murder – SFFaudio

The SFFaudio Podcast #866 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Detour by Martin M. Goldsmith

The SFFaudio Podcast #866 – Detour by Martin M. Goldsmith, (4 hours 8 minutes) read by Ben Tucker for LibriVox, followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Alex (Pulpcovers)

Talked about on today’s show:
1939, only four novels, the movie, the movies, the 1945 one, an incredibly close recreation, everything with sue, identical lines, cut out, just over an hour, the car is a different car, set after the war, a prewar car, a 1941 car, war production cars, a whole history of wartime industrial policy, all civilian production, consumer goods, more volume, keep the people at home happy, not as many cars, models from 1943, the car is described, a gray buick with a rumble seat, ’36, set a year before it came out, “the rumble”, really good read, had to stop listening, so good, bang this out, at a swim meet, 7:30, done by 9, there’s no drag, no ending, the first two thirds of a really good book, the tweet, holding something, suddenly stopped, something happens in the book, save the rest, think about this for a book, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, 99 pages, judging for hugos or edgars, novella, the kind of book, addicted to paperbacks, I’m off the bus, what a great book, how come all books aren’t like this, noir gut punch, it’s dark, there was a point in the book, Vera gets the car, where’d you put the body, what do you say to that, in their conversation, is this a surreal novel, is she gonna kill him and continue down the road, endless highway to Los Angeles, a Twilight Zone episode, wrote 2 episodes, 1964 season, this thing is never gonna end, caught me out, suddenly have chapter 2, Alex Roth, his girl’s pov, Sue, totally jumped, that was his girlfriend, she’s gotta whole life going, a parallel story, what’s cut out of the movie, the two stories don’t really touch, flashback stuff, she reads the article about him, the only interaction, thematically it fits, wasn’t extraneous, just in memory, more surreal, waiting faithfully, we don’t know what she’s like, she is not a nice person, the Vera in the movie, also not a nice person, Sue is pretty horrible, incredibly selfish, somehow even worse, justify everything to herself, putting these two together, catching up to her, parallel stories, one’s an aspiring actress, professional violin player, seeing Sue from Alex’s pov, she seems like a nice kid, seeing what she does to Raoul, Alex and her roommate, you’re just not that good of a lover, he kinda deserved that, she just does this to everyone, she is a monster, what won’t I do to be a movie start, degrade myself in every possible way, a little bit like Sunset Boulevard, how terrible Hollywood is, it’s very good, film noir from that period, the book is just crackerkjack, in a police cell telling this story, bummin around, can’t go to New York, Los Angeles or Phoenix, regretful, all a confession, arrested for his own murder, no I’m the musician, your dead dad, the only one who knew about the scar, nope, I’m with Raoul now, already had a wife, screw his almost ex-wife, the point, we like our Alex Roth, too deep in with him, tired, sunstroke, can’t believe his luck, a hamburger, a sign, delay you, they do go off the road, changing the top on the car, the guy he’s replacing, this guy’s a monster, stole his mom’s wedding ring, took his brother’s eye out, any human that isn’t a total monster, brother in New York, roommate girl, side character, sleeping in the same bed, they’re poorer, literally in the same room, not a king sized bed, girls are a little smaller than people, the reveal, reveal, reveal, Hendrix, I strangled her, what!, wow!, where am I, this is about half-an hour before she died, in the movie he does strangle her it is kind of an accident, the marks on her neck, so squishy, so bendy, when she pivoted at the waist, her head being floppy on the top of her neck, strong images, Vera takes the phone and runs into the bedroom of the hotel, tangled up in the phone line, a little bit less deliberate, the movie is more censored in terms of sexuality, what’s the worst you can do rape me?, douche, books are completely uncensored, tended to be across borders, you can’t get Lady Chatterly’s Love imported, straigh up porn literature, it’s just hard and noir, striking, comparisons, magazines had more censorship, sent through the mail, delivered by trucks, how they got comics too, we might have to look at regulating, EC comics goes out of business, stop for the border checks, the fruit of livestock, provincial stuff too, whatever animals infesting the fruit, seemed weird until asking about the fruit, going back to the character, Haskell, he’s got something wrong with him, he was dead before he hit his head on the stone, these are all excuses, utterly fails, impulsive, he can explain, look it wasn’t me, the worry about him rolling the guy, the Fredric Brown, The Screaming Mimi, it didn’t record, just go read [it], a real ending, funnier, entertaining and interesting, nervous laughter, what to think about some of the things going on, intial impression, maybe the car