mystery – SFFaudio

The SFFaudio Podcast #875 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Undying Monster by Jessie Douglas Kerruish

The SFFaudio Podcast #875 – The Undying Monster by Jessie Douglas Kerruish (7 hours 56 minutes) read by Ben Tucker, for LibriVox, followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Alex (Pulpcovers), and Tommy Patrick Ryan

Talked about on today’s show:
Monster?, before 2014, her publication in famous fantastic mysteries, pretty good, not super well known, did you write it, different spelling, different lady, here’s a big novel by me, 8 hours long, a full novel, 3 and half hours is novel, people disagree, unplug and plug back in, decent, you liked it, good points, inventive, where to get there, that one’s not great, the recording, he’s got a British accent, most of the voices, competent, Ben Tucker is good, an interesting choice, a lot more acting, did you manage to see the movie?, this last week, last night, driving to and from some stuff, spoiler alert, a good werewolf story, Luna, more obvious, the werewolf is attracted to the moon, for whatever reason, fasinated by shapechangers, werewolves in particular, the druid class, into wolves and bears, Diablo, a werewolf or werebear, Brandytook?, lifted from Tolkien, our favourite hobbits, awith a swing of his stick, inventing the game of golf, the shapechanger, turn into dragons, D&S or Pathfinder, forgotten everything about this book, all the pictures, a hand of glory on the cover, scenes from all sorts of different stuff, the drivers died, irritating, big loss there bud, missed out on the etymology, fascinated by skinchangers, skinwalker, a [novel] approach, 4th and 5th dimension, a very strong personality behind it, the Saga of the Volsungs, oh yeah, skipped throughable, the video on YouTube, on archive.org, sort of worth watching, the book is quite different, 8 hrs vs. an hour, the last line of the movie, wait a minute, a weird joke to put in a murder movie, this book is all sorts of things, Oliver and Swanhild, she straps on her brother’s service revolver, WWI, driving almost everybody to kill themselves, the shaw, either Doyle, Professor somebody, or that lady, Doyle is Conan Doyle, with so much baggage, the subtitle of the book, Hound Of The Baskervilles, a reverse gothic novel, early Scooby Doo, old man withers!, the supernatural thing is always fake, inheritance scheme, condos, what shaw is, old english, a thicket or copse, what it is, context it makes sense, this weird dark cave, forested, a coppicing, a copse of trees, a forest cultivated for making charcoal and home heating, sticks of the right size, for making faggots, walking sticks, wand, a little tree branch, you can just substitute the moors, with the Doyle reference, a mystery, supernatural stuff, documents, the legend, a doctor showing up at Sherlock Holmes’ residence, the legend of the Baskervilles, extraordinary evidence, a response to that, a story by Barry Pain, The Undying Thing, contemporaneously, turns out it was first published in 1893, a chain, a feudal house in some part of England, the old English manor house, a family in decline, the setting is great, cool old things, secret rooms, mounds, guys who live in cottages, Holmes, Dracula, vampires, a series of RPGs, larping, Vampire The Masquerade, weirder, give me all the rules, five phases of werewolves, krynos form, the wolfman, almost pass for a really hairy dude, a dire wolf, loup garou, Norse mythology, unexpected but welcome, the twist, the dog is dead, maybe he’s not a werewolf, the first ancestor, still hiding, the Magnus guy, all turn into wolves because of crazy, if you have the knowledge when you are in the womb, before he had sex to make you, encoded in your genes, racial memory, scanned through it, as soon as she’s out in the wood, how come I know that, forgotten the movie, noted on a tweet, really funny audio drama called THE MONSTER HUNTERS, retell old movies as their own, 1970s groovy monster, Heir Of The Dog, a game on Steam, gold car, ache in my back, she’s playing with the record player, they are attacked by a werewolf, this is what inspired that, the tropes are there, scared to death, when John Baskerville comes, connecting these altogether, incest, old English families, keep it in the family, Swanhild is also in Eric Brighteyes by H. Rider Haggard, 1883, maybe it starts with a g and ends with an l, ghoul?, such a werewolf nerd, a rundown of the Saga of the Volsungs, the race of the Volsungs, an edda, the translation by William Morris, 3000 years later, reading Edgar Allan Poe, you fool, this bird is not a Raven, yeah, we don’t care, where Gandalf came from the dwarves of the hobbit, Smaug is not in there, Fafnir is a talking dragon, talking dragons are also shapeshifters, there’s just talking dragons, talking fish, dragons are men, they shapeshift because of their behavior, sit on piles of gold, kidnap maidens and keep them for themselves, a good king doesn’t sit on his horde, he has 1, if you are a bad king you become a dragon who should be slain, werewolves are something you do, you put on the mantle of a wolf, the skin of a wolf, something you put over yourself, you become a wolf’s head, becoming crazed, about to be eaten by her brother, the way the family will prosper is by eating somebody, conk on the head, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, brother sister creepin, Roderick young comes to visit, falls into a black lake, the background for what could have happened, heroine, really good at hypnosis, the gal Kate, still alive at the time, wasn’t dead yet, I’m a normal man now, did kill that lady, alone with only one other person, a thin explanation, believing in the rules of the thing, a GenCon viking guy, vikings and dwarves, beards and culture, the land of the ice and snow, Immigrant Song, really fun, links, the setting that it’s pulling from, a neat exploration, is it well written, cheesy stuff, the movie ends abruptly, the natural ending is about an hour before the ending, the lady detective wrap-up, some more hypnosis, better in its parts than it is in its whole, the giant man overlooking the estate, the first image in the PDF, made of the shaw, sort of symbolic, the giant man of Dannaou, ancient chalk carving out, horses or men, the horses are well regarded, genitals exposed, looms over the whole story, you’re Danish, I knew it, sloppy, convention stuff, a terrific Lovecraft connection, The Alchemist, an early one by him, little boy raised in a castle, near Spain?, no mirrors in the castle, part of the castle has been condemned, some kids point over at him, maybe he has a dragon head, this ancestral curse upon the family, the men in the family will die before the age of 30, they die from accidents, earning immortality, he has cursed the family, by literally staying alive to kill them, in the background of this, Paulo Coelho, The Lurking Fear, respect Lovecraft as a humorist, a journalist who goes to investigate Thunder Mountain, a family up there, under the right conditions, one of these cannibal people living under the old house, a big burly friend with lots of meat on him, CHUDS, Lovecraft is hilarious, Re-Animator, same joke five times in a row, so many cool touches, our lady detective, she’s there but she bakes some taffy and they make fun of her, not really the same character, she’s the star of the show, a Madame Blavatsky, her aunt, her lesbian lover, not a lot of homosexuality in here, this threat of incest, vibe based, you don’t remember incest in there, Stapledon, the guy who made the hound luminous, he’s married to the love interest, he wants to be the heir, he gets really mad, that’s find, simulated incest jealous, a kind of a clue, the Baskerville race, the Usher race, a brother and a sister, alone together, she has a boyfriend fiancee, we’re out of duty to not being incestuous, a childhood friend of the family’s, we were in the war together, another male character, to do some lifting, made the change, hears the howl, going through the moat, the secret room, he was much more dedicated to his fiancee, the fake arm thing, artifical arm, Thorin Oakenshield, Bifur and Bofur, Zipper and Zoffer, son of, Swanhildsdotter, fake arm saved his life, the movie doesn’t represent the book very well, too much to adapt, she’s such a great investigator character, Murder She Wrote but paranormal, he’s got a crush on her, such a Mary Sue for this book, she is having so much fun being the smartest one in the room and the love interest, her hero character, she brought in herself, kind of a witch, weight as much as a duck, extracted from the PDF, wit, knit, Hammond’s race shall live and thrive, espieth, dieth, worse than death shall be his lot, you should kill yourself, why did the grandfather kill himself?, he saw the monster, The White Ape, Facts Concerning Arthur Jermyn And His Family, when we do a show on Congo, Michael Crichton, King Solomon’s Children, an Amazon delivery from Africa, kerosene, as you are a Lovecraftian investigator, the box was his grandma, sorta looks simian, he couldn’t live with the knowledge, racial horror, my grandpa used to work in the circus, restart the call, super bad joke, packed delivered, which is worse, in this book it tells you, a break, why that racial memory stuff needs to come in, under control when they had the knowledge, they had to kill, we just gotta eat somebody, attacked before the book started, the poacher, the butler’s worried, she grabs his pistol, reading it into it, laying it down, weird, fun, you shouldn’t marry your sister, on board the not marrying your sister train, a lot of characters, the least interesting character is our werewolf, our dude’s name being Oliver, Oliver Reed played a werewolf, 1942 movie, 22, 24, the reprint, 1948, Ben-Hur, a 23 hour show and a couple hours of talk about it, back to the werewolf book, a twist on the genre, the racial memories were weird, Danish Norse mythology, lycans is Greek, in Roman times, man in saxon or something, werebear, werecat, manbearpig, Saxon is German, Eaters Of The Dead, Beowulf, Grendel!, a good twist, hate parties, flapper dancers, false trails, a viking longship in a mound, the sword hilt, the background, the evidence that this is all true, complete bullshit, she