasy of humans and how they, sword AND pistol, shoot your enemy from across the room, had I known this guy was so good at swordfighting…, once again sheer dumb luck, literally astronomical odds, living in the ewok village, a shared balcony, this is your big security system, the mansion can only be so big, absolutely required, this has a recipe, they’re always princesses, he is never a king, he’s an up and comer, I’m officer class, I don’t even believe in presidency, I believe in royalty, very successful businessman, hyping things, let’s make a movie out of it, Tarzana at this point?, WWII happens, I’m going to be a journalist now, put on military officer uniform, his own fantasy life, soup kitchens, moving from state to state, horrors of being superpoor, like Stephen King he has a knack, on the back of letterhead, compared to Robert E. Howard, always poor, he’s got a car, didn’t try to sell to Weird Tales, he has magic fingers, Max Brand, such a huge hit, $100,000 or something, WWI deserter to wealthy man right into WWII, he bought that whole part of southern California, maybe it was the movies, he was the #1 selling authors of the 20s, and those movie serials, Johnny Weissmuller, Sheena is sexy, everyboduy thought he was the greatest thing ever, later Tarzan, really crazy real fast, arab shiek, hunting lions, too close to the daughter, lost Atlantean colony, sexual dimorphism gone crazy, shipwrecked, where Tarzan’s parents died, lost Roman legions, hollow earth, Pellucidar, weird ghost letter, marriage, line marriage, should’ve been a line marriage book, obsessed with monogamy, whoever Mrs. Burroughs was, life extension, amazing laser tech, amazing medical tech, radios, effective maps of their planet, all fun, the NPC handwaving problems away, he has an explanation that’s bad, low fertility, the Thorists want both, secret recipe, the scientists, such a strawman, not recognizable, and Marx starved two of his own children, they were so fucking poor, we don’t have enough food, an immigrant, that can’t be true, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, he was sad about his kids dying, infant mortality was really high, terrible service, he may have said that, other people may have seen that, the pop culture view of communism, people say lots of bad things about Putin, that’s the character your making in your head, The Efficency Expert, The Mucker, Tarzan Of The Apes, cringey because of the hanging, we’ve done this before, fishmen, Lost On Venus, not enough time with the birdmen, Heinlein’s 4 years away from this, Heinlein’s Time For The Stars, twins shows up every once in a while in Heinlein, indistinguishable twins, Space Cadet, his plan for the UN and nukes, the intro part, joining the army, going through basic training, when you nuke your own city, very aware of his audience, you’ve got to close your eyes and drop marbles into a beer bottle, proprioception,, arbitrary tests, you’re a grown boy, the female princess daughter of Duras, green screen, darker skin, green skin space babe, Star Trek, hot alien, sometimes she’s brunette, vaguely Arabic looking, pretty, the trees are not green, presumed pink, in contrast to Mars being the red planet, green being Venus, in the injury to his buddy, the wounds, Shelob, this is a fantasy book in almost every respect, rocketships to the Moon before this, gun to the Moon, Cavorite trip to the Moon, an anti-gravity, Weinbaum comes in, well actually, she lives in a bottle, a jellyfish floating in the clouds, that’s your gene pool, you can romance it, laid eggs, women have breasts but they lay eggs, the element of the KKK, not a condemnation, why does he bring it up?, a thing that’s popular, making these alien names, Olthar, Camlot, taking sounds, Amtor, fiddling around, he is so not J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien goes to farm, elfish poetry, where elfen poetry was once read, he enjoys himself, nobody asked for this, Tolkien is the anti-Burroughs, noodling around in his own head, my books should not be lowered [to paperback], pirated in the United States, Evan making a defense of The Lord Of The Rings tv show, the orcs, the orc stuff was really based, the Galadriel stuff was really good too, just a woke cuck, Jesse doesn’t know what a simp is, you gotta watch more streamers, why do these guys come up every three years, Vaush, Matt Christman, Evan likes both, he’s like a troll, he’s pretty good at that, most of what Vaush says is on point, there’s something wrong with Evan’s brain, and yet I have not murdered you, these should all just be podcasts, Jesse doesn’t need video, playing Elden Ring and just listening to it, are people still Elden Ringing, we’re all boomers, we all live in the age of US supremacy, I’d have a boat, consumer republic, less and less relevant, 26 Tarzan books, lost colony of Atlantis, a James Bond figure, where Tarzan was seriously assigned, is Tarzan a book about empire?, a really good insight into this period of time, maybe My Little Pony is comprehensible, I’m a dude, I wouldn’t say no to a loincloth and a knife made out of stone but 26 books, L. Frank Baum, 14 Oz books, basic language, generational, coming out every couple of years, Harry Potter, the Glinken country, the Yellow Brick road is about the gold standard, William Jennings Bryan’s cross of gold speech, 100 years later, is it the fact that this is supposed to be a critique of communism, blatant, the state’s controlling you, as opposed to the king, it wasn’t a libertarian revolution, more parallels to the French Revolution, that’s what was happening, something racist about Oz?, all of it was racist, pay not attention to the man behind the curtain, the emperor’s new clothes, useful concepts that come out of literature, people knowing them, a psychological defense, a psychological arm-bar with concepts, a series of images, a girl away from home, all on a quest, place everybody’s talking about, going to Hollywood, that’s exactly right, the Emerald City is a complete lie, to keep the emeralds from blinding you, a good concept, as a young person, in a different way than Encyclopedia Brown, the sword that says awarded after the first battle of Bull Run, the Battle of First Manassas, the only kid with Wikipedia on his phone running around solving crimes, The Only Man On Mars With Wifi, detective solves with chat GPT, list the clues in chat GPT and it will tell you who did the crime, a telephone chat GPT that uses spam callers waste their time, Hello Mrs. Blah Blah Blah, if you’re in India or Pakistan and your name is Simon or Stephen, this person’s a little weird, oh there’s a bee on my arm, an elderly person who can’t hear very well, the chat GPT salesperson, email and phone calls have been destroyed by spam, this was a fine book, direct messages, Burroughs Sucks As Does This Tweet, an ideology that has killed millions of people, it’s not an argument, not even a satire, I need some bad guys, what do bad guys look like, the sequels to The Moon Maid, so he could get to the totalitarian communist future, Red Dawn-style, let’s not do that, they’re Moon communists, when Will read about, protestant