was stolen, his angle, the scars on his wrist, the scar on his arm, he raped a girl, sometimes girls get passionate, she nails you, makes light of it, if you see a pharmacy wake me up, smoking marijuana cigarettes, why is he doing that, pain?, mental pain?, somethin’s wrong with her, it was Vera, she was the one he was having sex with, the woman on the page, fuckin dangerous and evil, sympathy for her, she is definitely dying, she wanted to have a real life, she wanted to be a star, cynical and pouting, he picks her up, why?, she’s a girl, this kinda book is about this idea, hitchhiking, a dead thing, pretty much dead, no one’s going to stop and pick you up, probably a serial killer, serial killer picks up another serial killer, first experience of this book and this novel, The Hitcher (1986), roadside diners, driving through the desert, Rutger Hauer, C. Thomas Howell, somebody to talk to, lonely, people need people, keep awake, talking keeps me awake, he buys our hero dinner, and breakfast, a steak, driving across country by yourself, a huge long drive, so helpful to the hitchhiker and it costs you so little, normal people, we’re all in this together, being a little more kind to our fellow man, Christmas and it is snowing, poor stranded motorist, what a scenario, rewatching it, what the hell is his motivation, repressed homosexuality, he wants to be killed, a very iconic and strange movie, Eric Red, the same scenario, the story changes you, taking on the persona, his billfold in your pocket, his name, he’s wearing the man’s clothes, driving the man’s car, this road is an endless highway, she got out of that car, she met someone who was her but a man, reading the letter he didn’t send to his dad, I’m selling bibles to churches, a good business investment, a number on the horse, the fix was in somehow, the roommate, sympathy for Raoul, seducing waitresses where his wife works, a weaker less aggressive version of Alex and of Sue and Vera too, binder full of narcissism, commercial for toast, actors care about their image, make emotional connections to other humans, because it is about the road, New York and Los Angeles, poles of Americanness, he can go anywhere, a piano, where is his fiddle, he sold it, he can get any old fiddle anywhere, his music teacher, everybody has to make a connection, she’s an interesting strong character, motivations: spite, companionship, some company in her last days, terrible to everybody, kidnapped him, takes all the money and everything, this scam, get 7 million dollars, take the $700, a bird in the hand vs. $7 million in the bush, playing cards, gettin ripped, smokin, not a kind word, these are broken horrible people, she’s quiet and she’s sleeping, pretty hard, the wonderful line, ancient primal, she was Adam’s wife, Noah’s wife, archive.org, read it in the browser, on your phone it scrolls, mostly the phone, a really nice clear scan, it is public domain, filthy like that, without a mask of cosmetics, primitive geezer would have gone for, she’s getable, as a passenger, he’s feeling great, drivin the car, being generous, give em big tips, only a few hours to live, final supper, ultimate supper, makes a joke, come back soon, a cute little joke, a grim joke, cynical, come out to Los Angeles, you don’t need to be faithful to me, she understands men, I ain’t going to be faithful to you, very naive, so James M. Cain, so hardboiled, at the end our hero doesn’t die, the free gas the goverment gives you, that Arizona perfume, ISFDB, set in realtime, the bombing of New York by the Nazis, an America bomber, multi-stage rocket, NASA guys with German accents, Doctor Strangelove, everything goes back to somewhere, are they prescient or is everything cyclical, bigger than the War Debt, WWI, the War in Europe, income tax, inflate everything up, people on the road trynna make a life, controlled by their human instincts, nice to spend time with people, change your location, our description of Alex from Sue’s perspective, beating people up all the time, the outside POV of him, he’s pretty nasty, until strangles Vera, a screenshot, 80% through the book, he’s doin his best, a good point, the cops aren’t just gonna believe him, this setup, who’s gonna believe he didn’t do it, our narrative of hitchhikers are dangerous, understanding what happened there, a first person perspective, I strangled her, from whatever Vera did to him, he was pretty sluggish, doctors on the side of the road in the rain, the cop comes by, what are you doing down there, oh I see, button that up, peeing, a very fate book, on a highway headed in a direction, be generous, saying to yourself, just kept driving, it’s the same car, a million Teslas half of them are white, sitting in the same car, the ashtray’s in the same position, that instinct to make human contact fucked up his whole life, it wasn’t going well for him, 4 people, each of those people is completely fucked up, and Raoul, dumped at the end, when Sue is reading about Alex, jumping off the Hollywood sign, fits with the media, he is a weak man, this girl hurting him by calling him a name, all about herself, I love him, I hate Alex, he’s dead anyway, I’m still married to