does a lot of things very well, a preconception, word association, revealed, this is actually, false memory shit, demons, recovered memory, almost all of this is fake, hypnosis ads, quitting smoking, any phenomena that exist in society is either a threat or a tool, it’s not what we think it is, it’s not Mesmerism, the phrase hypnotic ability, a hypnotic disability, the performer up on stage, dancing like a chicken, those are plants, one way of understanding, cold reading, guy pretends he has psychic powers, begins with a G, he loved you very much, a scam, assistants, who travel around, fill in, become actors, a little bit like dinner theater, if you can’t juggle, often involves dominance of personality, the most interesting person in the room, the non-Vichy France, De Gaull was the tallest, if tall promoted more, you need to be seen, hire a dwarf, a commanding presence, submit your personality to that person, to regress him back through his ancestry, you want this to be true, confabulating, I didn’t want him to make stuff up, familiar with hypnosis, through hypnosis, the book is really good, an interesting departure, refind it again, cool, but incongruent, a little hard to follow, impressed, 40 minutes of the last hour, viking hypnosis, taking away his trauma, we’re all gonna watch Ragnarok together, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, all this viking stuff, the rainbow bridge, the Norse myths, just watching the Thor movies, God Of War videogames, out of Greece and into Norse myth stuff, Neil Gaiman, Beowulf script, stuff going on with him, not sure we like him, he’s a good narrator, super-impressed, a good writer, Lemony Snicket, instead of Tim Curry, a retelling, having that knowledge, the reference to Wagner, Ride Of The Valkyries, tapping into the same stuff, the Ring Cycle, retelling, nothing new under the sun, all variations, quite similar to it, she has done a little thing, what I imagine Seabury Quinn is like, remixes popular things, Murder On The Links, Poirot on a golf course, nobody reads him anymore, not true of Holmes, The White Company, Professor Challenger, 4 or 5 of them, When The World Screamed, drill to the center of the earth, the earth doesn’t like it, a really good Doctor Who serial Inferno, turning people into werewolves, green werewolf, a mirror universe, under a fascist regime, eyepatch, just like the Star Trek Mirror Universe, they destroy the world, Stan Lee, they’re different, much more like a werewolf, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Bruce Banner, cosmic, get a werewolf costume cheap, acts like a werewolf, transformed by contact, scary and fun, how it ties into this book, in the tradition of this Hammond family, the possibility, the accept it, they don’t cut down the trees because they’re not cowards, it’s a trait, they’re leaning into it, Teen Wolf (1985), Teen Wolf Too, dad’s a werewolf, terrific, he has it under control, keep that anger under control, Nazi Germany, werewolf units, fight to the bitter end, hide out in the mountains, run NATO for us, Operation Gladio, unwilling to submit to others, dangerous between the cities, like Robin Hood but in a bad way, turn werewolf, the North American wendigo, the same idea, you do this by having eaten human flesh, killing a person in the way you kill an animal, acted wildly, play on the basketball team, otherwise you might become a wolf, metaphorically, vampires work that way, a Star Wars reference, Wendigo in Marvel Comics, Alpha Flight, werewolfesque, Beast, female werewolves, types of mutants, Shaman, Puck, Sasquatch, a man of the woods, bigfoot, werewolf adjacent, an uncontrollable thing, starlight and pine trees, a lack of control, they don’t even realize, I didn’t realize I was a rapist, Seth Green plays a werewolf, interesting to think of how people handle werewolves, the player was in complete control, a special attack, he’s hairy, he heals, outdoorsy, he’s short like a Wolverine, 5 foot 2, the inbetween a man and a werewolf, the claws come out, Hulk 181, Ginger Snaps (2000), Brotherhood Of The Wolf (2001), a frogdog, ERB enterprise, a six-legged frogdog from Mars, Odin’s horse has eight legs, a regular horse, in about 10 years, rural wild dog attacks, suburban?, clawed by one of these dogs, transformed, on her next flow day, the period cycle, not an expert on women’s periods, on the moon’s cycle, doesn’t track the calendar exactly, in men’s bodies, most animals have a season, she’s just a girl trying to go to high school, 2 sequels filmed back to back, solid action werewolf movie, you can do a cool variation, Wolfen (1981), a review of how good it is, the audio drama of A Princess Of Mars, $90,000, Bruce Boxlightner, Tom Baker, Sean Patrick Flannery, Tim Russ, nice and short, all 18 books, start another Burroughs series, submarine, lost world, The Land That time Forgot, Beyond Thirty, airship/submarine, savage ladies that need to be saved, The Monster Men, artificial men, he’s really good, Tarzan Of The Apes, The Return Of Tarzan, first went full Burroughs, his origin story, in America, follows Jane back to America, Clayton, still engaged, gets on a steamship and runs into communist spies, gets to Paris, a Rue Morgue thing, maybe it is you King Of The Jungle, an Arab princes, a stolen stallion, lion hunt, pirates, a lost colony of Atlantis, women are super-duper-hot, a lot of treasure, super-hot sacrificing priestesses, the craziest novel, heavily serialized, The Cave Girl, a nebbish guy, just read books, from Boston, she’s adopted, washed up, French baroness, under her tutelage, they’re all good, back a little bit, wrapped up with a bow, he torches her career, she hid evidence right from the beginning, the most cringey scene, that makes you better, that meme going around, that meme going around, the male fantasy, the female fantasy, the midwit, the idiot and the supersmart guy, Strange Tales magazine, two ladies asking for Robert E. Howard, what’s supposed to be male fantasy, you just have a good enough lens on this, this book is so girl, too long, there’s a lot going on, the archaeological dig, let’s look for papers around the house, stuffing out of the couches, funny stuff, you can’t put it in a movie, described in some detail, offstage, some couches, got his dictionaries out, swam in the moat, they’re treating it like its a serious mystery, a very self-aware book, a little bit like they’re in an RPG, literally how Dungeons & Dragons came to be, I want to have my own character, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are D&D characters, big into D&D, walking home from school, storytelling and coming up with interesting scenarios, the diceless part of it, some of the funnest fun books, Choose Your Own Adventure, theater of the mind D&D, this level of detail in the narrative, remember the time we tore these couches apart, as a pure narrative, she needed an editor, novel length, one aspect of the book, the scurrilous journalism in the background, and tourism, they sorta solve it, the sister gets a telegram, a substantial sum, laughin, I hate being a celebrity, the paparazzi I hate you guys, the girl psychology is hilarious, a popular author for a period, in her time, she was not a Doyle, female fantasy, an interesting perspective, there’s a woman in danger, man, don’t run into the woods, dummy, the good reporter, recording seance, it was him along, the seance people, from Chapter 5, golden calf in Sussex, over the breakfast table, inflexible monosyllable, Providence, unless those poachers get involved, the Daily Speculum, funny newspaper name, afflicted family, taken in dense fog, larger than sacred edifice, mainly boots and blurs, portraits of the Monster, heavy type, bandied about, argued about in coffee houses and bars, their exact meaning, spicy murder or divorce, the Sussex Horror, Stop Press, snub them all, the drawing room, playing up the book as being exciting, everybody’s talking about you, influencers, fairly high tech, threw it back, horses, more Victorian, you don’t need that for the story, only if it helps the story, if it is a red herring, female service, being famous, they’re vampires, a really good find, the hand, missing his hand, the hand of fate, the hand of glory, learning about energy exchange, an energy vampire, sending out vibrations, a drug, fame and fortune, reporters all over the grounds, a much more literal thing in today’s society, any level of famous, people who work for youtubers, carry the camera, show off the new makeup, how is thing a thing?, that’s the world we live in now, a pretty fun book, two thumbs up, a solid B, book club, more critical, what’s wrong with this one, some Arthur C. Clarke, put yourself in the shoes of highschool you, The City And The Stars, where it went, the worldbuilding is incredible, a sad ending, ate Luna, we can never be together, maybe contraception didn’t exist, the Anglican church’s the Lambeth conference, gonna do two Robert E. Howards, pair them with other things, 2 desserts of the same ingredients, spirituality and emotional healing, move out of summer, other events, The Tower Of The Elephant and The Tale Of Satampra Zeiros, out all of October, Too Much by Donald E. Westlake, John Jones’ Dollar by Harry Steven Keeler, the first episode of Red Dwarf, White Dwarf, a Jupiter mining ship, 2 lower deck guys, eating from the vending machines, put into suspended animation, three million years later…, everybody’s dead, everybody died from a radiation leak, the last human alive in the universe, piles of dust, back from hypersleep, lonely and going senile, like Douglas Adams, a comedy, full of science fiction, the story should be over, back as a hologram, his own roommate back, every kind of science fiction there is, the shipboard computer, 2 pounds six pence, because of compound interest, Futurama does that, drilling to Hell, so lucky, you can watch Red Dwarf for the first time, some capacity in October, is this great literature, a good read, concerns, tropes that happen, inventive, the 4th and 5th dimension, human consciousness, she’s crazy, I’m a sensitive, I’m a supersensitive, Call Of Cthulhu style investigator, on the level, laughing along with what she thinks is very formal, playful, the most important person in my life, progress.