emotional repression, her brows knit in thought, what is that?, love, it is wicked, is love wicked on Amtor?, whatever her name is, without sinning, the daughter of a jong, Korean word for king, what are the odds he knew that?, not good, he believes everything he’s writing, not a construction, but an explication, not a lot of ideology, the win condition is marrying the princess, a storytelling technique, little girls want to be princesses, its okay for the dude to marry up into a princess family, the girl wants to marry into a competent family, Edgar Rice Burroughs is a fantasy men, Cinderella is a fantasy for women, Prince Charming is faceblind, spicy foods for everybody to enjoy, laughing about him, laughing along, they’re not set aside, The Mad King, in all of these books, it can’t be just a regular girl, it has to be , even the one about working at Sears (The Efficiency Expert), daughter of a high class person, romance for men in the same way that Conan is, Conan’s class consciousness, American men have always been incels, Jesse doesn’t use that language, dreaming of marrying up, how the incels talk, chads get all the girls, left miserable, but they can read Burroughs, hypergamist, the men always marry up, marrying up, he’s not, Zenobia is not a queen, Conan makes her a queen, she was a harem girl, she was not a virgin princess, a class thing there, Howard would have been wealthy had he lived longer, he wasn’t in bookstores, Lovecraft would have been wealthy, the demand is high, when reading Robert E. Howard, different kinds of games, sometimes he says “what is the nature of reality” and then he stabs the wizard, satisfied for a moment, showing up on LibriVox, we’ve seen it before, Howard is capable of much more on this guy, he’s not substantive, YouTube podcast, frothy and fun and light, compared him to Stephen King, a different cast, Burroughs never talks about kids, King talks about kids, kid protagonists, he has a lot more to say, most writers have more to say, space em out, adventure, avoid execution, marry the princess, The Girl From Hollywood, a female finding a man?, none of his popular stuff, no Tarzan books need to be Jane centered, Lois Lane or Jimmy Olsen comics, Superman’s girl friend, Supergirl, Jungle Girl, everything is about Superman, she’s always sexperving on Superman, is this what girls want?, Cambodia, stories for boys, a female protagonist story, he was a brand, you don’t want to piss off the audience, what the romance writers do, hardboiled detective under another name, The Cave Girl, a lost world novel, 1913, Dolores Claiborne, chain people up on beds, Gerald’s Game, domestic abuse, Misery, Rose Matter, Lisey’s Story, Outlaw Of Torn, relaxing rather than engaging, a society made out of tree people, other criticisms?, Donald E. Westlake, Killing Time, territories respected, a fine place to live, an anti-corruption investigator, 210 pages, still working on a couple, Mating Center by Frank Belknap Long, Hay Ibn Yaqzan by Ibn Tufail, guys raised by a gazelle, time next year, not that great, Paul will be upset by it, too much mating, specialized job, we’re there, reproduction is also a specialized job, horny people out in society, a frightening view of life in 2061, hey, we’re guarding, that Ninteen Eighty-Four cover, Winston Smith and Julia, lesbians in prison, encourage Evan to finish, he’s andalusian, Andalusian Aristotelian, Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson, Rima The Jungle Girl, Green Mansions, a primitive girl, Abel, Tarzan from South America, Sheena, The Jungle Book, another Kipling thing?, Citizen Of The Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein, reading the writers who read stuff, it isn’t super-literary, reading material, Rocket Ship Galileo, Jack London would have made it the center of the book, the counter to Burroughs, fantasy strawman, fantasy animals, life is mean, let’s have fun, how much did Burroughs read?, hold my beer, he probably read the newspaper and a few pulp magazine, rips off Prisoner Of Zenda, today we have a lot of writers who are writing to make movies or tv shows, what’s so amazing about a good book, using the medium what it’s for, it is what it is, assigning a bunch of Ted Chiang stories, psychology, assign these short stories, grumble at first, they’re simps, they’re boomers, he’s short and he hits, they’re not designed to be adapted, Burroughs’ Tarzan is easy to adapt, some plants and a rope, Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker, how we use language, so psychologically relevant, substantive, that’s what you get for giving a historian the job, not your thing?, he marries a princess who’s an orangutan, like Robinson Crusoe, Rousseau would’ve loved this book, noted father, how to raise children to be free, Plato is wrong but he has amazing ideas, we can use those things, bad maps give us maps to territories that we can get to and give us better bad maps, commentary on education, the point of education, bye kids, I gotta go write about being free, Jesse is tryna be free, make the most of their freedom, what does Alex do about this, a weird high school, very lucky and happy, worry about college, college can be fun, top schools, Asians are the new white people, University of Minnesota Duluth, homeschooled, you’re going to horse school, you’re going to be a farmer, locked in, my cheques are going over there, homeschool, something to do, big college tip, under recognized as a great place to meet a spouse, just marry a princess at your college, this is the person I really like, Midwest cow college, with cows, between Indiana and the Rocky Mountains, north of the Ohio river, Brown, first major boss was a Brown Phd and a major dick, he really wanted to be a manager, he was right about that, fun trouble, save your anger up for the show, provoking Evan, the first 2 hours, the ideology that killed the most, this boring shit, Burroughs took quite a dump, he can go fuck himself, oh come on, not that much more to do, he has a lot of sequels, maybe if youre in a factory job, you’ve got a big commute, your escape on the way to work, 6 hour podcast, 8 hour podcast at work, putting up with a lot of shitty shit Jesse says, the secret to his success, doesn’t explain Stephen King that well, he knows people, brain mashing, Burroughs isn’t a character writer, both are incredibly smooth in transferring thoughts into your brain, there’s no difference, they’re blank slates, Carson is a lot less competent, incredibly stupid mistakes, he’s a sloppy researcher, John Carter was hypercompetent, he’s like The Highlander, hypercompetent, has superpowers, he’s Superman, gentleman adventurer, luck saves him again, coulda used a Woola, alien companion dog, an inversion of The Star Beast, explicitly just people, space tiger, Weinbaum’s a genius, he’s jokey, why the genre moved on, this is kinda retro, The Mysterious Island, the wish fulfillment engineer story, building the ship, inventing the thing, Black Priestess Of Varda, rawer, Erik Fennel, near the end, he’s just a romance guy, really, how do they even have the concept of a year, they don’t even have the sun, Farscape.