your co-worker, send this letter of to her boss, I’ll never marry him, so petty, mid-early 20s, she’s about 24, comparing the movie to the book, identical, the used car dealer, the number is much inflated, ten years of inflation, WWII, that was nasty, used car dealer, haggling over a price, a world you do not want to operate in, I like fishing vs. the fish packing industry, beef, steak, sausage, the killing floor, the cynicism, I’m better than that, I have people for that, scrub my toilets, almost like an existential book, the hardboiled and noir books, femme fatales, murdered, destroyed, more mayhem, seeing Vera on screen, Sue in flashback, nice singer, powerful on the screen, the TCM intro piece, good little essays, going over to the actress’ house, in her 60s at least by then, come into my bedroom, get down on your knees, look under the bed, neatly laid out, I’ll participate but you need to know about all that, Hollywood is a hard place, high and low Hollywood, Boogie Nights, The Player, Robert Altman style, small piece of real estate, he’s got a big dick, [The Nice Guys] with Ryan Gosling, 2002 was 23 years ago, best movies of the 21st century, the list, best comic book movie, nothing you hadn’t heard of, Everything Everywhere All At Once, as long as your arm, there are still good movies, the writing is very strong, as much, a cheap movie to make, hard to find a book that’s a really solid short read, long long books with a small idea, swap identities with a corpse, consequences to it, the writing process, for writing appreciation, why is It’s A Wonderful Life Not A Christmas movie, Die Hard style, set at Christmas, kind of a Detour, see his wife, New York detective, the Christmas party, then Alan Rickman happens, the family is reunited and together, essential the same plot as A Christmas Carol, 3 ghosts, 4 ghosts?, Marley’s ghost, three visions of reality, the transformation we see with Scrooge, go get a Christmas goose, parallel structure, he doesn’t like Christmas, the Christmas spirit, he’s a waste, this angel comes down, not so he has a great Christmas, Thanksgiving, pretty subtle argument, those are the best arguments, something to the writing in here, the coincidence, a tweet Alex was participating in, one big coincidence, Edgar Rice Burroughs, that’s where he lives, never important, they’re the same size, this fun idea, all Chinese look the same, weird ties, you can kinda see it, same hump on the nose, fine with it, that’s a big coincidence, that he picks up a hitchhiker, allow that, that’s fine, takes it in to that almost Twilight Zone level of awesomeness, what do I know about reality, the Alex that we remember, him taking swings at people, he’s so polite to Haskell, a class thing, digging through the bags and finding more reefer, nice luggage, if he was a bum, they’d pin the murder on him, more like this please, more books like this book, solid twisty almost surreal, a different end, faking out the dying father, if he’d run into Sue, something, a turning back, the way they had come, you never get there, the highway is endless, rest stops and dusty highway gas stations, Sisyphean hell, Desert Saints, a mechanistic society, H.P. Lovecraft, railroads, automobile engines, anything that replaces human or animal labour, distanced from each other, physically distanced, Oregon Trail, cars are a thing now, drive across the country, a pre-war book, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Mildred Pierce, painting pictures of early 20th century American capitalism, the dirty 30s, go build a dam somewhere, FDR’s NRA, a later organization, hugely popular, fascism!, pushing back against oligarchs doing other things, struck down by the corpse, what a rumble seat is, my brother back in New York, cousin in New York, something’s wrong, when he lies to Haskell, I’m from Detroit, he aint a good soul, a rotten bugger, keep lying, Greek gods for the modern era, this kind of fiction is like a Greek tragedy, Oedipus Rex, fun and good, upcoming, Hombre by Elmore Leonard, The Thing On The Roof and The Nameless City, The Assassination Bureau, Ltd., Jack London, Goliah, The Red One, ancient astronauts, room soon, a short story, guy says I’m gonna fix capitalism, send letters to the oligarchs, come to this meeting, go to this ship in the harbour of San Fransisco, zapped out of existence, the next round of guys, they get zapped, a giant computer ai in the South Pacific somewhere, just a guy, remote zapper, really good thinking stuff, technology to change society, weird communist socialist guy, Jack Johnson, Korea, sleepin with the bums in London, a hobo march to Washington, not all equally good, The Unparalleled Invasion, 2000 years in the future, a period of time in our future, germ warfare, everybody in China, colonizing the remains of China, doing that all before WWII, what this month is doing, things are progressing, those will be easy, the one with the toad temples, hoofy noises on the roof.

Detour by Martin M. Goldsmith

Posted by Jesse Willis

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

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

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