The Undying Monster

Posted by Jesse Willis

Reading, Short And Deep #498 – Pie For Supper by Margaret St. Clair

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #498

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss Pie For Supper by Margaret St. Clair

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

Pie For Supper was first published in Mystery Book Magazine, August 1946.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

Reading, Short And Deep #493 – The House Of The Sphinx by Lord Dunsany

Reading, Short And Deep

Reading, Short And Deep #493

Eric S. Rabkin and Jesse Willis discuss The House Of The Sphinx by Lord Dunsany

Here’s a link to the story |PDF|.

The House Of The Sphinx was first published in The Sketch, January 4, 1911.

Posted by Scott D. Danielson Become a Patron!

The SFFaudio Podcast #844 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Noseless Horror by Robert E. Howard and The Haunted Corridors by William Hamilton Osborne

The SFFaudio Podcast #844 – The Noseless Horror by Robert E. Howard (34 minutes) and The Haunted Corridors by William Hamilton Osborne (1 hour 37 minutes). Both are read by Tommy Patrick Ryan. These are followed by a discussion of both. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Alex (Pulpcovers), Cora Buhlert, and Tommy Patrick Ryan.

Talked about on today’s show:
Thomas, two stories, Magazine Of Horror, February 1971, Mystery Magazine, October 1, 1918, haunted by the image, very different, some similarities, pulp magazines, a lot less about Mystery Magazine, one of the first mystery pulp magazines, 1917, into the 20s, a break, bought by Street & Smith, merged into another magazine, later volumes, quite interesting, this is a science fiction story, improperly done, kind of a mystery story, always reliable Robert E. Howard, mystery/horror, Agatha Christie style, The God In The Bowl, police procedural, major flaws in both, more forgivable, generally flawed, much faster, doesn’t linger over its problems, predictable, fun, the full reveal, some interesting ideas, a more current reader, leaving women completely out, racism, such a strong powerful scary looking brute, red herring, the history of the mummy, put on a naive hat, a cynical hat, a little obvious, only 3 people in the house, one of them has no nose, inflated in the fire, well done, The Black Stranger, vengeance from beyond the grave, Vale Of Lost Women, a sharp sword is a hardy incantation, A Witch Shall Be Born, fight with gods, being racist, interesting article/review, Adventure Fantastic, pointed out a couple of things, forgotten, characters in Skull Face, reused names all the time, her liked certain names, a name to conjure with, not that many Sikh names, used interchangeably, by pulp standards, using the racism as part of the red herring, I don’t like the look of him, missing a nose, made me cringe a lot, what do I look like oriental?, we’ve rejected the use of that word, generally in society, eastern, people from India or East Asia, people from the middle east, all east, not referring to Siberia, Eastern Catholic churches, the counter to the idea that this story is racist, he did a particular thing, Noseless first, page 20, aided?, really good job with the accents, you’re a real man, the compliment, that is straight out of Kilping, Gunga Din, ignorance, the outlook at the time, a useful insight, his dark skin, his missing nose, his propitious strength, Howard’s intention, the hero of our story, sympathetic characters of color, N’Longa, a cliche character, the hero of those stories, sympathetic muslim characters, Saladin, the knight from Ireland, Cormac Fitzgoffery, Talbot Mundy, recently scanned by a collector, 1912, six years later, one stands on its own, The Soul Of A Regiment, a regiment can never die, a non-white doing the good thing, a very scary title, The Damned Old Nigger, a fez, a story building, it isn’t the skin it’s the man, it comes from a racist time period, there are exceptions, a British name, the unnamed narrator, Dr. Watson, the crazy Egyptologist, a Baskerville style mansion, the servant, the rival who comes back from the dead, he pulls a Lovecraft and faints, great white hunter, in a fight with the Afghans, as anti-racist as you can get in about 1928, nobody knows, this story doesn’t fit anywhere, written in two sessions, the feel changes, then we get action, an infodump at the end, such a great sentence by sentence guy, full of great ideas, handled terribly, a better story because it’s handled so well and so quickly, science fiction, crime story, the watchman threw me straight out the window, a crime magazine, reincarnation, 15 ideas?, so science fictiony, H.G. Wells might have done something with this idea, there’s no radio stations yet, the touches that we go to, the tone is all over the place, I’m gonna die tomorrow, what his other stuff is like, a lot of gender stuff in here, Queen Victoria was a man, Charles Martel was a woman, interesting, just thrown out there, no completely impossible, we know he had sons, very casual, trans by the way, Cleopatra, we would consider ugly, not a beautiful woman, so successful with men, coins are like official portraits, the same idea of accuracy, a really sexy woman on the coin, Hannibal’s Children by John Maddox Roberts, awkward, distracting and not in a good way, plays in, a professor and a scientist, Virginia is the beautiful daughter, professor of English literature, dime novel, 10 pounds of shit into a 5 pound bag, sparky but it fizzles, how cringey, how to pronounce it, let’s agree, two heads are better than one, that could be something interesting to explore, already super dense, made it hard to read, 15 pages vs. 13 pages, an hour 40, so much longer, back in Michigan, fancy sound equipment, the ending part where they’re in Egypt, a much larger portion, the cop and the shakedown artists, a comedy?, completely superfluous, supposed to be a detective magazine, history, that’s amazing, one of the things they don’t explore, making notes in their private journals, there’s no secrets anymore, why Jesse is weird, everything’s the past, the present doesn’t really exist, still annoyed with Jesse, the future doesn’t exist, everything we’re doing is looking backwards, there’s no more secrets now, we all learn sign language, that Robert Redford movie Sneakers (1992), The Quiet Place, what are the implications, love story through time, a Lincoln speech, kinda like it, on the cover, saw this cover Galactic Central (Philsp.com), looks Lovecraftian, the truths revealed are kinda stupid, The Black Cat, The Thrill Book, higher standards, all about the ideas, a counterpoint to that, a terrible story, it’s not good, it’s too long, such a good comparison, not innovative, entirely derivative, Robert E. Howard’s ability, a lot better than most pulp writers, the trunk of unfinished stuff, in a week, 2 days, banged it out, still better than most stuff being published today, Don Mark Lemon’s The White Death, a western story set in Mexico, Valley Of The Lost aka King Of The Forgotten People, evoke actual fear, Connor recorded People Of The Black Coast, the crab people, this noir horror, very simple ideas, guy goes to Mexico or South America, the forbidden valley, I’m prospector I must go, finds some bones, finds so gold, hops onto him and eats him, Mother!, a 12 minute story, an idea and nothing else, that guy really knew how to spark up a story and get out, not to its benefit, I’m really enjoying this story, there’s a mix, where is this going, what is going on?, all over the place, completely unnecessary characters, compelling, more or less in one take, recording setup, more interesting, the characters, the action, picturing the setup of the mansion, as if it was an Agatha Christie, for the genre, he’s such a great mood writer, comparison of the opening, Abysses of unknown terror lie veiled, he’s doing a Lovecraft right there, straight out of The Call Of Cthulhu, the rending of the veil, a locked room, familiar with the form, Mary Roberts Rinehart, a mystery story based on, Gum-Shoe Mixley, in a quandary, rank grass, remunerated him, old fashioned, what makes somebody just is that they pay him, solicited the patronage, as dark as Egypt at night, much more like The Hardy Boys, and what are they doing there?, why there?, in line of sight, they didn’t have radio towers, it keeps doing that, recreate the come hear Watson I need you, Alexander Graham Bell, Shakespearean comedic character, emotionally and tonally all over the place, two stories for scripts, its terrible and needs to be changed a lot, so easy, scary and fun, it would be impossible, too many, stripped it down, it has to be the tech, sound goes on forever, every step you take doesn’t echo in eternity, a cool idea, ghost hypothesis, The Stone Tape (1972), psychic images from great trauma, a murder in a castle, like phonographs, resonating properly you can see the past, the inspiration, really ancient whispering stone, recording equipment, voices from the past, a voice from the future, come to yell at it, get the hell out, we got out, the stone was warning him, its from the future, the abbey museum, there’s a nuclear war coming but we don’t know when, 1016 words, a similar idea, light, Slow Glass, Light Of Other Days by Bob Shaw, slower than the speed of light, a thick slab in a nice setting, leave it there for 15 years, recorded views, a picture window to that place in Ireland, makes your dingy apartment wonderful to be in, an Irish countryside, honeymooners, quaint country farm, off they go to live their life, she’s a young woman and he’s an old man, the slow glass was going two ways, a beautiful story that takes a science fiction idea and does something exquisite, Cleve Cartmill, Tom Godwin, all the things that it teaches us, incoherent and pointless, a better writer, broken them up into a couple of different stories, incongruent, the intro, the main plot happens in Egypt, so much exposition to develop the machine, they’re doing it, a train, its a romance?, she died, she died randomly in the end, trying to make it uncanny, the trope of a scientist and his beautiful daughter, Lester Del Rey, Futurama, an intern, Amy, guh, Stanley G. Weinbaum, distraction to the main character, how they look alike, reincarnated brother and sister, why is this happening, bad writing, trying to understand everything, Mistress Of Mellyn by Victoria Holt, not understanding why things are happening, associated with fear, people fear things they don’t understand, thunder is a good example, they act instinctually, hunker down, the cover is iconic, a guy running between pillars, Hammurabi style statue, very Persians, mouth open, what caused that?, covers