Toronto Star Weekly - artist Matania - Pirates Of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Pirates Of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs

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The SFFaudio Podcast #693 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Brother And Sister by Donald E. Westlake

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #693 – Brother And Sister by Donald E. Westlake – read by Evan Lampe. This is a complete and unabridged reading of novel (3 hours 25 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, and Trent Reynolds

Talked about on today’s show:
The Violent World Of Parker blog, Hard Case Crime, Call Me A Cab, a novella in Redbook, the RARA AVIS forums, Memory, many years later, when blogs died, Google murdered blogs, search blogs, authoritative sources, Redbook magazine, [1979], a new coffee maker and Hard Case Crime, sitting around reading Donald E. Westlake, the low point of his writing career, how many characters, Paul, Angie, Bob, the uncle and the aunt, and the guy he decks, and the base commander, and a cop, and the neighbourwoman, Dancing Aztec has 50-60 characters, 3 and a half ours, there to fill a function, write me an incest book, he writes what he knows, baffled, Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith, funnier in concept than it is in execution, a cannibal book, hitting the checkpoints, the early lesbian and gay books, they have to kill themselves at the end, suicide murder, driven mad, smiling into the void, Lovecraftian, The Loved Dead by C.M. Eddy, a serial necophile, more bedmates, this has no laughs, an interesting artifact of the industry, Paul Westlake, did you name your son after this character?, 1961, was Westlake Catholic?, a popular choice for Catholics, Angela, the water in which they swim, the uncle was James, not a lot of creativity, Westlake’s official website, A tender compassionate novel of incestuous love, Edwin West, first publication anywhere, a handsome old man smokin a cigarette, you’re in the drug store getting your paperbacks and condoms, it all began innocently enough, the cruel unfeeling world, marriage to a prostitute, the artifact, did he marry an Austrian, Evan’s Austrian accent for Ingrid, innocent but exciting, like people possessed, the horrible guilt came later, Monarch Books, Inc., who is the audience for this book, a lot more people than are willing to admit, redtube and pornhub, step-family, a porno joke, i need to do some larping, a taboo that’s only in humans?, do dogs have taboos?, look at bonobos and chimpanzees, Incest Among The Apes by Paul Weimer, monogamy, polygenous, Paul’s research, recessive traits vs. mutations, hemophilia, sickle cell anemia, frisson, evolutionary and cultural history, broadening the incest taboo, Cleopatra’s family and the royal family of Hawaii, Chinese incest, tribute princesses, the Manchus, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), “I’m pure blood”, of all the sleaze books, shoplifted quite a bit, checking on the listenership, he just has to do the job, some interesting things going on, it’s about the house, a property book, virginity issues, obsession with home ownership, an unlikeable character, physically abusive, a good depiction of his soul, a rebound relationship, feeling weird, over-reading, how boring her boyfriend Bob is, so boring, siblings are boring, leave the house and find some strange, find some nice Austrian lady, not very many positives, major life changes, the ring of the familiar, not a good edge, the emotional circumstances, a little too comfortable, how to construct a terrible book, the aunt who is comforting and the uncle is threatening, the funeral, isolated, tell Stella about my new boyfriend my brother, pick up sticks, Dain, three? sex scenes, we’re gonna be married soon, what makes a marriage formal, not consummated, doesn’t count, annulment, Maury Povich styles shows, Phil Donahue was classy, Morton Downey Junior, Jerry Springer, Povich is teaching, lesbian sex among co-eds in Greenwich Village by Dr. Lawrence Block, sandwiched, wife has sex with the family dog, Strange Tales From A Chinese Studio, Carnal Prayer Mat, as long as he ends up dead or ruined, don’t cheat on your loved ones, don’t pay a hooker with a personal cheque, our love cannot be denied!, a baby having two heads, two dudes who are gay for each other and they’re brothers, teratogenic incest baby, homosexual incest taboos, my husband is now my wife, why are the people doing this?, education + attention, this book exists, a market, the neighbours don’t know, The Lurking Fear by H.P. Lovecraft, The X-Files episode Home, the Peacock family, Weird Tales exoticism, peacock kings, real estate porn, your side plot is arguing over a deed, Western, lets talk to a lawyer, Westlake is really into insurance, The Risk Profession, a science fiction story about insurance, Somebody Owes Me Money, such a good book, murder mystery, the dad in that book, comparing different insurance plans, based on Westlake’s own life, The Green Eagle Score, To Catch A Thief (1955), insurance is the opposite of gambling, related to gambling, if you’re living in the states right now, Westlake’s upbringing, sitting around thinking about what things are like, the Red Cross stuff, a non-incest sex scene, easy ladies, engaging with the Red Cross, why is there this fight over the deed?, debts extinguishing with the death of the father, there’s no talk about a will, the office and lawyer stuff, an episode of The Saint written by Terry Nation, an allegory for Vietnam, the opposite of an allegory (a formula), returning the drugstore with a used incest book, he did a professional job, self-publishing on Amazon, the pornhub thing, the incest stepsister fantasy, available for anonymous download, Westlake is the sale, nobody at the time knew, technically crimes, incest and deed fraud, Subterranean Press, Honey Girls, Sin Hellcat by Donald E. Westlake and Lawrence Block, Folio Society, heresy, drink your champagne, lovingly see the typeface, you’re in the drugstore, you’ve got your sister at home, French ticklers, French packets [letters], WHAT MANNER OF LOVE?, “we could go away to some other city, Paul”, ravaged, empty terror, playing bit-parts in Summerstock, Campus Doll, Young And Innocent, the Grofield books, a half-handful of stories actually about insurance, the entire American welfare state is employer paid insurance schemes, writing at the peak of the welfare state, the insurance companies are a scam now, where Jesse lives, auto-insurance, the “socialist” government, less fighting in courts, mandatory insurance for drivers, nofault insurance, there’s no competition, the shitty health care we have (in British Columbia), everybody gets the same health insurance, when you’re pooling like that, getting your vaccine, “safe and effective”, there are effects, mnra vaccines, the hospital didn’t bankrupt Jesse, scam insurance, Westlake is thinking deeply (kind of his job), don’t sleep with your sister, we need an asshole character, pretty good book for a terrible book, the premise is what sells it, genres or tropes?, Angie doesn’t worried about getting pregnant very much, birth control is not mentioned, Paul opened the drawer of the nightstand and opened a Trojan, a weird reading experience, what a twit you are, other methods, there’s no vagina even mentioned, very tame, we’re never going to get as explicit as “she put in her diaphragm”, hang on bro, spermicidal jelly, The Naked Director, accidentally invents the facial, technically a birth control measure, boobs and nipples and curves, very tame, pornography inflation, women at the used bookstore with 30 romance novels, what is the appeal of these things, romance brain is super strong, Harlequin Romances, trying to sell romance novels, characters have sex but mostly incidents leading up to it, immature, exhausted what little there was, Evan’s narration, the cops were coming all the time, the garbage trucks came to get this book, process, Prince Snake Lady, Mr. Adam by Pat Frank, three chapters a day for a week, more of the German girlfriend, a much better book: if she had showed up again…, Angie has nothing, Bob is the best character, waste a bullet, make it a Lovecraftian story, just add a little mindswap, The Thing On The Doorstep by H.P. Lovecraft, confluence of the ley lines, horror, The Green Eagle Score by Richard Stark, military policeman, Dortmunder beer, he’s not a dumb guy, this guy is thinking about things, drafted into the army, being in a socialist system (the army and the airforce), the universal army, Fredric Jameson, bureaucratization of problems, Tucker Coe, Samuel Holt, 105 absolutely known, smut books, short stories, Mitch Tobin, I Know A Trick Or Two, the worst book, protecting ourselves from the accusations of liking , no heavy petting no penetration, a kissing book, Make Out Point, early Stephen King, Carrie, paradise by the dashboard lights, car culture, Italy, Taiwan, hourly rate hotels, a nap, you live with your parents even if you’re married, marginal phenomena, always step, the Japanese pron is straight sister stuff, the taboo is stronger in Japan, lesbian books, why you have hotel rates, your sister’s in the next room, a flourishing ebook market on Amazon for brother sister books, reading audiobook erotica, what people do for money, we don’t live in a communal society, the commercial aspect, the erotica business, drawing the line at incest, next week its cannibalism, other taboos, necrophilia, Pity Me! by Bertha Russell (age 15), The Loved Dead by C.M. Eddy, antagonist vs. loving, Julia Morgan (Morgan Scorpion), is it Evan with his smoking is it Paul with his guilt, Paul Bishop, somewhere in San Fransisco…, Take The Money & Run, westerns, mysteries, Jack London seems to have invented frontier fiction, see life in the raw, claim jumping, western adjacent, Les Savage, Max Brand, Zane Grey, Louis L’Amour, A Princess Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Outland (1981) is High Noon (1952) in space, Moon Zero Two (1969), hard SF, a spectacular failure, acoustic panels.