are very important, this seems Lovecraftian, Syrian bearded dudes, the overwhelming truth about something in history causes cosmic horror, muted, 106 years old, when people still remembered Lincoln speeches, why was it soundproof?, an old dowager would, in the 70s they’re doing 70s stuff, the fifties was not understandable until Back To The Future (1985), the tech, the cars, the music, movies set in the 40s, the 80s, 90s, 00’s, 10s, study the past, the 1890s, Sherlock Holmes, William Hope Hodgson, prewar stuff, Anita Loos, Gentleman Prefer Blondes, every period of time, the Wilson presidency, super-conscious of race, not fast enough for some, post WWI to the early 20s, the last month of WWI, almost doesn’t exist, German spies, exists in Canada, rationing, important for Lovecraft, Nick Carter magazine, Blue Book, one of the sweats, Boston Blackie, heroic burglar stories, Johnston McCulley, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Edgar Wallace, Achmed Abdullah, the beginning of the pulp industry, the format is dime novel, no inside advertizement, formatted in a style that we don’t really understand, a popular consumable, biweekly, comics in the 90s, biweekly X-Men, who is the audience for this?, young men maybe, what year is our Robert E. Howard story set, it doesn’t matter, probably not set in 1928, he doesn’t do any work to pin that down, Sir Thomas Cameron, Sir John Baskerville, born into it, a competitor who was a German/Dutch, ring any national bells?, generic German aristocrat, having a von in your name, ancestors, Indiana Jones and Belloq, in 18__, why do you do that, comes straight out of Poe, neither is doing a Poe, Poe’s wife’s name, these are people who are aware of these past writings, lead to the next, a triumph, learned a lot, not mad at all, worth discussion, this isn’t great writing, creating the product, so much exposition to get us to this “climax”, not being able to handle women, almost intervenes, beating on the feet, whipping women, a reminder, he had that issue, the death of his mother, so unnecessary, he’s this way because his love was forced to be Cleopatra’s face, not useful, really poorly done, the one we’re discussing, a great idea, this story is super-interesting, administering the beating, over her stood a lower magistrate, shriek upon shriek, this is a piece of history, recorded forever, you will be haunted by it, a local colour thing, its not the visual images, it’s a story about sound, when you cover your ears, block out history, wanted to explore it and utterly failed at every turn, squint, the last part is about a third, 2/5ths of the story, the weird frame with the cop, back and forth with Virginia on the phone, three months later, Virginia’s voice in the past, how would she known, unlikely to have ever heard a recording of her voice in 1918, a certain direction, dissatisfying, no mystery for the Egyptologist, shrunk and turned into a mummy, fetish hut, he had all the pieces, two guys with no noses, a little bit of tweaking, Almuric, Otis Adelbert Kline, notes thrown in, very Howardy, Kliney, not his normal thing, British dudes talking about British dudes, just as racist towards the British, stereotypes about British people, a very very racist time, talking about some other issue, the universities in China, grandfather had been in an important player, one of Mao’s generals, a positive effect on the gandchild’s social life, if you’re a minority in China, an exam, out of 500, an ethnic minority gets an ethnic minority, if you’re not han Chinese, their version of affirmative action, George H.W. Bush, if your dad was president…, that is the thing that’s happening to us now, programs, that’s our reality that everybody knows about, everybody was racist, why H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard were talking about, the Satanic Panic really effected Jesse’s life, a panic, occult, the backlash to Harry Potter, a Ouija board, the lone Catholic kid, a panic about cults, how terrible cults were, seems like something out of the 1930s, that was devil worship, no longer allowed to Dungeon Master, subject to forces that dictate the conversation, real insight, they’re trying to do stuff, science fiction doesn’t become science fiction until Stanley G. Weinbaum, there needs to be a shaping, Alfred I. Tooke, weird fiction, him ripping off Lovecraft after high school, 25 years ago, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, still is amazing, there’s other stuff too, Guy De Maupassant, dealing with tropes and stuff, reading that Hardy Boys book, enlightening, those boys are lawbreakers, not what I expected, lessons learned, ancient Egypt, subconscious, they both have H in the title, fashionable, Orientalism, Some Words With A Mummy, they found King Tut’s tomb, what this project is, look at old things and see what the past was like, echoes from Adam and Eve, sound doesn’t echo into eternity, no one else is talking about The Haunted Corridors, dug up out of the trunk, 1970, in 7 months, in the year 2610, be a haunted again, a cool takeaway, what is the purpose of reading old things, you have no sense of history, how men don’t read, why that is, its perpetually, none of them reference each other, the historical explanations, boys don’t read, YA fiction, why Pulpcovers boys don’t read new fiction, what about Dogman?, romance, a prize to be won, message issues, Lodestar award, barely readable, the other Alex, one of these charges, a comicbook that you find at Walmart, superheroish, 10 years old, in that age range, teens talk about that, subbing a lot, Diary Of A Wimpy Kid, Dr Seuss, Doctor Suess’ Sleep Book, he’s classic, the touchstones of Cora’s childhood, Meckie the hedgehog, Pingu, an official superhero version of the leader of Venezuela, Super Mustache, what we only ever do, the deeper you study the past, we don’t have a good focal length for studying things near, video and records and newspapers and the internet, elevated even tho its so crappy, think about what it means, they could listen to it again, looking at the past, transmissions from earth, this is not a telephone cable, this is sound itself, hilariously stupid, a great idea for a story, more sensitive to the science of it, make it slightly mystical, The Silmarillion, echoed there forever more, it turns into heat after a certain point, magical realism, because of the period, the Resonator from From Beyond, Francis Stevens, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, supercool, suspend disbelief, the Star Trek communicator, across time zones, an international call, ring the operator, Unseen – Unfeared, narrated by Mike Vendetti, 1919, a framing device, the mad scientist, that’s how it does start then he fumbles it, Sunfire by Francis Stevens, Argosy, millions over millions of years, you need to give yourself homework, find the time, nephews, give them some Dogman, comparisons, wet women, super on the nose, too much in common, lack of innovation, we had fun, a dude lit up, grappled by something, a weird startling story, similarly clothed, harrowing and weird events, a far off island, sparks coming out of her hands, a monster nearby, the derelict fleet, fire of the sun, the first few pages, the right use of the word, she’s good, she deserves to be better remembered, scientist goes on vacation, ticked him into dying, a science story and fantasy story, weird fiction, science fiction, another dimension of Pittsburgh, never gets picked up again, a pocket universe, this lady’s a girl, Leigh Brackett’s birthday, sane take, she’s uneven, C.L. Moore is all right, as a female author who’s really important, Jean Veil, innovative, her last story is in Weird Tales, follow these great authors, worked for a Mormon magazine, John Bellairs, The Face In The Frost, fairly scary, Astrid Lindgren, The Mummy, The Will, And The Crypt, listed in Appendix N, died really young, only 53, after he died, his characters, just under Poul Anderson, one of the most obscure, Margaret St. Clair, getting yelled at, the first Gor book, would read it again, John Norman, infodumpy, where’s the sex?, BDSM stuff, super-superflawed, the green muscle mommy book, Legends & Lattes, a Gor movie, Jack Palance, John Lange, the bit from Police Squad, not disguised at all, Betty Page, she’ just barged right in there, Jabba’s sailing barge, lot’s of slaving, the proper order of the universe, Tarnsman Of Gor, fetishy, 7 hours 44 minutes, very prudish, that dude just grabbed that gal’s breast, 27 hours 30 minutes, Ralph Lister, probably pretty tame, 1966, very quickly stopped, badly written, not great, off the rails, no one would remember, great Boris Vallejo, fascinated, Eaters Of The Dead by Michael Crichton, abortion book?, A Case Of Need, Congo, Airframe, such a weird book, thinly disguised Boeing, a plane crash in Russia, so weird, a hobby horse he was on, Pirate Latitudes, Travels, Micro, Disclosure, weird sexual harassment, bitches be lying, The Great Train Robbery, Sphere, Dragon Teeth, golden age of fossil hunting, came out in 2017, State Of Fear, how global warming isn’t real, wrecked his reputation, captivated until the end, really good writer and clear, too much baggage, Timeline, with Paul Walker, a castle siege, rock and roll jousting, a Heath Ledger, A Knight’s Tale (2001), David Bowie and Queen, on brand, its Beowulf with Neanderthals, Antonio Banderas, filmed in British Columbia, downloaded and organized, The Ship Who Sang, The Ship Of Ishtar, an early Munsey magazine, Isekai?, entangled, dreamlandy, Queen Of The Black Coast with parallel dimensions, Exile Of The Eons by Arthur C. Clarke, a social satire, a dude with a boy, a Virgil Finlay space suited dude who’s a giant, audio drama, it’s terrible, so ableist, thalidomide scandal, Philip K. Dick, a classic, Eric’s book club, mutual acquaintance, pairing things, how long do you want this to be, so many good books to read, go do your podcast boys, the more people the longer, some long individuals, Scott is very short, Mr. Pulpcovers is pretty short too, Mad Max novelization for 4 hours, R. Murray Gilchrist stories, deep and rich, compare and contrast, there’s not much to say about it, West African mummies, he just made that up, weird fiction stories lend questions, rich and good, the more enigmatic the more fun to talk about, book club, too much going on, Paycheck and The Weapon Shop, dislike it more, hasn’t aged well, talk to you next year, good slide into the New Year, good job, as a voice actor, new equipment, optimal settings, Philip K. Dick never disappoints, Jungle People, he was 13, able to map it, a novel with a key, a fable, a bunch of monkeys going to war, because he’s Philip K. Dick that’s why, quick dinner.

The Haunted Corridors by William Hamilton Osborne

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #840 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon

The SFFaudio Podcast #840 – The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon (3 hour 59 minutes) read by James R. Hedrick for LibriVox, followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse, Maissa Bessada, and Cora Buhlert

Talked about on today’s show:
1927, the narrator was very enthusiastic, an exciting story, an interesting accent, of the time, movies from 1927, distinct and of a certain place, old fashioned, a little bit of comparsion, Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys kick, the first Hardy Boys book, the first one first, before it was rewritten, they have the same title, a lot of differences, still told third person, no two words are the same, the chapter names, fake bomb threat, racial slurs, this Italian never quite lost their accent, melting pot, Jewish friend, Italian kid, upstate New York, Long Island, rich people, they’re there, obviously an older text, books from about the same era, set in Silesia or eastern Prussia, no longer German, Hanover instead of Leipzig, whitewash all these books, 1959-1973, remove ethnic stereotypes, shortened and modernized, they’re not shorter, modernize yes, a current controversy with Dungeons & Dragons, they rewrite them, new content, buy the new books, a generation, same title, the same reason we have movies coming out from generations passed, The Day Of The Jackal, a Frederick Forsyth novel, The Jackal, 2024 television show, put it out there, Heinlein juveniles, one is a syndicate, the other is a dude, Heinlein estate, many would love to, Philip K. Dick’s estate, tinker, change the dates in Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, Franklin W. Dixon is not a real person, Edward Stratemeyer, are you a good writer, can you fill pages?, an assignment, the boys go looking for a treasure that went missing, we still have Ford Mustangs today, it’s a 4 door SUV, or a roadster, we’re done with fins now, artifacts that make it old fashioned, there are no slurs to remove, lengthy series, obviously dead, that’s Poland now, that’s where Uncle Horst was from, copyright date, born in 1928, in the middle of WWII, age in realtime, 100 adventures in high school, the first three pages of chapter 1, The Speed Demon, clutched the grips, careening from side to side, climb this hillside and fast, motorcycles, on the double, the steep embankment, on two wheels, the dusty ground, wow, said Joe, let’s get away from here, a dead you know, the sedan sped past, a glimpse, hatless, a shock of red hair, too excited to finish the threat, practicing for some kind of race, Willowville in the valley, the rash motorist, over a cliff, the legal papers, how about taking the other road back to Bayport, every word is rewritten, wanting to be detectives, the motorbikes, not 15 year olds, driving something, car license at 18, an establishing book, in the rewrite everybody knew, starting from a whole different mindset, you would have known what the Hardy Boys was, strangely written, stop and talk to the farmhands, a boy honking a carhorn, vignettes, so old fashioned in the 1950s, impossible to accept that, sort of funny, charming, kids a re very sensitive to fashion and peer pressure, anachronistic old fashion, uncool, motorbikes: still cool, Jesse was not a big Barbie guy, Barbie’s corvette, a modern corvette, old toys vs. new toys, always pink, change shape, dreamhouse keeps updating, interior furnishings, reading experience, books from the turn of the century, books from the fifties, translated books, another layer, kind of weird, different place or different time, Karl May, brave Saxonian adventurers making friends, weird old fashioned, we’re all adults, not subject to that peer pressure, 1960, why this pressure was brought to bear, the parents, share an experience, a continuity there, still selling the books, make sure the product is something people want to buy, collective experience, thrift shop, listening to this one, the major mystery was solved offscreen by the father, the kids picked up the threads and finished it, the revised version, so much filler in this book, played for comedy, round and round, full of filler, they’re still boys, a Disney television serial, Applegate House, the boys’ ages are reduced, 10 or 11 years old, not independent boys, also pirate treasure, 500 hours long, the characters and the premise are more important than the mystery, why does that scene exist?, a Scooby Doo novelized, Little Rascals, how juvenile delinquenty these boys are, The Black Hand, anarchists, those are lawbreakers, charged with mischief, the least charge for the fake bomb, the non-bumbling detective in town, Smof, almost unrealistic, revised Nancy Drews, no sense of sarcasm, the revised ones in the 70s, she’s very well mannered, drives her 1950s blue convertible, as loosey goosey as these boys, she’s a girl, dangers of pranks and dare, steal a vehicle to play a prank, that was real, the life that’s described in this book, a real phenomena, the early life of H.P. Lovecraft, carried a gun around with him, followed people around, children become the focus of society, child labour is a bad thing, the highlight of your heavenly life, the J.M. Barrie books, Victorian childrens’ literature, kids were free range, charged with child endangerment, hanging out all day, doing petty crime, you’re a girl tho, just by smoking you could be bad, sneaking out of the house, a whole phenomena, the revision, one of the things that happens with comics, wild horror comics, The Comic Code Authority, read through it, no disrespecting authority, no death, rules against skeletons, no blood, the rules are different, each generation has a different set of background assumptions, that’s a crime and this is a crime, offroad, the rules were different then, strange strange things, Jesse’s most wild theory, what we don’t know where the treasure is, the mystery shifts, who stole the treasure, the last two thirds of the book, where did the $900 come from?, solved but not solved well, the sister with the flashlight, she’s on the cover, she’s an old lady, like 55, colourful clothes 20 years out of date, wearing a turn of the century dress, wore the same dress her entire life, clothes were more expensive, this great grandmother was really really poor, flapper dresses, she was wearing everything, colourful character, expected to wear dark subdued clothes, wild theory, you will not expect this, Nancy Drews, what the mystery is, funnier, swimming in a canal, they get their jeans on, wearing her friend’s jeans, how close the friendship is, always gonna go get married, hasn’t married him for almost 100 years, characters who are very stiff, clearly a robot, where the money came from, I came by it honestly, an abortionist, it is dark, what are the things today?, what he did in the old tower, underemployed, he didn’t steal the money, who’s using his services?, somebody in Baytown, it should be the answer, great Nancy Drew area maps, lakes and rivers, super common, Half Moon Lake, lakes are female, towers are male, all subconcious, write me a mystery, something they have to do, a fairyland, read it subversively, smugglers was a big thing, pirates still exist, a buncha bonds and stocks, masters thesis, Enid Blyton, Famous Five, there’s always smugglers, 1940s and 50s, kinda weird, what’s a smuggler actually do?, Nazi spies, it has to be something covert otherwise there’s no mystery to be solved, she’s a really nice girl, all the old ladies, all the men, kinda nosy, polite about it, make her lunch, have tea, semi-girlfriend, not as annoying as all the other girls, list you some of the book series, still being produced, 1899, The Rover Boys, on ocean and land, 30 volumes, Soldiers Of Fortune, Colonial, Pan-American, Outdoor, The Bobsey Twins, 1904-1979, Dave Porter, Boy Hunter, Boys of Pluck, The Motor Boys, boys in a motorboat, directed at girls, Ralph Of The Railroad, Dorothy Dale, 1908-1924, good little girl, Webster series, The Motor Girls series, Tom Swift, Victor Appleton, Outdoor Chums, Pioneer Boys, Dave Dashaway, Air Champion, Motion Picture Chums, Outdoor Girls, Ruth Fielding, an orphan, boaring school and college, Anne Of Green Gables series, juvenile mystery, complete with stupid bumbling cop, Sandra Detective In Jeans, liberation pants, a tape recorder, a radio with a tape deck, the forms are completely recognizable, Encylopedia Brown, a whole parallel british system, annuals, a Rupert Annual, under the christmas tree, this American system, largely forgotten, way deep under the popularity, scholastic, five books, all over North America, fit really nicely into those, the cover of the first one, Margot Kreuter, Sandra And The House In The Hills, Victoria Holt, Mistress Of Mellyn, Castle Fearstone, extremely regional, Scandanavian authors, Germanized, 1990s, Harry Potter, Twilight, more international, similar types of books, Edward Statermeyer, awake and alive, 1908, 1916, connective tissue, Old Indiana Jones, he’s got the hat, descendants, that narrative went away, The Spring Break Adventure, Nancy Stratemery, Thomas Edison, dangerous German spies, hostile enemy agents, exactly like the plot of any of these spy based kids in high school, borrows an electric roadster, a Tom Swiftism, electric runabout, new radio, his matter transmitter, WWI, is this cop corrupt, on the level, super appealing, kid empowerment, making a difference, having adventures, $500 rewards, Scooby Doo isn’t that different, with wills and estates, last woman to be guillotined, beheaded in the 1940s, old mansion, two towers, the old tower is abandoned, nobody goes into except guests, no children, what it that boys fdo?, help the old rich family recover, the family jewels, the lichy action happening, as