MONARCH BOOKS - Brother And Sister by Donald E. Westlake (1961) - illustration by Harry Schaare

MONARCH BOOKS - Brother And Sister by Donald E. Westlake (1961) BACK COVER5

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The SFFaudio Podcast #619 – READALONG: Lies, Inc. by Philip K. Dick

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #619 – Jesse, Paul Weimer, Marissa Vu, Evan Lampe and Will Emmons talk about Lies, Inc. by Philip K. Dick

Talked about on today’s show:
also known as The Unteleported Man, a movie title, confusing the audience, this whole book is basically terrible, very dream like, Trails Of Hoffmann, Philip K. Dick gets grit in his brain and like Lord Runningclam starts forming a pearl around it, E.T.A. Hoffmann, an opera, kinda Poe and Philip K. Dick combined with fairy tales, The Sandman, one of the vignettes,the seed for this name, the seed, a 1975 Philip K. Dick interview, shooting the shit, Richard A. Lupoff, getting out the the field, you cant trust anything writers say, that’s bullshit, I was chatting up his wife at the bar…, the Lupoff’s that in here, lots of gems, reconstructed and constructed, its got everything, leadies, why are leadies in here?, another Plato’s cave analogy, recycling, Faith Of Our Fathers, the para-universe, written around the same time, flapples (one for the rhetorizier), the labour forces, The Crack In Space, human kipple, Malthusian logic, a good novel inside of this mess, a 1950s Dick novel, that frontier stuff, in the 60s he turned on the frontier, the moral core of the novel, a pastiche, dip into everything, I’m going to do Philip K. Dick for you, the rat, so familiar, Doctor Bloodmoney, Doctor Blood, so Philip K. Dick universe, conapts, if you were writing a rhetorizer, better works, more coherent, not put together, The UnUnTeleported Book?, he’s dealing with Nazis again, looking it as a coherent whole (even though it isn’t one), its Stalinism, Treblinka, Zyklon B, distinct experiences, here’s a twist…, spending 11 minutes describing every Philip K. Dick book, this is a really weird book, The Man In The High Castle, its not really our reality, not our world, its the ovens, there is no teleportation device, Mindwarp (Doctor Who), a microwave, Ben Applebaum’s job, there to prove the ovens are real, rumours of the Death Camps, the Germans have taken over the U.N., deNazified and running the space program, The Man In The High Castle, The Simulacrum, Doctor Bloodmoney, “I’m worried the United States is becoming a Nazi nation”, Now Wait For Last Year, African space war, the first Dick novel Will ever read, the giant LSD sequence, so weird, the out of place, the THL soldier, the chapter in Doctor Bloodmoney that’s out of place, super crazy heat without airconditioning, A Scanner Darkly, Faith Of Our Fathers, The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch, enjoy your mind expansion, another opera connection, The Flying Dutchman, The Wandering Jew, Richard Wagner’s anti-semitism, let’s celebrate Flying Dutchman day, eighteen years later, Dick knew Wagner better than any of us, gotta find love, Roger Zelazny, Marie Celeste, sening messages to people long dead, Brigadoon, Marissa’s opa, his opaness, he’s talking about himself, Oomphalos, Dick going in to get his car impounded, a sexy meter-maid, articulated breasts, the new fropntier isn’t a death camp, The Expanse, Frozen Journey by Philip K. Dick, blacks and browns being frozen, The Crack In Space, extended dreamtime, busy shaving, cheeseburger crumbs, Fred’s gonna take my string, this is how dreams are, dreams and writing lies (fiction) are related, sending messages that the police are your friends (propaganda), accessing Dick’s dreams, when he starts getting these images into characters minds, the women a little less so, a terrible car collage of good Philip K. Dick stuff, looking it as dream notes makes it more valuable, the end, such a cool story, it unraveled, read more novellas, less than half the size, 29,000 and 31,000 of new material, put three stories together, the ped runnels, Our Friends From Frolix 8, We Can Remember It For Your Wholesale, flapples (deflapple), if you kinda squint, a consistency despite it being so messy, autofacs all over this book, from a different phase in his career, Dick is very bothered by the solipsistic experience of dreams, why is CAN-D better than CHEW-Z, a gestalt experience vs., what’s so great about Galactic Pot-Healer, a church community, Faith Of Our Fathers, a diversity of experiences, a shared experience, a shared reality, para-worlds, something that joins us together, Eye In The Sky, Evan should write a book on Philip K. Dick, Evan has unlocked the key, a foundation for solidarity, striving for a shared perspective, we’re afraid of cohering, the true reality behind everything (is horrific), quantum stuff, his other works, a jarring thing, it becomes real, getting into politics, American politics, a very American ideology (to not want to talk about something is wrong), a similar cultural background, murky things, the hypothetical natives, from Chapter 13,