much chicken as they can ever eat, the final reveal, I was being paid a debt, parents would complain, read these subversively, the double, The Cold Female and the other one with it, almost exactly the same story, weird menace, shudder pulp, always caused by some human doing something strange, a perverted human, women are abducted or in danger, men have to come to their rescue, gruesome images, sexually grateful, worse people, eat them too, that’s horrible, the man looks good while he save the girl, women will be greatful, female fantasy, investigate the character of a potentional husband, what the goss is, skeletons in the closet, this bluebeard chracter, need to read Nancy Drew subversively, a will that went missing, going down those steps in the hidden basement, cultists with branding irons, the best part of the book, where that money came from, the addition of the Black Hand, a cartoon and not a good cartoon, quaint, kind of charming, read six more of them, 8 year old Cora, 10 year old Cora, fun, Adelia used to be blonde, but then she died, Adelia is a ghost, redwigged racer, Red, serving the existing adminsitration, killing the kings, the castle that looms over Bayport is not being wisely managed, we should have sympathy for the robber, he’s dead, he gives up the information, a real Robin Hood type, not subversive, reinforcing, what super-hero comics are, always backing the institutions, no anti-Vietnam war comics untils the 1980s, every pop culture character, too young to rememeber, every hero you ever saw was there, ask questions about it, what happened there?, in the rewrite, the Robin Hood ending, locked away by a man called Hobo Johnny, anything in the tower belongs to him, claiming for himself, the simplicity of these kinds of stories, the forthrightness of the boys or Nancy Drew, just being super-subversive, if Nancy Drew’s first book was public domain, rewriting it an making it good, making it much more clear that the world she lives in is full of abortionists and immigrant smugglers, her name would have to be Nancy Drew, The Girl Detective by Kelly Link, whay the story was the way it was, 2006, the underworld at the back of your closet, the underworld is full of things you’ve forgotten about, get a flashlight and go underground, the same instinct, the peephole, can’t admit to herself, going to murder her, why is that an instinct, you get to see her showcasing her nautrturing nature, the poor little dumb girl, her dad doesn’t love her, meant to be flashlighted, it would be human smugglers, arms to Ukraine, some sort of political topic, Indian reservations, cigarettes across the border, before Poland and the Czech Republic, consumable disposable, something to this format, the wholesome nature of the characters, very lawbreaking, they cause a bomb threat, to be fair, they were deserving of that, the keystone cops, too cartoonish, we’re supposed to respect our authorities, H.P. Lovecraft with a pistol in his pocket, bizzare, practicing detective, series things, Randolph Carter, no strong evidence other than coincidence, Nick Carter, pulp detective, foiling tongs, it fits, his joke is right, Abdul Al Hazred, the mad Arab, associated with the necronomicon, put a towel on his head and pretend to be Arab, bragging about his breadth of reading, the name is not real, I read the whole Arabian Nights, an imaginative young person before videogames, go to the arcade, lose too many coins in the machines, home computers, play games for free at home, just copy the discs, make these suimulated worlds, Dungeons and Dragons without a Dungeon Master, everybody else clues into this, games on their phones, youtube now has games, this takeover of different media changing from 1980 to 2020, Hardy Boys hardly rate, hardback book series, students don’t read at all, girls still read, at a certain age, true in this case, better books for boys, am I the werewolf or vampire love interest?, romantasy, the YA is for women 20s 30s or above, problem books, adult books, science fiction and fantasy, sexier versions of YA supernatural romances, varied, that section doesn’t have any kids, Alex P. (Cirsova), they read Dogman, if you’re a boy of 10 years old, Captain Underpants, the younger kids don’t read, teens pretty much stop, they don’t read for fun, read comics on their phone, only punishment at school, English language novels, reading at school, Suburban Crocodiles, in a wheelchair, people in wheelchairs are also human, quite popular, a grocery store, yelled at for not knowing, everybody knows this, a remoderized one, Tom Swift, that whole Heinlein juvenile series, moon nazis, similar to this, a mystery going on, Nazi spies, Frank Reade, The Steam Man Of The Praries, wild west inspired comics, an engine that looks like a man, powered by steam, coal in his belly, legs and arms, pulls your wagon, who stole the Indian blankets?, crunchy hard to read serials, the media landscape doesn’t start and end with 20th century fiction, the 19th century was huge for kids reading, Little Women, way too good, very nice girls, Little Lord Fauntlelroy, 1980 film adaptation, on TV around Christmas, really good, steampunk but real, like a robot but not robotic, robot shaped, golems, before the word robot, Return To Oz (1985), a clockwork man, Frank Reade And His Steam Horse, NoName is the house name, the steam man is racing the steam horse, away they flew like rockets, giant strides, what is the interest here?, vehicles like this, represents power and freedom, even a bicycle, you walk everywhere?, how can you live?, a minor physiological thing, required to learn how to ride a bicycle, he is very slow, skateboards, scooters, the freedom of that motorcycle, doing something important, a little blue convertible always breaking down, drives around and solves mysteries, so many horses and buggies, roadsters and touring cars, super-high tech, if you were to write one today, with Elon Musk flying rockets, some drones, a small drone company, Jetson One, a drone airplane, a flying car, hover over things, electric scooters, signs outside grocery stores, very very dangerous, mostly teenagers, kids from immigrant backgrounds, 25 km per hour, Toronto, Coquitlam, rentals, abandoned everywhere, has to be much more exciting than that, cars and then flying cars, not very long, what a car is, by 1927, the guy honking behind the hay wagon, codevelop, which came first, the motorcycle or the electric car, Benz motor wagon number 1, steam powered and electric cars, in the UK they’re motorcars, in North America they’re automobiles, a car is a carriage, self-mobile, motorwagen, a carriage without a horse, self-powered vehicles, tractors, the platonic ideal of a car, the Ford Model T, instead of a tiller you have a wheel, a cover over the top of your vehicle, coachbuilt, handmade car, what horses pull, a Guy de Maupassant story, Maupassant’s take on a Nancy Drew, an omnibus, a great story, payoff his debt, buying a lawfirm, she rides and rides and rides, the final stop for the omnibus, where?, what?, my husband?, he took her dowry and fucked off with it, he married her took her money and dumped her on an omnibus, streetcars pulled by horses, he had to pay off Mr. Robinson, had to take the money to pay for an abortion, motorcycles in the 1890s, how techs effect, recognizable as a motorcycle, a lot like an electric bicycle today, motorbike shows, from the 1920s and 1910s, the light, fuel to the lamp, on the bicyle platform, the 1880s, a bike mad H.G. Wells novel [The Wheels Of Chance], the Green Party utopia, almost a religion, training bike, freedom, a horse but you don’t have to feed it, the bus came five times a day, dependent on yourself, The Adventure Of The Solitary Cyclist by Arthur Conan Doyle, essential to understanding, its the tech and the associated behaviors around the tech, 1400 vs. 1450 tech, a lot of manufacturing going, consumer goods vs. custom made at home, kids are interested in that power that comes from that tech, everybody wanted the new iphone, for fashion, a personal property item you take with you all the time, aren’t changing in size, all the cameras are good, phone from 2017, 1985 Toyota, 1995 Toyota, no ashtray, Vancouver Island, a 40 year old car, cars are robots now, technology that’s built-in, front and back cameras is standard now, are you living in your car, they do the same thing, they’re brainier, bad wifi, one of them was a printer, another was a stove, one was a refrigerator, Hitachi, LG, your stove probbably doesn’t need wifi, the dishwasher doesn’t need wifi, an 1895 Toyota is a horse, a fundamental difference, has a heater, a screen instead of dials, an ashtray, and a cassette player, an 1895 aprtment and a 2025 apartment, the tech that’s in it, not enough power outlets, the phone line ending in the basement, 1971, retrofitted, forward thinking, the phone connection is in the basement, next week, 2 horror stories, The Noseless Horror by Robert E. Howard and the Haunted Corridors by William Osborne, let’s go wassailing, the last Olaf Stapledon, an actual novel, George MacDonald’s Lilith, real science fiction writer, the smart dog book, Last And First Men, Starmaker, outside the US magazine ecosystem, retro Hugos, we no longer have retro Hugos, we have John Scalzi, he’s on the approved list, bitter about the retro Hugos thing, here’s a Heinlein let’s vote for that, make them better, you’re not a nazi but…, weird book, stock characters and sterotypes, a ginger, no real gingers, early diversity, the Brooklyn guy, not an important part of New York, the Irish guy always, totally sterotyped Irish guy in space, their idea of diversity was different, steam men riding steam horses, on their way to a steam abortion, Laura Ingalls Bewilder, Little House On The Prairie, steamy romantasys, participation in this Hardy Boy fest, read all the Nancy Drews, British and German counterparts.