Hoarsely, its voice thickened by the mouthful which it still continued to chew, the creature said, “Good morning. I have your book for you. Sign here.” One of its pseudopodia convulsed and its tip lathered in a spasm which, after an interval, fumbled forth a bulky old-style bound-in-boards volume which it placed on a small plastic table before Rachmael.

“What-book is this?” he demanded, presently. His mind, numbed, refused to interfere as his fingers poked haphazardly at the handsome gold-stamped book which the creature had presented him.

“The fundamental reference source in this survey instruction,” the cephalopodic organism answered as it laboriously filled out a long printed form; it made use of two pseudopodia and two writing instruments simultaneously, enormously speeding up the intricate task. “Dr. Bloode’s great primary work, in the seventeenth edition.” It swiveled the book, to show him the ornate spine. “The True and Complete Economic and Political History of Newcolonizedland,” it informed him, in a severe, dignified tone of voice, as if reproving him for his unfamiliarity with the volume. Or rather, he realized suddenly, as if it assumed that the title would have overpowering influence alone, without additional aid.

“Hmm,” he said, then, still nonplussed-to say the least. And he thought, It can’t be, but it is. Paraworld-which? Not precisely as it had manifested itself before; this was not Blue, because his glimpse of that, ratified by the other weevils, had contained a cyclopsic organism. And this, for all its similarity to the Aquatic Horror-shape, had by reason of its compound multi-eye system a fundamentally different aspect.

Could this actually be the authentic underlying reality? he wondered. This macro-abomination that resembled nothing ever witnessed by him before? A grotesque monstrosity which seemed, as he watched it devour and consume-to its evident satisfaction-the remainder of its eyes, almost a parody of the Aquatic Horror-shape?

“This book,” the creature intoned, “demonstrates beyond any doubt whatsoever that the plan to colonize the ninth planet of the Fomalhaut system is foolish. No such colony as the projected Newcolonizedland can possibly be established. We owe a great debt to Dr. Bloode for his complete elucidation of this complex topic.” It giggled, then. A wet, slurred, wobbly giggle of delighted mirth.

his eyes swim, this is The Book Of The Calends from Galactic Pot-Healer, Evan doing a meta-interpretation of Dick, shifting realities, what is humanity?, Dick thinks there is a truth, in what Dick novel is there not a truth?, there’s always a truth, in the end there is a reality, although there are all false fronts and shifting realities there’s always a truth arrived at through some sort of solidarity, unpack the natives, what might be the objective truth, why Galactic Pot-Healer is the best Dick novel, it has Nick And The Glimmung as its Silmarillion, a deeper history, you know…this book was wrong, what is this book really about?, its not about teleportation, why did the Jews get killed in ovens, for immense amounts of human history people have been colonizing new lands, going back to the Flying Dutchman, the people that stayed behind, how does it make you feel to see people leaving the country, the Jews, here comes the officials, a new place where you will colonize the east, a BIG lie, that turn is a very Philip K. Dick thing, kinda like Glimmung in shape but not in power, the way the Book Of The Kalends works in Galactic Pot-Healer, he is subject to the author’s need to find community and meaning, raise Haldscalla, they form a union, they fight their demons together, disconnected and an LSD sequence, it doesn’t resolve in the way we want it to, the 1966 verison:

Thinking that, he paused before entering the area of light; in the darkness of the side street, unnoticed by passers-by, he scrutinized Freya Holm a long, long period.

“Hmm,” he said, half aloud. Contemplatively.

“What are you thinking about?” Freya asked shyly, her dark, full lashes trembling as she returned his stare. “The years of deep sleep ahead of you?”

“Not quite that,” Rachmael answered. “Something a little more this side of sleep. But connected with it.” He put his arm around her.

“Gee,” Freya said after a time.

In his pocket the container of components hummed happily.

almost like a sex metaphor version, The Unteleported Man (1966), the version we’re hearing in audio, when Evan did his episodes on Lies, Inc. and The Unteleported Man, we need some rogue cuts, Dick is doing something here, what is the objective truth in this novel, there’s an authoritarian state in Newcolonizedland, where does the delusion come from?, the LSD dart?, the teleportation itself?, the cultural image is Stalinism, the natives are not there, terra nullis, the eye-eater super-spy, Ben Applebaum is the Jew after the Germans, Arab-Israeli, undercooked, its because its a dream, he can bring it all together, bringing it into a beautiful bow, all the boob looking, all the fake coffee, here we don’t have that, its front heavy, 5 or 6 revisions, from Fantastic, a 1965 version, a 1979 version, Paul Williams’ found 3 segments, the 2003, Philip K. Dick is actually a really good writer, a mashup of notes, an August Derleth(like) collaboration, his 18 year journey, a really good story there, it has all the makings for one of his classics, his business is crumbling, such a Philip K. Dick setup, analogizing his own life, Matson, it puts an idea in your heads, they’re a private investigator firm, his motivation is the Truth, the company maintaining the lie is not Lies, Inc., Listening Instructional Educational Services, that game at the start of Galactic Pot-Healer, two visions of the internet, when you’re bored at work you engage at various games, puns and book titles, the other vision of the internet is The Book Of The Kalends, books are not popular, a lot of Moby-Dick, he’s doing a Jonah, the heart of the darkness, strike strike what’s beyond the mask?, a new study in Nature about the relationship between elevated rates of autism (and related) in transgender and gender diverse – is untalkableabout – underneath the mask of identity is more onion, I am nothing, there’s nothing there underneath, Ishmael disappears, the universe fucked me by giving me birth, he aims his hate at a particular whale, it is challenging me by its very existence, get on board with this creative project, all the Project: Plowshare stuff, are you willing to use the reality distortion weapons?, there might not be any natives, it breaks Jesse’s ability to understand a book, Max Brand’s The Untamed, anti-romantic, the incoherence of the natives is the incoherence of the novel, Dick deals with indigenous people in several novels, The Crack In Space, Dr. Futurity, Time Pawn is beautiful to read, we could do another show on Time Pawn, the editing is worse than the weird chapter in Doctor Bloodmoney, less like a novel than fixup by someone else, why not just read the originals, they’re not available, it doesn’t exist, you can’t access it, NESFA press, the public domain part of it, an editor said: I will buy this, squeeze another novel out, he was a slim volume writer anyway, Herman Melville from chapter 58:

“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.

Consider all this; and then turn to the green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half-known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!”

his ship is gonna be impounded, the amount of delay, that menace that conspiracy, when you live in a police state, the police are our friends, the FBI is out to get you (just not you specifically), the NSA’s official line: collect everything, the wellness check, Nancy’s not answering the door, what the hell Nancy?, the nosy neighbour, this is a reality, a nightmare, the govt of Quebec was trying to convince people to vote for them using a wedge issue, religious headcoverings, didn’t the Saudis have it right all along?, they had good reason for it, someone not wearing a mask?! how dare you!, reflecting, there was a reason for abstaining, that kind of positive conservatism, there might have been a reason for that fence, Philip K. Dick is exploring some really cool stuff, Philip K. Dick’s greatest book: LIES, Inc., more connections, the nexus book for all of the Philip K. Dick stuff, it is the oomphalos!, not a pessimistic writer, his authoritarian states, Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty Four, The World Jones Made, The Man Who Japed, that settler family, a symbol at the end of that tyrrany, A Scanner Darkly has some hope, Radio Free Albemuth, a chickenhead, the West coast, travelled across the continent, they’re not farther West, the sympathy that dick has for those that stay behind and those that want to flee is a really interesting theme, the colonial fiction of the British Empire, the world is their planet, going home is not a big deal, maybe a class issue, who are the people who move to the States?, the poors, the second sons fleeing murder convictions, free land, fleeing persecution, those who are left behind, isn’t our country being brain drained?, a chance to begin again, sex robots and farm robots (slaves), suspicious of it and attracted to it, he’s talking about something very important to human beings, the US never got over the frontier, Turner’s thesis, build a log cabin, remaking democracy with the frontier experience, culturally you have the Western and Science Fiction, and the Pacific (the Philippines), how the Philippines was colonized, Clark Ashton Smith had a story published in a Philippines publication, appreciating life in the Philippines, the same kind of occupation, Rudyard Kipling had his first stories published in a railroad publication in India, Afghanistan, they don’t live there, you send your sons off to fight those wars, the fear of what’s on the otherside of that train journey east, reading the newspapers, oh my god!, we didn’t have the complete story!, the official lies that are being told, he is the product of his environment, loving these German operas, having a German name and being fearful of Germans, Black Earth: The Holocaust As History And Warning by Timothy Snyder, Hitler was trying to make his own frontier in Eastern Europe, how much Hitler was influenced by the colonization of the American West, Kentucky is not naturally part of the United States, Dick’s intention, a lot of the fascism conversation in science fiction, John W. Campbell vs. Joseph Campbell (being Nazis), Hitler was a romantic, romantics are dangerous, practicalists are dangerous in a different kind of a way, Karl May, they have adventures together, turning the non-threatening into a Crusade, theoretically motivated by a real book (a fictional story), the romantic idea, he is engaging to get out of the house and conquer, get out from under, the send off point, the Germans were the first ones to fight the Nazis, there are good Americans, another anniversary of Hiroshima, two planes that dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they didn’t have aircraft that could hold the two nukes, it almost was the case the British dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Nagasaki wasn’t the original target for that day, I’m glad its overcast because now I’m not dead, the luck of Kokura, the Japanese were not going to give up, Dan Carlin’s Supernova In The East, the military was 100% in charge but from the bottom up, Pearl Harbour was a naval effort, can you make any analogies to the United States today, healthcare and a living wage, more aircraft carriers and war with Venezuela, Russia, and China, Russia’s got a vaccine and nobody believes it (scientists and others), two Jesse rap battle, all the American liberals refusing to take a Corona virus vaccine, its very easy to forget where stuff come from when you benefit from forgetting from where it comes from.

The Unteleported Man illustration by Lloyd Birmingham

Fantastic Stories Of Imagination The Unteleported Man by Philip K. Dick

Fantastic Stories Of Imagination The Unteleported Man by Philip K. Dick

Fantastic Stories Of Imagination The Unteleported Man by Philip K. Dick

Fantastic Stories Of Imagination The Unteleported Man by Philip K. Dick

The Unteleported Man illustration by Harry Borgman

Lies, Inc. by Philip K. Dick

ACE - The Unteleported Man by Philip K. Dick

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The SFFaudio Podcast #617 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Untamed by Max Brand

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #617 – The Untamed by Max Brand; read by Richard Kilmer. This is an unabridged reading of the novel (7 hour 21 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Paul Weimer, Evan Lampe, Maissa Bessada, Will Emmons, Trish E. Matson, and Jonathan Juett