The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #824 – AUDIOBOOK/READALONG: Killers Are My Meat by Stephen Marlowe

The SFFaudio Podcast #824 – Killers Are My Meat by Stephen Marlowe – read by Ben Tucker (for LibriVox). This is a complete and unabridged reading of the story (5 hours 22 minutes) followed by a discussion of it. Participants in the discussion include Jesse and Alex (Pulpcovers)

Talked about on today’s show:
Milton Lesser, Killers Are My Meat, joke, Murder Is My Dish, Trouble Is My Name, a new Gold Medal, LibriVox, digging into it, a science fiction author, mostly set in India, the first Chester Drum story, the third novel, a big future, 20 books?, a lot, he’d been to India, world traveler, Benares, smells and vibes, too much detail, I fooled em all!, immigrants, saris, religious practices, 1957, the narrator, some Conan stuff, pronunciations wrong, he gets drugged with a rufinol?, that can’t be right, acting in a similar way, drugs, a 1950s thing, smoking, alcohol, by the river, the girl reporter, throws it in the river, sex adjacent stuff, our hero, a traditional gold medal paperback PI, so strange, interesting, Ross Macdonald, Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, John D. MacDonald, Chesapeake City, Maryland, on a clipper to India, getting sweaty, the culture, the plot hinges on these culture things, not a crappy book at all, quite well developed, the low stakes, early cold war conference, a success, didn’t accomplish very much, the global south, low level state department guy, framed for rape, very believable, the thing that it is, a private detective story, G man pulps, don’t trust G men, read too much, real propaganda, FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, dress codes, the publishing industry, taking down the counterfeiters, T-Men, actual propaganda, this legacy, the people who defected, for cynical reasons, Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest, sympatico, science fiction, crime fiction, scratches a very similar itch, understanding reality, more like a scientist, James M. Cain, motivations, detached, knight in tarnished armour, pay the secretary, a series of formulae, a new alloy, engineering, claims out there in the world, appearances out in the world, the underlying truth behind the appearances, Sherlock Holmes, crime fiction and mystery fiction, a series character, Captain Future, villain of the week, Flash Gordon cartoon series from 1979, the character drawings, funny dialogue, a lot of filler, recycling scene, stretched it out, Hannah Barbara animation look, more rotoscoped, Heavy Metal (1981), the shapes of ladies as they turn, Flash Gordon (1980), Flesh Gordon (1974), Futurama, Star Trek, that is actually a Frederik Pohl story, Bender art, it lives on its references, the Harlem Globetrotters, without the foundation, the heads of various, Richard Nixon’s head, Al Gore, Lucy Lui, the latest batch, a little bit too meta, the Snu Snu episode, David H. Keller, Zoidberg, the saddest, nobody loves him, why not Zoidberg, an incel, mates once and then dies, Amy Wong, guh, skibidi toilet, nonsense words, Rambo!, a connection between crime fiction and mystery fiction and science fiction, series science fiction, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and F&SF, totally compatible, Milton Lesser is Stephen Marlowe, he wrote, operating in a different mode, all the things that happen in this story, hit on the head, drugged, hit by a car, drunk, hangovers, private detective story tropes, this girl loves him, all very tropey legit built in stuff, deeply connected to the facts that Lesser learned, this Malabar woman thing, the central mystery, find himself, get lost and never come back, little details, Somerset Maugham, Ben Tucker (our narrator), The Razor’s Edge, a movie version with Bill Murray, WWI veteran with ptsd, transcendent meaning, rejection of conventional life, reversals of fortune, the sharp edge of a razor, our friend from before the war, he goes to the east, he acts differently, why do people want to go to India, the smoke, the smells, the humidity, a weak fan, one room has AC, a bath of sweat, not a resort area, there’s answers there, polyandry, outlawed, a traditional weird Indian set of beliefs, the caste system, bloodlines, weird food, vegetarian, the big reveal, when he’s at the river, raking the body, he’s looking for the metal plate in his head, in the movie version, aha, lays his traps well, following along, you’re the best detective in Washington, straddled the line, cold war espionage fiction, Hugh North, squarely in the middle early twentieth century exoticism, not the way Robert E. Howard would write it, geopolitical concerns, what it is to be a man, a champion for women, other chracters’ motivations, the thing that is being explored, to get his $2000 and go home, his friend gets kidnapped, other male reporter, honourable intentions, quite cozy, that’s how you do it, The Thin Man, bachelor to married, Lawrence Block and Donald Westlake, driving a Toyota Avalon, somebody else’s driver’s license, time marches on, easy breezy read, hot places, a flavour, or an idea, Belize, very Caribbean accent, addicted to paperbacks, teenage years, teenage boy, walk around this library, amazingly cool book, one for the one for me, a really good hobby, I was promised this was a book, a different mode of being, what is the purpose of my existence here on Earth?, there’s actually value here, nothing on the cover, Japanese writing on a sign, guy in a trenchcoat, her hands awoke me, her breath was not cold, felt her body, that’s uncomfortable, overheated, no touching, generic cover, the artist rarely read these things, tan skin and red lips, blonde?, the defacto representative, in a sense we were tricked, you tricked me into reading this, suddenly, diplomatic immunity, first secretary, feels very Washington, all that doesn’t matter, we’re going to India, tiny details, why is this woman dressed the way she is, they’re wealthy here, suspicious, suspicious characters, the opposite of formulaic, plot, typical motivations, having sex with everybody in town, undercut, its a red herring, his wife doesn’t really care, eastern mysticism, because she’s eastern, not have his wife cuckhold him, he’s like the mahatma, operating on another plane, gin everywhere, constant taking of drugs, keep smoking it brings up the blood pressure, rauwolfia, hypertension, they’re both drugged, I lined my stomach with butter, ghee, eat a lot, a full stomach, puked it up, Paul didn’t believe Jesse, wood alcohol, the antidote to wood alcohol poisoning is regular alcohol, start processing, both have the same effect, the second Indiana Jones movie, antidote, drugs and counterdrugs, the most even and obvious, a “rubby”, so that people don’t drink it, taxes, moonshining is constitutional, in British Columbia, government liquor store, grocery stores carrying wine, a loophole, you can make your own, a cheaper version of what you want, a regular little bit of expensive alcohol, a rough way to live your life, a good hobo novel, tramps, bum, Reacher, goes from town to town, functionally homeless, rides the rail to save money, a fascinating set of cultural little things, as normies who live in homes, hobo signs, a more dubious thing, cows, this book smelled bad, all the burning bodies, limbs, quartering, tourism, pilgrims, drink the water, disgusting, river full of ashes, river full of corpses, how did you like the book, fairly complex story, very enjoyable, that private eye dialogue itch, nothing is just hot, hotter than the thighs of a matron, how was your trip, 20 airports, Basra, Calcutta, a lot of flights, three day flight, a tangent, how much men think about the Roman Empire, thinking of other women, thinking about the Concorde, supersonic jet liner, things we used to have, cars with fins on them, economics, whenever someone asked, the answer is always some combination of labour costs, or invisible regulations, we banned asbestos, fuel efficiency requirements, flush fit handles, Tesla is covered in cameras, at least two mirrors, how big do they have to be?, a quirk, convertibles, an iconic thing, a solution, no new cars have, 1976 or 1977 up to 1995, a Camaro, a t-top, or the targa on a Porche, in a rollover you’ll be okay, that idea ended, the Miata, there is no hardtop Miata, a huge success, why cars last a long time, two door cars, smart car, microcars, the rebooted Volkswagen beetle, the Cooper Mini, the lowest thing around, taxes are different on trucks, you have to make a truck, pop up headlights, lights a certain height from the ground, not have a sloping front, Lotus Esprit, damage people that you hit, even on McClarens, strange rules, the class of people, crazy expensive, $10,000 for a flight that’s 5 times shorter?, a two hour flight, some sort of economic reason, forbid them from flying, no supersonic over land, coastal city to coastal city, its not that we don’t know how to make it anymore, where are my airships?, let’s go camping, that’s a pretty valley, see the bears, go through the rockies, storms, really good at predicting the weather, a big sail you can’t unfurl, this is very important, the lightest gas, a new source of helium, the strategic helium reserve, industrial amounts of helium, other gasses, the Americans won’t let you have any, make it a vacuum, vacuum lighter than air vehicles, hydrogen leaks out of everything, a ball of nothingness that is sealed, your zepplin gets shot, lighter than air aircraft, air will leak in, air getting out vs. air getting in, a bubble of vacuum in a sea of air, sealable globe of nothing, we can’t have nice things, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, magazines in general, National Geographic from 2022, entirely online?, no point in having it in paper, a website you can’t adblock, articles that were more dubious, an opinion piece about your diet, man made meats, fake meats, hypertension, China, the Germans, the cargo airship, heavy lift airships, there’s money there, once airplanes got started, hobby weekend, golf, sailing, the Daddy Warbucks, The Shadow, a pre-helicopter helicopter [autogiro], Nazi helicopters for WWII, counter rotating blades, clipper airplane, get all sweaty, can’t get the alcohol you want, flew back to China, Singapore, Bali, in the course of 4 days, reasonably priced, a college student could save up and do it, Greenland, any place where there’s people, tours of Antarctica, going from this, a name to look out for, short stories, follow the patterns, copyright renewals, that being the case, every six months or so, people who didn’t renew their copyright are being read, often never republished, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, locked up somewhere, always been the case, Poe and Melville, we have something good here, you had to buy it in physical, a weird and bad distortion, Dr. Jekyll And Mr Hyde is not a kid’s book, Treasure Island is a kid’s book, I’m your step-dad, leatherbound, new versions, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, the good stuff really worth reading, looks great on a shelf, locked up in copyright, Adrian Praetzellis, young Jim Hawkins, Ben Gunn, arrgh! Jim Lad, R.L. Stevenson, Black Sails, so close to being good, water is expensive, next available slot, mid-august, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes [by Anita Loos], a million versions, N.C. Wyeth, a half dozen, Kidnapped, The Black Arrow, David Balfour, poorly and well represented, Poe, a whole lot of Poe, Willam Wilson, no black cat in the name, The Island Of The Fay, The Angel Of The Odd, being an alcoholic, niche interest, career cut short, Kidnapped, Fables, The Sinking Ship, the ship is going down, going out about half shaved, going down since she was launched, time is only relative, in Davy Jones’ Locker in 10 minutes, the situation of man, spoken like a good officer, broken into the spirit room, to the philosophic eye, too far gone, man’s handsome fashion, omit to take a pill, smoking in a powder magazine, a glorious detonation, you’re dying sir, I’ve just adopted a son, license to write a book with you’re new adopted son, sail into the South Pacific, weird natives, Markheim, he killed the curio dealer but met a presence in the shop, killed a guy on Christmas Eve?, the devil appears, you’ve done my work for me, you know who I am, its Christmas Eve you know, that’s wrong!, a little psychological portrait, the range of this guy, a humorist, poetry, a classic at least, on his grave, interesting, he threw it in the fire, rewrote it, very interesting fellow, the eyes of a child, an honest doomed man, his problem is not resentment, or class resentment like Lovecraft, sickly but has a vast love of life, as a kid, the prose, a million movie adaptations, gonna be great, The Cave Girl, a fluffy silly book, The Green Queen by Margaret St. Clair, because of the cover, isn’t that nice, mistress of miracles or puppet of super-science?, semi-contemporary, Robert Sheckley, all born in 1928, 2008, The Last Starship, gets progressively worse, awesome, hard SF with its rules, the mayor never gets a name, Leinster can be awesome, absolute control, get girls, set slaves, what happens, Virgil Finlay, 131 pages, a podcast of short stories, idea packed, women and men are different, they’re not exactly the same as each other, womens’ brains, shorter, weaker, have to suckle children, more domestic, gardening, she’s an old aunt, Heinlein style spaceman nephew, a feed me Seymour style monster, two spacemen go to a planet, everyone there is immortal, religious temple, its taboo, religious mystery, how they treat the death, we’ll give you gifts, share this tech with my people, get off of this planet please, full of books, find a couple of books and read them, the life story of a dead person, read their life stories, a good twist, a third gender, a weird lifestyle, genuine science fiction, couple goes flying in their spaceship the girl dies, a creature that’s a mimic, a Twilight Zone episode, underrated, a real shame, thank you very much.

GOLD MEDAL - Killers Are My Meat