Talked about on today’s show:
a serial in All-Story, 1919, WWI, Canadian Army 1915-16, 1917 $150,000, the US Army in 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, the state of the magazine industry, four sequels, when Juett was a little kid, a perfect vacation novel, a poncho and a dog, maybe a werewolf, western werewolf novel was a romance, a member of the fey, the Wild Hunt, Connor Kaye, all in reference to The Geat God Pan by Arthur Machen, whistling superpower, animal control, where all the panisci come from, super-rapey, Whistling Dan is zero rapey, a horse named Satan, Black Bart as a pet goat, preternaturally good with his hands and a gun, SFFadjacent, maybe when Dan’s in a coma his spirit is in the dog, under the current, trickles it along, underpainting, following the geese, very mythic, orthogonal migration, snatched from migration, a Clint Eastwood movie with a romance, Italian Spanish American production, Spaghetti Western, the uncanny stuff, his muscles were bigger like those of a caveman, like a mule, bones are bigger, quasi-supernatural, how old is he?, around 10 or 8, a young boy, tame him, lock him in with his daughter, risky, this thing that can’t be tamed, the daughter has a calming effect on all the characters in the novel, Max Brand has a whole bunch of ideas about how women and men interact, ‘women in general are hell, women in particular are heaven’, Buck’s mother, she’s the MacGuffin, he tasted his own blood, where is this supposed to be located, the Black Hills?, Dakota Territory?, high desert, Westworld, putting our something people really wanted to have, Steam-Man Of The Prairies, neo-Westerns, the premium entertainment, overseas fans, THE American literature, Henry James, Quigley Down Under (1990), Paul didn’t understand Westerns, The New Yorker, Paul’s better now, a question about the Western, who read the western?, the working class, Mechanic Accents: Dime Novels And Working Class Culture by Michael Denning, think about the reader, unreachable life, living in Kentucky, Kentucky heritage, Jesse and Frank James, Kit Carson’s farm, Boonesborough, pioneer people, The Crossing, Carradines, two reasons, Germans in the mountains, Karl May, a German immigrant to the West makes friends with a native Indian and travel the land like Kung-Fu, The Lone Ranger, persistently popular, Stephen King, Edgar Rice Burrough’s tomb, Karl May’s tomb, influence on the Nazis, noble savage, German interest in Indians, hiking in the nature of the West, Leavenworth, Washington (state), the Mountie, Argosy and All-Story, pulp hero, western outlaws in Canada, a northern west, the Klondike, Death Hunt (1981), Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson, Louis Riel, the Northwest Rebellion, super-religious, less exciting a hero, people should be treated nicely, mental illness, a massive shitshow, the Black Hills and the Dakotas, Deadwood, like the Kurds, Jesse psyched himself out, disenfranchised like the Metis, including Canada in America, our attitude as settler colonists, Allan Quatermain, colonial literature, this strange other place for the guys on the bus going to their factory job, Andrew Jackson, Farmer In The Sky, transplanting sci-fi stories to western motifs, Han Solo’s low slung holster, Wagon Train to the stars (Star Trek), Firefly/Serenity, race never comes up, good guys are white guys, The Efficiency Expert, the lynching that their planning, he’s a criminal and they’re fed up, transplanting this story to Mars, Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick, steer rustlers and bank robbers, the strangest creature under the sun, an unoccupied mars, no dying race there, these Bleekmen, Australian aborigines, a Dreamtime sort of culture, long riders in the Pampas, on the other side of the planet, the Mongols, South Africa, sheep in Australia, a samurai story, Red Country by Joe Abercrombie, a settler colony, colonial literature, wholly artificial, a confection that could appeal to regular romantics, all the set dressing of a western we think of, a lot of talkin’, colonialism without genocide, no Civil War, the first ever gunfight (duels), innocence of our protagonist, he becomes a fighter, is this how naive you really are?, a natural creature, pulled out of nature, the werewolf chapter, was he a wolf who was turned into a man?, he doesn’t understand human emotion, the story of Dexter, traumatized, gave him a code to build his psychopathy around, he’s got a sister, blood daughter, the two actors hooked up, you were raised together, he’s like your brother he’s not your brother, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, super-ego advice on screen, James Remar, he’s OP, you really rolled up this character, he’s definitely a fake, he’s not human, a DEX of 20, WIS level 4, Once Upon A Time In The West, A Fistful Of Dynamite, The Good The Bad And The Ugly, Luke Short, Louis L’Amour, Celtic origins, Zane Grey, the Asimov and the Heinlein and the Clarke, overlapping, he fought in WWI twice and died in Italy in WWII, William Hope Hodgson, artillery officer killed in WWI, a massive output in 15 years, their background stories, eerie similar deaths, The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Chief Dan George, he plays the Indian, a southern outlaw bandit who used to be a confederate, a little something extra, High Plains Drifter (1973), a ghost, ‘he was a ghost the whole time’, this weird false reality created by books just like this, where Whistling Dan lives, its a mythic plane, a hyper reality, the Harry Potter world of the West, a supervillain matched by a superhero, arcs of hyperbole, largely the appeal, the same disposibility and the same addiction, James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel “Natty” Bumppo, pre-western, proto-western, there’s no state, there’s no capitalism, the Wild West was a colonial enterprise, kind of ridiculous, what do the readers get out of this?, Michael Mann movie The Last of the Mohicans (1992), those cattle are going to market somewhere, what year is it set?, before the Civil War?, the perpetual old-west, what Westworld is all about, a re-creation of a steady state fantasy West, the saloon gets knocked down/burned down, he feared its influence, the whole revenge thing, at the end when he takes the disc out of his pocket, one of the coins, what is he whispering, waiting for that other coin to drop, an ideological deus ex-machina, Marshals can do no wrong in Portland, what congress is, every time there is some sort of problem they add a new bureaucracy, a massive list of acronyms, Marshals Service, the reason Canada has its shape, all in reaction to what the United States is going to do, 54-40 or Fight, North-West Territory, squad of troops, the state police for the country, government bounty hunters, trail outlaws, he’s on a case, he’s supposed to bring in Jim Silent, in the middle, a little corrupt, Wyatt Earp, outlaw/good guy, the colour of the badge, Justified, based on the Elmore Leonard story Fire In The Hole, the Lexington Court House, filmed in L.A., The Dukes Of Hazzard, a modern western, The A-Team, mini-14, G.I. Joe shooting down Cobra airplanes, ultra-fake violence, Bo and Luke Duke were moonshiners?, bows and arrows because they were on probation?, what replaced the pulp magazines, a continuous stream, Ward Shelly’s The History Of Science Fiction poster, the imagination of what the printers are selling to the easterners, go west young man, Karl May never came here, the trick-shot, the four coins, the Sheriff’s department at Midway, three bottles, the crazy figures, Joe Arpaio, you’re going to go out back and shoot bottles, Jesse’s time-stop dream power, Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, you can’t stop time in a multi-player game, story based vs. massively multiplayer, western themes in Fallout, a fantasy sub-genre not recognized as such, Buck Daniels, tamed him, where was he?, his other wild things, Pan induces panic, his presence, what did that?, Buck is the villain in the second novel, why you dont read the second book in the series, The Call Of The Wild by Jack London, its almost like racism, house dogs and yard dogs, he’s not a lapdog, he’s not a hunting dog, he’s a favourite of the judge, a journey of self-discovery, I don’t need masters, I need to be wolf, a dog-wolf story, White Fang as a reversal of The Call Of The Wild, influenced, typically Star Wars writing, ohhh the turn, the wild geese, symbolically joining them again, assembling a menagerie, the horse, the birds, the wolf-dog, that whole idea of Kung-Fu, mixing a dying genre with a very hip genre, well see the Chinese knew kung-fu, right back to the comics, Shag-shi, Fu Manchu, Iron Fist, exoticizing, where everybody makes you have face tattoos, putting a lei around your neck isn’t stolen valour, oooh a real Indian to play an Indian, like Tonto, they thought that was awesome, they loved wrestling, that *IS* awesome, who is being exploited, that’s a great character, that’s a great role, Sandra Locke and Clint Eastwood and Chief Dan George, where’s the harm, dressing up in costumes is cool, its the bad fucking that’s bad, bulldozing land, when politicians are seen wearing headdresses, trying to curry sympathy, we’ll treat you like family, politician are bad actors, eradicated from the landscape, what makes it so fantastic, there are no Apache, no Blackfoot, cultural motifs, cultural ammunition for empire, not as innocuous as Jesse thinks, more fantastic that Philip K. Dick’s Martian Time Slip, more fantastic that A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, movies based on this book, Tom Mix, Paint Your Wagon (1969), a native character would disrupt what is going on, Dan and his animals, Dan’s animals are happy slaves, a psychic beat-down, a sought after horse, I want the dog, the pieces of Dan, they want to colonize Dan, who is The Untamed?, all of Eastwood’s characters, Yojimbo or The Seven Samurai, Akira Kurosawa movies, 1950, five years after WWII, they go back in time, there is not Japanese Empire, western tech in a medieval kingdom, Toshiro Mifune, perfectly adapts to a western, A Fistful Of Dollars (1964), Yojimbo (1961), a border war, where’s the trauma coming from to make this western fantasy?, friendless nameless, changes things up and leaves town, the period staying in town, this neighbourhood needs cleaning up, killing all those Indians in the west, fairy tales, not based on a real person, the fantasy to cover up genocide or covering up what the West actually was, megacorporations, cow punchers replaced by ranchers, a couple of decades, your grandfather or great-grandfather, our perspective of WWII, Inglourious Basterds (2009), a fairy tale about WWII, the Sundance Kid, bank robberies happened, train robbery, Jonah Hex is real and still wandering the west, not a future Hex, bad ideas, Conan the Barbarian with a laser sword, Jesse’s not having it, 70s and 60s western comics, a lotta superhero comics, straight up westerns coming out of Marvel and DC, the Rawhide Kid, a Wolverine berserker rage, in trouble in his own head, a Stan Lee character, western characters, cops are there, cops are a hindrance to the action, the comic code authority, turning super-heroes into the big thing they were, superheros as propaganda for law and order, Billy The Kid, Spider Man is an outlaw, Captain America, cops took over TV, lawyer shows, so many cop shows, all of these cops are good, the 87th Precinct novels, murders, con men, New York turned upside down, NCIS shows, Law & Order shows, NYPD Blue, Cop Rock, the solution to all problems is more cops, private detective stories and shows, breaking the rules, the cops themselves become the ruler breakers, Dirty Harry, NYPD Blue normalized torture, a standard thing, the bosses knew, 24, bad cops, 24 was theoretically about foreign policy, small scale, we built him until he confesses, The Shield, Homicide: Life On The Streets, based on a book, based on a reality, Will should be stepping up here, the powers of the state are such they’ll get you, you don’t need to beat anybody, people don’t want to be pressured, false confessions, where’s Will in all this?, circle it back to the book we just read, the stateless west, free men doing their thing, a few women, wifes or prostitutes, crooked sheriff, bring the state to be with them, Tex, when he throws down the tin star, an agent of civilization, a stateless place, what we know about civilization, so trusting, the marshals are different, the dignified congressional types, the passing of the marshals’ badge, deputization and posses, you take the lynch mob and they become a posse, power conferred, all the beatings, all the murders were in the name of the law, indemnified, deep down, the core idea, fantasies of what future we can make, what past we can recreate, fantasizing about a time that didn’t exist, what was actually going on, the people will not be restrained, why sequels never help, The Night Horsemen, Dan Berry’s Daughter, cowgirls are fun too, a tragedy, about loss, in the shadow of a famous western hero, regional hero, tall tale people, Wild Bill Hickok, Daniel Boone, a famous figure, Jonah Hex didn’t actually exist, Jesse James, his mother’s hotel, the blood of this dude is still on that floor, any class going on in this story?, no race, no class, basically wholly about the romance of this dude, the way people fawn on him being interesting, one’s a whistler and one’s silent, neither of them are talking, descriptive passages, slightly back to our SFF theme, astronaut Dan Berry discovered it was impossible to whistle while on a moonwalk, the language in this book, poetic scene setting, clear and plain, poetic without being florid, Richard Kilmer (the narrator), unadorned, his Dr. Kildare books, mythologies about the west, Robert E. Howard’s letters to H.P. Lovecraft, violence in its cultural context, when a mob broke into the jail, what was the difference between a hanging and a shooting, this person must die under the law, poisoning vs. shooting, the difference was treachery, they push so hard for Assad and gas, dropping bombs on people vs. gassing people, your boy was killed right and proper, poison gas vs. electric chair, its not the proper forms!, completely unthinking, Raytheon has been deputized by the government, Little House On The Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder, a western vs. a story that takes place in the West, a lone man doing something, cooperative action, The Big Valley, The Ponderosa, Lorne Greene, everything’s going to be fine, momless three boys, The Wild Wild West, the Desilu production, secret service, Deadwood with George Hearst, the Hearst magazines, a fantasy genre, a really strange subgenre, the romance of the setting vs. the romance of the setup, they were loosed in the void of the mountain desert, the power which struck, Three In One?, Baby Is Three by Theordore Sturgeon, fantastique, Riders On The Purple Sage by Zane Grey, a hooded man, modern weird westerns, Saladin Ahmed, Rebecca Roanhorse, Riders Of The Purple Wage by Philip Jose Farmer, pastiche of Ulysses, UBI, a dense novella, Silver On The Road by Laura Anne Gilman, Algis Budrys, the Dark Tower novels, Maine, Dead Man’s Hand edited by John Joseph, more and more less and less, an exercise in self-indulgence, Bone Tomahawk, Hell Or High Water (2016), The Sixth Gun, their truck is their horse, neo-western, a life under horrible capitalism western, no more talk about the book.

All-Story Weekly - The Untamed by Max Brand

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